839

Beaver

Issue 839 | 10.11.15

the

Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

LSE Intercept Email Regarding Beaver Investigation Ellen Wilkie Executive Editor

DURING A BEAVER INVESTIGATION into serious allegations of wrongdoing within the school an email to the Executive Editor of The Beaver that a student reporter was copied into was intercepted by the LSE. The school intercepted the reporter’s personal LSE email address and in doing so gained access to an email sent to the Executive Editor of The Beaver. This undermines the privacy of students and the journalistic freedom of the student newspaper.

The email in question was sent from a nonLSE email address to the Executive Editor of The Beaver and the Beaver reporter’s LSE address by a key source in the investigation. The email was clearly marked in its subject line as being ‘Confidential’.

It became apparent that the email had been intercepted when the sender received an Out Of Office response from the LSE’s legal team. The legal team were not marked to be recipients of the original email but had been forwarded the email through an interception of the Beaver Reporter’s ‘@lse.ac.uk’ address. It became clear that the email had been intercepted due to a careless accident within the legal department of the LSE. It is not clear how many of the student’s emails had been intercepted prior to this incident.

The LSE Conditions of Use of IT facilities include some terms on the interception of student emails. Article 7 states that ‘You must not use the IT Facilities in any way that could expose you or the School to any criminal or civil liability.’ The school ‘reserves the right to monitor your use of the IT Facilities, including emails sent and received, and web pages and other online content accessed’ in certain cases, including ‘to assist in the investigation of breaches of these Conditions of Use’.

Interception can only take place where a breach of the Conditions of Use is alleged, where ‘all reasonable measures’ will be taken to investigate whether that allegation is justified, as is stated in article 17. These ‘reasonable measures’ include inspecting users files and email messages. To inspect a students files and emails, the inspection has to be authorised by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, the Dean of Graduate Studies or the School Secretary.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) regulates the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation. It covers the interception and use of communications data and can be invoked, in light of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998, in the cases of

national security, and for the purposes of detecting crime, preventing disorder, public safety and protecting public health The email in question contained confidential information relevant to an ongoing legal case. Whilst the contents of the email could be regarded as risking civil liability for breach of confidence, it would be the sender of the email who was implicated here and not the student whose email was intercepted. The issues discussed in the email do not conform to the RIPA requirements for email interception. The Beaver has no evidence of whether the requirements outlined in article 17 have been followed through to allow the interception of student emails.

By intercepting students emails the school are undermining the privacy of their students and by reading the emails of the Executive Editor of The Beaver are compromising the freedom of the press. Whilst the school’s IT policy does appear to allow for email interception in this case, The Beaver would question why it is the case that students emails can be intercepted when the student themself has not breached the Conditions of Use. Nona Buckley-Irvine, General Secretary of LSESU stated that ‘There is a clear lack of clarity about the criteria which the School uses to decide when and how it intercepts emails. Given this, it seems hard to justify how they can be intercepting a student’s request for information and they should now be looking at acting more transparently in how IT is used, if we are to avoid a total accountability deficit in our School’.

Following the Inclusivity Report published in the last academic year which gave the LSE new powers of email surveillance, The Beaver published our research into the legality of the proposals. Whilst the findings were that the proposals were legal, due to the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 act, there was considerable and contradictory policy on email A contingent of LSE Students march for Free Education on the #grantsnotdebt protest. surveillance from UK legislation with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention.

At the time of that investigation, a spokesperson from the LSE commented that ‘In general, email monitoring of a member of staff or student is exceptionally rare. It is only used following a specific request – for example, when there is suspicion of serious misconduct.’

The school was contacted for comment on a number of points relating to the investigation being undertaken, including this case of email interception of a student reporter’s email. The Find Out Why On Page 8 response sent by the LSE did not mention the interception.

More on Free Education in Comment this week: “So far this year, there has only been one UGM, attended by approximately 30 people, held in a busy café, to debate (you guessed it) free education. This is an utter farce for a number of reasons...”

The City Features

Two US ExPats debate the Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger talks direction of the Democratic Party Western strategy against ISIS Page 24 Page 26

Room 2.02, Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, LSE Students’ Union London WC2A 2AE Executive Editor Ellen Wilkie

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Managing Editor Megan Crockett

Beaver

the

the

Beaver

Established in 1949 Issue No. 839 - Tuesday 10 November 2015 -issuu.com/readbeaveronline Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

managing@thebeaveronline.co.uk

News Editors Shwetha Chandrashekhar Suyin Haynes Greg Sproston news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Comment Editors Mali Williams

comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

PartB Editors Kemi Akinboyewa Vikki Hui Flo Edwards

partb@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The City Editor Alex Gray

city@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Features Editor Alex Hurst Taryana Odayar

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Nab Editor

nab@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Sport Editor Alex Dugan

sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Online Editor Gee Linford-Grayson

online@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Collective Chair Perdita Blinkhorn

collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Collective:

A Doherty, A Fyfe, A Laird, A Leung, A Lulache, A Moro, A Qazilbash, A Santhanham, A Tanwa, A Thomson, B Phillips, C Holden, C Loughran, C Morgan, C Hu, D Hung, D Lai, D Sippel, D Tighe, E Arnold, E Wilkie, G Cafiero, G Harrison, G Kist, G Linford-Grayson, G Manners-Armstrong, G Saudelli, H Brentnall, H Prabu, H Toms, I Plunkett, J Cusack, J Evans, J Foster, J Grabiner, J Heeks, J Momodu, J Ruther, J Wurr, K Budd, K Owusu, K Parida, K Quinn, L Kang, L Kendall, L Erich, L Mai, L Montebello, L Schofield, L van der Linden, M BanerjeePalmer, M Crockett, M Gallo, M Jaganmohan, M Johnson, M Neergheen, M Pasha, M Pennill, M Strauss, N Antoniou, N Bhaladhare, N BuckleyIrvine, N Stringer, O Hill, O Gleeson, P Amoroso, P Blinkhorn, P Gederi, R Browne, R J Charnock, R Huq, R Kouros, R Serunjogi, R Siddique, R Uddin, R Way, S Ali, S Crabbe-Field, S Kunovska, S Povey, S Sebatindira, T Mushtaq, T Odayar, T Poole, V Hui, Z Chan, Z Mahmod

To join the Collective you need to have written for 3 or more editions of The Beaver. Think you’ve done that but don’t see your name on the list? Email collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk to let us know!

Any opinions expressed herein are those of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the LSE Students’ Union or Beaver Editorial Staff.

The Beaver is issued under a Creative Commons license.

Ellen Wilkie on having a Midterm Crisis after a relaxed Reading Week

From the Executive Editor AS LONG TIME EDITORIAL readers will know (admittedly, there aren’t many of these around), I spent the majority of LT last year using my 150 word editorial space in the Comment section to complain about being tired and wanting to go home. Those old Editorials tended to involve a lot of whining about missing my dog and some odd demands for my mother to deliver freshly baked shortbread biscuits to me while I lay comatose on the couch.

Well, readers, my dream came true. Now that we finally have a Reading Week I was able to take a break midterm and spend the evening of Friday Week 5 not in Tuns, but on an East Coast train heading northwards. I was greeted by the chilly bite of autumnal Newcastle air, the warm embrace of my family and the many woozy stag and hen parties that occupy Toon train station on a Friday night. Though it was only a flying visit (it felt like I spent more time in transit than I actually got to spend at home), the ability to take a break

and unwind was unbeatable.

I’m sure that I’m not alone, however, in finding that after a week of doing nothing (shout out to the four essays that have been firmly shoved to the back of my mind) it isn’t easy to pick myself back up and find the motivation to start doing the whole university thing again. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate our Reading Week and am not going to begrudge the school for giving us some time off.

It is difficult, however, to regain the momentum and routine I lost when I let myself take a breather. I’m in the middle of a midterm crisis. I didn’t go onto campus for 5 days in a row. On a number of those days I didn’t even get changed out of some manky tracksuit bottoms and an army surplus jumper. I binged on cult tv shows. I did no reading. I had the time of my life.

Being an LSE student is a tiring business. The demands of our degrees alone are time consuming enough, but when you add being a good newspaper editor, a good daughter, a good friend, a good

girlfriend and a generally well kept, well fed and healthy individual to that time commitment, there’s not much time left to spend being a complete slob.

Admittedly I’m not sure where I’m going with this editorial. I’m sure it says something about the frailty of my mental state that I appear to be unable to think more than a sentence ahead of what I’m writing. I could resolve to get more sleep. I could opt to give up my position as editor of The Beaver.

I could decide to become a better person that doesn’t see a day spent on the couch as a day well spent.

There would be no worth in making those conclusions though, as none of them will ever actually happen (esp. giving up the paper; I’ll never let go). The one resolution that I will definitely, reluctantly have to make though, is to get started on those essays.

Due to the Reading Week, this week’s paper will be covering news from the last two weeks as there was no Beaver last week.

From the Managing Editor Megan Crockett on the proposed changes to tuition fees AS I’M SURE MANY OF YOU know the Higher Education Green Paper: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice was published on 6th November 2015. It could potentially have a huge effect on tuition fees. As it stands tuition fees are not allowed to rise above levels of inflation (the ‘inflationary uplift’) without a vote taking place in government. However, the Green Paper could pave the way to a system of variable fees as the Office of Students are due to have the power to set different levels of frees following the Teaching Excellence Framework, if it gets the go ahead and transforms into a Bill. It could see fees linked to the quality of lectures, seminars, exam results, student satisfaction, student retention rates and graduate job prospects and rising above the £9,000 they currently sit at.

I remember being sat in the

Peacock Theatre while Jay Stoll, the General Secretary of the Students’ Union at the time, and the Director, Craig Calhoun, boasted about LSE’s graduate job prospects and the (quite high) salaries we could all expect upon graduation. In the Complete University Guide’s 2016 League Table, LSE was ranked the third best university in the UK with both our Research Quality and Graduate Prospects scoring higher than Oxford’s. Although the School falls well short when it comes to student satisfaction, if tuition fees are to be increased along the lines I’ve highlighted, it is inevitable that LSE will be one of the institutions able to charge a high fee as it is deemed “value for money”.

The prospect of this really makes me worry, not just because LSE has a shockingly low student satisfaction score, but also because

concerns have already been raised by members of the SU Exec that the School is not representative enough when it comes to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Under the current £8,500 fees students are put off studying at LSE because of the sheer price of living and studying in London; research carried out by NEON suggests that forty per cent of students are more likely to study at home or close to home due to rising tuition fees and accommodation costs. This being the case, an increase to the tuition fees charged by the School will have a detrimental effect on the diversity of students studying at the School. Many students from low socio-economic backgrounds are already put off studying in London, at institutions such as the LSE, increasing tuition fees is only going to act as more of a deterrent.

Women In Journalism THE B E AV E R , IN collaboration with The Womens’ Network, are holding a panel discussion between women working in journalism, exploring the new challenges and opportunities for women in a digital age of journalism.

Chaired by our very own Executive Editor, Ellen Wilkie, the event will play host to a handful of speakers who are yet to be announced.

The event will take place on Monday 16th November in the Venue in the basement of the Saw Swee Hock from 6.30pm until 8pm.

The event is not ticketed and open to people of all genders and no gender. There will be light refreshements provided.

So, if you’re interested in working in journalism or just want to find out a bit more about the field and the work women do within it, then come along. We look forward to seeing lots of you there.

Gareth Rosser @GarethRosser1 @beaveronline Pfft! It’s all gone downhill since my day James Wurr @JamesWurr So excited to see @Nigelrefowens speak at the Tackling Homophobia and Sexism in Rugby event next week! #rugbyforall Sadie H @_sadiesaid Great to see bike pumps outside @LSELibrary! thanks @ lsesu @StudyLSE Jon Foster @JRhysFoster Lest we forget.

Katie Budd @klebudd Fab new group work zone at @LSELibrary on the 4th floor!

Tweet us @beaveronline to see your 140 characters in print!

Future of LSE Nursery Under Threat Joseph Briers Deputy Editor THE HISTORY OF THE LSE nursery is certainly a turbulent one. Established in 1984 following an occupation by students demanding childcare for pupils and staff, the nursery has survived various setbacks over the years. In keeping with its tumultuous past, the nursery enters its 40th year under threat once again; this time from slipping standards and financial constraints. In an attempt to trim the fat from its budget, LSE management have recently come to the conclusion that there is a severe lack of demand for places at the nursery and are exploring whether it will continue to be a necessary or affordable feature of campus life.

However, the SU dispute this claim. They argue that the lack of demand for spaces is merely symptomatic of wider issues with the nursery. ‘Over the last eight years the nursery has been underfunded and de-prioritised’ says SU Community and Welfare Officer Aysha AlFekaiki. Writing in the Huffington post, she has criticised the methodology of the LSE’s research into demand, raising doubts over its small sample size and lack ofinterest in the reasons behind parents reluctance to use the facility.

Indeed, there is much to suggest that the quality of care at the nursery falls well below the expected standard, especially when compared to that of other London universities.

The LSE nursery (last inspected in 2013) holds the lowest Ofsted rating of the capital’s ‘Golden Triangle’ Universities that house them, with provision of care being described as ‘adequate’ as opposed to UCL’s ‘good’ and Imperial’s ‘outstanding’. The latter also has an average waiting time for places of up to 14 months after application suggesting that, as the SU submits, demand follows quality.

Many have pointed to problems with the location of the nursery - currently the basement of Grosvenor House.

The building has been the subject of a number of structural and plumbing complaints and the dubiously termed ‘garden’ is remarkably indoors, that is, despite a £12,000 revamp thanks to the LSE Annual Fund. The relocation of the nursery to the basement in 2005 was lauded by former director Howard Davies who said at the time - ‘it means we can expand our nursery provision which is something we have been trying to do for a number of years’. Yet, ironically, it now appears to be one of the chief concerns of prospective parents.

SU Women’s Officer Lena Schofield contends that problems at the nursery, as a vital facility for female staff and students, put LSE in a tricky situation in regards to gender equality. “Cuts to childcare services affect women first and worst… If the LSE Nursery shuts down, women will be disproportionately impacted” Schofield says. She also reminds management that this is particularly embarrassing considering “the LSE’s own Gender, Inequality and Power Commission’s report Confronting Gender Inequality, stresses the importance of childcare to gender equality.”

Hope comes in the shape of the new Paul Marshall Building, planned to be built on the site currently occupied

by Cancer Research. Within LSE’s invitation to architects is requirement of space for ‘a nursery able to adapt to changing models of childcare’. That said, since the Paul Marshall Building is not expected to be completed for some time, the nursery’s short term prospects still need addressing.

With a ‘day of action’ picnic on Monday, and an online petition to ‘save our nursery’ already having gathered over 600 signatures, the current discourse echoes previous eras of remonstration, and has a lamentably nostalgic undertone.

News | 3

Section Editor: Shwetha Chandrashekhar Suyin Haynes Greg Sproston Deputy Editors: Joseph Briers Bhadra Sreejith

Photo Credit: Flickr: Björn Láczay

In Conversation with Amartya Sen About ‘The Country of First Boys’ Taryana Odayar Features Editor

his view on the issue of Identity.

Lord Stern’s first question to him was, “..tell us why multiple identities are important?” To which he replied that, “single identities are a sign of being in a position of weakness” and “to focus on one identity is to misdescribe a person.” When questioned about the complex topic of Indian national identity, he said, “I’m very keen on people thinking about their identity to the world and not just their own country.” He was quick to highlight the dangers of assuming a narrowly constructed identity by saying that, “You can easily inflame a popula-

tion into violence by playing up one identity exclusively.” When questioned about the migrant crisis on Europe’s doorstep, he added, “I would like to see more recognition of our global identity” and that for him personally, “knowing Sanskrit and Bengali is one of my many, many identities.”

An intellectual heavyweight whose socio-economic views and philosophical tendencies are linked by an underlying sense of ethics and an understanding of the human condition, Amartya Sen at 82 years old, shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

News

“I’M ALWAYS VERY HAPPY when people assume I know answers to questions.” True to form, when Amartya Sen visited the LSE last Friday, he brought with him his quintessentially good-natured sense of humour and his wonderful ability to tie the past with the present, by enriching contemporary economic theories with stories from Sanskrit literature. The Old Theatre was abuzz with students who were lucky enough to get tickets for the event, and there was an impressive stream of live-tweeting (#LSESen) that ensued.

Amartya Sen needs no introduction, but here is one anyway: Sen’s most notable academic achievement is as recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize for his contributions to welfare economics. He is also credited with developing the Human Development Index (HDI).

Currently, he is the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University, and an honorary fellow of the LSE.

The discussion about his new book took the form of a conversation, lead by Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE and President of the British Academy. The discussion was organised by the South Asia Centre at LSE, which was established in June this year to engage with research interests pertaining to the South Asian region.

During the discussion, Sen talked about some of the most prominent socio-economic issues facing contemporary society in his new book, such as social justice and welfare, by looking at specific indicators such as disparity, illiteracy, media integrity, freedom of speech, inequality, exclusion, and exploitation. Through the use of rich anecdotal evidence and sound analysis of economic indicators, Sen weaves a degree of lucidity and clarity into his essays that is refreshingly different to the sometimes tedious and highly technical Economics jargon found in other publications, which result in a deficit of understanding.

Most interesting perhaps was

4 | Tuesday November 10, 2015

Timetabling Issues Persist at LSE Greg Sproston News Editor

THE LONDON SCHOOL OF Economics and political sciences (LSE) timetabling omnishambles has still not been adequately resolved, and the significant impact it has had on the student experience so far this academic year has still not been fully addressed. Societies in particular are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of clear communication, broken promises, and missed deadlines from school management and dissatisfied students and societies have initiated an open dialogue with the School regarding the matter (see above).

Following these letters, the Students’ Union (SU) have issued their own statement in regards to the botched implementation of the new timetabling software.

Specifically, the SU highlights the ongoing lack of timetables for some students, the unreliability and changing nature of timetables, the disproportionate effect these issues have particularly on disabled students, and the lack of room booking and its effects on societies and clubs are cited as four key issues facing

students.

Recognising the impact these issues have had on students, the SU have formally requested recompense from the school in the form of direct funding for society give-it-a-go sessions in Lent Term along with compensation for societies, additional funds for the activities committee to assist in dealing with timetabling fallout, a contribution toward the grad ball and an individual printing credit of £5 for all students.

Given that failure here rests entirely with the School, it is The Beaver’s view that compensation for all students is a reasonably request. It is worth considering that even at the most conservative estimate, an undergraduate class is ‘worth’ at least £100 on a pro-rata basis; that this many students have missed classes through no fault of their own is an unacceptable state of affairs and a £5 printing credit is a modest request.

Societies have likewise been disproportionately disadvantaged, with one society having had to pay £900 to hire an external venue as a result of the school’s inaction; monies for the activities committee, collective

compensation for societies and give-it-a-go funding should be expected.

Unless the SU can demonstrate that final year students have been the most affected group in this issue, it is less clear how a grad ball contribution is related.

Overall, it is difficult to see how LSE management would not agree at least some of the SU’s terms. However, the school have not yet acted in a particularly logical or consistent manner, having failed to provide sufficient information on numerous occasions in addition to missing self imposed deadlines on four occasions.

At the time of going to press, the school has not responded to the SU’s statement, nor has it issued a public response to calls for an inquiry into these failings despite having had over a week to do so. Despite repeated complaints from the student body, it appears that school management is still ignorant as to the importance of this issue; we urge readers to tell Paul Kelly, the Pro-Director of teaching and learning, of their experiences at p.j.kelly@ lse.ac.uk.

LSESU Release Statement On PalSoc Protest Megan Crockett Managing Editor

DURING WEEK FOUR OF Michaelmas Term, an exhibition put on by the London School of Economics (LSE) Students’ Union’s (SU) Palestine Society received ‘numerous’ student complaints. Following the event the SU entered into an investigation and have since issued a statement with their findings.

The SU claim that the ‘Israeli and Palestinian conflict is highly contentious both in wider society and indeed within our Union. Year on year, there has been a healthy relationship between both the Israel and Palestine society and we work to ensure good campus relations between both sides.’

With regards to the exhibition which signposted itself as a ‘trigger warning’ the SU stress that ‘the Palestine Society followed all of our existing processes in setting up this exhibition’ while recognising that ‘some of the images of killed Palestinian teenagers were clearly distressing’.

In response to complaints made that suggests ‘the [Palestine] Society was glorifying terrorism’ the SU have told the student body that they are ‘satisfied with the Society’s explanation that they were attempting to recognise the Palestinians are dying as a result of the recent escalation of the

conflict’ adding that ‘the images were … intended to provoke discussion and reflection’.

One complaint that was brought to The Beaver’s attention was the location of the exhibition, which took place in the Denning Learning Café on the first floor of the Saw Swee Hock ‘meant that students did not have a choice whether they saw these images which, due to their nature, can have a triggering effect’.

The SU statement responded to this complaint stating that ‘we aim to maintain the welfare of all students and in this instance, the nature of the exhibition meant that it was compromised. We apologise to any student who was upset by the images’.

The SU claim that the investigation into the event highlighted the fact there ‘is a need to review our framework for how we facilitate activities of a sensitive nature in our SU building in future’. The statement issued by the SU ends with the them voicing their hopes for future events and exhibitions, ‘we want to see a healthy and robust debate on campus around Israel and Palestine, but we need everyone contributing to be sensitive that both Israeli and Palestinian students at LSE will know that people have died, and that we all have an interest in seeing an end to this conflict.

Sports Clubs and Societies Voice Their Room Booking Frustrations Suyin Haynes News Editor

LSESU SPORTS CLUBS and performance-based societies have voiced their frustrations in an open letter to the LSE, which will be presented to the Estates Strategy Committee by LSESU Activities and Development Officer Katie Budd later on in November.

With the timetabling and room bookings fiasco that started the academic year, which still has not yet been resolved, there is little doubt that these logistical issues have left many societies struggling for space. This is added to the fact that the sports clubs of the Athletics’ Union also do not accessible facilities on campus; over £100, 000 per year is spent on external hire, consequently increasing membership prices and providing a negative drawback for those who otherwise enjoy being part of an LSE sports team.

As LSE Athletics’ Union President Julia Ryland commented in conversation with The Beaver, “the lack of sport’s facilities restricts club’s ability to develop.

It means they have to spend the majority of their budget on expensive central London facilities instead of putting it towards developmental opportunities, equipment, kit and coaching.”

It’s not just the sports teams who are unhappy; arts and performance societies are forced to use classrooms as rehearsal space, and the fact that there is only one music practice room for the entire student body is clearly insufficient and has been picked up on by many different societies.

LSESU Drama Society Secretary Alice Harrison noted that “the lack of support from the LSE towards the arts has been reflected by the difficulty in finding appropriate rehearsal and performance spaces when plays are running concurrently. This not only quashes creativity but also means that LSE students are not always able to perform to the best of their ability.”

Following the acquisition of the new building at 44 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a redevelopment project brief is currently being formulated and work on the entire site is projected to be complete in 2020. Consultation with sports

clubs and arts societies led to the creation of the open letter, signed by 58 society/team leaders, overall representing around 3000 students. The letter highlights the inadequacies of on-site facilities and the pressure on the limited facilities by the number of clubs that need to use these spaces, as well as calls for the new building to include sufficient facilities to fulfill the co-curricular needs of LSESU societies and clubs.

Katie Budd told The Beaver: “With the brief for the new building 44LIF about to be approved, this is a key opportunity for the LSE recognise the value of these activities and invest in the future of societies and sports. We’re asking for a sports hall, squash courts, a bespoke rehearsal/performance black box space and music practice rooms to go into the brief. Societies and sports are the lifeblood of LSE, making students more rounded individuals and hugely contributing to their overall wellbeing.

If you are on the committee of a society or club and have not yet signed the open letter, email Katie Budd at su.activitiesdevelopment@ lse.ac.uk to add your name.

LSE University Challenge Finals This Week: ‘Meet the Hopefuls’ Shwetha Chandrashekhar News Editor

AFTER OCCASIONING THE TV stage only twice in the last decade for BBC’s annual University Challenge, this year, the spirit of hope is here again amongst fellow students at LSE. Following October’s initial tryout sessions, conducted through paper tests with timed answers, November is welcoming the final round of the University Challenge tryouts. The competition is open to undergraduate, Master’s and PhD students. Top-scoring candidates from all across LSE will compete in two teams of five this Monday evening, November 9, in a live competition. In an attempt to simulate the show, University Challenge questions from years past will be used.

Past questions on BBC’s University Challenge have included: “In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover gem-like above the bay. This was the last diary entry of which explorer, written on January 5th 1922 at Grytviken in South Georgia?” and “In cytogenetics, what term describes the entire chromosomal complement

of a cell which may be observed during mitotic metaphase?”

LSE’s final team will be chosen, with high consideration placed on accuracy, speed, and proportion of correct answers.

‘A pub quiz with a twist,’ was held post initial tryouts where students were welcomed to test their ‘general knowledge against other LSE students,’ with the winning team relaying right through to the LSE University Challenge final.

Beginning its reign on ITV fifty years prior, in 1963, University Challenge is an academic quiz

show which tests teams of students from universities in the UK. The first University Challenge was launched in 1962 when Grenada Television sought to host an intellectual quiz show with more substance than ‘traditional game show formats.’

Frequent former champions of the show have ranged from Imperial College, to Manchester and Oxford University colleges, with Durham University appearing most frequently in the post-1994 format when the show was revived

by BBC following its cancellation

in 1987 ‘due to low viewing figures.’

Apart from a final loss to Imperial College in 1996, LSE has yet to resurface and redeem its status as a ‘well-rounded’ and ‘bright’ student body. In hopes of assembling a winning team, LSESU is aiming to override a severe underrepresentation of LSE’s intelligence: “We believe we can prove that LSE is a world-leading institution that attracts great thinkers and is home to some of the world’s best brains.” With hope, perhaps all is possible.

Michaelmas Term Election Results James Clark Staff Writer

WEEK FIVE OF MICHAELMAS term saw the LSESU focus on the election of a range of student positions both within the Student’s Union and the LSE itself. With over 1356 individual votes cast for Postgraduate Officer alone, voting turnout matched previous years of Michaelmas Elections.

Returning Officer for Michaelmas Term Elections Fraser Bell announced results in three batches, the first involving Mature and Part-Time officer, General Course President, Postgraduate Research Officer, Members of the Trustee Board (Both Postgraduate and Student) and finally the Members of Academic Board.

The results came in thick and fast with Boian Niki, Boryana Uzunova, Tayfun Terzi winning their respective elections. Following this, an extremely tight race between Kaleem Khan and Katie Nunner saw the former squeeze into the Postgraduate Trustee position by a mere 10 votes to be joined by Samiha Begum as the Undergraduate Member of the Trustee Board with over 50% of votes won in the first round. Before a break, Bell announced the results of the Academic Board

vote, for which elected members will attend Academic Board meetings with Education Officer Jon Foster After one round of voting Harry Maxwell joined the re-elected Tooba Mushtaq.

After a short break, with plenty of congratulations to winning candidates, Members of the Court of Governors and the LSE NUS delegates were announced.

The elected members of the Court Of Governors will sit on the court and promote the views of LSESU and students on key strategic matters and policy.

With Voting entering an incredible 10th round, the following students were elected; Amaima

Fatima, Harry Maxwell, Hateema Zia, James Wurr and Zohaib Ahmed. Focus turned to the NUS delegates who will join Nona at the annual conference later this academic year. For the protected female position, the number of eligible candidates fell from 11 to 3, leaving Mahmoudat SanniOba the winner. With a close battle of votes for the remaining 10 candidates, the winner of the open place for all remaining candidates went to Rayhan Uddin.

The final elected official of the night was the Postgraduate Officer, who will join other elected officers in Lent Term as part of the Students Union Executive.

While the race itself seemed too close to call following a week of intense campaigning, the voting showed a clear frontrunner.

Leading from round one with an initial 508 votes before eventually finishing on 609 votes to the runner up’s 346, Mahmoud El-Ghannam was elected as your Postgraduate Students’ Officer.

The elections and results showed a high level of diversity amongst both candidates and elected students. The next set of elections will be in Lent term with all four sabbatical officers being up for grabs along with liberation positions and positions on the AU Executive.

News | 5

London Uni Roundup UCL STUDENTS HAVE raised £20,000 for charity by selling a single cake on the closing auction of Charity Week. It began with two groups of students bidding and escalated when a joint bid of £20,000 was proposed. The money raised by the organisers at UCL Charity Week will be given to orphans and children around the world. In 2013, UCL students raised £75,000.

The announcement detailing how much money was raised will be due on November 23rd.

SCIENTISTS FROM Kings College London have collaborated with imaging and fingerprint experts from the Metropolitan Police to validate the use of new techniques for retrieving fingerprints from ivory for the first time. The findings could lead to easier identification of poachers in regions with high levels of ivoryrelated crime. Ivory has previously been considered a difficult material to retrieve fingerprints from.

THE STUDENT INITIATIVE Solar SOAS, which puts up investment to buy solar panels for the unused roofs of the SOAS buildings, has just turned one year old. Solar SOAS has just registered as a Benefit for the Community social enterprise, and were finalists in the Mayor of London Low Carbon Entrepreneur Award.

The energy generated by Solar SOAS is sold to the National Grid, and the revenue is given back to the investors.

If you are an LSE staff member, student or alumnus with an announcement to make then News in Brief wants to hear from you! Email news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

6 | Tuesday November 10, 2015

LSE Celebrates Black History Month Suyin Haynes News Editor LSESU’S BLACK HISTORY Month came to a close at the end of Week 5, ending on a powerful and uplifiting note with ‘Telling Her-Story’, a film screening and Q+A session with London-based filmmaker, artist and writer Cecile Emeke.

The 6th Floor Studio of the Saw Swee Hock became home to a packed out and excited audience for the evening, many of whom were familiar with Emeke’s work including ‘Ackee & Saltfish’ and the ‘Strolling’ documentary series. With popcorn and sweets on hand, the format of the evening was a mixture of screenings of Emeke’s work interspersed with thought-provoking conversation, hosted by undergraduate students Onis Chukwueke and Chris-Ann Jarrett. Questions from the audience towards the

end included exploration of when political correctness goes too far, the idea of blackness and the black community, and how Emeke sources her subjects in the black diaspora for the ‘Strolling’ series. The artist’s responses drew highly on her personal experiences of her Jamaican heritage, and referred to the barriers within the film industry, noting that sometimes it was more effective to work outside the industry as she has done by crowdfunding her film projects.

This event followed on from the highly successful photo exhibition launch for Black HerStory week earlier in the week, where black women from the LSE community were nominated by their peers for their achievements and contribution to LSE life and beyond. Dr Vanessa Iwowo from the Department of Management presented an engaging and inspiring lecture for the audience, telling

her story and experiences as a black woman in the academic world and what the community should next look to in terms of liberation and solidarity.

Overall, the plethora of events organised by LSESU for Black History Month this year have had astonishing turnout, interest and engagement; a sign of its real success.

LSESU BME Officer Mahatir Pasha told The Beaver: “This year’s Black History Month has proved to be an insightful, empowering and intellectually stimulating time for our LSE students. It was very encouraging to see the high level of engagement amongst the student populace particularly the BME students. I commend the effort of all those involved in putting this month together, particularly Aysha who has worked tirelessly. The next step now is to address some of the issues we discussed throughout the month and help towards fully

liberating ourselves!”. Jasmina Bidé, LSESU Anti-Racism Officer, commented that her personal highlight of the month “was that levels of engagement were visibly higher from the Black and BME community in general, which I hope can continue. I also learnt a lot from the various events, and I hope others did too, and enjoyed the feelings of celebration and empowerment that characterised the month. The next steps are to capitalise on this empowerment throughout the SU and School, including running a BME mentoring programme throughout the academic year with Jon (Rhys-Foster, LSESU Education Officer) and Aysha.”

During ‘Telling Her-Story’, Pasha and Bidé gave short speeches to commemorate the final event of the month. Both student officers noted the commitment and dedication of LSESU Community and Welfare Officer Aysha Fekaiki,

noting the work that had gone into organising the month during the summer and that it was a true promise kept according to Fekaiki’s manifesto. When asked for her thoughts on the month, Fekaiki noted that “Black History Month has been emotional, uplifting, empowering, angry and progressive.

Being able to work with such a huge array of students on creatively voicing issues that are so crucial to our lives right now is exactly why I wanted to be Community and Welfare Officer. Highlights for me were the Decolonise Your Mind event and the Her-story Exhibition which appreciated and congratulated Black women’s achievements that are so undervalued at LSE. I’m planning on continuing these initiatives and events in Lent Term as it crucial to continue building the supportive networks and empowering initiatives that recognise our capabilities.”

LSE Launches Housing Academy in Partnership with NCRC Greg Sproston News Editor THE LONDON SCHOOL OF Econoics and political sciences (LSE) has launched a ‘housing academy’ for social landlords in partnership with the National Communities Resource Centre at Trafford Hall, Cheshire. The academy is designed to support housing associations and social landlords in times of austerity, ensuring that social housing remains a viable form of welfare provision in the face of external pressures.

Specifically, the academy will be community driven and action orientated, aiming to provide social landlords with peer to peer support and accredited training so they can ensure their tenants are able to adequately respond to the joint pressures of welfare reform, financial constraints and rising costs. Further, it will attempt to ‘drive home policy messages amongst decision makers’.

The scheme has been met with much positivity thus far; twelve housing associations have already signed up and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a co-sponsor of the venture. In addition, both the Chartered In-

stitute of Housing and the National Housing Federation have praised the scheme, specifically noting the LSE’s excellent reputation in tackling inequality and providing effective responses to social issues.

Professor Anne Power of LSE Housing and Communities shared: “Housing Plus seems to have real purchase because housing associations are driven by the urgent need to retain their business viability while at the same time depending on tenants coping and paying their way. They have a strong ethical purpose, and are the most significant organisations within low income

communities, alongside schools.”

The role and effectiveness of this housing academy will be particularly relevant in a time when the LSESU and many students feel that the LSE Residential Services office could do much more in the way that it responds to students who are

themselves vulnerable to welfare reform, rising costs and financial constraints. The Beaver hopes that the school, in its broad obligations as a provider of housing for students, will follow the good practices established by its new housing academy to ensure fairness for its own students.

The Cost of Living in London Greg Sproston News Editor LONDON IS EXPENSIVE, and it’s disproportionately expensive for students who, as a general rule of thumb, can’t rely on the income of full time employment. Rental prices in London are twice the national average, and they’re rising in the capital five times faster than they were this time two years ago.

The end result is that, this summer, the average Greater London rental price exceeded £1,500 per month for the first time. Or, to frame this figure in a different way, £7300 more than the maximum student loan figure available to UK students studying in London.

That London School of Economics (LSE) residential halls are generally priced much below this market average is a cause for celebration as far as LSE residential services are concerned, but LSE Students’ Union (SU) General Secretary Nona Buckley-Irvine rejects this notion; comparisons with the wider market are not particularly applicable when students lives are so different from those in full time employment. A more apt

market comparison would be in relation to hall costs of other universities. In this, Nona claims the school is failing its students as average rental costs are lower at both KCL and UCL. In circumstances where rental contracts at halls can and often do exceed the total loan award a student receives there is a very real short term problem.

In the context of rising prices and the School’s failure to safeguard its students from low income backgrounds, the long term implications must not be ignored either.

If this trend grows, the pool of students who who are financially able to commit to an LSE education will shrink. Widening inequality at a university which has recently installed advertisements on Kingsway referencing its proud record of tackling inequality through research is a particularly sorry state of affairs.

One second year student argues that the school using any kind of market comparison when deciding halls prices is an unacceptable commodification and halls should be treated as a form of quasi-social housing in which the only consideration is promoting equality of opportunity for all. As much as many students feel

that the university could do more in regards to halls residency, the majority of students do live in private accommodation; and the scope of action from both the University and the SU is limited in this regard.

Next May sees the London Mayoral election and current bookies’ favourite Sadiq Khan has repeatedly stated that housing in in the capital is his number one priority and given its importance to so many Londoners, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith is likely to unveil his own housing strategy soon, too. In the last mayoral election, turnout was just 38%; almost 30% less than this year’s general election. With such low participation, students and ‘generation rent’ have a fantastic opportunity to make their issues the deciding issues of this election, the result of which will have a huge impact on current LSE students, and the multitude of alumni who remain in London after graduation. The Beaver urges all students to engage with the political process and calls on the SU to spearhead a concerted, non-partisan campaign aimed at raising awareness of the upcoming elections.

ON NOVEMBER 18, LSE will be hosting its official inaugural quarterfinal for the Hult Prize Challenge. The Hult Prize is the world’s largest student movement for social good, serving as a startup accelerator for student social entrepreneurs, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize for students.”

President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative issue a challenge annually to students

across all over the world. From over 20,000 applicants, the best idea wins $1 million USD in seed funding. Last year’s 2015 challenge was centered on ‘Solving Early Childhood Education in the Urban Slum.’

After a competitive preliminary round of assessing 26 applications, 16 teams of LSE students will be competing this year to represent LSE on the global stage in 2016. Drawing on LSE’s unique social sciences expertise, participants will be challenged to propose disruptive business solu-

tions to massively increase the incomes of underprivileged people in crowded urban spaces – the 2016 challenge.

The Hult Prize at LSE’s organising committee has drawn together a distinguished panel of judges to assess student participants in the quarterfinal. Notable panel members include LSE’s Sir Christopher Pissarides, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallet, barrister, investment banker, and NonExecutive Chair of the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and

News In Brief Peter Sutherland Returns to LSE Peter Sutherland has returned to LSE as a Professor in Practice at the School’s Institute of Global Affairs. Sutherland previously served as chairman of the Court of Governors but stepped down earlier this year. He has served as the UN Special Representative for International Migration since 2006 as well as having previously held positions as the Chair of Goldman Sachs and BP, Director General of the WTO, and Attorney General of Ireland.

Professor Erik Berglof, director of the IGA, pronounced that he was delighted with the appointment, stating, “(Peter) brings to our institute unparalled knowledge, wisdom, and skills.” Sutherland has been a strong critic of British immigration policy and is well known for his liberal stance on the topic.

LSE Professors Join Israel Boycott

The Hult Prize at LSE Hosts Inaugural Quarterfinal This Week Paula Grabosch Undergraduate Student

News | 7

Social Entrepreneurship, start-up founders, Bonnie Chiu of Lensational and Paul Cocker of Truestart, and representatives from the private and public sector.

The quarterfinal is expected to be a nerve-racking and exciting experience for the teams as they pitch their ideas in front of judges. An undergraduate student member at the Hult Prize at LSE shares, “we are told frequently that as LSE students, we are amongst the brightest minds of the country (and the world).

Yet the majority of us all seem to aim for the same internships, the same low risk, highly paid jobs and the same safe future. We’re masters of calculating risks, but how many of us have actually taken a risk to change the world for better, to do something bold and make a difference? Needless to say, in an ideal world, everyone would be doing social good and making a difference if they could.

We may wish to volunteer and give our times for social good, but we still have to make a living. The best thing about social enterprise is that by doing all that, you can still make a living.”

The Hult Prize at LSE asks students interested in social enterprise to come and show support for fellow LSE participants in their effort to change the world this Wednesday, in the New Academic Building. The evening starts at 7.30pm.

A number of LSE academics have joined a boycott of Israeli academic institutions in protest of the MiddleEastern state’s policy towards Palestine. Professors including Jonathan Rosenhead, Richard Sennet and Conor Gearty have all signed a letter published in the Guardian last week outlining their commitment to Palestinian rights. The group will not accept invitations to visit Israeli academic institutions, act as as referees in any of their processes, or participate in conferences and events funded or organised by them. The letter has been met with unsurprising antipathy from the Israeli Embassy in London who published a statement condemning the action. “The only path to advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians passes through the negotiation room” the ambassador responded.

Cost of Campus Construction Projects Soaring The LSE’s Director of Estates says the School is suffering from ‘nightmarish’ cost inflation in its efforts to redevelop campus. Julian Robinson told Construction News that in-between the time that he first market-tested the price for the ongoing demolition of the Centre Buildings and the point at when he actually tendered, the price of the project had soared by £1million. Cost inflation is “getting in the way of our ambitions and my number one nightmare at the moment…I have to explain to my finance committee, when prices are going up, that it’s not the case of mismanagement; it’s literally the market saying, ‘We can add whatever it is, because there’s no-one else to do it” Robinson added. This is sure to be unwelcome news to many at a time when LSE’s budget is already being squeezed.

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| Tuesday November 10, 2015

The Slow Death of the UGM

The primary vehicle of LSESU’s democracy is grinding to a halt Peter Lyon Undergraduate Student STUDENTS’ UNION DEmocracy is a laudable concept, and one at which LSE supposedly excels. Before arriving at LSE, I read about the vigorous, wideranging debates that took place every week in the Old Theatre.

From the left-wing radicalism of the 1960s, to the liberal initiatives of Matthew Elliot and Allister Heath in the 1990s, the Union General Meeting has always been the principal democratic framework for LSE students to voice their opinions, scrutinise elected Union officers, and participate in passionate debate.

But enough of reminiscing.

Skip through to the present day, and let us consider the state of SU democracy. It is undeniably in a dreadful place. So far this year, there has only been one UGM, attended by approximately 30 people, held in a busy café, to debate (you guessed it) free education.

This is an utter farce for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it constitutes significant breaches of the bye-laws by the Democracy Committee (ironic given their recent criticism of Nona breaking the bye-laws with regard to PTO pay). Bye-law 2.6 mandates the SU to convene a

Comment

Section Editor: Mali Williams Deputy Editors: Hakan Ustabas Nina Webb Dina Nagapetiants

UGM every week of Michaelmas and Lent Terms, if only to put questions to elected officers.

In addition, Bye-law 8.6 requires that a motion does not repeat a previous motion passed in the last three years, yet there was a motion on free education just a few months ago. This may seem to be nit-picking, but the bye-laws serve an important purpose: to provide a regular, interesting and inclusive procedure for our SU democracy.

“Every election period, candidates for Democracy Committee and Sabbatical positions pay lip service to the idea of SU democracy...

Yet the clique continues...”

Most LSE students are fed up of hearing about pointless motions in favour of ‘free’ education. If the bye-laws were followed, they wouldn’t have to. Yet, by systematically disregarding the bye-laws, the SU is making a mockery of the

process, and begging the question why should, for example, election candidates or the media group obey their respective bye-laws?

Moreover, the relocation of the UGM from the Old Theatre to the Denning Learning Café demonstrates the lack of enthusiasm from the SU for their democratic procedures. Holding this meeting (which used to attract hundreds of students) in a café at lunchtime indicates an expectation, nay encouragement, that UGMs are reserved for a select group of agreeable participants. Furthermore, consider the lack of publicity given by the SU about UGMs. They seem to be much keener to promote a yoga class or a Sabb’s next pet project. As a result, I suspect the vast majority of freshers do not know what a UGM is.

Every election period, candidates for Democracy Committee and Sabbatical positions pay lip service to the idea of Students’ Union democracy, promising to do more to make the SU accountable to its members. Yet the clique continues, with ever-decreasing attendance and voter turnout. So what should be done?

It goes without saying that all bodies of the Union should always follow the bye-laws; most importantly, that any constitutional change, such as the recent PTO pay decision, is put to a student

body vote. Next, the School should be lobbied to reinstate the UGM timetable gap for all students, and make a lecture theatre available

“I suspect the vast majority of freshers do not know what a UGM is.” for it to be held Finally, the SU must tackle the widely-held negative perception of its officers and staff, and clarify that they invariably serve to improve the wellbeing and interests of students and are always and completely accountable to us. It is only once students believe that the Union works for them, that an effective democracy can be restored. Granted, this is no easy task, but the SU can surely do a better job than they have done so far this year.

Finally, it is important to remember that this is a two-way street. The SU is only a facilitator; it is up to us politically minded students to engage with the system in a way that attracts a wide range of students. It is for this reason that the Hayek Society will this week be proposing a motion in support of Uber, a discussion which should do just that.

The Rise of China and the Downfall of the UK

Xi Jinping’s visit exposed the reality of the UK’s dwindling global power Rory Coutts Undergraduate Student

‘GOLDEN ERA,’ ‘GOLDEN Decade,’ ‘unheralded ties,’ the hyperbole surrounding the visit of Xi Jinping’s visit to the UK was emphatic. In Chinese media the focus was on the imagery and ceremony laid on for Xi, rather than the purpose of the visit itself: to funnel money into a dwindling UK, and legitimise China as a world power by giving it warm ties with a western state and bringing its currency to match the Dollar.

From both sides, the framing of the Golden Era uncomfortably mirrors the rhetoric that surrounded the ‘special relationship’ with the USA after the Second World War. The painting of similarities between the UK and the PRC seem even more artificial than the ties carved between the ‘English speaking peoples’ pounded by Churchill is his post-ministerial career. An article on the major

messaging app WeChat, drew parallels between Buckingham Palace and the Forbidden City, and a Chi-

“This new relationship seems more of a way for the UK to deny its irrelevance.” na Daily piece spelled out the rich diplomatic history of the past 30 years, from Thatcher and Blair, to Hong Kong. The truth of past ties are ones of Opium War exploitation, welded with World War and Cold War Machiavellian ties. But also like the ties to the US, the future implications of Xi’s visit don’t seem to be one of equal status.

The reality of the current spate of ties is one of mutual benefit, but not the ones of the headlines, which argue the gains to UK indus-

tries, a revival of the North, and a ‘strategic partnership’. The United Kingdom has had the peculiar pathology of a declining power for the past century, with the US, Germany, and now China overtaking it as pre-eminent economic powers in the world. This new relationship seems more of a way for the UK to deny its irrelevance. In the face of the US’s demotion as the world economic hegemon and a decisive shift of power to the East, the UK is continuing its trend of playing the fickle friend.

The human rights factor is something that many have brought up as an upset to the plan to side up with China. As you can imagine, these did not cause any stir in Chinese media pieces, instead the glossy pictures of Buckingham Palace and Westminster took pride of place. More troubling is the way that the UK began to deal with this at home. The arrest of two Tibetan women, and a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre hardly show the right to free pro-

test and speech. I am not calling for a hermit kingdom approach to states such as China, but the way Britain has dealt with the protests is something to be argued against.

It would be better for us to

“Human rights... did not cause any stir in Chinese media...” have a ‘Hollandisation’ of British foreign policy as some have observed- an abandonment of the pursuit of power- than to act in the way the police did and to brush a lot of the realities under the carpet. The relationship with China is not a pretty one, and a bit embarrassing if anything. The fact is, we are falling over backwards to be the best friend in Europe, but it seems worrying that we could run such a big gamble for the sake of some shiny new trains.

Comment | 9

Refugees Are Just Like Us: Humans

We must recognise that refugees have a right to seek a better life and they need our help Nina Webb Deputy Comment Editor BERLIN’S RECENT ANnouncement that Syrian refugees can still enter Germany, but can only stay for a maximum of a year and will only be granted limited rights, comes as a surprise U-turn from Angela Merkel’s previous ‘open-door policy’ on refugees, and presents numerous problems for refugees across Europe.

As perhaps the only major European Union state which has openly welcomed refugees, this now presents a major setback for the refugees and asylum seekers still seeking a better life as they flee from war-torn countries. Although Syrian refugees are amongst the most numerous in the crisis (making up 53% of the refugees), it does appear shocking that Germany has targeted this group specifically, and has ignored the sizeable influx of refugees coming from other areas such as Afghanistan (16%) and Eritrea (6%). Whilst it is understandable that Germany is attempting to limit the massive influx specifically into its state, is it really fair that Syrian refugees, fleeing from civil war, are targeted more than others?

Whilst I’m well aware that we, as a country, cannot take on un-

limited numbers of refugees, the European Union as a whole certainly has the space and capacity to accommodate them. In 2014, the foreign-born population of the EU amounted to only 7% compared to 13% in the US, 20% in Canada and 27% in Australia.

For if refugees were distributed amongst the majority of memberstates, it would be much easier to accommodate them. The Schengen Agreement, stating that border checks were only to occur on external borders of the Schengen area, combined with the Dublin agreement, which states that by default, the first member state that an asylum seeker enters and in which they are fingerprinted is responsible for them, has meant that too much responsibility for asylum seekers has been placed on the EU’s external border states, including Greece, Italy, and Hungary. This has resulted in the closing of borders such as the Croatia-Hungary border and the Serbia-Hungary border as an emergency measure. With an effective burden-sharing system in place, and a more accommodating mindset of the member-states, the crisis could be really significantly reduced.

Sadly, many are convinced by the idea that the majority of the migrants are so-called ‘economic migrants’, middle-class

and upper-class people coming to the UK simply to become richer despite the fact that they already had a relatively comfortable life.

However, if this was really the case, why would these so-called economic migrants flee to Europe, in illegal sailboats at risk of dying when, if they already had the means, they could go to the US, East Asia, Canada – just about anywhere else in the world which didn’t currently have such strict impositions on migration policies, and such highly enforced border controls?

Seemingly, in fact, the majority are fleeing to Europe, informally the human rights capital of the world due to the protection enshrined by the ECHR, for humanitarian reasons. Whilst the ‘economic migrants’ argument may apply to a select few of them, it must not be forgotten that there are those, too, who genuinely need our help.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the crisis is the media’s, and politicians’ response to the crisis. David Cameron previously referred to refugees as a ‘swarm’, as if they were insects and not people like you and me. At the height of the crisis, I read several articles in the Daily Mail over the summer complaining that the refugees were ruining the plight of European

holidaymakers – as if a privileged European’s week away was more important than somebody else’s fight for their life. Several people I know were afraid to book a holiday to Budapest this summer because they didn’t want it to be “disrupted” by the so-called “angry refugees” that might “ruin the holiday”. Whilst anger may be an emotion prevalent amongst some of them, the main emotion is almost certainly fear.

This fear is only heightened by the fact that, so far, nearly 3,000 people have drowned or ‘gone missing’, since the refugee crisis began. Instead of being hostile to them, we, and our governments,

need to realise that these people are not out to harm us, to take our place, to invade our country.

They have the right to seek a better life and better future for themselves and their families – just like you and me.

LSESU Amnesty International Society is running a ‘Refugee Awareness Week’ this week – withevents including a workshop with Citizens UK on Wednesday at 4pm, and a film screening of ‘God Grew Tired of Us’ on Thursday at 6pm; as well as a booth with various events on every day 11am4pm. These all have Facebook events created for them for further details – do come along!

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Culture of Violence Within Our SU If ‘Pro-Palestinian’ attacks are not terrorist attacks, then what exactly is terrorism?

Liam Marc Robson Undergraduate Student “WHAT IS TERRORISM?” It used to be so simple. A man claiming political motives breaks into the home of a woman and tries to stab her and her elderly mother with a knife stolen from her own kitchen – that is terrorism; a thirteen-year-old boy hops on his bike after visiting his local candy store when he is stabbed in the neck, a legitimate target via his nationality – that is terrorism; a mother and her two-yearold child are stabbed and injured and two men killed by a man who wrote “let the revolution erupt” a day before picking up a knife and seeking out his targets – that is terrorism. Isn’t it?

Well, apologies everyone – it would seem I’m mistaken. In fact, upon bringing to the attention of LSE Students’ Union the fact that a prominent society and SU officer were loudly commemorating the perpetrators of the above acts (Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, Hassan Manasra, and Muhannad Halabi, as it happens) and claiming to

“stand with” their “resistance”, one of the questions posed to me was just that: “what is terrorism?”

I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the SU for giving me the opportunity to reflect upon the fact that the targeted and politically-motivated attacking of a mother and her two-year old child may not in fact be terrorism. Out of ignorance I have stood.

“I wasn’t at all surprised about the culture of violent extremism I encountered when I started university.”

A further question asked of me was whether those whom the LSESU Palestine Society sought to commemorate with their wonderfully creative pro-BDS banner, made with the help of the SU’s very own ‘Community and Wel-

fare’ officer, and recent “Want the Truth about the clashes in Palestine?” exhibition that was held on School-owned premises, had in fact killed civilians? Please, everyone, get with the programme: you knew the IDF like to train ‘em up young, but thirteen-year-old candy-toting boys on bikes – maybe not so civilian after all! Great!

In truth, I wasn’t at all surprised about the culture of violent extremism I encountered when I started university last month.

How could I be when the SU has previously voted down a motion seeking to condemn January’s massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices and a Jewish supermarket in Paris; has set at the top of its agenda lobbying against the counter-extremism ‘Prevent’ programme despite the ever-growing line of prominent terrorists who have graduated from our various sister-colleges at the University of London; and – perhaps most tellingly of all – has chosen to twin itself with the Islamic University of Gaza.

I find the last point telling not only because I’m a heartless, Islamophobic Zionist, but because

the Islamic University of Gaza is an institution at which the dean of Quranic Studies two-weeksago declared “every Jew in Pal-

“It’s the LSE’s Israeli and Jewish students I’m concerned for.” estine is a combatant – even the children. Bombings should be carried out in the very heart of the enemy, in Haifa, Jaffa, Tel Aviv and Hadera, as was the case in the past, because that is what hurts the Jews.” When I informed the LSESU General Secretary about the murderous anti-semitic rhetoric coming from our twin institution I was told that it was a “loose” twinning, so I guess I’ll

chill out.

I may voice my concern as a non-Jewish British citizen, but it’s the LSE’s Israeli and Jewish students I’m concerned for. The sickening truth of the current climate on campus is that were an Israeli student to fly out to Haifa this weekend to visit their parents, or a Jew to fly to Jerusalem, and they, through a twisted game of chance, were to be the victims of the next ‘Pro-Palestine’ attack on Israeli civilians, the buildings of their university could the next day be hosting events commemorating the legitimate acts of their brave murderers – and their SU wouldn’t have a thing to say about it.

This article is a response to Nadine Aly’s ‘Palestinian Resistance Is Not Terrorism’ which featured in the 27 October edition of The Beaver.

Do you agree?

Tweet @BeaverOnline or email comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

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Tuesday November 10, 2015

The Rise of a Surveillance State

The introduction of the Investigatory Powers Bill would be an unjustifiable attack on privacy

IN THE AGE OF TECHnology, invasion of privacy is dangerous. When many people use their phones, laptops, iPads and other tech gadgets everyday across the UK, we would assume that only we are able to read our messages and emails. It seems that this may be coming to an end with Theresa May introducing the Investigatory Powers Bill, or more commonly known as the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ to spy on innocent citizens.

The ‘Snooper’s Charter’ gives the intelligence services, such as GCHQ and the police the license to harvest/collect an unprecedented amount of information on British citizens for 12 months. Although Theresea May argues that GCHQ will not track the content of users’ data, but instead will be able to access the location and time/date of a communication. Slowly, GCHQ alongside the government will be able to build up a picture of any person’s life through a back door into their computer. What seems to be more frightening is, as privacy campaigners declare, that not only can the government store data in bulk but le-

gitimise the ability to turn on microphones and cameras through phones and laptops. The ‘Snooper’s Charter’ seems to be eerily reminiscent of the methods used under 20th century’s totalitarian regimes. The subtle and slow construction of an Orwellian state may be emerging, without widespread knowledge or public approval.

This controversial piece of legislation does not sit well with human rights. The right to privacy and freedom of expression is enshrined in the British constitution. The increase of state surveillance through the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ flies in the face of these key human rights. Britain has been built on the foundations of freedom as seen with the Magna Carta of 1215. This would clearly be undermined by the introduction of these surveillance measures.

Why would the government undertake such extreme mass surveillance measures? The central premise is to disrupt terrorist and criminal activities and child grooming gangs. No one can argue that this is not desired by all in society. However, sacrificing the right to privacy of everyone is clearly unjustifiable. Jim Killock, director of Open Rights Group, rightly argues that the ‘Snooper’s

Charter’ will enable the government and intelligence service to “treat us all as suspects.” The inherent paranoia and suspicion of the government for its citizens will increase substantially as any sense of opposition will permit the instant access of a citizen’s communication data.

Advocates of the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ would argue that there should be nothing to hide for from the intelligence services.

With no illegal or criminal activity, innocent citizens should not fear this legislation. Despite this personal data may not be dangerous or harmful to national security, it must not be trivialised. The tracking and storage of personal data contains fragments of peo-

ple’s lives, with communication connecting families and friends across the world. Prying on this, is akin to the police or GCHQ standing in your room every time a conversation between a friend, sibling or parent takes place. Imagine, for one moment, a police officer straining to listen outside your front door and spying on every conversation that has been held within your house. For many, this sounds uncomfortable even if they have nothing to hide. It will unconsciously make us rethink what we do or say, which will most certainly pave the way for the rise of a surveillance state – if we do not oppose May’s flagship policy.

The ‘Snooper’s Charter’ rais-

es serious questions for its lack of accountability. It is clear that there would be a slow erosion of trust between the public and government. Plato said, ‘Who will watch over the Guardians’? which is relevant in questioning who will rein in the power of the government agencies. Edward Snowden, NSA whistle-blower, attacks the Investigatory Bill as ‘the most intrusive and least accountable surveillance regime in the West’. It is difficult to disagree with Snowden as GCHQ will intercept every call, email, text in Britain.

As Theresea May pushes ahead with the Snooper’s Charter, she must be met with strong opposition.

Credit: Pixabay: Geralt

Yllka Krasniqi Undergraduate Student

The Government Should Cut Tax Credits

Critics fail to address the principles behind the Conservative Party’s welfare reforms Benjamin Thomas Postgraduate Student THE ISSUE OF CUTS TO TAX credits has dominated the discussion in recent weeks, returning political attention to the domestic sphere, kicking off constitutional debates, and taking up two straight PMQs. The opposition, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular, have framed this issue as the classically heartless Tories deliberately hurting working families.

This critique revolves around the question, asked six times on the 28th of October, of whether anyone will be worse off under the proposed legislation. This challenge is problematic because it fails to undermine the premises of the legislation. The Conservatives may shy away from boldly saying so publicly, but tax credit cuts will hurt the finances of certain families, and are in fact designed to do so.

The cuts to tax credits fit into the Conservative Party’s ideological goals to promote the independence of citizens, particularly in relation to the state. The Party’s two primary ideological wings, the Traditionalist Conserv-

atives and Free Market Liberals, see state dependence as an ill to those subjected to it. For them, the welfare trap becomes a cyclical spiral of reliance on state aid and inability to improve living conditions. The way the Party seeks to address this issue is through a transition to what it refers to in the first paragraph of the Summer Budget as a “higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare economy”. This worldview would see more people working and earning money.

They would broadly be able to meet their own needs, lessening demand for welfare and therefore demand for taxation.

This approach is the fundamental underpinning to the Government’s economic reforms.

Most of the major proposals of the Summer Budget are designed to increase the economic wellbeing of employed households. Transitioning from the National Minimum Wage to what is dubbed the ‘National Living Wage’ is meant to increase the earnings of those at the bottom of the employment ladder and increase the appeal of employment to those unemployed by choice. Tax cuts and adjustments are designed to increase the amount of take home pay.

Increased support for childcare will help new parents participate in the workforce. Spending on vocational training and apprenticeships should help the young find work for the first time. Right to Buy is designed to help housing association tenants possess tangible assets — their homes — and lessen their dependency on variable rents. Working people under this system make more money, and thus are better able to meet their pressing needs, and pursue personal goals.

All these programmes are designed to help working families, but the policies struggle to address households that are persistently out of work. The tax credit cut is meant to act similarly to the rise in wages, increasing the appeal of jobs through greater take home pay. Tax credits are perceived as disincentives to work. They redistribute from working families that need their income towards households that can maintain a similar standard of living without participating in the job market.

This, the Conservatives claim, is normatively unfair. With growing numbers of jobs, unemployed Britons should be participating in the market, and contribut-

ing to the shared system, rather than primarily drawing from it.

As such, tax credit cuts may well cause problems for unemployed or underemployed households, but should act as an incentive to pursue more gainful employment.

Some groups may be worse off, but those groups are not participating in the societal project of the current Government.

“The tax credit cut is meant to act similarly to the rise in wages, increasing the appeal of jobs through greater take home pay.”

Of course the tax credit cut proposals have problems, particularly with regard to the timing and phasing in of the various aspects of the One Nation economy. A valid debate can and should be held over the implementation of this approach, or the ideology’s

ability to improve outcomes.

What is problematic however, is critique of the plans without appreciation for their context. It would be misguided to criticise Jeremy Corbyn’s economic plans simply because they raise taxes on the wealthy; Corbyn’s plan knowingly increases taxes on the wealthy in order to fund projects for poorer people as well as to create a ‘more just’ taxation system. A more cogent critique may note that increased income and corporate taxes could drive away business and its tax revenue, and leave the Government less able to help the poor. Likewise, criticising Cameron’s plans for not guaranteeing that all will be better off in the short term ignores the reasons why the Government would make this trade-off.

The Conservative Party set out a compelling vision for the future during the General Election campaign and was supported by the people through a majority in the Commons. Challenging the Government’s policies must take place within the framework of this vision, or clearly demonstrate why the Conservatives and the broader British public were wrong.

Comment | 11

The Arrogance of Economics

Economics cannot remain a field that almost entirely isolates itself from criticism Regont Pula Postgraduate Student THE FIRST THING YOU ARE bound to do when signing in on the LSE computers, after having spent a while staring blankly at that reluctantly welcome ‘Welcome’ sign, is to check your e-mail.

This is a grossly underrated exercise that acts as the final, painstaking gap between indolence and industriousness. Every email meets the criteria of ‘hmm, interesting.’

On one British autumn afternoon, I happened to be facing precisely this scenario. “LSE is delighted to announce,” was followed by, “Thanks for your order,” and then, “The Behavioural Economics Society,” and then, “Student News”… Wait a minute. Go back a little.

“What is behavioural economics?” the email began. “Broadly speaking, behavioural economics is a field dedicated to understanding the boundaries of human rationality and the forces that influence our decision processes.”

I remembered studying foreign policy analysis last year. Didn’t sound too dissimilar. It is a field with a relatively rich but short academic history, and that, with respect to the analysis of rationality, relates significantly to psychology.

“Behavioural economics can’t

be too far off,” I thought. If it didn’t arise before foreign policy analysis, it must have been influenced by it and by other disciplines that have also adopted the cognitive approach, or the discipline which developed it (psychology).

Academic spill-over and all that.

Google was there, as always, to part the sea of information and lead me to my intellectual destiny.

One of the first articles I encountered, and subsequently clicked on, was titled: ‘Behavioural economists discuss their emerging field’ (Cornell Chronicle). It must be a dated article. I’m sure this sub-field of economics has been around for many years! However, as I looked closely, I began to rub my eyes.

2015. A mistake, surely?

Let’s go again. Come on Google, don’t let me down now! Click, next, click, next, click, next… Ah, there it is! This particular article was titled ‘The End of Rational Economics’, published in the ever reliable Harvard Business Review. ‘Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, confessed to Congress that he was ‘shocked’ that the markets did not operate according to his lifelong expectations. He had made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders.’

Bewildered, I continued to read.

‘The emerging field of behavioural economics offers a radically different view of how people and organisations operate… drawing on aspects of both psychology and economics, the operating assumption of behavioural economics is that cognitive biases often prevent people from making rational decisions, despite their best efforts,’ the article reiterated.

I began to repeatedly murmur “interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary,” though not consciously so. My library desk neighbour patted me on the back in a reassuring manner and said, “Don’t worry mate, it’ll all be over soon.” But I had completed the LSE100 course a year and a half ago.

“What kind of social science is this?” I thought. Not only does economics appear decades behind foreign policy analysis and psychology (amongst other disciplines), but also seemingly finds itself in an academic quarantine where only significant pressures encourage it to come out and say hello. Even then, when economics has withdrawn from its isolation, it has done so full of cautious bravado, and apparently made some ‘radical discoveries,’ completely overlooking the fact that they are, at best, only new applications of relatively old theories.

The obsession with mathematics is partially to blame for the overall lag. The insistency of mathematics to simplify has had a dehumanising impact on economics and encouraged it to constantly justify reducing humankind’s decision-making processes to mere figures on a board. Some of this infatuation may relate to an unfortunately popular social belief that the fewer numbers, the more ‘Mickey Mousey’ your degree is.

This kind of thinking may have also have led to an intolerance for the non-rational and complex cognitive approaches, as being so out of touch with the traditional addiction to simplification.

Prediction also adds to economics’ apparent superiority, as well as its special status amongst governments. Other social sciences merely analyse what has already happened. Why look to history to prepare yourself for the future?

The likelihood of immediate repetition is extremely low. Why not just predict the future, and prepare the world on that basis? Or so the argument goes.

But no matter the economists’ other prediction feats, the failure to predict the global financial crisis, which brought bankruptcy, austerity, and recession, is a big blotch on their record. To take a meteorological analogy, it is comparable to predicting a couple of

rainy days, but completely missing out on a hurricane. Michael Fish, anyone?

There needs to be a revolution in economics. It cannot remain the field that almost entirely isolates itself from criticism. If it wishes to maintain its special status, economics needs to begin accounting for bounded rationality, groupthink, peer pressure and socialisation, amongst many other concepts. History must not be ignored either. A growing understanding of such ideas may even reinforce its academic amour-propre, and allow economics to channel it more towards the ‘social’ aspect of ‘social science’. To ensure this, economics cannot be a subfield of mathematics. But social scientists cannot think like mathematicians, cannot consistently choose problem sets over essays, and cannot be afraid of complexity.

The world needs economics, maybe more so than any other social science. But that does not mean economics must reject the aid of its counterparts. As Uncle Ben once said in Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Economics is an extremely powerful social science. But it must take its own advice, and open up and liberalise. The new Behavioural Economics Society is a step towards this academic revolution, and I, for one, welcome it.

The Arts Can Flourish In a Socialist State

A response article to Will Locke’s ‘Socialism and Creativity Are Incompatible’ Ina Selimic Undergraduate Student IT HAS ALWAYS IRRITATED me that people conflate socialism with authoritarianism. The two are not mutually exclusive. To me, authoritarianism is the stripping away of individuality and freedom. It is complete subordination to a standardised and tyrannical regime at the expense of expression. Freedom of expression always manifests itself through art; novels, poems, theatre, paintings, sculptures, cinema, journalism. Art is merely a form of expressing your internal monologue and making it known to the world with the aim of inciting some sort of emotion within those that come into contact with it.

When someone says that socialism and individuality do not mix, I can only assume they are extrapolating this viewpoint from the limited examples we have had of ‘socialist’ states. Personally, I do not consider the USSR as a truly socialist state (to me, socialism entails an efficient redistribution of wealth by democratic means - that may be the State, but it can also be the citizens, or any other form of

democratic group, but I’m not going to go off on a tangent explaining the basics of socialism). However, even if we take the USSR as a ‘socialist’ state, it’s completely clear that artistry was not suppressed.

It was actively encouraged. It was needed in order to legitimise a regime that wanted complete subservience. Stalin built up an entire ‘cult of personality’ in order to make himself seem more god-like.

Yet theatre and ballet flourished under Soviet rule. Some of the greatest works of literature were written during this period. I think there is also a case for arguing that scientific discovery is an art form as well and definitely so when you look at the creative thinking that is needed in order to advance science (and we all know how much effort the Soviet Union put into acquiring the best scientific minds of the twentieth century during World War Two and the Cold War).

Therefore it is evident that even under a supposedly ‘socialist’ regime, art as a phenomenon was actively pursued. True enough, most of these art forms were heavily censored, and there may be a lack of individuality within the art, but the ‘no individuality’ facet is an authoritarian requirement, not a

socialist one. If anything, capitalism fosters a homogenised culture more so as an economic regime.

Again, because the regime requires it. Run entirely for profit, the only way to make a profit is to appeal to the lowest common denominator of people’s preferences. Pop culture, pop music… everything is ‘popular’ and easy to digest; who knows what would happen if we actually took a second to think, to question, to feel! Indie films are usually the most original and enticing, solely due to the fact that there is no boardroom full of investors having to agree on a single, diluted version of a script. It gives the creator a chance to actually experiment and create, rather than cash in.

Creative growth is a form of emotional maturation and is valuable beyond futile economic growth.

Punk music of the 1960s and 70s was raw. The Sex Pistols’ ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ is one of the most well known albums of all time. Thankfully, the band only lasted two and half years, who knows what kind of standardised shit they would have come up with had they signed to a much larger label and just churned out subdued ‘pop punk’ (now there’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one) just for the

sake of making profit. Still, where capitalists see an opportunity they capitalise, making that once angry and powerful album of incitement a ‘popular’ phenomenon. Capitalism has to acquire these fringe cultures and engulf them for itself in order to legitimise the fringe too.

At the risk of sounding like a pretentious ‘hipster’, I have to say that the acquisition of punk culture into the mainstream succeeded in quietening the revolutionary fervour of the 60s and 70s.

To say that a music industry controlled by the State would be massively underfunded has no relevance. There’s a reason we keep our actual favourite books, songs, films etc. to ourselves - because the best forms of art are not discoverable by everyone! The small group that loves it truly loves it. Yes, some may loathe it, but that is as it should be. Equality under a socialist society would ensure that every individual has an opportunity, that they have the freedom to create. In a socialist society, there would be ease of access to the resources that are required to create the art you want to. It wouldn’t be dependent on knowing the right people for example, or having enough money to book time in a studio.

Obviously there are some great modern artists - Martin Scorsese, Michael Jackson, JK Rowling just off the top of my head - that are loved, revered, and truly deserving of a wide scale audience. However in our capitalist dominated world, where wealth is concentrated in small pools of the elite, it is much more difficult for that funding to be given to the truly ‘cool’ ideas that the working class (usually) initiates.

Under a socialist (not authoritarian) system, where wealth is distributed much, much more fairly, individuality could be given a true chance to flourish. It wouldn’t be done for profit, it would simply be done just ‘because’. To me, that is the best form of art and individuality. The kind where you make something not because you want everyone to like it so that they then pay for it, but because you want them to feel something much deeper than uncritical acceptance.

Enough already of the right-wing economic and ideological scaremongering that says socialism turns people into robots; it doesn’t.

It just wants a fairer society, no more, no less. It is capitalism that is crushing our spirits, the very spirit that real art depends on.

12| Tuesday November 10, 2015

Michaelmas Term Election Results

Postgraduate Resreach Students’ Officer Tayfun Terzi

The Union

NUS Delegate Mahmoudat Sanni-oba

Court of Governors Amaima Fatima

NUS Delegate Rayhad Uddin

Postgraduate Students’ Officer Mahmoud El Ghannam

General Course President Boryana Uzunova

Postgraduate Students’ Officer Kaleem Kham

Court of Governors Harry Maxwell

Mature and Part-time Students’ Officer Boian Niki

Academic Board Harry Maxwell

Academic Board Tooba Mushtaq

Postgraduate Students’ Officer Samiha Begum

Court of Governors Hateema Zia

Court of Governors James Wurr

Court of Governors Zo Ahmed

This week The Beaver spoke to two of the winning candidates from the Michaelmas Term Elections to learn abour their aspirations for the year ahead and their take on the election experience.

Mahmoud El Ghannam Postgraduate Students’ Officer

If you could make one change to LSE in your time as a PTO what would it be?

Create a more transparent application process for postgraduate funding and move away from algorithm allocation which alienates many students who deserve financial support What part of you position are you most looking forward to?

The opportunity to make a difference in an institution that

I feel very attached to. In this position I have the opportunity to tackle salient shortcomings by the school towards postgraduates.

Issues such as low postgrad involvement in the student and athletics union have been there for a long time and it is time to solve them. The aforementioned postgrad funding process means many students cannot achieve their goals. This is not only unfair but can, in the long run, come at a huge expense towards society as a whole since the economy has to sacrifice human capital due to a lack of financial power.

What was the best part of your election experience (other than winning)?

Learning new skills and finding out more about myself. I was always okay with public speaking but the campaign made me feel comfortable and I even started to enjoy it. I never thought I had it in me to shoot a ridiculous campaign video which would circulate around Facebook and reach 7k views. All in all, I found a lot about myself throughout the last few weeks.

Tayfun Terzi Postgraduate Research Students’ Officer

What course are you studying?

I’m a third year PhD student studying Statistics If you could make one change to LSE in your time as a PTO what would it be?

A lot of PhD students seem to think they have to wander an isolated tunnel. Our motivation to mingle with fellow students or even our own cohort is much smaller than our counterparts in taught studies. This is very unfortunate as

we all will eventually come across similar problems in PhD life. Each of us experiences lack of guidance, loss of self-confidence, feelings of helplessness, individual episodes of stress, or even loneliness from time to time. The problem is that we no longer share these experience naturally (e.g., exam period whilst our master studies). Hence, we incorrectly assume that we have to deal with them alone and that our problem is of individual sort.

With a series of exciting events, I would like to change how PhD students network. Away from merely departmental affiliation, to the formation of common interest groups and inter-disciplinary academic support groups.

What part of you position are you most looking forward to?

Fighting for those who feel their voice is not heard.

What was the best part of your election experience (other than winning)?

Hearing that some people actually cared about who is going to be their new representative.

The Union | 13

Week 7 Rag round up

RAG Raise Record Breaking Amount Sarah Thomas and Niall Healy RAG on Tour Leader and RAG Secretary

THE EARLY START AT 5:30AM on a Friday morning is no-one’s idea of fun, but for the 7am shift at Charing Cross tube station, these early starts are necessary.

Stood holding buckets, with sparkly pink cowboy hats and tutus, and t-shirts on – we were ready.

Georgie and I were given money by a young woman outside Embankment station, who thanked us and told us about her breast cancer survival. It’s moments like those that make you realise that spending two

hours of your day stood outside a tube station really does make an impact on people’s lives.

And if conventional, polite methods of bucket collecting are failing you, then you can try the “Angels” approach. Rav and Izzy certainly had a vibrant way to get passer-bys to donate, by shouting, singing, dancing and creating a general ruckus outside Charing Cross station. “Good morning Charing Cross” was a definite crowd pleaser, as well as Izzy’s solo performance of Nicki Minaj’s “Feeling Myself ” certainly turned heads. These alternative methods certainly caught the attention of SnapChat, as fifty thousand Londoners watched them on the London story – a definite claim

to fame, which they did not stop talking about all day.

It would be easy to paint the experience as completely positive, glossing over the world’s grumpiest man at the station office, the ridiculous hats and t-shirts and the 6am starts for those on the early shift. Yet there is a reason that most of those present at the previous bucket collection at Stratford returned to give up 2 more hours of their free time.

Firstly, the money raised will go a long way to supporting research into ending breast cancer and all it took was a few people to stand in a train station for a couple of hours. Secondly, the experience is genuinely enjoyable, most people are incredibly generous

and kind throughout the day and it’s a good escape from worrying about missed lectures and impending essay deadlines. Two very successful bucket collections bodes well for when RAG goes on tour in 2016 and I’m sure if you speak to anyone involved they would thoroughly recommend giving up some of your free time to do something for the good of society.

From two bucket collections, RAG, with the help of student volunteers, has managed to raise over £4000 for charity. The collection on Friday made a total of £2,158.96, which has beaten all records of LSE’s previous bucket collections, an amazing result! And more good news came

this week, after Haven House found a bucket they had not counted from RAG’s Give it A Go Session gave us our new grand total of £2,035.73, which broke Haven House’s previous records at Stratford! Two records broken in a month, we hope to continue as we have begun as we continue to hold bucket collections throughout the year.

If you would like to get involved in our next bucket collection, it is being held on November 18th (World Toilet Day) and we will be collecting for WaterAid – an international charity that improves access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation. Look out for the Facebook event and sign up!

RAG Stories: Morocco Trek Amsterdam Marathon

This is the first in our series of RAG stories where we get people An info session is being held on 17th who have previously been involved in RAG to tell you about November for anyone interested their experiences in hope that it will inspire you to also get EXPLORE ONE OF THE world’s the race in the spectacular Olympic fun loving and vibrant cities stadium, the city fills with post involved! This week is written by Ritush our new Amsterdam most like never before by taking part in marathon party goers and is not a Marathon team leader and previous Morocco Trek participant. Europe’s original party marathon! night to be missed. Other than the MOROCCO WOWED US from the moment we landed, showing us its vast range of sceneries and culture. Within two hours we had driven through the modern wellplanned New City of Marrakech, the hustling and bustling Old City, the barren landscape on the outskirts of Marrakech, and the mountains of the North Atlas.

During the trek we got to walk through landscape that till date we had only seen as computer screen backgrounds, with the highlight being stopping for lunch on an ancient dry river bed surrounded by mountains.

Every long day of trekking was followed by a chill evening either in the most amazing of campsites, or in cosy travellers hostels in sleepy hillside towns.

Usually after spending an hour or so stargazing at night, we were off to bed early to prepare ourselves for the next day. On the penultimate day of the trek we were up super early so as to get to base camp in the afternoon. Base camp was a surreal experience, talking to other climbers and watching the stars with the Toubkal overlooking us made for an amazing evening. The actual

summit approach was easily our most efficient walk, with the adrenaline and motivation outweighing any tiredness or soreness. Once on the summit there were hugs and celebrations all around, and even a few tears!

Climbing Mt. Toubkal with LSESU RAG was easily my biggest achievement till date, I strongly suggest you think twice before turning this opportunity down.

Sign-ups for out Morocco Trek are now open through the RAG Facebook page or at http://www. chooseachallenge.com/trek-morocco/

The TCS Amsterdam Marathon is not only one of the fastest circuits in the world but also one of the most exciting, allowing you to take in some of Amsterdam’s must see sights whilst running past a selection of top DJs and performers.

The Marathon brings Europe’s wildest city alive and after finishing

canal-side cafes and coffee shops surrounding the UNESCO World Heritage canal ring area, there are attractions such as the Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum and the “Venus Temple of Amsterdam” to fill the remainder of your weekend with. It is guaranteed to be a weekend you will never forget!

What are you waiting for?

Pictures from left to right: Rav and Izzy outside Charring Cross Station at the Breast Cancer now Bucket Collection, Ritush, RAG’s Amsterdam Marathon team leader on the Morocco Trek, James Wurr and David Zhao in Charring Cross for the Breast Cancer Now Bucket Collection

Photo

14 | Tuesday November 10, 2015

Photo |15

Clockwise from above: AU Exec Members Julia Ryland (above) and Elin Harding (top right) enjoying a Halloween themed AU night, Mahmoud El Ghannam, newly elected Postgraduate Students’ Officer at the Michaelmas Term election results, LSESU Islamic Society celebarting an end to their 2015 Charity week, LSE Students preparing to march for Free Education on 4th November, LSESU IFemSoc Banner in solidarity with Bahar Mustafa

16 | Tuesday 10 November, 2015

THEATRE THE MUSICAL - WHEN AUBURN ARRIVES 14

LSESU ENACTUS X AUBURN Emma Yuen THE FIRST ORIGINAL LSE MUSICAL, AUBURN, IS set to fall on campus during Lent term. In a narrative wedded to its real life setting, Rose, a BME LSE student with a stutter is forced to study Mathematics due to external pressures and a lack of confidence in her qualitative abilities.

As a repressed musician, Rose posses the natural ability to communicate with others by singing. Her voice, lost over years to others defining her as ‘stutter-girl’ left her to struggle with self-representation and the shape of her own identity. It is only through her growing intimacy with another student that she is emboldened to pursue her real interests.

As Rose finds her identity through her own voice, the freedom to forgo one thing for another of equal but unsubstituted value means her choice is mired in difficulty beyond her former restrictions.

The mixture of light-hearted, sincere and sarcastic personalities with the intonations of a voice struggling to connect competing interests offers a selection of characters in which to identify with. While Rose makes a decision at the end, the relationship between decision-making and choice becomes less clear when the latter’s scope sets boundaries for a decision-making framework, which is itself a mechanism promoting or limiting further choice.

The musical is composed by two undergraduate students, Alex Leung and Laine Caruzca. Comprising of 18 original tracks, the impending production was inspired by the students’ instinct for music and background in acting to support a message they hoped to convey to students. Ex LGBT officer, Alex, who has met and worked with many students in his previous role describes the project as ‘raising awareness of the successes of minority and liberation groups through describing the story of a BME student with a disability at university’ in a way ‘that speaks to others meaningfully, through art and its capacity to convey the value of ideas and to entertain’. In working with the LSESU Enactus Society, the production also hopes to support social projects carried out by students. The society’s president, Kim Wang, hopes that ‘as one of our commercial projects, all proceeds from the musical will go on to help Enactus LSE empower the disadvantaged groups in our community’ and ‘a variety of beneficiaries from the homeless on the streets of London to a marginalised tribe in rural India’.

For interested singers and dancers, auditions take place next week on Tuesday 10th November at the 6th floor studio of Saw Swee Hock Centre. A further public showcase will be held in early December to gain feedback on the elements that make up the production. ‘I think what I’m most excited about is the prospect of this whole thing coming together. It started off as just an idea between two friends and this manifesting into something tangible and real is something that is really exciting to me!’ and we share Laine’s excitement as the ideas begin to come fruition.

For more information regarding the process and schedule, visit the Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/auburnthemusical

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PartB

Kemi Akinboyewa Vikki Hui Flo Edwards

editorial team fashion

film

Jamie Lloyd Maria Maleeva

Sarah Ku

music Rob Funnell Will Locke

food & lifestyle

literature

Alexander Lye Camila Arias Caroline SchurmanBuritica Grenier technology theatre visual arts

Edward Tan

Vacant

Hanna Lee Yo-en Chin

FILM Radhika Handa “IT WILL HAVE BLOOD, THEY SAY. BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD.” (Macbeth, Act III, scene iv) If you are like me, unable to resist the temptation of any-

SPECTRE Griff Ferris

BEGINNING WITH ONE OF the more memorable opening sequences (up there with Pierce Brosnan’s Thames pursuit in The World is Not Enough and the building site parkour chase in Casino Royale), through Mexico’s eerie Day of the Dead celebrations, Spectre is captivating throughout.

The action is tense, while the dialogue is also at times teasing and humorous; the retro is creatively remixed yet it remains original, and the film contemplates a number of contemporary themes.

There is a significant amount of retrospective continuity, connections between director Sam Mendes’s latest Bond contribution and the rest of the recent tetralogy, drawing together the varying elements of the four films. The broken shards in the opening credit sequence detail shadowy figures from Bond’s Daniel Craig-associated past, and while Sam Smith’s slightly-

17

REVIEW

MACBETH (2015)

thing Shakespeare related (or Michael Fassbender related for that matter), or if the thought of having to navigate through seemingly cryptic English sends shivers down your spine – fear not. Australian director Justin Kurzel’s adaptation of the

timeless tragedy “Macbeth” is “bloody, bold, and resolute”.

From synergistically compelling performances between Michael Fassbender (Macbeth) and Marion Cotillard (Lady Macbeth) to the ingenious uses of lighting and sound from scene to scene, “Macbeth” will leave your heart racing.

The movie begins courageously with darkness and silence gradually opening into the cold grayness and paleness of the beginning scene. Kurzel promptly addresses the ageold question of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s “fruitlessness” with the funeral of their young child. This is not the last that we see of the burial scenes and apparitions of the dead, as they serve thematically as a reminder of what has triggered the Macbeths’ descent into their darkest desires colluding in treasonous acts in their pursuit for the throne of Scotland.

Though we see that Macbeth, and eventually Lady Macbeth, are unable to come to terms with the evil they have committed, it is evident that their hunger for power is driven by something more fragile.

Although Shakespearian purists may not be immediately appreciative of this novel take on the Scottish tragedy, the efforts made by Kurzel and screenwriters Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff, and Michael Lesslie are valiant and well-thought out. Some may be surprised to find memorable

scenes such as the witches incantations of “double, double, toil and trouble” eliminated from the film (the witches themselves are no longer witches, but illusions – perhaps even hallucinations – of Macbeth’s). Others may be surprised too by the reworking of scenes such as both Lady Macbeth’s sleep walking scene and the arrival of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill. However, these changes help focus in on the intricacies of the lead characters and the creativity of the director and screenwriters. The reinterpretations of certain scenes also allows for much rawer and more cutting delivery of lines, a testament to the prowess and talent of both Fassbender and Cotillard. Both are able to capture the mood and many subtleties of their respective characters that are beyond what Shakespeare’s lines superficially provide.

Still, if Shakespearean language doesn’t suit your fancy, it is likely that you will leave feeling completely immersed within the atmosphere of the film through the captivating cinematography – mainly shot in the Highlands of Scotland, staying true to the play’s roots – as well as the dissonantly eerie tonality of the music in the background. Battle scenes are drawn out and, without disappointment, drenched with gusto and gore – reminiscent of films and shows like “Game of Thrones”. Each stab is matched with the deep reverberating echo of a drum and you can feel the intensity of each hit. The orchestra-

tion by Jed Kurzel (the director’s brother) seamlessly enhances the tension of certain scenes through the use of sharpened harmonics and contrasting dynamics – it is often hard not to feel the same gut-wrenching pain and guilt that the characters experience.

The film also makes very deliberate uses of lighting to further embellish each scene. While some may find the contrasts in dark/ light and use of reddish filtering unnecessary, it is hard not to notice how the coloring (or lack of) affects the overall mood of a scene. For example, every time we see Macbeth contemplating something monstrous we get glimmers of firelight in reds and oranges filtering throughout a monologue and contrasting through a mostly darkened environment, foreshadowing the bloody nature of what is to come. It is not so much a matter of adding color as it is adding depth and dimension to an overall scene, again submerging you into the atmosphere of the film.

All in all, whether you are a Shakespeare fan or not, “Macbeth” is what anyone could hope for in a movie adaptation of a Shakespearean play. Filled with vigor and powerful performances from the entire cast, it is well worth the 113 minute running time and a definite must see.

Though not completely true to the original script, this is a movie which will be most appreciated by those familiar with and eager to see a reinterpreted yet unyielding and thrilling take on the dark classic.

too-high-pitched theme song doesn’t entirely convince that the Writing is On the Wall, Christoph Waltz’s reawakened Blofeld insists he has been the unseen spectral figure behind all of the villains of the past three films and the purveyor of all Bond’s woes. Blofeld proclaims that he has ensured the death of every woman Craig’s Bond has come into contact with, from the lesser-known lovers to M herself, in revenge for a perceived childhood slight. There are further parallels between Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann and Vesper Lynd, not least a train-carriage meeting between Swann and Bond echoing that of Casino Royale.

Mendes also makes a number of tributes to rest of the Bond catalogue. From the train carriage brawl with a brawny Spectre henchman which evokes a very similar altercation with another oversized criminal stooge in From Russia With Love, to the final pursuit

of Blofeld down the Thames which echoes Brosnan’s 1999 chase, Spectre is full of throwbacks to previous Bond eras.

And yet there is no sense of cliché, as each of these classic Bond scenes are recreated in an innovative and original way, and no sense of predictability pervades the exhilarating action scenes.

Nevertheless there still remains the misogyny inherent in all Bond films, as several female characters - a nameless Mexican girl in the opening sequences, Monica Bellucci’s grieving widow - are portrayed as objects to sate Bonds carnal needs. However, Seydoux’s Swann is a more than equal match to Bonds chauvinism, not just highly intelligent but determined and headstrong, and with corresponding combat skills. Although she too doesn’t take long to suddenly become enraptured with Bond, declaring her love for him after about five minutes, she has both the nous and resolution to

leave him, avoiding the curse that has affected every other of Craig’s Bond liaisons (although admittedly they are shown walking off hand-in-hand in the penultimate scene).

There was an interesting focus on the theme of surveillance, with the key plan of the organized crime and terrorist association of the title to infiltrate an upcoming surveillance information partnership between nine of the world’s biggest intelligence agencies.

This denotes the contemporaneous nature of the film, that the greatest threat perceived to humanity in 2015 is unlike those of past Bond films; threats of nuclear missiles, rogue satellite-lasers, or chemical weapons. Here information is the latest supreme form of power, and the greatest threat is of global totalitarian observation; no doubt a nod to the Snowden surveillance leaks, Ralph Fiennes’s M pronouncing it ‘George Orwell’s worst nightmare’.

It looks likely that this will be Craig’s last outing - he has said he will slit his wrists before he does another Bond movie in what has become by far the most successful of all the Bond franchises, and one of the most successful of all time. But perhaps one of the few criticisms is that there might have been further character development of Blofeld (and also his ‘visionary’ protégé ‘C’), a task for which Waltz would have been more than worthy going by his malevolently layered portrayal of Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Therefore perhaps in the interests of a full exploration of the background and motives of the two villains, a fifth film might have rounded of the franchise reboot, with Craig being dragged back kicking and screaming. However these are merely hypothetical fan-musings (moreover it is likely that we have not seen the last of Waltz’s Blofeld), which should not and do not detract from another superlative James

18 | Tuesday 10 November, 2015

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

DANCE MUSIC AND THE LSESU ALBUM SOCIETY

A FAILED EXPERIMENT Will Locke MY CONTRIBUTION this week is a perfect blend of musical critique, shameless advertising, and meaningless ranting. I am the esteemed and definitely-democratically-elected Treasurer of the LSESU Album Society, a role I assumed in order to flesh out my rather sparse CV and which may possibly be the only job I’ll be able to land in the near future. The purpose of the Album Society is to congregate once a week in a dark corner of Clement House, drink cheap tinnies, and offer vacuous opinions about an album which only around half of us have actually listened to. Each week the album is chosen by a member of the society, and last week was my go.

I chose LFO’s debut album Frequencies. You could say that my niche is dance music, and Frequencies is a classic of the genre. Drawing on the acid explosion in northern England around 1990, whilst also incorporating elements of classic Detroit techno and hip-hop break beats, Frequencies is an album that went on to define the bleep and warehouse

sounds of the UK. It has also heavily influenced IDM and popular electronic music in general. It’s a diverse, crunchy, and accomplished album, with certified bangers including ‘LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix)’ and ‘We Are Back’, and slower album cuts such as ‘Nurture’ and ‘Tan Ta Ra’, which give the album breadth and variety. As you might be able to ascertain, I’m a huge fan of the album, and I awarded it a 10 out of 10 when we debated it during Album Society. However, other members were far less favourable…

It turns out that dance music is like smoking – at first, no one likes it, but through a battle of attrition fuelled by sustained peer pressure and messy club nights, you end up addicted. Nowadays, around 90% of the songs I enjoy have no vocals, have doubled in length, and by and large have been created by nerds on laptops. My addiction to dance music has spiralled out of control to such an extent that I’ve forgotten life without it, when I was an innocent 16-year-old listening to sub-par indie pop, dressing in oversized granddad jumpers bought from Dorothy House,

and sporting a questionable fringe.

If 16-year-old me had been played this album, a lot of the criticisms would’ve been very similar to the ones made during the meeting.

Choice quotations include: ‘I was waiting for vocals’, ‘I liked it in parts but the songs were too long’, and ‘it was all samey, it may as well have been 10 minutes long’. I don’t mean to compare my fellow Album Society members to 16-year-old Will (for that would be one of the most scathing insults I could inflict), but it reminded me that dance music, and especially the brand that I enjoy most, is often very inaccessible. This is especially true for those who have never experienced the atmosphere of being in ‘The Moat’ at Dimensions Festival, bobbing to techno on a world-class sound system at five in the morning. As ratings of five and six flooded in for Frequencies, I tried to remind myself that they were just ignorant. As my bottom lip quivered, a single tear ran down my cheek, and I rode solemnly into the middle distance on my metaphorical cultural high horse.

In summary, make sure you listen to Frequencies, and remember that if you dislike it, you’re wrong. If you disagree (it seems statistically likely that you will), make sure to pop along to the next Album Society meeting. Look

up the LSESU Album Society group on Facebook, and meet us on Thursday evenings at 6pm in the Clement House lobby. New faces are always welcomed and I look forward to your ad hominem attacks on my music taste.

BRYAN ADAMS REVIEW

GET UP T Sheriff

MY DAD, LIKE MOST DADS BEFORE HIM, and many more after him, is embarrassing. He says the wrong things in front of my friends, he wears lycra, he dances like Cliff Richard (if Cliff Richard were his own reanimated corpse)...

I could go on. This may sound harsh, but trust me: Nothing would please him more than reading this about him - he is never more gleeful than when he makes me roll my eyes and burn up in shame.

Bryan Adams is the embarrassing dad of rock music. His latest album, Get Up, shows Adams not really caring about any changes in pop or rock music since 1984; he’s still bellowing out the same area-sized refrains about women, melodramatic tales, and guitars.

It’s ridiculously dated, and not in a retro, hipster way - imagine your dad saying the word ‘groovy’, and you’re imagining the tone of most of the album.

That being said, Get Up does open with the remarkably energetic stomp of “You Belong To

Me”, a fun rockabilly romp that has Adams sounding actually quite light on his feet. Yes, the lyrics are a bland, worn-out retread of his whole back catalogue (“I’d go anywhere for you, blah blah love you blah blah”). However, the song succeeds, albeit modestly, on its backbeat, its hook, and its energy. On the next song, the mood is set for the following twelve. “Go Down Rockin’” is the album’s mission statement: “If I’m gonna go down, I’m gonna go down rockin’”, Adams chants, over and over... and over... It sounds laughably cheesy (imagine your dad has started singing at your 17th birthday party) and the whole delivery of the song feels limp and tired. This is no “Summer of ‘69”.

The rest of the album goes by easily, quickly, and forgettably.

There are no real highlights after track one; the closest we get is “Yesterday Was Just a Dream”, which begins to hint at the big, open feel of great stadium rock. There’s some variation between songs, but even this feels a little half-hearted: “Thunderbolt” aims for punkish speed and simplicity, but isn’t actu-

ally that fast or energetic. Adams isn’t that old (he’s no spring chicken at 55, but hey, Slayer are all over 50 and they can still thrash), but he sounds old and tired, and the album fails as he gives very little genuine propulsion to his weak songwriting.

To explicitly highlight this, he finishes the album with four acoustic versions of songs we’ve already listened to. I can think of nothing but sheer laziness which would prompt this decision. He either thought his record wasn’t long enough but couldn’t be bothered writing any more songs, or he couldn’t decide which versions were better so just slapped them all on with a shrug. Either way, the acoustic versions are dreadful. As previously mentioned, the songs are weak, but this time they’re made even worse by accompaniment solely from Adam’s ham-fisted guitar playing. He shows none of the dexterity of Dylan, Springsteen et. al, instead he strums mindlessly, with about as much nuance as a Tyrannosaur’s back legs. Imagine you’re coming to the end of your 17th birthday party, and your

dad (a bit drunk by now) has pulled out his old acoustic guitar to play for your friends. Tragic, right?

Such an image lingers after the album finishes. If nothing else, Get Up is the ultimate embarrassing dad record. It might be fun for

him to play, and it’s hard to dislike Adams himself, but listening to it is still eye-rollingly, grimace-inducingly cringeworthy.

p a r t 19

ART

B

GIACOMETTI

PURE PRESENCE AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY Noah D’Aeth

Credit: The Guardian: Photograph: Alberto Giacometti Estate/Nation/PA

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI ONCE SAID that to paint a portrait is impossible. The decision by the National Portrait Gallery to hold an exhibition of Giacometti’s portraiture thus seems a strange one. What he is known for is his gaunt sculptures which stride over much of twentieth century art. ‘Women of Venice VIII’ at the centre of this show is one such example. This mottled bronze figure looms out of abstraction. Its expression of a head almost vanishes into

space. This is certainly not portraiture in the traditional sense. Instead, bor n out of the despair of post-war Europe, it is a depiction of what humanity had become; it is anonymous, frightened and desperately lonely. At its core, this piece conveys the artist’s struggle to truly represent the human for m. By exploring Giacometti’s portraiture, this important aspect of the artist’s work is cast into a shar per relief.

The exhibition starts simply enough with the artist’s early pieces.

Bor n in 1901 in the steep beauty of a Swiss valley, Giacometti’s initial work closely follow the techniques of his artist father, the minor post-impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti.

Each piece is a bright collection of colours, interacting playfully to for m a brilliantly simple for m. Giacometti was not completely beholden to this style though. It is perhaps telling that one of his last works in the postimpressionist manner is his ‘Small self-portrait’ from 1921. Giacometti has depicted himself in bold blotches of colour, with each fir m brushstroke clinging to his features. His for m is pregnant with anticipation however, as we see the young artist looking back over his shoulder, as if to put his father’s methods behind him.

The quest to copy reality would still remain at the centre of Giacom-

etti’s work however. Leaving behind his Swiss home and moving into his cramped and dusty Parisian studio, Giacometti began anew his struggle with the human for m. What came about was a style that emphasised perception above pure physical facts.

The oils and drawings on display reflect quick and busy brushstrokes, each one adding up to a series of criss-crossing lines which inter-mesh to give the impression of a figure and a face. It is not so much about what the artist sees as how he sees it. Thus in his ‘Portrait of an artist’s brother Diego’ Giacometti gives us an intimate portrayal of his younger sibling, not through an exact realism, but more through the depiction of his brother’s presence.

This technique does have a potentially homogenising effect on Giacometti’s art, as each figure becomes more of an impression than an individual. But this is not the case, as throughout this show you constantly seem to meet familiar faces, whether it is his ever-present brother Diego or his faithful wife Annette, each one has a distinct personality.

Nowhere is this more appreciable than in the Giacometti’s sculptures. In his many busts of Annette it is always possible to observe her particular features rising up out of a rippling bronze body. To achieve

this effect Giacometti would try to pare down his works as much as possible, sometimes chiseling away until nothing was left. He was searching for the essence of the individual in his material. These pieces therefore highlight both the individuality of the sitter and also a broader sense of humanity. Trying to juggle these two elements is what made portraiture so impossible for Giacometti.

It is always tempting, however, to forget the subject of the Giacometti’s work, and instead to focus on his wider depictions of humanity. As this exhibition shows however, the individual is the central theme of Giacometti’s work. It allows him to experiment with ideas of perception and question the nature of sight. At the same time it leaves us with some wonderful caricatures of his favourite sitters.

In gathering these various works together the National Portrait Gallery has done a fine job. Whilst in the galleries themselves they have conveyed something of both Giacometti’s Swiss home and his dusty Parisian studio. The effect of this is to give a unique insight into the way this important artist saw the world.

It is a splendid exhibition.

Giacometti: Pure Presence is on until the 10th January at the National Portrait Gallery.

LITERATURE

THOMAS LIGOTTI DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A FAMOUS DEAD WRITER

James Watson

THREE WEEKS AGO, Penguin Classics reprinted Thomas Ligotti’s short story collections ‘Songs of a Dead Dreamer’ (1985) and ‘Grimscribe: His Lives and Works’ (1991) and thereby added their author into an exclusive group: one of the ten living authors to be published by Penguin Classics U.S. Thomas Ligotti turned sixtythree this year, and has been consistently publishing short horror stories for half his life; but his first (and only) dip into the mainstream pool occurred last year with the minor scandal of Nic Pizzolatto’s soft plagiarism of Ligotti for the TV show True Detective. Otherwise his attempts at pynchonian reclusivity have been extremely successful.

The first short story I read of Ligotti was called ‘The Frolic’, the opening to a greatest hits-type collection of his stories called The Nightmare Factory (1996). From its cover-page critic-quote comparing Ligotti to Clive Barker, I

expected cheesy horror: dungeons, manics, blood, etc. So imagine how my eyebrows arched when I read the opening sentence: In a beautiful home in a beautiful part of town - the town of Nolgate, site of the state prison Dr. Munck examined the evening newspaper while his young wife lounged on a sofa nearby, lazily flipping through the colorful parade of a fashion magazine.

The sentence could start a John Cheever short story, or be published in The New Yorker. And the way its middle-class life is juxtaposed with the absurd and dark image of the state prison - ominously resting between two dash marks as if, like its two protagonists, Ligotti is trying to put it in the back of his mind - reminded me of Delillo’s White Noise. This isn’t gothic horror, body horror, cosmic horror - this is middle-class, domestic horror. The horror of having an unfulfilling job; of not finding your spouse attractive; of fearing your child isn’t normal.

And like that we are dropped

into a domestic setting: husband and wife sit and talk and drink together downstairs; their young daughter, Norleen, is upstairs in her bedroom. The husband, David, works as a psychologist at the state prison; the wife, Leslie, stays at home and wishes they could move back to a bigger city. The proximity of the prison has worried her ever since they arrived in Nolgate and she secretly wishes to leave town. And it seems her wish might come true: a long session with a child murderer named John Doe has rattled David’s bones - no longer feeling safe, he wants to leave town and escape the shadow of the prison as soon as possible.

Let’s hear Ligotti describe it: David felt his own words lingering atmospherically in the room, tainting the serenity of the house.

Until then their home had been an insular haven beyond the contamination of the prison, an imposing structure outside the town limits. Now its psychic imposition transcended the limits of physical distance. Inner distance constrict-

ed, and David sensed the massive prison walls shadowing the cozy neighbourhood outside.

And so, the prison has escaped the dash marks of the opening sentences - it fact, it has escaped physical space itself. It has transmuted into some kind of shape-shifting, unknowable entity much like the monsters of Lovecraft’s world (think Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos). Of course, this is purely metaphor, but Ligotti’s prose introduces this Lovecraftian sense of space, geometry, and geography as a way to unsettle both the reader and his protagonists. Physically, nothing has changed; psychologically, their domestic space has been replaced with a terrifying world.

Now the father has just heard a noise outside - he rushes upstairs to his daughter’s room, only to find her safe asleep. He returns to Leslie, who demands to know what David is afraid of. Of course, he is afraid of John Doe. He is afraid of him taking his daughter. But is this fear rational? How can he know when his fears are rational? How

can he best protect his daughter?

For the horror-hounds reading, don’t be alarmed at the lack of traditional spooks - for all of Ligotti’s fascination with the dread of middle-class (dis)contentment, he still wants to make you afraid of the dark. The story continues to descend into irrationality and fear and ends with a spine-shaking, hair-curling conclusion. But the magic of Ligotti’s stories does not rest within his use of the traditional horror trappings of his contemporaries; rather, his ability to creep you out is manifest within the prose. And that is what makes him unique.

If you’re not trick-or-treating this Saturday night, pick up a copy of Ligotti’s Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe (published together by Penguin Classics). For an author this good, this inventive, this interested in the horror of domestic mundanity, Thomas Ligotti does not deserve to be famous only after he’s dead.

20|

Tuesday 10 November, 2015

TECHNOLOGY

CHANGING WHAT BANKING MEANS...

MICROFINANCE IN KENYA Edward Tan

IN 2013, WHEN MUCH OF AFRICA HAD A BANKING penetration rate of 20 percent, Kenya represented an anomaly, with 40 percent of her population having access to some type of banking. It was a respectable figure, putting her right behind the relatively wealthy South Africa. That was a time when Kenya’s nominal GDP stood at 1,245 USD, compared to South Africa’s 6,600 USD. Behind this anomaly was M-Pesa.

Pesa is the Swahili word for money. As early as 2003, it was noted that there was a tendency to use airtime credits as a proxy for currency in rural Kenya. Riding on this preexisting social norm, the Vodaphone, via partnership with Safaricom, introduced the ability to send airtime credits to another’s phone, hence creating a type of basic banking and money transfer service. The service took off in 2007 when Safaricom then allowed airtime credits to be converted back into cash, essentially creating the ability to withdraw from one’s account. M-Pesa is mobile money, a bank in one’s pocket without the fanciful websites typical of traditional banks. Hence for the first time, villagers who would otherwise not have access to banking servic-

es had some ability to borrow, transfer, and move credit and capital around, even at the micro-level. Before MPesa, conventional wisdom of bankers would argue that a banking branch could only be profitable when GDP at purchasing price parity hits 10,000 USD per head. This left much of Kenya’s population out of the loop. M-Pesa

“By 2014, 2.1 trillion Kenyan shilling worth of money was moved via M-Pesa, which equates to half of Kenya’s GDP that year.”

closed this gap. By 2014, 2.1 trillion Kenyan shilling (13.4 billion British pounds) worth of money was moved via M-Pesa, which equates to half of Kenya’s GDP that year.

The applications for M-Pesa exploded in 2011 with the introduction of a vendor account. Similar to a debit card, one could make payments via M-Pesa at shops as well. Companies such as Gham Power rode on this new technology to enter the previously prohibitive solar energy market. In a traditional set up for solar energy, the payment of bills had always been a hurdle for companies entering the mico-grid market, according to Gham Power’s Vice-President for Business Development Barett Raftery. The cost of collecting payments would put electricity out of the price range of remote rural communities. MPesa allows for remote payment, in conjunction with an in-house developed system that would only release electricity if payments were made, allowed costs to be cut and electricity made affordable to off-grid rural communities.

Over the years, M-Pesa had been implemented in parts of India, other African nations, Afghanistan, and Nepal.

Perhaps there is something the world can learn from a uniquely African mode of development.

FASHION

(NO) ALTERATION NEEDED Maria Maleeva Body shaming.

Every year new horrific stories leak to the press and defame the fashion industry.

How is it that even the ‘role models’ the media imposes on us become the targets of constant bullying?

Fashion is struggling to find unfindable. Firstly, they reject the average woman and substitute an ideal (and unrealistic) version of this woman. Then they lower our self-esteem, exposing this ideal as a norm.

However, we are starting to see a new tendency of tailoring these ideals. One of these scandals happened during Paris Fashion Week when model Gigi Hadid wrote a long post on social media on bullying. She emphasised that even though some people think that she is too voluptuous to be a model, designers still hire her. Gigi’s statement created an avalanche of comments and articles.

A month later Charli Howard confessed that she has been constantly harassed by her agency on the grounds of her appearance. On her Facebook page she wrote: “I refuse to feel ashamed and upset on a daily basis for not meeting your ridiculous, un-obtainable beauty standards.”

It seems as though the fashion industry needs to be reminded of its real purpose.

Designers shouldn’t dictate the parameters - they should create tendencies so we can build our own style regardless of size. It seems to be that their understanding of fashion is extremely limited. If a designer fails to make any woman feel beautiful, he/she should vacate the stage for a more talented designer to take their place.

Body shaming comes at different forms. Even if magazines, for example, seem to be pleased with a cover star it doesn’t mean that they won’t alter their image. Firstly they choose a woman of a month and then they decide that although this woman is good in what she does, she is not beautiful enough to appear on the cover in a way she really looks. More and more celebrities are speaking out about their false representation in media. Jennifer Lawrence recently stated that her image in the Dior campaign had nothing to do with the reality. Kate Winslet and Keira Knightly are also well-known for their anti-Photoshop beliefs. Everyone knows that media’s money lies in beautiful photos, but why can’t the industry find a good photographer who can capture the natural beauty of everyone without Photoshop?

False images and standards nourish a false perception of a female body.

Every girl at least once in her life wished she had a “thigh gap”, “bikini bridge” or whatever the industry advocates each season. I love fashion but sometimes I can’t help the feeling that fashion loves back only an unnaturally modified version of a human.

BODY SHAMING.

Source: Allphotobangkok

p a r t 21

FOOD&LIFESTYLE

WINES AND INVESTMENT BANKS

THE SOMMELIER IN THE CITY

B

THE LSE EXPERIENCE COULD ALMOST BE SAID TO BE INCOMPLETE were one not to avail oneself of the plentiful corporate hospitality offered during Michaelmas by the various firms of that institution so worshipped at the LSE: the City of London. With this in mind, the Sommelier seeks to set out his notes on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly amongst what he has sipped and quaffed in the halls and lobbies of the vast Temples of Mammon.

THE GOOD - BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH With a rich, intense Australian Shiraz serving as house red, I was impressed from the outset. With hints of blackberry in the bouquet, an almost beefy, full flavour on the palate – evocative of oxtail soup at the Delaunay – and a nice balance of alcohol, body and tannins, the Sommelier was sufficiently impressed to make the not entirely difficult decision of giving up networking with the bankers – boring types from middle office in any case - so as to have more time to make the acquaintance of the wines. The Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon was even more pleasant, with an aroma astonishingly reminiscent of the distinctive petrochemical – really – notes more typical of good Rieslings, a mineral, crisp taste, and a revitalising effect on the Sommelier’s previously waning will to live. Perhaps it wasn’t just the balance-sheet lending and universal-bank growth model that led to BAML’s leading growth rates from 2010-2014.

THE BAD - GOLDMAN SACHS Being the biggest of the BSDs on the Street comes with certain expectations – great power, great responsibilities and so forth. Given the astronomical revenues that Messrs Goldman Sachs and Co generate from their financial wizardry, one might almost expect to be treated to some Château Petrus – even if from one of the poorer years. Sadly, the biggest, baddest bankers on the street failed to impress as much in the wine glass as they do on the deal rankings. Their French Cabernet Sauvignon tasted of absolutely nothing – imagine that an alien race of small, grey-skinned men decided to slowly conquer the earth by substituting humans and human products for poor imitations that are based on the average qualities of all examples; now imagine that they made a wine. Their Chardonnay was equally bland and characterless. Perhaps the rumoured appellation of ‘clients’ as ‘muppets’ at Goldman wasn’t just based on a lack of appreciation of the finer nuances of derivatives pricing, but also of wine tasting – certainly justified if they willingly drank Goldman’s house plonk.

THE UGLY – DEUTSCHE BANK The Teutonic giant announced this autumn up to 10,000 human resource efficiencies. Firmly amongst those, in the Sommelier’s view, should be the miserable creature who chose their wines. An excessively green – so much so that it was like drinking leaf extract – Merlot that left unpleasantly bitter and awfully tannic – think shitty supermarket quality tea that’s been left for five hours, no milk or sugar – prompted yours truly to grimace so visibly that a nearby MD jokingly asked if it was too much for me. Sadly, it was. The experience proved so unpleasant that the Sommelier violated his usual principles, and didn’t even venture to try the white.

The Sommelier would like to add that the above reflects in no way his assessment of the mentioned firms as investments or as places to work.

TIME-EFFICIENT, LSE-PROOF FITNESS

FAT BURNING! Sean Lim

Have you ever felt the deep motivation to work towards losing body fat, but simply cannot find the time to do so?

Even with so much going on, students still desire to lose bodyfat to have a leaner looking physique or simply feel healthier (arguably both). With only 24 hours in a day, it remains a fact that sometimes all we really have is 20-30mins to squeeze in a good workout that hopefully yields the results. The question remains - is your short workout really maximizing the fat burning outcome that you desire?

Luckily, sports science has already delved into this topic in the recent 21st century to adapt to our society’s increasing pace of life. According to a study by Metcalfe Et Al. published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, giving as little as 10 minutes a day to do only 2 all-out sprints for 3 times a week burns

more fat than doing 40mins of steady state running 3 times a week. This is what he and his colleagues has termed the “minimal amount of exercise for improving metabolic health”. In more popular lingo amongst the fitness community, this is also known as “high intensity interval training”, or HIIT in short. Sounds too good to be true? Perhaps a look into the science behind it will change your mind.

The key feature that allows just mere minutes of HIIT to burn more fat than hours of steady state running is the adaptations it causes in your metabolism and the activation of fat burning enzymes. By doing allout springs, the energy producing units known as “mitochondria” becomes more active in your body and grants you greater oxidative capacity for fat loss. More recent studies from “Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism” adds even more scientific justification to these adaptations by demon-

strating how the increased mitochondrial density allows the food we consumed to be converted into energy we can use to burn fat. That’s basically saying that we can eat what we used to eat before, except now by simply including HIIT workouts, the food we eat converts to energy to help us burn fat! There is simply no need to severely restrict yourself of the foods you enjoy.

Thanks to science, we now know that it is possible to achieve hours worth of caloric burn in just mere minutes by switching up the intensity level to the maximum- a true case of quality over quantity! For those that don’t buy into the science, a quick glimpse into the televised olympic games will reveal to you validity behind these studies. Just compare – an olympic sprinter versus a marathoner, who actually looks leaner (not smaller, but actually leaner)?

Evidently the sprinter, and for good reason. If you calculate the total hours the sprinter and

the marathoner spends a day, although both athletes dedicate their lives to training, the natural differences in their respective events will have the sprinter spending less time running and still look leaner than the marathoner. Again, HIIT reigns as king in burning the most fat in the least time. It also helps you retain more muscle (as in the case of the sprinter), giving you the lean and toned appearance you desire (but that is a whole other topic which will be discussed in another article).

How exactly does one perform HIIT training? There is some room for debate over how it should be performed, but the underlying principle is to perform a given exercise for maximum intensity over short periods of time (10s-30s) with a rest period long enough (normally 60-150s) to allow you to repeat the same exercise at almost the same level.

The modality of which you perform this exercise is not the focus,

but performing the exercise under this principle is what actually yields the result. Running, spinning (Stationary bike), skipping, can all yield the wondrous effects of HIIT training as preached, so long as it is performed in accordance with that simple principle of 100% effort-full recovery-repeat.

Maybe the only setback of HIIT over the hours of steady state cardio is that from a mental strength standpoint, it requires a much higher amounts of willpower and focus to generate that maximum effort required to achieve the results. With that being said, if the shortage of time is your main resistance to achieving your ideal body, then HIIT your invaluable solution!

I would like to encourage all readers to not give up on achieving your fitness goals because of a hectic schedule. Instead, train smart, keep yourself in check, and do what must be done in the most efficient manner to reach your physical potential.

NUS EXTRA: THE ESSENTIAL STUDENT DISCOUNT CARD Available to buy from the LSESU Shop and online: www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra

AND MUCH MORE

Miss ConCheemiality Of LSESU Election Is Crowned

Burton Gets A Bum Deal At LSESU Results Night Despite promising an ANUS, Burton comes out on the bottom The NAB is in despair this week after George Burton’s dreams of an Alternative NUS were mercilessly flushed away by the student body. George’s ANUS was roundly poopooed by the London Stool of Economics Student Poo-nion.

Burton turned the other cheek when other students made him the butt of their jokes.

Despite their huge arse-nal of insults, Burton didn’t crack.

George’s campaign promised that his ANUS wouldn’t produce all of the shit that the NUS tend towards. It was a movement that came from the bowels of the student body.

A lot of people had a funny gut feeling about it (Ed: but I can’t be the only one that’s still dreaming of what could have been in Burton’s ANUS). The NAB speculates that the results were a crapshoot, and that some winners were scraped from the bottom of the bowl. His rivals, notably including Rayhan Poo-din wiped the floor (bottom) with Burton as he faeced defeat in every election he ran.

Burton spent the night in a dark crevice at the rear of the room and exited through the backdoor to stop the masses from seeing how bummed he was at his loss.

When assked, Burton told us that he wasn’t sure if he would roll the dieorrhoea again and run in LT elections. He said of his loss, ‘I just didn’t push hard enough; this loss will be consigned to the anals of time’.

The NAB hopes that this will not be the (rear) end as Burton still has his hole career ahead of him.

Why Harry Maxwell Is The Best Election Candidate The LSESU Has Ever Seen

By Harry Maxwell

SU’s Favourite ANUS sits with George Burton

Deborah Hermanns, Asmat Ullah and Jonathan Lehner. However, none were successful in being Harry Maxwell has become the first person to be elected. In total, Maxwell received 512 votes in elected to two positions in LSESU Michaelmas the first rounds of voting and, in the race for the Term elections since 2005. He will now serve on Academic Board, received fourteen #1 society enthe Court of Governors and as Student Repre- dorsements. Both of these were more than any othsentative to the Academic Board. It can be further er candidate standing for the ten elected positions. speculated that Maxwell - a third year Geography with Economics student - is the first person to have Editorial Note: This article was originally ever achieved this. submitted as a news piece but due to the writOther candidates campaigning for more than ers clear bias towards his own ego, it was necone position this year included George Burton, essary that the piece be moved to The NAB.

24 |Tuesday November 10, 2015

Two Americans have a debate about the direction of the Democratic Party after its first debate and then write it all down for publishing Nick Foretek & Matt Razzano segued immediately into that issue. For instance, when Syria iniLSE Postgraduates (& tially came up Sanders struggled Americans) through an answer that simply Nick Foretek (The Lefty) acknowledged Syria’s a mess. HiMatt Razzano (The Centrist) lary then gave us a bit of a preview into her Bhengazi hearing and THE LEFTY: First things first, articulated clearly the reasoning what a marked difference from behind American intervention in the two Republican debates. Less Libya. I think we’re seeing a party tempestuous, less ad hominem, in which policy differences aren’t less Trump. After the debate, the stark, some differences on guns, New York Times ran the headline, foreign policy, and financial regu‘A Night Goes Clinton’s Way, After lation. But they’re mostly on the Months of Difficulties’. Do you same page. think that accurately describes her evening?

THE CENTRIST: Economic issues historically dominate AmeriTHE CENTRIST: Sort of. Hillary can elections. 2016 is no different.

Clinton demonstrated that she is I would argue that the candidates willing to fight for the presidency. did well staying away from traAfter months of controversy, she ditionally “left-leaning” issues – was able to articulate her message abortion, health care, etc. Thus, clearly and passionately. On the their focus was directed toward other hand, I don’t think her op- policies that typically determine ponents are particularly strong. presidential elections. In the first two debates, Republicans concenTHE LEFTY: I actually think trated on issues that don’t drive Sanders had a good night. That voters to the polls. I agree that seemed lost in some of the me- there is not much differentiation dia coverage though borne out in between the candidates from a some of the post-debate tweeting policy perspective. The question and facebook-posting. On Fri- becomes can Clinton withstand day, a Boston Globe poll showed the character criticism?

Hilary and Bernie in a virtual tie in New Hampshire, with 54% of THE LEFTY: Yes. She came respondents stating she won the across as affable and she’s always debate. coherent and clear, even when defending shifting positions. The THE CENTRIST: Bernie Sand- line: “I’m a progressive who likes ers has capitalized on his populist to get things done” works both deappeal and the general dissatisfac- fensively and offensively, insofar as tion with Washington. His prob- it frames Sanders as a single issue lem, however, is electability. He’s candidate in contrast. Sanders has strong on issues of income in- done her enormous good, at least equality and labor, but free college in the primary, by shutting down and a $15/hour minimum wage the email line of questioning. Per are unlikely to make it through the issues, four of the five candia Republican congress. Clinton dates mentioned climate change in overshadowed Sanders during the their opening remarks and CNN foreign policy portion of the de- didn’t mention the topic until the bate, and she is a dealmaker who’s last quarter of the debate. That more likely to compromise to pass was disappointing. A brief couple broad legislation. questions concerning immigration did showcase the drastic difTHE LEFTY: Agreed. Simplis- ferences between parties—sometically, he’s a pro-gun Corbyn. thing we will play on throughout Which of course allowed her to as the Republicans continue to hit him hard from the left on that countenance xenophobic remarks particular issue. in their debates. Black Lives The Centrister got a question. And THE CENTRIST: That’s true, Planned Parenthood only came and I think that’s a product of up briefly from Hilary, though the Bernie Sanders representing rural fact that we’ll hear much about voters in Vermont. Given their those last two issues in the general prominence in the Republican will help Democrats. Then again, debates, I was struck by some of who thought we’d hear the words the issues that weren’t covered – Glass-Steagall as much as we did? health care, immigration, and the Iran Deal.

THE CENTRIST: I think financial regulation was one of the most THE LEFTY: Bernie wants to contentious issues of the night. talk about the income inequality. Martin O’Malley and Bernie Even his “Damned emails” quote Sanders drew strong reactions

The City

Section Editor: Alex Gray Deputy Editors: Henry Mitchell

The Lefty and The Centrist; or, Two Americans at the Pub from the crowd, painting Clinton as a Wall Street sympathizer, a label that was a challenge to evade.

Her husband’s White House was filled with banking executives (Rubin, Summers, etc.), and she represented New York in the Senate. So her interests align closely to those of the Street. That being said, I think she’s right, in that Dodd-Frank ushered in some of the sharpest financial regulation in years, and there’s little chance of getting anything stronger through congress.

“It [Wall Street] is a street and a metonym, but its not a person” THE LEFTY: She’s definitely more moderate on the issue. I had no idea what she meant when she stated that she told Wall Street to “cut it out” before the crash, both in terms of the action described or the grammar. It is a street and a metonym, but it’s not a person.

THE CENTRIST: I didn’t find her answer to that question particularly convincing, but as the frontrunner, she has to be careful criticizing bankers (a.k.a. campaign funding) too profusely. I’d be curious to know what more moderate audiences thought about the discussion of socialism.

I think Bernie explained his position fairly, and Republicans have enough voters beleaguered by debt and poverty to sympathize with his message. The politics of ideology, though, are not on his side, and GOP strategists would have a field day running ads against him.

THE LEFTY: Socialist democrat sounds too much like communist apparatchik in the advert.

Photo Credit: Phil Roeder, Flickr

THE CENTRIST: Who scares you in the Republican field?

THE LEFTY: Well I’m biased and think the Republicans have only exacerbated their issues by harping on Planned Parenthood and illegal immigration. Rubio would present a strong contrast to Clinton on a debate stage, his youth, his race, the charm I’m told he apparently has. Though the irony of a first term Senator running for President for the Republicans…

That’s an interesting difference between Obama and any of the current candidates on the Democratic side, legislative experience.

Everyone up there has serious legislation to his or her name. Is there space for a Biden run?

THE CENTRIST: A successful Biden run would have been contingent upon Clinton performing atrociously last Tuesday. Democrats love the idea of a Biden presidency, as his sincerity would bring Clinton’s personality into sharp relief.

However, Biden would have a challenge differentiating his positions from those of the field.

He doesn’t enjoy campaigning or raising money, and he is already months behind the fundraising cycle. I think another challenge he’d face is the prospect of creating a “third Obama term.” Republicans will use this line against any candidate they face, but the challenge would be more poignant against Biden. I think his decision to run became significantly tougher on Tuesday, though I wouldn’t be shocked if he ultimately threw his hat into the ring.

THE LEFTY: Unless the Bhengazi hearings go terribly…

THE CENTRIST: By the way, Jim Webb …

THE LEFTY: We don’t have time.

In Defence of “Careerites”

The City |25

The LSE’s focus on good jobs isn’t a bad thing, time to stop the whining and embrace it Christopher Wilburn LSE Undergraduate MUCH HAS BEEN SAID IN the previous weeks about the shame of the LSE having a good reputation with employers, particularly those in the City. A recent careers fair at the LSE was almost shut down in an attempt by #OccupyLSE to protest at, as they see it, the growing financialisation of the LSE. However, we should not be averse to the world’s best employers wanting to recruit us - it is a good thing. Almost any other university in the UK would kill to have the reputation with investment banks, consultancies and financiers that LSE has. It means that when we leave, we get the first pick at some of the most prestigious (and well remunerated) careers from around the world. If anything, the LSE should engage more closely in the careers that people want to to do. If its students want to work for Goldman Sachs, then they should bring in leaders from Goldman Sachs and give students the opportunity to network and put in strong foun-

dations for their spring week, intern, or grad scheme positions.

This is not hypercapitalism gone mad, nor is it the signal of the end of all things. This is simply responding to the demand that LSE students have to be in the top positions across the economy. Attempts to stop this are merely going to slow the inevitable process of the LSE coming to reflect the needs and wants of its student body.

An argument often banded around is as though me and my colleagues who want to join the City’s best brands are somehow less educated, or aspirational than colleagues who want to do “alternative” careers. I think this is patronising and insulting; wanting a top job does not make people anything other than an ambitious and driven. These are good qualities, and are the kind of thing that we need more of, not less.

This all goes to the heart of the issue; some people think there is something inherently wrong about the bigger City professions. This is an absurd argument - there is no coercion in these professions. They may not be to everyone’s tastes, but that certainly does not make them

evil or any less worthy than a job in an NGO, say. We should be grateful we have such wealth creators on our doorsteps, who are able to innovate and get the best deal from their clients, among whom will (for example) be pension funds securing people’s retirement. I would add that a salary of £65,000 generates a lot more income for the treasury than a salary of £21,000. Five times more, in fact.

“a salary of £65,000 generates a lot more income for the treasury than a salary of £21,000. Five times more.”

The LSE is far from becoming the JP Morgan academy that it is often portrayed as. The most recent figures put, in total 33.5% of students go into Consulting, Banking and Audit. This leaves the other two thirds of students who do not go into the City professions. I see no overwhelming flood of City graduates from the LSE. More

go into ‘Government and Politics’ than go into Consulting. If there is a “problem” at all, it is being vastly overstated.

The LSE should not pander to the hard left on this issue, if we are to continue to compete in the increasingly financialised and globalised world that we find ourselves in, it is vital that the LSE maintains this position as the go-to employer for top graduates. To oppose the change towards being more reflective of the modern world would not change this trend, and instead would simply put us behind in the

global race. On top of this, we must consider the fact that the money that the City makes is able to fund numerous LSE sports teams. This is not something that we should reject, but appreciate the new streams of funding.

In short, the LSE and its students should make the most of the opportunities that we are given by studying here. The opportunities that the LSE offers in terms of all careers, but particularly those related to the City and finance are invaluable, and something that we would be mad to reject.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons, Karenkarnak

Something Old, Not Much New The paradox of being ‘new’ in politics, its roots and its results Aristeidis Grivokostopoulos LSE Undergraduate THE UK LABOUR PARTY leadership elections and the Greek parliamentary elections had a clear winner. Similarly, the Spanish elections and US primaries are not very far away. In all of the above elections, and their respective pre-election campaigns, there is a theme. Nowadays, the party or person who is an election favourite (see SYRIZA) or simply has the greatest media atten-

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons, Loudon dodd

tion (see Trump), is also a player of the “renewal” card. What is the “renewal” card? Ironically, this card is old. As old as politics itself. More specifically, this card is a pre-election marketing tool that focuses on the need to “renew” politics. Its players create a need to change people, or in the case of Mr Corbyn, change both people and policies. The politicians of the “new” consider their campaign a battle - much like the struggle of the classes portrayed in Marx’s works. Every battle is different for every campaign, yet

there is a pattern to be drawn.

The “new” underdog wishes to beat the “old” establishment.

The political phenomenon of the post-crisis developed world can be viewed in two ways, depending on one’s pessimism.

If you belong in the group of people who see the glass halfempty, then this is a frightening phenomenon. People in this group draw parallels between the mid-war period and nowadays - the Great Depression and the Great Recession. As economic conditions worsened dramatically, politicians and their policies were seen as failed. Failure is the mother of opportunism. Opportunist politicians (see Hitler and Mussolini), organised campaigns to entice voters that were disgruntled by the economic situation, and so felt that the establishment ought to pay for it. They organised campaigns that divided politicians into two camps, letting emotions rather than rationality prevail in voter decision-making.

This pre-election strategy is a classic example of what Aristotle referred to as “populism”.

Populism is not only dangerous for the state, as Aristotle liked to point out. From the pessimist’s point of view, populism and the rise of the “new” also signals a potential exogenous threat for a country’s democracy and can

fire up “anti-systemic” conflict at all fronts. In other words, a pessimist sees Mr Corbyn as a next Hitler, attracting the votes of the desperate underemployed middleclass, projecting the Americans or Germans as part of a system that has conspired against the UK and engaging in military or economic wars against the threat. This fear seems very far-fetched at first, though a “snowball” of events has happened before, and who says it won’t happen once again.

The second group is less pessimistic, and that is because it has much more positive assumptions concerning the people who dress themselves as “new”, as well as the rationality of the voting population. Assumptions of the former group included: incompetence in economic and social governance (although the populists present themselves as more socially sensitive), a short-sightedness of both politicians and electorate (although they preach about a radical change that will have longterm effects), as well as economically irrational votes (although levels of education are unparalleled). The antitheses that these assumptions produce are automatically arguments for a milder explanation of the “new vs old” phenomenon.

A recent article on the Guardian made parallels between Mr Corbyn and the figure he most de-

spises. Back when Thatcher rose to power, it was also a post-crisis period and, in her opinion, also a period of a dysfunctional establishment. Back then, the Labour Party and the unions affiliated to it represented the establishment - the “old”. Thatcher and her circle of non-schoolboys represented the anti-establishment, with their fresh ideas on economic policy being the “new” in British politics. Today, the Conservative Party (and a centrist Labour Party) are the “old”, whereas the socially sensitive and economically innovative ideas of the Left is the “new”. In this explanation, the phenomenon is natural. It is the political equivalent of Schumpeter’s “disruptive innovation” for businesses and products. Yes, the “conflict” and “conspiracy” is just a show to get the attention of voters and allure them to voting.

Yes, the “rational” resistance of the establishment is based on empirical argumentation. Regardless though, the resistance fails, the “new” always wins and painful consequences follow in the shortterm.

Modern history has shown that these conflicts, although “disruptive”, are constructive. Granted that the leaders are visionary and the “new” ideas sound, these conflicts help economies grow and evolve in the long-term, especially at times of “secular stagnation”.

26 | Tuesday November 10, 2015

A former German Ambassador talks Western strategy against ISIS

Daniel Sippel Undergraduate Student Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger was the German Ambassador to the United States from 2001-2006 and Ambassador to the Court of St James from 2006-2008. Today, he is Senior Fellow of the Dahrendorf Forum and Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. Before the LSE IDEAS public debate on Thursday, 8 October, Daniel Sippel spoke with him on the conflict in Syria and his position on his wife’s memoirs.

In your most recent Monthly Mind column on responses to the refugee crisis in Europe you underlined that a “political solution in Syria will be found only with and hardly against Moscow”. This week however the NYT reported that Russia is bombing CIA-trained rebels in Syria. What should the European and the American response be?

I have not changed my mind.

The problem is that in this complex and difficult situation there is not going to be any solution possible by the push of a button or something like this. This requires a process. At the moment, I hope we are not totally incapable of starting a discussion between the US and other allies on the Western side and the Russians regarding the long-term objectives.

I think that many in the West pursued a dream when they thought that we could get rid of Assad quickly. Four years ago, many thought that within a few months he is gone. But he is not gone by now. So now we have to figure out a solution together with Russia. What could this solution be? As always in diplomacy, we

have to take a first step, a second step and then a third step.

The first step will require us to accept the fact that at least for the time being Bashir Assad is there and he is protected by the Russians. The second and the third step however might be that the Russians at some point will recognize that that the future of Russia and the future of Syria is not going to be a future with Bashir Assad either.

So maybe in the longer term Russia may actually be willing on their terms, not only on Western terms, to start a process that could lead to a political transition in Syria.

That is in my opinion what should happen, and I’m not sure that it will happen at any point soon. But that is what we should be aiming for. That might take a while, but I think there are sufficient interests that converge on the Russian side and on the Western side, including in particular confronting the risk of spreading Jihadist terrorism. That has to be a major source of concern for Russia.

I think it should not be totally impossible to develop something that may not look like a common strategy but something that might at least include an agreement of what kind of long-term solution might be willing to accept.

After Moscow had started its military build-up in Syria, Mr Stoltenberg was quick to reassure that the NATO Response Force can easily be relocated to Turkey. Thus, NATO is now surrounded by Russia on its Eastern and Southern flank.

However, NATO recently withdrew its Patriot missiles from Turkey. Is seems the West wasn’t prepared for a Russian intervention in Syria. Is that

true?

I think the West was generally surprised by the speed with which Russia implemented its announcement that it was going to consider air force activities in Syrian airspace. It would be a terrible exaggeration if NATO concluded that these Russian activities should be considered a threat to Turkey.

I think they are not. Even if violations of Turkish airspace have been recorded. Let’s not go overboard. I think the last thing that Russia needs is yet another neighbour who is really angry and not only for a few days but for a longer period of time with Russia. Russia has already managed to create an angry Ukrainian neighbour. The last thing Russia needs is an angry Turkish neighbour.

So I don’t think that that is a problem. The problem is how to deal with dictators — and how not to deal with dictators. I think Russia is making the point that the West should not be allowed to dictate the fate of dictators. That dictators should be dealt with by either international decisions or with the active participation and consent of Russia. So Russia wishes to be part of the solution of any outcome in Syria and doesn’t want to be sidelined. Given the intense Russian-Syrian relationship, which has been built up over two generations, this should not come as a surprise to anyone.

We also need to be somewhat realistic. I do not want to create a parallel between American support for Egypt and Russian support for Syria, but if there is cooperation over several decades between the Pentagon and Egyptian generals the same is true between Moscow and Damascus. So it is just a fact of life that we have to recognise.

Your wife Jutta Falke-Ischinger published a book in which she criticises the pomp that surrounds the position of the Ambassador in European member states. Would you agree with your wife that we should scale down a bit?

Absolutely! I believe already for a long time that the post of Ambassador within the European Union should not be dropped — of course we need an envoy of some sort — but they shouldn’t be ambassador. In the Commonwealth they are called High Commissioners if I remember correctly. That stands for a closer relationship than the relationship between two sovereign states which are foreign to each other. So I think something like a High Commissioner concept should be introduced to the EU. We have already done away with a few old protocol things.

For example I remember when I was a young diplomat, when the British foreign secretary came to visit the German foreign minister they would bring a gift. That’s no longer being done. Europeans meet each other without bringing gifts. So that was a useful first step: Getting rid of unnecessary protocol. But it goes beyond protocol.

We should create a relationship in which we don’t deal with each other not as sovereign states but as members of a community.

I’ll give you another example.

David Cameron or Angela Merkel travel to China. If you ask me it would be a great idea if they had among those who accompany them in the delegation not only the German or the British ambassador but also the ambassador of the European Union. I think that would be a useful next step in creating what we in Germany believe should be an ever-closer Union, including in foreign policy.

Photo Credit: LSE Ideas

Features

Section Editors: Taryana Odayar Alexander Hurst Deputy Editors: Stefanos Argyros Daniel Shears Sebastian Shehadi

Pomp and Syria: Interview With Ambassador Ischinger

If Not Now, When? Twenty Years On, Israel Needs A New Rabin

Israeli society can’t sustain itself in a state of unresolved conflict; peace through a two state solution is the only way forward.

Kevin Sachs Postgraduate Student

Hebrew signs read “Peace Now,” the pro-negotiated peace slogan that has remained unchanged in twenty years.

Photo reprinted under the Wikipedia Creative Commons license.

the incitement does not follow the inciter’s plan. It develops a life of its own and has ways to bring the hand to the knife or the finger to the trigger.

Rabin refused to accept the fabrication of the right, that there was no partner on the Palestinian side. He took the road of peace with the Palestinians, not because he possessed great affection for them or their leaders, but because he discerned wisely that Israeli society would not be able to sustain itself endlessly in a state of unresolved conflict. Rabin realized long before many others that life in a climate of violence, occupation, terror, anxiety and hopelessness, would extract a price Israel could not afford.

With this month’s outbreak of violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this is even more relevant today than it was twenty years ago.

In the last decade Israel has experienced numerous violent attacks on its civilian population, and Palestinians have lived through massive military operations in the West Bank, the often-violent suppression of legitimate protest, discriminatory police brutality and societal racism both in and outside the 1967 borders. Not to mention the four horrific wars of the past decade waged in Gaza.

The escalating tensions that have dominated international news this month are not new. For years the conflict has been simmering, albeit on a lower flame and with less frequent outbursts. Xenophobia and hate for the “other” are as high as they have been in recent memory.

Optimism for a peaceful resolution of the conflict that will soon enter its

fiftieth year is nowhere to be found.

On the contrary: Only last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed that if necessary, Israel will “live by the sword” forever. It was a brazen display of true colours by a man who usually vows that he is committed to a peaceful resolution. But in fact his governments have done little to nothing to advance peace.

“Yitzak Rabin would thunder at Israelis and Palestinians alike if he still could today, ‘Enough of blood and tears. Enough!’ ” Transferring millions of dollars from the state’s budget to the settlements in the West Bank every year does not advance peace.

Standing idly by and doing nothing to outlaw and stop extremists who chant “death to Arabs” in the street does not advance peace. And continuing to develop the sophisticated mechanisms that enable Israel to sustain the occupation over the Palestinian people does not advance peace.

Rather, these things are conserving the status quo of a discriminatory regime for 1.6 million Palestinians living as citizens in Israel, a military occupation regime for 2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and life under siege for 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza. Unlike Rabin, the current administration has yet to understand that there is not going to be a military solution for a problem that is political in nature,

and that continuing rule over the Palestinian people will only further bankrupt Israel morally.

Last Saturday, an estimated 100,000 people came out to Rabin Square to attend the yearly peace rally marking the anniversary of his assassination. But the feeling in the square has changed in the last 20 years. The organizers have turned the Rabin memorial from a celebration of Israel’s peace camp into a far more amorphous “unity” event - one where politics are no longer on the agenda - in an effort to draw maximum attendance and a politically diverse crowd.

In front of that crowd, former President of the United States, Bill Clinton reminded the attendees that his close friend Yitzhak Rabin gave his life so that the citizens of Israel might enjoy a better future, and that taking a risk for the sake of peace was less severe than the risk of walking away from peace altogether. He laid before the crowd and before Israel the ultimate responsibility to once again engage in negotiations, and to put the twostate solution back on the table.

Unfortunately no politically astute leader in Israel is going to start advocating the twostate solution, or building a joint future with the Palestinians in this perpetual limbo of insecurity and mistrust.

But a real leader would do just that. Rabin would do just that. Rabin did just that. And the words he uttered during the signing ceremony of the Oslo Accords are the words that he would thunder at Israelis and Palestinians alike if he still could today: Enough of blood and tears. Enough!

The Pocket Philosopher Edmund Smith Undergraduate Student SUPPOSE THAT I AM having a conversation with someone (A) who is making the very strong claim that if society was rid of the concept of gender then it would be better for everyone. Now suppose that I point out that according to the ONS I can see that the greatest proportion of suicides under 50 are by those who identified as male.

So I argue that the concept of gender is useful insofar as it allows us to mark a subset of the population that is of particular concern and see what properties that subset has that could be causally linked to the disproportionately high suicide rate. Now ‘A’ backtracks and instead claims that they are only arguing that the genders should have equal social and political liberties.

But just as soon as I leave, ‘A’ returns to their initial claim.

This is what’s called a ‘Motte and Bailey’ strategy. While the counter argument is being given, ‘A’ uses the rhetoric of only claiming something much milder than they actually do, but as soon as the pressure is lifted, they return to making the much stronger claim. This is a dangerous piece of rhetoric, and well worth watching out for.

Photo Credit: www.businessinsider.com

ON THE 4TH OF NOVEMBER 1995, almost half a million Israelis attended a rally for peace on the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. It was a protest of the silent majority. A majority that for the biggest part of the two years leading up to that night had stood idly by while radical elements in Israeli society had tirelessly incited against Prime Minister Rabin and the Oslo Accords that laid a framework for Palestinian statehood. They had depicted Rabin in SS-uniforms, called him a collaborator, murderer and traitor.

But on that 4th of November, the feeling of the attendees was that everything was going to change.

It was the biggest political protest in the history of the then 47-yearold country. The atmosphere was uplifting, a collective feeling of standing up to the bully that had been hijacking the political arena and tormenting supporters of the peace process for far too long. That night Yitzhak Rabin spoke about giving peace a chance and how he, a decorated general in the Israeli army, was much prouder of his achievements advancing peace than any successes in times of war.

It felt like a celebration. It felt like everything was going to change. And everything did.

Two decades have passed since that Saturday night, the 4th of November 1995, when Yitzhak Rabin was shot in the back after a peace rally in the square that today bears his name. Among the public, his violent and symbolic death continues to stir powerful feelings of grief and the sense of missed opportunities. Similar to the attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11, every Israeli knows exactly where he or she was on the night Rabin was assassinated. Many of them have since lost their belief in the peace process, because they have been fed the lie, that there was no partner on the Palestinian side.

One of the big proponents of that lie stood on a balcony above Jerusalem’s Zion Square 20 years ago and inflamed a crowd that was calling Rabin a Nazi and wished for his death. The man on the balcony did not protest, halt or condemn the angry crowd.

That man was then-leader of the opposition and the current Prime Minister of Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu. Of course Netanyahu did not want Yitzhak Rabin to be murdered. He never dreamed that this is how his incitement would end. As it often happens though,

Features | 27

Send your own philosophical musings to: features@ thebeaveronline.co.uk

28 | Tuesday November 10, 2015

King Salman; Saudi Arabia Resurgent?

A political Sandstorm is roiling in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Ibrahim Chaudhary Undergraduate Student ON THE 23RD OF JANUARY 2015, Al Saudiya interrupted its daily broadcasts to release a typically laconic statement informing the world that King Abdullah had died. Within hours of the late king’s death, amid concerns about the future succession to the throne, King Salman publically pledged to hold fast to the principle of ‘continuity’ in a statement carefully designed to reassure onlookers of the kingdom’s stability. Whilst observers debated whether the new king would continue the cautious reforms initiated by Abdullah, a seismic shift in Saudi foreign policy spearheaded by the new king was taking shape.

Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 the total collapse of Iraqi regional power was complete. The demise of Iraq was initiated by defeat in the First Gulf War more than a decade earlier after which Iraq was subjected to crippling sanctions imposed by the UN. Although Saudi Arabia and Iran have long been regional rivals the decline of Iraq lent a new intensity to the burgeoning rivalry. It resulted in a power vacuum which permitted both Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the absence of a dominant power, to exert their influence over The Gulf. Whilst it is true that this rivalry is partly driven by economics and by the relative proximity of the two nations to one another, it must also be noted that the rivalry is particularly embittered given the religious and ideological differences that exist between revolutionary Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Over the past five years this rivalry has intensified further due to a series of events including the Syrian Civil War and the Bahraini Uprising of 2011.

Simultaneously, American

disengagement from the Middle East under President Obama and the thawing of relations between the United States and Iran has rendered the traditional passivity of Saudi Arabian foreign policy, which primarily relied upon her allies to promote and protect her interests abroad whilst maintaining the status quo domestically, increasingly ineffective.

It is against this background that Salman rose to prominence having previously served as the Governor of Riyadh for almost five decades and then as the Minister of Defence and Crown Prince.

As the Minister for Defence Salman was partly responsible for formulating Saudi Arabia’s reaction to the 2011 Bahraini Uprising. In an unprecedented break with the traditionally non-interventionist policy adopted by previous Saudi governments he oversaw the rapid deployment of over 1000 Saudi soldiers to restore order to the streets of Manama following popular protests by the politically marginalised Shiite majority against the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family.

Of course to blame Iran for being ‘responsible’ for the protests in Bahrain, as many in Saudi did, is to jettison responsibility from the discriminatory policies of the ruling Sunni elite. Nevertheless to meet the growing power of Iran, Salman not only directly intervened on the streets of Manama but also engineered a marked increase in military spending. Saudi defence spending rose by 14% in 2013 and by 17% in 2014. According to SIPRI between 2010 and 2014 Saudi Arabia became the world’s second largest arms importer. By 2014 Saudi Arabia was the world’s fourth largest defence spender eclipsing both France and the United Kingdom spending around $80.8 billion on its military which accounted for more than ten percent of its annual GDP.

Following his appointment as Crown Prince in 2012 Salman turned his attention to Tehran’s concerted efforts to maintain and expand influence across the Levant through the so called ‘Axis of Resistance’ which primarily comprises Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has vocally supported President Assad’s regime in Syria and has carefully positioned Iran as the protector of Shiite minorities.

According to analysts in 2010 Iran spent at least $60 million funding Hezbollah which in turn acted as a conduit for Iranian influence in Lebanon. To counteract this, in 2013, Saudi Arabia pledged a staggering $3 billion grant to the Lebanese Armed Forces in a thinly veiled attempt to curtail Iranian influence in Lebanon. The sheer scale of this grant, given that in 2012 Lebanese defence spending totalled $1.6 billion, and the fact that it was awarded following the assassination of the former Sunni Finance Minister Mohamad Chatah is evidence of the escalating proxy confrontation between the two powers.

This conflict has been exacerbated by the fact that Hezbollah’s fighters have been actively involved in the Syrian Civil War intervening in support of the embattled President Bashar alAssad. Iran remains one of President Assad’s closest allies and rebel leaders claim that it has provided more than $9 billion in the form of weapons and monetary support for President Assad. Although Iranian officials have stringently denied any involvement on the ground in Syria, rebel fighters have captured Iranian operatives in numerous well documented incidents. In contrast, Saudi Arabia has firmly supported the Sunni rebels spending millions of dollars arming and training both moderate and extremist rebel

factions. In a stunning display of contempt for established diplomatic protocol, in late 2013, Saudi Arabia declined its election to the UN Security Council citing the Council’s inertia over Syria as the primary reason for this. The Saudi Foreign Ministry slammed the Council for its ‘double standards’ in failing to intervene to prevent President Assad from using chemical weapons against the Syrian people. Yet behind the vehement criticism was a cloaked concern for the welfare of the Syrian people Saudi Arabia was issuing a stark warning to its western allies. A warning that was largely unheeded; if the United States would not intervene in Syria to remove President Assad and failed to staunch the wider spread of Iranian influence in the region then Saudi Arabia would.

In the eight months since his formal accession King Salman has built upon his previous work and has widened Saudi Arabia’s proxy conflict with Iran by intervening in Yemen. His foreign policy can be distinguished from previous Saudi policy in three key ways. Firstly, Salman has chosen to rely primarily on Saudi military power rather than on the power of allies. When threatened, Salman is prepared to authorise direct military intervention abroad to secure Saudi interests as seen by the intervention in Bahrain.

To achieve this Salman has overseen an exponential increase in military spending designed to enhance the capabilities and independence of the Saudi Arabian military.

Secondly, Salman is prepared to radically increase Saudi funding abroad to counteract the money spent by Iran directly as seen in Lebanon in 2013 and in Syria with the recent emergence of the TurkishSaudi funded ‘Army of Conquest’.

Thirdly, Salman’s new foreign policy involves the formation of Pan-Arab

coalitions which are bound together by a common foe; Iran.

In order to form these extraordinary coalitions, Salman has positioned Saudi Arabia as the protector of Sunni Islam. In doing so Saudi Arabia has been able to attract Sunni nations to join its antiIranian coalitions by deliberately emphasising the sectarian nature of the Bahraini Uprising in 2011 and the Houthi led rebellion in Yemen.

It is evident that King Salman has forged a new direction for Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.

Salman’s actions Yemen and his financial support for the Lebanese armed forces proves that he is prepared to escalate Saudi Arabia’s rivalry with Iran. His decision in recent months to finance the broad Islamist coalition known as the ‘Army of Conquest’ in Syria has led to significant rebel gains including the capture of the city of Idlib. The coalition includes the notorious anNusra Front and it seems that King Salman doesn’t flinch from openly supporting such a group if it results in the overthrow of President Assad.

Riyadh appears to have calculated that Sunni extremists pose less of a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia than an Iranian backed regime in Damascus. In yet another example of the growing divide between Riyadh and Washington Saudi Arabia has chosen to support a coalition that contains several groups which are listed as terrorist organisations by the United States.

The incontrovertible truth facing Salman when he rose to prominence, was that Saudi Arabia could no longer afford to simply maintain the status quo and allow Iran to gain ground and cement its influence to the detriment of Saudi Arabian interests. Salman’s new foreign policy has already changed the face of Middle Eastern politics and heralds the arrival of a new era in the Middle East.

Photo Credit: saidaonline.info

Features | 29

Trajectories of North African Fighters in IS

On North Africa’s role in “exporting” fighters to IS and the reasons behind it.

Cynthia Wang Postgraduate Student THE ISLAMIC STATE (IS) has influence across borders. UN figures state that there were an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters involved with IS. Few countries in Africa or Europe are exempt when it comes to supplying foreign jihadists. North Africa has played a major role in “exporting” fighters to IS with approximately 6,000 fighters originating from African countries such as Morocco, Libya and Tunisia.

According to a report released by the Small Arms Survey in July, Moroccans stand as the largest share of foreign fighters coming from North Africa. Most of them are known to be experienced and able to serve in senior military roles within IS. Tunisians are seen as less experienced and tend to fill the junior roles, responsible for carrying out risky front-line attacks in order to prove themselves.

So how and why these people are leaving their homeland to join the fighting in Syria becomes the core question for many of us looking in from the outside.

There are four main factors that could explain why Africans in particular are attracted to IS; religious, political, economic and social.

Islam has a significant presence in North Africa; Pew Research Centre asserts that more than 90% of people in the Middle East-North Africa region are Muslim and this percentage is still

growing. A large number of African fighters who traveled to Syria have claimed their motive for doing so is a religious calling in order to establish an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and the Levant. While religion is a commonly recurring theme in the reasoning for these people to join the fighting, others believe this is disingenuous.

Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi, a Syrian scholar and Islamic leader; opposed to both the Assad regime and IS; recently said on ABC that “the actions of ISIS contradict the Shariah, their claims to a caliphate are invalid, and fighting against them is a legal obligation for those in the region in order to dismantle their criminal entity.”

He goes on to write; “ISIS uses Islam and fanciful notions of jihad to recruit the youth and deceive Muslims around the world who feel oppressed by conjuring dreams of establishing an Islamic State from China to the Atlantic that would protect their interests.”

While many fighters join the Islamic State for a perceived religious purpose; Islamic organisations globally have renounced the Caliphate and its methods and branded its use of Islam as propoganda. From the perspective given by Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi, IS is un-islamic and other factors need to be taken into account when exploring the motivations behind those who join IS. In Morocco, the political situation is highly linked with religious status. Although Morocco is considered as the most stable country in Africa, the divergent interpre-

tations of Islam have caused a rift within the religion itself.

“ISIS uses Islam and fanciful notions of jihad to recruit the youth and deceive Muslims around the world who feel oppressed, by conjuring dreams of establishing an Islamic State from China to the Atlantic that would protect their interests.”

Between 2008 and 2011, the Moroccan government cracked down on Salafists and radical religious leaders. A report by the Small Arms Survey shows that there might be as many as one third of the former political prisoners who have gone to join IS, since being released following their arrest in the crackdown.

The fact that some of them have prominent anti-government reputations may also have attracted many young followers. Many previous detainees also found themselves having difficulties assimilating back into society. On top of that, the Moroccan government has turned a blind eye towards the

mobilization of Moroccan jihadists to IS, since they took advantage of it as a way to reduce instability domestically.

As for the birthplace of the Arab Spring; Libya and Tunisia, the impacts left from the uprising have driven these countries’ young men and women into another “revolution”. On the PBS Newshour program, correspondent Yasmeen Qureshit visited Tunisia and found out there were many cases where during the Arab Spring, a number of people had lost their family members or their jobs. These vulnerable people have been more easily manipulated by IS propaganda. During an interview, a Tunisian political analyst, Youssef Cherif, told the correspondent; “You have people who are really fed up with their lives in Tunisia, fed up with the economic situation, fed up with the political situation. The propaganda of ISIS portrays the selfproclaimed state of ISIS as paradise on earth, where you get jobs, money, wives.”

What Youssef said not only reflected the shaky economic and political situation resulting in the growing number of Tunisian jihadists going to Syria, but it is also an indication that what the people really want, is true peace and stability in their lives.

Another point made by the correspondent throughout the program and by the Small Arms Survey was; that while the wide spread use of social media and the Internet has been an effective tool for IS recruitment, a considerable

number of African fighters were joining IS through face-to-face or personal contact. Many of these people are introduced by family members or friends who were already fighting in Syria, and so the recruitment started to snowball.

Despite some African fighters returning home due to the fact that IS is gradually losing ground or not meeting their expectations; many are unable to reintegrate back into society. The challenges North African countries face are not only the exit but also the return of jihadists. Governments’ unwillingness to help the returned fighters contributes towards this growing problem.

Currently IS, and the instability in the Middle-East is still a source of tension for a number of world powers. Russia, who back the Assad government in Syria, recently initiated bombardments on IS claimed territories in what the former-Soviet states Orthodox Christian Church referred to as “holy war.” While across the Pacific, the US continues to work with “moderate-rebels” to oppose both Assad and IS. The concerns over the growing number of foreign fighters from Africa have in turn shed light on continuing unsolved national and regional instability.

In order to find a solution to these problems, a greater understanding of the political and economic situation at the grassroots is required. The continuing stream of foreign fighters joining IS cannot be seen as a mere consequence of a religious call for jihad.

Photo Credit: Flickr: Day Donaldson

30|Tuesday November 10, 2015

The Beaver’s Club Of The Week LSE Judo Lukas Raynaud LSE Judo Publicity Officer AS READING WEEK COMES to a close, the LSE Judo Club members have another training session under their belts (white, green, and black alike). The Club, taught by Ben Andersen, is off to a strong start this year, with new and old members alike meeting Fridays 8-9:30pm and Sundays 3-5pm to practice. During each two hour session, the judokas (judo practitioner) exercise mind and body together, going through a series of stretches, strength training, drills, and loose sparring.

Judo, a modern martial art and Olympic combat sport, was created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Translated, Judo means “gentle way”, and this ideology is held throughout the entirety of the sport. Judo, contrary to the phrase “judo chop”, does not deal with striking in any way. Instead, the sport consists of throws (via hips, legs, or arms) and grappling (chokes, pins, arm locks, etc.). The gentle way is embodied in the physics behind these techniques; using

an opponent’s weight and moment against them while requiring little of your own exertion. But when locked up with an opponent, getting them to use their own strength against them is not always an easy task. Understanding the mechanics of the human body, centre of balance, and weight distribution can allow someone with good technique to throw someone of a considerably larger size.

When teaching these ideas to beginners, the analogy of a box on its corner is often used. I advise anyone curious to try pushing a heavy object while it’s flat on the ground, then again when it’s on a corner.

The difference in necessary force is remarkable. In judo, your opponent takes the role of the big, heavy box, and your goal is to get that box to the ground. With proper manipulation of your opponent’s momentum and movement, they can end up on a “corner” themselves (on one leg, upper body leaning forward or backward), and by then it’s too late. Another useful visualisation is the geometry of the triangle. When practicing leg throws, judokas can try and imagine the two legs of their opponent as two

Badminton Mens 1s vs Sussex 1s won 6-2 Mens 3s vs Essex 2s won 7-1 Tennis Women’s 1s vs Imperial 1s won 12-0 Men’s 1s vs Cambridge 1s won 8-4 Table Tennis Mens 2s vs Middlesex 1s won 10-7

points on the triangle’s base, with their own leg being the third. Using inner leg throws (kouchi gari, ouchi gari, kosoto gari, etc.), a judoka can extend the distance between these two points in the triangle, effectively making the base larger and

throwing off an opponent’s centre of balance.

Though in the midst of sparring, it’s not always easy to think about boxes and triangles, these ideas become second nature over time. As the LSE Judo Club con-

Hockey Men’s 1s vs Kent 2s won 3-1 Football Men’s 6s vs Greenwich 1s won 9-1 Men’s 7s vs RSM 1s won 6-1 Men’s 3s vs Buckinghamshire 4s won 3-2 Women’s 1s vs RUMS 1s won 2-0 Men’s 2s vs UCL 2s won 2-0

tinues to train, they can expect to further perfect the deep relationship between physics and judo, while some members may even get to apply their knowledge in an upcoming University Tournament in November. Stay tuned for more.

Netball Women’s 3s vs Anglia Ruskin 4s won 25-23 Women’s 1s vs St George’s won w/o Squash Women’s 1s vs Essex 2s won 4-0 Men’s 2s vs Kingston 1s won 3-0 Rugby Men’s 1s vs Hertfordshire won 22-7

Win, Lose or Draw, send your results to sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

TO ASSUAGE THE Union of Sportsperson’s fierce anticipation of that sophomoric December day when fancy dress is worn from dawn ‘til dusk, appetites were whetted by a foray into costume drama this week.

And like a true costume drama, there was no shortage of romance (or drunken face-licking, depending on your school of thought) in this week’s episode of Made In Zoo. Outfits ranged from the imaginary to the bizarre to the downright sheet. From warped Barbies to les-

bian ballet dancers to onesie-wearing German theoretical physicists in the 1930s to dead European cleaners, the powers that be at the helm of the various clubs within the AU managed to cover the whole spectrum of human occupation.

The theatrics were in plentiful supply, as events were kicked off (or out, if you will) with the forcible ejection of a young man descended from Heisenberg himself, the youngest member of the White family. Rumour has it he used questionable Methods to express his disGust at some pollo hermano.

But the headlines were to be found elsewhere, as the Man From Beverly Hills sought to Cheemclude a Lively netballer in his roster of Hollywood ex-flames, which reportedly includes Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, and the entire cast

of Glee. The encounter, however, seems not to have ended in a picturesque shot of man & woman walking into the sunset, as two of London’s many non-housèd were philanthropically given a place to Live, leaving the suave gent to Ahmble his way home.

The Henchest man in the AU further cemented his place within the ruling royal family of the most controversial institution at the LSE, coveting the crown Jules once again.

In another dark alcove, one Bullish individual did Deece with a Bit of alright, adding to the tally of Men’s Rugby players whose charm was on point this week.

Compounding the glory was, of course, the healthiest man in the whole AU, the man who has more appointments than your local dentist, the Bupaman, added a Verry

special someone to his growing Lisst – wejust hope Miss Lane doesn’t find out!

And to add a cherry to the icing on top of the gateau, a Beau lass (poetic licence rendering gender agreement here not of the utmost importance) Fired herself up for a boogie plus dessert with yet another Rugby gent, as it Dawned on her that he was sweeter than Sugar.

Really good from all involved. So much testosterone it was an actual joke, and the technology currently awaiting patent approval under the company name Dale&Jamma Electronic Goods , designed to calculate to two significant figures the amount of saliva that is exchanged in a single night in a given club, is giving early suggestions that this week potentially broke some regional records. Bravo!

Sport | 31

LSE Men’s 6s Demolish Greenwich Charismatic leader Pete Clark takes LSE Men’s FC 6s (or is it 5s) to new lofty heights

Chris Tune LSE Men’s FC 6s Goalkeeper JUST OVER A MONTH ago, shocked members of LSE FC were informed of the controversial and arguably highly unjust decision to swap the titles of the 5th and 6th teams.

This understandably dented the preseason confidence of the 6th team.

However, under the charismatic leadership of newly appointed captain Pete Clark, the green shoots of recovery are beginning to show for the 6’s. In Halloween week, they

dismantled Greenwich 1’s 9-1 in a wicked performance.

LSE launched into a blistering start as the central midfield trio of Josh Berman, Alex St John and Pete Benham harried opponents and ensured LSE dominated the middle of the park throughout the game. In fact, the Beaver can exclusively announce that Pete Benham signed a year-long contract with the 6’s after Wednesday’s game, as pictured below.

By half-time, LSE had racked up a stunning 7-0 lead as goals flowed

freely from the potent front three of Fola Ogunsola, Max Petre and loanwith-an-option-to-buy signing Stephen Vera-Cruz. The effervescent Alex St John sparkled throughout the game and helped himself to a brace of well-taken goals against a generous Greenwich defence.

The pick of the bunch, and a potential goal of the season contender came from midfield dynamo Josh Berman. Typically known for his wayward shooting, players from both sides were shocked to see a speculative shot from the halfway-line fly

into the top corner for an incredible goal.

The second half was a much more tame affair but LSE continued to look comfortable whilst extending their lead to 9-0.

A special mention must also be reserved for FC favourite Colm O’Sullivan who came from the bench to net his first goal for LSE. Ghosting into the box to caress a half-volleyed finish past a despairing keeper; his goal was the final dagger in Greenwich’s coffin.

Unfortunately, LSE were not able

to hold on to a clean sheet. An innocuous ball played into the penalty area resulted in some shirt-pulling and a penalty was duly, and correctly, awarded. The Greenwich striker dispatched the penalty, but the strike proved to be nothing but a solitary consolation goal as the final whistle sounded minutes later.

LSE win again in the Wednesday league and face Greenwich again in 10 days time. They will hope for a repeat performance to prove once more their promotion-chasing credentials. Star Man: Alex St John

VISIT US AT BEAVERONLINE.CO.UK OR TWEET @BEAVERONLINE

Hell on Wheels: Cycling Tackle the Hills LSE Cycling take on the vicious BUCS Hill Climb competition

Section Editor: Alex Dugan

Sport

Maurice Banerjee Palmer LSE Cycling Club Captain

‘YOU’RE GOING ALL THAT way just for that?!’ At 5.15am on the day of the competition I struggled to answer this question. One reason is that the ‘hill climb’ is a British peculiarity. Like trainspotting and queuing, to an observer there isn’t much to appreciate and the participants don’t seem to enjoy it much either.

‘Vicious’, ‘lung-busting’ and ‘a right f****** b******’ are how cyclists describe these climbs. The other reason is that I’m not very good at answering questions at 5.15am.

To give some context, the LSE Cycling Club was set up last year.

It has been holding Casual Rides (for everyone), Deutsche Bank Club Runs (for those a bit too fond of Lycra), Wednesday training (for those far too fond of Lycra and pain), and off-bike events ranging from pub crawls to bicycle maintenance sessions.

Using bicycles acquired through the LSE Annual Fund, we competed in the BUCS 10 Mile Time Trial outside Oxford last April. Backed by our Racing Sponsor, Deutsche Bank, and with Gabriel Costelloe as my successor at the helm, we left LSE on Saturday 24 October at 6.30am.

Preparation began with laps of a bumpy loop around Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace, with a fast lap at the end to stretch the group out – with encouraging results. Two days later, selections were made on the basis of each cyclist’s average wattage over 10 minutes on the LSESU Gym’s Wattbike divided by their bodyweight (power to weight ratio is everything when climb-

ing). And power testing is a brutal process: among our conversations were the words ‘He absolutely ruined himself ’, ‘They couldn’t stand afterwards’ and ‘I was slightly worried we’d killed her’. It was a bizarre ritual of a succession of us getting on the Wattbike, being shouted at, and then crumpling on the floor for a few minutes.

On a broader point, the first week had been encouraging.

Though training was pursued with the Hill Climb in mind, we’ve also aimed at developing our members as cyclists. As well as lectures on ‘The Rules’ and debates as to whether or not Cavendish really is past it, this is primarily group riding skills. And for good reason – this is what differentiates cyclists from heathens (triathletes) and everyone else that simply rides a bike. Riding in close formation takes time and attention, but the result is that cycling becomes more sociable; safer; and much, much faster. Almost everyone who joined was new to group riding but (after a lot of shouting) the group became tighter and tighter. The real measure of success has been how newcomers have been integrated: \they’ve been led by example and given the odd tip by other members.

But back to BUCS. Seven cyclists bundled seven bicycles into the minibus in front of NAB and we left at 6.38. Along Kingsway, through Camden Town and along the M1 the darkness lifted. Some slept with jackets around their faces, others discussed pedals, one did microeconomics reading.

We arrived at Calver, about 10 miles out of Sheffield and into the middle of nowhere, four hours lat-

er. The big round hills of the Peak District were a welcome change from London’s square skyline. It was also bloody cold. We surveyed the competition and were promptly intimidated. Most bicycles were worth more than all of ours collectively and Cambridge had a gazebo. Ollie and Marlene, who had come along to support the team and go cycling, were unperturbed and left for a tour of the area.

Disappointingly, a mistake with the entries meant that Jack and Jed couldn’t race. Practice was about to close, so Gabriel, Alex and I rushed across with them and recce’d the course as they went as hard as they could (this involved yet more shouting). This course was 1.2 miles at an average of around 10 percent. Despite being a time trial of sorts, the British hill climb is nothing like the flatter, longer time trials you’re used to seeing: it’s short, sharp and full of people without helmets or anything else that might weigh them down.

So, back at the bus the three of us talked about the course. It felt much steeper in the first half, with a section flattening out about threequarters of the way in and then another ramp towards the end. The road surface was good throughout and allowed enough space for descending riders and cars to pass by in both directions. We agreed that as long as you paced the first section, you would be able to hold it for the end and perhaps pick up some momentum. Pacing was crucial: the fear was going out too hard and blowing up, leaving nothing left for the final section.

The reality of hitting the hill in anger is something else though.

There’s so much more volatility in staying that close to the limit the whole time. Halfway up Gabriel heard a beep from his Garmin and saw a warning notification: ‘Warning: Maximum heart rate exceeded’.

(The file says 200 bpm – although he swears he saw 206.) Alex ‘got caught up in the moment’ and held 60 watts more than he had planned for the first 0.2 miles. He never made it back apart from in bursts at the end. I hit the wall within 15 seconds.

Now that’s almost a contradiction in terms: the glycogen stored in your muscles should make those seconds the easiest (rowers describe it as ‘five free pulls’ in which you can go flat out before finding your rhythm).

The ceiling was lowered and I barely got within 10 bpm of my maximum heart rate. The way to avoid this is to taper training properly, sleep and eat well beforehand, and warm up effectively. I didn’t do any of these things.

You also ignore the mental element at your peril. My legs weren’t being very accommodating and nor did I have the concentration to put them in the right place. Others went through the pain barrier On the other hand, the effect of the roadside supporter is unpredictable.

The rushes of noise from Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam briefly muted the pain in my legs and lungs.

Alex describes it as ‘surreal’, and attributes his recovery in the final straight to the man dressed as a banana in particular.

In sum, a race like this, simple as it is, is still not a test of ‘who is the strongest cyclist?’ Being naïve to the other factors involved, as I found out, is costly – Gabriel beat me by half a second.