Beaver858

Issue 858 | 25.10.16

Beaver

the

Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

BLACK

HIstory Month

Special

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

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Managing Editor Greg Sproston

Beaver

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the

Beaver

Established in 1949 Issue No. 858 - Tuesday 25 October 2016 - issuu.com/readbeaveronline Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

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News Editor Joseph Briers

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Comment Editor Hakan Ustabas

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PartB Editor Flo Edwards

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The City Editor Alex Gray

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Features Editors Daniel Shears Stefanos Argyros

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Sports Editor Vacant

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Online Editor Ellie Peake

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Collective Chair Vacant

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The Collective:

A Doherty, A Laird, A Leung, A Lulache, A Moro, A Qazilbash, A Ryzhonkova, A Santhanham, A Tanwa, A Thomson, B Sreejith, C Cogne, C Holden, C Loughran, C Morgan, C Hu, D Hung, D Lai, D Shears, D Sippel, D Tighe, E Arnold, E Smith, G Cafiero, G Ferris, G Harrison, G Kist, G Manners-Armstrong, G Saudelli, G Sproston, H Brentnall, H Toms, H Ustabas, I Plunkett, J Briers, J Clark, J Cusack, J Evans, J Foster, J Grabiner, J Heeks, J Momodu, J Ruther, J WilkenSmith, K Owusu, K Parida, K Quinn, K Yeung Goh, 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 Pennill, M Strauss, N Antoniou, N Bhaladhare, N Stringer, N Webb, O Hill, O Gleeson, P Amoroso, P Blinkhorn, P Gederi, P Grabosch, R Browne, R J Charnock, R ConnellyWebster, R Huq, R Kouros, R Serunjogi, R Siddique, R Uddin, R Way, S Ali, S Argyros, S Chandrashekhar, S Crabbe-Field, S Kunovska, S Rahman, S Sebatindira, S Shehadi, S Taneja, 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!

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From the Editorial Board

Welcome to our Blackout Beaver Edition in celebration of Black History Month!

DURING THE PAST FEW weeks the Students’ Union, student societies and the LSE have celebrated Black History Month through a multitude of thought-provoking exhibitions, events and publications. As the month is coming to an end, The Beaver editorial board is proud to contribute to the celebrations by publishing, for a second year in a row, a special Black History Month edition.

The purpose of this edition is to encourage LSE students of all walks of life to reflect on the current and past experiences of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) people. Whilst Black History Month presents a unique opportunity to do so, we are confident that the salient issues addressed in this week’s edition will continue to capture the interest of LSE students throughout the year. After all, learning about the history, achievements and struggles of BME people makes us more informed citizens, better classmates and more rigorous intellectuals. Crucially, in a diverse and vibrant community like the LSE, knowing more about the experiences of our peers enhances our capacity to make meaningful friendships and learn from one another.

From its beginnings as Negro History Week in 1926, to a fully fledged season of events, Black History Month is now an important fixture in the calendar. The month of October was chosen to try and instil a level of pride in the history of BME communities across the UK. Yet the series of events held at LSE, and across London, serve not only as celebrations of black lives past, but also for the future of such a historically marginalised group.

Here at LSE, our sabbatical officers are the most diverse group ever. With a BME Director having just been appointed, and 3 out of 4 full time Sabb roles taken up by BME students, the programme of events in celebration of BHM is as broad, and as apt as ever. The LSE, as historically one of the most progressive

universities in the UK, surely has a duty to continue this fantastic diversity in the face of xenophobia and racism that blights BME communities across the globe. There is no better time to think about this, and focus on listening to marginalised voices across society, than during BHM. In the following pages, you will be able to engage with a plethora of articles delving into the experiences of BME people through a variety of perspectives: from personal articles exploring how it feels to grow up under the shadow of discrimination and often subliminal racism, to broader reflections on the nature of Black History Month and the impetus that sustains it.

Our arts and culture section, Part B, has compiled a series of photos and short interviews of BME LSE students offering a glimpse into their unique life experiences. In the Features section, the Students’ Union BME Officer, Dhibla Idris, offers a gripping personal account of how diaspora communities experience their blackness. Our sports section features articles by the captains of the Running and Track and Field teams. Both acknowledge the progress the Athletics Union has made in fostering a more inclusive sporting community in recent years, whilst also reminding us of the challenges that lie ahead, particularly when it comes to tackling underlying sexism and enabling the participation of disabled students.

Insofar as these articles and stories are accurate and compelling, it is due in no small part to the invaluable support of our guest editors.

Despite their busy schedules, they sacrificed their precious Sunday - and hours through the week - to help us source and edit content and provided us with much appreciated company during the long editing hours in the media office. Without their contributions and the discussions they fostered, this edition would not have been

as rich or interesting, if at all possible.

In addition to the stellar contributions of our guest editors, it has been ‘business as usual’ for the editorial board as we have sought to reach out to different communities on campus in sourcing content for this edition. Repeating a decision made last year, we opted to interpret Black History Month through a broad lens, encouraging content from all students from BME backgrounds. We also welcomed content from students who identify as ‘politically black’.

Those who promote political blackness argue that it is a concept rooted in solidarity, which recognises the fact that non-black individuals suffer similar institutional disadvantages and historical discrimination as black individuals. Indeed, there is more which unites than divides, and the best way to combat oppression and successfully campaign is through unity.

To its detractors, ‘political blackness’ is an appropriation of history, identity and culture; it skirts over and delegitimises forms of racism that are not universally shared whilst ignoring the fact that everyone’s lived experiences are unique.

We are aware that our decision to encourage contributions from both black and politically black students will not be welcomed by everyone just as we are aware that the same would be true had we welcomed contributions from black students only. As an Editorial Board, this is a decision that we took with great care, trying to incorporate views and opinions from a variety of students before we came to a decision.

We hope that in reading this issue of the paper you will come across stimulating insights and ideas and as always we would be very happy if some of you took a leap of faith (yes, you too eager first years!) and wrote for The Beaver in the comings weeks and months. Enjoy our Blackout Beaver!

TWEETS OF THE WEEK Adeola @Ms_Adeola_ Ppl: “you’re so lucky to get into LSE” clapback: “No. I got the grades. LSE is lucky to have me” Preach Joel Pearce @joel_pearce Politics in 2016: more Republican senate candidates are men called John (7) than are women (4) LSESU ACS @LSESUACS “So she won’t have to Park down what Rosa up for her rights” - Stormzie Speaks #blackascent #BHM #spokenword #acs #poem #lsesu Maya @Maya_isxdora That LSE talk gave me so much anxiety rip my future Simon Hix @simonjhix Love the idea of Brexit negotiations in French. “Le Brexit, combien de fois faut-il le répéter, veut dire le Brexit” James Walters @LSEChaplain When did this spiteful lack of charity destroy the soul of our nation? 39 traumatised minors are treated like an enemy invasion Nona Buckley-Irvine @NonaJasmine Finally made the LSE/sabb social media cull. What a feeling.

LSE Students’ Union @LSESU “With the help of students, we appreciate seeing all the black students and knowing that we are not behind anymore” - Earney Williams (LSE Cleaner) LSE Volunteer Centre @LSEVolunteering Incredible LSE volunteers helping sort harvest food donations which last 365 days for homeless and vulnerable Londoners @spireslondon

What You Should Know about Black History Month Michelle Kibet Guest Editor BLACK HISTORY MONTH is celebrated annually to appreciate the iconic individuals from the BME community both past and present who have made major contributions to our society. It also stands to educate on black African and Caribbean History as well as bring to light various issues facing black communities across the world today.

Black History month was started as Negro History Week in the United States in 1926 by historian Carter G. Woodson along with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) and was celebrated during the second week of February. It was dedicated to teaching the history of black and African Americans

“It is inspiring to see how far we have come since the colonial era, and this gives me hope that one day Black Lives will Matter...”

as well as promoting their achievements. By the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into Black History Month and was officially recognised by president Gerald R. Ford in 1976. It was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in1987 and Canada in 1995.

“Black History Month was started as Negro History Week in 1926 by the historian Carter G. Woodson...”

Largely celebrated by schools and colleges across the UK as well as via a series of events ranging from concerts and film screenings to festivals and exhibitions, Back History Month has now become a popular part of our culture. Although the US celebrates black history month in February, it is marked in the UK calendar as between October 1st and October 31st; coinciding with the celebrations of Marcus Garvey (founder of the United Negro Improvement Association) and the London Jubilee. It was first facilitated

by the former Greater London Council.

A few significant figures of black heritage that we should know about during Black History Month include Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B Du Bois, Macon Bolling Allen, Jane Bolin and more recently Barack Hussein Obama. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most instrumental force during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s and was awarded the Nobel peace Prize for his non-violent approach to racial segregation in America. W.E.B Du Bois was the first AfricanAmerican to attain a PH.D from Harvard University and a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Macon Bolling Allen

“We take pride in our rich history and continue to aspire to a brighter future...” was the first African-American to pass the bar and practice law in the united States, the first African-American Justice of the Peace and is believed to

be the first black man to hold a judiciary position in the US. Jane Bolin was the first black woman to graduate with a law degree from Yale and pass the New York state bar exam and was also the first black woman to be appointed a judge in the United States. Barack Obama, as we all know, was the first

News | 3

Guest Editors: Ruth Simmons Bhadra Sreejith News Editor: Joseph Briers

“Black History Month is the time to remember the great achievements of our ancestors before us...”

African-American President of the United States Personally, Black History Month is the time to remember the great achievements of our ancestors before us and the continuous efforts and contributions to society of our fellow black African and Caribbean people today. We take pride in our rich history and continue to aspire to a brighter future. It is inspiring to see how far we have come since the colonial era, and this gives me hope that one day Black Lives will Matter.

News

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| Tuesday 25 October, 2016

News Analysis: Penal Reform Society Tackles Intersectionality

Ella Bagley-Simpson LSESU Penal Reform Society REKIA BOYD. AIYANA Stanley-Jones. Sandra Bland.

Korryn Gaines. Just four of the many hundreds of names of BME women who have been killed by police brutality.

It is unsurprising that these names sound unfamiliar when compared to their male counterparts; their deaths get next to no coverage in the

mainstream media. It is also unacceptable.

The ‘Say Her Name’ movement arose as a response to the media’s tendency to ignore black women in the context of police brutality and anti-Black violence. It’s founder, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality in the 1980s and is now teaching at the LSE Gender Institute, says it is a brutal illustration of how

racism and sexism play out on black women’s bodies.

She wants us to change our perceptions. The ways in which these women are killed needs to be talked about and better understood. Bringing women into the narrative complicates our understanding of what police violence is and helps to provide a better structure to the ways in which we combat it. The argument for intersectionality is obvious. Disability is one of

the biggest risk factors for being killed by the police; in many instances, the perpetrators of this violence arrive as first responders to emergency calls for mental health crises. We must broaden our understanding of vulnerability to state violence and what we need to do in order to make the dialogue, and our response, intersectional.

This week, the Penal Reform Society will have a stall outside

of the Saw Swee Hock building where we will be running a photo campaign and talking to students. There will also be a collection for the family of Korryn Gaines, the mother who was shot dead with her five-year-old son in her arms.

As movements to combat police brutality gather pace accross the globe, the inclusion of intersectional narratives is becoming increasingly important but risks being overlooked.

Yale Names Classroom After First Black Student Bhadra Sreejith Guest Editor YALE UNIVERSITY IS honouring its first black student by naming a classroom for him.

James W.C. Pennington, who escaped slavery in Maryland in 1828 and became the first African American to take classes at Yale University, will have his picture hung up in a divinity school classroom.

It was illegal at the time in Connecticut to educate African Americans from other states— but Pennington was nonetheless allowed to attend classes.

Although he was allowed to sit in on classes, he couldn’t speak, ask questions, use the library, or be awarded a degree for his efforts.

After attending Yale, Pennington became an abolitionist in New York and formed a legal association that ended the ‘whites-only’ rule in New York City streetcars, as well as serving as a pastor of the Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ.

Yale Divinity School Dean Gregory Sterling said honouring Pennington is important

because “it’s a way of, first of all, honouring somebody who should be honoured and has not been and, secondly, it recovers part of our past that has been

“It is a way of honouring somebody who should be honoured and has not been and, secondly, it recovers part of our past that has been neglected and shouldn’t be neglected...” neglected and shouldn’t be neglected.”

James W.C Pennington was previously honoured by having his portrait hung in the Yale Divinity School Common Room, joining other former deans of the school.

45 Years After LSE Speech: Reflecting on the Legacies of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X

News | 5

News In Brief Gender Institute’s Kimberle Crenshaw Wins Gittler Prize Kimberlee Crenshaw, Centennial Professor at the LSE’s Gender Institute, has been awarded the Gittler Prize by Brandeis University. Crenshaw, well-known for her Critical Race Theory, is also Professor at UCLA School of Law and Columbia and famously coined the term ‘intersectionality’. “Kimberlé Crenshaw is one of the rare scholars whose exceptional academic work has become an important part of dialogue and change inside and outside the academy,” said Brandeis University President Ron Liebowitz.

Foreign Minister Uses LSE Speech to invite UK to join EFTA

Rahat Siddique Staff Writer THIS MONTH, 45 YEARS ago, Muhammad Ali graced the stage of the Old Theatre at LSE and advocated for “total and complete separation” as a solution to the racial issues in America.

Still a member of the Nation of Islam, he also commented on the influence of Malcolm X (two years after his assassination), stating “what he represented made him great” but he “turned against Elijah Muhammad”.

It was only after the death of Muhammad Ali this summer that I learned Muhammad and Malcolm were not on speaking terms in the months before Malcolm’s assassination. Reading about Ali’s 1971 speech reminded me of this separation and how unpredictable life can be, especially since Ali too embraced orthodox Islam many years later.

They were both powerful and influential individuals in their own right, who sacrificed their careers (and with Malcolm, his life) to challenge a structure which had entrenched racial inequality and discrimination against their own communities. Ali lost four prime years of his boxing career and his heavyweight title by standing up for his beliefs and by using his platform to speak out against the Vietnam War. All too often,

in whatever sphere of privilege, we expect change to come immediately or without sacrifice.

Reflecting on the large number of people who attended Muhammad Ali’s funeral or wanted to affiliate themselves to him - some of the most comical being Donald Trump - I wonder whether they had forgotten that Muhammad Ali was Black.

“While the media, and history in general, still portray Malcolm as the ‘angriest man in America’, it is without doubt that he was one of the most intelligent and ardent individuals discussing racial problems...”

To commemorate Black History Month this year, I decided to read the autobiography of Malcolm X. Embarrassingly, I’d never read the book cover to cover, so this was the first time I’d really understood

Malcolm’s context. We are, largely, products of our environment and experiences. Thus to read random quotes by Malcolm or to watch a documentary that briefly mentions his activism doesn’t explain who he was and what his words truly meant.

On the tube, I would feel selfconscious reading something so ‘controversial’ in a metropolis like London. Perhaps it was my own paranoia, but I felt there was an air of discomfort when I was seen reading his biography.

While I don’t wish to hijack the narrative from people who identify as Black or African-American by saying I could relate to Malcolm’s experiences (despite belonging to the BME community, I know there is a difference between being Black and being a ‘minority’ or ‘person of colour’; I understand the oppression and persecution faced by Black people is something that only Black people can truly understand or articulate completely), I did take lessons of solidarity and being open-minded from his words. While the media, and history in general, still portrays Malcolm as ‘the angriest Black man in America’, it is without doubt that he was one of the most intelligent and ardent individuals discussing the racial problems in the USA at the time.

Arguably, racism in America is much more potent and overtly-

violent than the racism we experience here in Europe (but then again, there were at least four genocides on European soil

“Embarassingly I’d never read his autobiography cover to cover, so this was the first time I’d really understood Malcolm X’s Context...” in the 20th century, so there is scope for debate). With increasing xenophobia in the UK, the history of African-Americans in the USA is a powerful reminder of the extent to which systematic prejudice can cripple an entire community. What I learn from the plight and struggles of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali are the methods and structures we need to create a cohesive society. Perhaps we won’t see it in our lifetime, and maybe the rise of nationalism in the UK is to reach more extreme levels before anything tangible is done to tackle the problem. But we can implement strategies on a grassroots level to help those who may be more vulnerable than ourselves.

Iceland’s Foreign Minister, Lilja Alfredsdottir, announced during her speech at the LSE that the UK would be welcomed into the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) following Brexit. Alfredsdottir said: “The EFTA countries might make an agreement with the UK,” she said. “We are chairing the EFTA right now and I put it as a priority to analyse the possibilities that EFTA had on this front...

The UK is our largest trading partner - 11 percent of our exports and imports go to this market”. EFTA is an attractive option for disheartened Bremainers keen to cling on to key features of the single market in a post-membership Britain.

PM ‘Raiding’ Funds for Poor Families Says LSE Professor An LSE academic in the Department of Social Policy has accused Theresa May of ‘raiding’ funds allocated to childcare for impoverished parents in order to pay for promises she made during her campaign for Conservative leader. Dr Kitty Stewart said: “The significance of these restrictions cannot be overstated, I think they are desperately trying to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare pledge. They need more money, otherwise they can’t provide it, and are having to raid the budgets that are currently going to non-working families or those who are disadvantaged.”

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| Tuesday 25 October, 2016

No End in Sight for South African Student Protestors Philip Apfel Undergraduate Student EARLIER THIS MONTH, protests over tuition fees erupted at several South African universities all across the country.

They form part of the largest protests to hit the nation since apartheid, the system of racial segregation enforced by the nation’s National Party (NP) from 1948 to 1994, ended more than twenty years ago. The protests also mark the latest development in an ongoing 2-year conflict in the country, which was sparked by proposed fee hikes of almost 10% in late 2015.

South African President Jacob Zuma attempted to temporarily appease the 2015 protesters by stating “there will be a zero increase of university fees in 2016”. However the short-lived nature of the measure, grossly inadequate from the viewpoint of protesters to address various underlying economic difficulties, as well as the announcement by the government on September 19 that fees would rise in 2017,

make it unsurprising that protests have erupted yet again. As a result of this, protestors are now demanding free education for all students.

At several universities, including the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Witwatersrand (Wits) University in Johannesburg, students were met by swarms of

“I’m not sure free education is feasible and am worried about attacks on students...It’s inflicting fear in other students...

It’s not right...” anti-riot police using tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse them and prevent damage to university property.

Despite these measures, damage

News Analysis: BLM Death Threats Zoe Tan Undergraduate Student AT THE UNIVERSITY OF Wisconsin, black student Eneale Pickett has been receiving death threats for his collection of hoodies that are emblazoned with racially charged statements.

One of these includes a hoodie with the words ‘All White People are Racist’ printed in bold on it’s front. At a tidy $80 a hoodie, he has already managed to sell 80 of them at the expense of his personal safety.

Pickett says the intention of the hoodies was to make people uncomfortable - “I made these sweatshirts initially to start a conversation, and now it’s to shift a conversation because people have been talking about race, sexuality and gender, but now I’m doing it to make them uncomfortable. Because in this country, no one really wants to talk about these issues unless they’re truly uncomfortable.”

Whilst his intentions are admirable, his execution reveals his naivety. Martin Luther King had to start conversations with large, drastic events because news was a paper, or on one of a handful of TV or radio stations. To get the message

and the news out, it had to be important enough to fit into that small medium. In this day and age where social media and pervasive news exposure means we hear and see so much more than ever before, the quality of the message is so much more important. Black lives matters protests, racist shootings, and police violence are already a frequent occurrence, Pickett’s attempts can hardly be said to be adding anything valuable to the debate. Furthermore, with an elected black President, can Pickett really claim “All White People Are Racist”?

The one thing that Pickett can claim to have achieved is revealing the smouldering racial tension going on in the US. As black youth become increasingly frustrated with the racism that persists in the US (particularly evident in the persecution of black people via frequent police violence and gun crime), a certain strand of right wing, white youth are equally increasingly vocal in their rejection of responsibility for ‘crimes they didn’t commit’.

The tension is escalating to uncomfortable levels, yet there appears to be no resolution on the horizon.

control efforts have been of limited success - hundreds of statues and artworks have been destroyed or defaced, and some smaller buildings have even been burnt.

Teaching has been temporarily suspended in many areas, with academics worrying about the universities’ ability to resume operations smoothly should the protests stop. According to UCT’s vice-chancellor Dr Max Price, “with the prevailing conditions on campus, not only is the academic project itself seriously compromised but we also risk creating scars, which will imperil healing in the future”.

Though the protesters mainly consist of disaffected young people, there are some students who disapprove of their peer’s behaviour. Reasons for this disapproval tend to stem from the perceived excessiveness of the protestors’ demands, or more generally as a disagreement of their methods. One final year law student, who wished to remain anonymous, stated “I am not sure free education is feasible. And

I am worried about attacks on other students. It’s inflicting fear in other students. It’s not right”.

The anger of the protestors is mostly directed towards the rising university fees, which essentially exclude a large percentage of the population from the possibility of higher education. However educational reform in and of itself, even in the form of

“Not only is the academic project seriously compromised but we also risk creating scars which will imperil healing in the future...” extended tuition fee freezes, is unlikely to resolve the issue - the protestors’ frustrations concern much more fundamental issues

of racial and economic inequality that continue to pervade postapartheid South African society.

South Africa has one of the most unequal income distribution patterns in the world.

Approximately 60% of the population earn less than 42,000 Rand per year (£2,450), whereas only 2.2% of the population have an income exceeding 360,000 Rand (about £21,000) per year.

Sadly, poverty in South Africa is still largely experienced by the black inhabitants of the country.

South Africa is afflicted with flat economic growth and an unemployment rate of around 30%. Consequently, the country has tight fiscal restraints on spending. This will make solving the problems in its educational system a considerable challenge over the next few years. However, until the more fundamental issues of racial and economic inequality - and the ugly legacy of its apartheid history - are solved, the frustrations of its disaffected populace are unlikely to abate any time soon.

(Photo Credit: The Badger Herald)

Student Outcry as University Library Team Removes Bean Bags Bhadra Sreejith Guest Editor IN AN UNEXPECTED TURN of events, the beanbags in the lower ground floor of the LSE Library have been permanently removed by the LSE Library.

The bean bags, which were extremely popular among LSE students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, were removed in the first week of term. The beanbags were predominantly used by students who wanted to relax in between lectures, with some students taking naps on

“We want to minimise stress by increasing the number of study spaces and this has to come at the expense of the bean bags...” them, and others using them as more comfortable study spaces.

The removal of the beanbags has elicited strong responses from the student body. A Facebook Page entitled Bring Back the Bean Bags has made it

its mission to lobby the school to bring the beanbags back, through printing flyers and drafting a Union General Meeting motion for the Student Union. The page currently has 602 likes.

When the National Student Survey was published, showing that the LSE had the lowest student satisfaction scores of any major university, Paul Kelly, pro-director of education, stated: “This is not a surprise... we will be investing £11 million over the next three years on teaching and learning”. Bring Back the Bean Bags points out the irony of the LSE setting £11 million aside for “improving the student experience”, while simultaneously removing the much-loved beanbags from the library.

The Library team have defended the decision by saying that “It is neither healthy nor appropriate to sleep in the library….we have had examples of students not going home for several days and we cannot encourage this”. They elaborate further by stating that students “make a mess” while napping and this dirties the beanbags considerably, leaving them unhygienic. Other points they have made are that the beanbags make it more likely that students will eat in the library and that this encourages mice, as well as

over time, damaging the Library collections.

The Library team also stated

“It is neither healthy nor appropriate to sleep in the library...we have had examples of students not going home for several days and we cannot encourage this...” that: “Come Easter the Library will be at full capacity going into exams and we need to find ways of giving more students more space to study. The exam period is very stressful and we would like to minimise that stress by increasing the number of study spaces we have and this has to come at the expense of the bean bags.”

Bring Back the Beanbags questioned why the Library was making decisions that affect the student body without consulting students during the process.

Ramone Bedi, an undergraduate

Law student, pointed out that “If bean bags had the power to make people want to eat in the library, all cafes/informal restaurants would have bean bags. There have always been bean bags in the SU as well yet people did not eat on those bean bags”, and that “People will still sleep in the library overnight during Lent Term–they will just sleep on the sofas”.

Old habits die hard—there have been several students pictured sleeping on the Lower Ground Floor sans beanbags.

When half the campus is a building site, and there is very little relaxation area for students anywhere on campus, students have no alternative The beanbags have been moved to the third floor of the

“People will sleep in the library overnight during Lent Term - they will just sleep on the sofas...”

Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, where they will presumably stay until the Library Team can be persuaded to put them back.

(Photo Credit: Facebook)

News | 7

University Round-Up Bristol Relaxes Halls Drug Use Policies Drug policy in Bristol is to undergo a significant shake-up following a review by Avon and Somerset Police. According to the Tab, Bristol University has adopted a new, far more lenient, method of dealing with drug-related incidents on campus and in halls. It has been reported that, under the new scheme, students caught with illicit substances will be forced to participate in an education programme rather than automatically being slapped with a criminal record following their arrest or a penalty notice.

Falwell Censors Student Paper AntiTrump Article The head of conservative Christian college, Liberty University, has caused controversy by banning the publication of an article criticising Donald Trump in the student newspaper. Its editor told the Daily Beast: “He said, basically, the gist was that there were two articles this week about Trump... and they didn’t want two things running about him.” Liberty has a history of defending constitutional freedoms and the irony of the school’s recent action was not lost on the student population. Schmieg quickly posted a quote from College Chief Falwell waxing lyrical on how Liberty “promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities”.

Coventry Uni Offers £400 to Have Sex on Camera The University of Coventry has raised eyebrows after offering students £400 in exchange for having sex on camera. The appeal for student sex is part of an attempt to get ‘realistic’ footage for a new campaign encouraging condom use. Chris McGovern, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “The internet is awash with sex films which could be used to preach its message, without paying couples to film pornographic videos of their own” he told the Mail. Head of the project, Dr Kate Newby, said that her group aims to show how condom use can still be erotic and told the Telegraph that the video will be about “real couples in loving, consensual relationships and be tastefully shot”.

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Tuesday 25 October, 2016

The Historical Tolerance of Slavery

Was the institution the lifeblood of the Colonies and Early United States?

Mohammed Dhaif Undergraduate Student

Guest Editor: Jagmaan Bakshi Section Editor: Hakan Ustabas Deputy Editors: Vacant

BEFORE AND AFTER THE American War of Independence, the institution of slavery was rapidly growing in the American society and further spreading its roots in what would seem to be the deadly weapon that triggered the American Civil War in the 1860s. As a well-entrenched, economically lucrative part of the American society, slavery was relatively unchallenged and was acquiesced to being an inevitable part of the community. The Founding Fathers never sought to defy it in order to preserve the Union and be able to forge a great nation without alienating the Colonies. However, that being said, this evil institution was eventually confronted by the Northerners and the great abolition movements that started spreading in the 1800s, eventually culminating into the Civil War in the 1860s.

The first and foremost reason as to why slavery was relatively unchallenged is a biblical one. Slavery advocates usually referred to the bible and specifically the Old Testament to make their argument. It shows how slavery was indeed ancient and venerable. The argument retained that slavery was simply divinely sanctioned and exercised by respected men in history and even the iconic Jesus didn’t speak against it. The significance of this argument lays in the impact it has ideologically on ordinary people.

Comment

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“The first and foremost reason as to why slavery was relatively unchallenged is a biblical one.

Slavery advocates usually referred to the bible and specifically the Old Testament to make their argument. It shows how slavery was indeed ancient and venerable.”

Traditional, common men won’t find a reason to stand against such an institution if they see its ancient roots and approval in the bible. If it would have any impact, it would urge them to rather stay

away from such a movement that is seeking to undermine what was held by the prophets and prodigies of old times.

Another reason for an unchallenged institution in this period is a social one. Slavery

“The belief was that the world wasn’t about natural equality, but natural inquality. This was planted in the minds of the people through the law...” was ideologically sound and reasonable to most people that the idea of defying it was seen as an exotic, unnecessary behaviour. Stevens, a leading confederate officer says in a speech he gave: “the corner stone of the confederacy is the American negro. As a race, the African man is inferior to the white man. Subordination is his condition…”. It was widely believed to be a feature of western life and very common in Europe, South America, and relevantly North America. The general belief was that the world wasn’t about natural equality, but natural inequality. This was planted in the minds of the people through the law and the wide acceptance that even the leading figures acknowledged slavery, even in the North.

In 1705, Virginia’s General Assembly passed a law aimed at sorting out some of the confusion surrounding the Colony’s various forms of servitude. “All servants imported and brought into the Country...who were not Christians in their native country...shall be accounted and be slaves.’’ This statement is a clear indication that states did indeed recognise slavery.

Thus, the institution seized to exist under the protection of the law, giving people little incentive to try and challenge it.

In the South, there was virtually no incentive to abolish slavery as it was seen as a huge economic boon. The economic impact and returns it generated were so vast that the Southern leaders were firm about retaining the institution and hold their rights of keeping their ‘property’.

By 1860, 4 million slaves resided in the United States and were, as numbers suggest, huge financial assets. The slave population in 1860 was worth $3.5bn, an approximate $75bn in today’s

money. Practically, slaves were worth more than railroads, companies, manufactures combined. The economies of colonial Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina centred on large scale agricultural production. A great majority of the South’s colonial agrarians profited at first from the sale of tobacco, rice, and indigo. These products were essentially planted, cultivated, and harvested by slaves. Manual labour greatly required huge number of workers.

Thus, Southern colonies saw their needs met by the existence of this institution. Not only did it promise them a great number of workers, but also at a very low cost. Therefore, particularly in the South, there was a popular consensus that slavery shouldn’t be challenged for its primarily economic importance.

With those social and economic reasons, the Founding Fathers found it hard to get rid of the institution as they fervently wanted to forge an independent nation. They couldn’t afford alienating the Southern colonies as signs of ominous threats of defiance did prevail when the topic of slavery was brought up.

In addition, the Founding Fathers themselves owned slaves. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin all owned slaves and were willing to profit from slave labour. However, it has to be said that all of the aforementioned Founding Fathers resented the idea of slavery lately, with Washington freeing all his slaves and Jefferson reportedly emancipating five. They thought abolition of slavery might be accomplished by the young men of the next generation. Jefferson called it “moral depravity” and a “hideous blot’’. Yet the point being, it wasn’t expected from anyone to challenge this institution as the wider public realised that the Founding Fathers themselves, being the ideal citizens and role-models, owned slaves and supposedly embraced this institution.

However, slavery was

“Yet we have to endure that this gradual abolition wasn’t solely on a moral basis... slavery didn’t mean, in an economic sense, as much to the North as it did to the South...”

ultimately challenged in the North. By the end of the 1700s, the sounds of abolitionists started echoing around the Colonies. The Northern states agitated against slavery and have shown explicit hints of defiance.

Vermont’s 1777 constitution made no allowance for slavery. In Massachusetts 1783, slavery was successfully challenged in court in a freedom suit as being in contradiction to the State’s new constitution of 1780. By 1808, all states in the North had passed individual laws abolishing or severely limiting the international buying or selling of slaves.

The abolition movement was further led by social reformers like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas, the two key figures in this movement.

Yet we have to endure that this gradual abolition wasn’t solely on a moral basis. Yes it was for the large part, but slavery didn’t mean, in an economic sense, as much to the North as it did to the South, albeit they were involved in the ‘slave trading’ aspect of it. Northern Colonies such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island relied on the export of various local commodities such as fish, liquor, and dairy products.

Therefore, their involvement in slavery was very minimal and it was barely needed unlike the big plantation, ‘cotton’ project in the South. Nonetheless, the challenge of slavery did emerge in the North and was key to the eventual emancipation proclamation. 1807 marked the year were international slave trade was outlawed. The result was a reduction of over 90% in the volume of the slave trade.

If any anticipated change was to take place in regards to this institution, it would seem preposterous to project an occurrence of such change in the given period. In the 17501820’s, slavery was in its prime.

The Southern economy’s cotton was the equivalent of oil to the Arab countries. A lucrative source of income that generates immeasurable revenues. And what makes this true and real for the South? Slavery, which is the engine of this mass production and profitable trade. The enshrined, seemingly sensible part of the society wasn’t to be challenged as an abnormal existing institution in the American community. In addition, the transition America was going through after gaining its independence required the propitiation of all the parties involved in shaping the nation.

Thus, it was allowed to flourish and prevail to an extent. However, by the end of the 1700s, the tide of abolition did hit the empire of liberty, and the phrase ‘all men are created equal’ started to make more sense in the colonies.

Comment | 9

Comical Reflections of an Indian in Britain

Teenagers can be right little shits; doubly so when race is a factor Jagmaan Bakshi Undergraduate Student IN 2008, I MOVED TO England.

I’ve now been here for 8 years, and sure, the fact that I come from a different country, and that I naturally have the skin that most people tan for hours trying to achieve, has produced some interesting experiences and memories. Of course, some of it hasn’t exactly been great: I’ve been given strange looks, been verbally insulted, been asked why I smell of curry (and generally why Indian

“...I assume that some of it was just, excuse me for a lack of a better term, ‘LSE Rugby Men’s Humour’. For instance I got asked if I had lived in a slum. .” people smell, amongst other things). There have been plenty of positives as well, of course.

With such a large community of us over here, it’s great to see that Britain loves Indian food and has embraced some of the culture.

People always want to know how

to swear in some of the Indian languages, and it’s also good to see that the community is on the whole well settled in Britain: just go to Southall or Tooting one day.

Great food as well by the way.

When I first moved to England though, something I will never forget were the questions I was

“...It started to annoy me; I thought, “you ruled us [India] for 200 years, surely you got something more from us than just curry and money?!”” asked about India. I assume that some of it was just, excuse me for a lack of a better term, ‘LSE Rugby Men’s Humour’. For instance I got asked if I had lived in a slum.

That aside, I’ll describe some of those questions now, and how I did actually end up dealing with them.

I was asked about whether India had any Internet or Wifi. I would just say yes, it’s a developing country but we do have Internet there. But where was the amusement in just explaining that to people? I started to say, of course not, we still use pigeons to carry letters to people! I would

then go on to explain that actually everyone still uses animals to get anything done in India at all. Safe to say I didn’t get asked about Wifi anymore!

It didn’t stop there though.

I often got the question “Do you speak Indian?” or “Do you speak Hindu?” and plenty of variations thereof. I wasn’t sure how to react to this at first. I guess it made sense, after all, France: French, Spain: Spanish, Germany: German, India:(?). Initially, I explained that India has many different languages. Even Hindi, which most Indians speak, was itself created from a number of different languages and dialects.

But then it started to annoy me; I thought, “you ruled us for 200 years, surely you got something more from us than just curry and money?!” I remember I looked up the statistics to explain to my schoolmates that actually India has around 23 official languages, of which English is one, and is considered one of the main business languages.

Speaking of English, one of the first questions people would ask me was I “But you’re from India! How come you speak such good English?” Now in fairness I did learn English before I learnt Hindi. But lots of Indian people do learn English in school, and we are taught it at a fairly early stage. However, it really was no fun telling people this, and explaining to them that there are schools back home that are called ‘English-medium’ schools,

where the mainstream subjects are taught in English. I decided to have a little fun with this one.

Whenever I got this question, I used to tell people that near where I lived, there was an intensive language centre that did courses in

“Things really did reach a real high when Slumdog Millionaire was the chosen film to do a GCSE English controlled assessment on.

For weeks, people from my class and my year would shout at me “The Chaiwalla has done it again!”.” all the European languages. I went on to devise a story about how I picked up English in about a week, but that some people even learnt it in five days. “Wow, they actually have those?!” “That’s impressive!” or “Are you being serious?” I still don’t know how people actually believed me.

Things really did reach a real high when Slumdog Millionaire was the chosen film to do a GCSE English controlled assessment on. For weeks, people from my class and my year would shout at me “The Chaiwalla has done it again!” or the “What a player!”

If you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly what I’m referring to. I even called the Slumdog for a while; ah, isn’t school a lovely place!

I thought I needed to settle this once and for all. The next assessment was a presentation, which basically had to be a rant with the aid of PowerPoint. I decided to use all the above points, and throw it back at people. I started with a picture a very big shanty town, and my first point was “Oh guys, that’s where I live, that slum is my house!” People loved it! Then everything I’ve spoken about was addressed, with plenty of humour of course. I completely forgot I was still in school. For a while after people from that particular class would come up to me and say “You do have internet in India right?” At least on those occasions it was funny for everyone involved!

Things have certainly been interesting since I came to England.

Whatever else I’ve said or have thought over the years, I cannot say for a minute that things have been dull coming here. Given the fact that I’m going to be here for a while, I look forward to collecting more interesting memories!

Glass Ceilings are meant to be Shattered 3 LSE Students are challenging discrimination in the City with ‘The Smart Network’

Mahatir Pasha Undergraduate Student MANY GRADUATES WILL be gearing up for the start of their work life, purchasing their 3rd suit, their 5th tie and their 100th shirt, but not these 3 young graduates from the London School of Economics. Samuel Ahmed, Rizwan Nasrullah and Nahian Siddiqi have decided to spend their last summer as students setting up an organisation designed to tackle the issue of social mobility in the City of London. A recent example of the growing problem is the recent release of a Government report by the Social Mobility Commission which found young people from working class backgrounds were being locked out of Investment Banking jobs.

The LSE students all grew up in the heart of East London from deprived areas and soon came to realise it was more difficult to break into both elite

universities and top graduate professions when coming from low income, BME backgrounds.

“It’s as if we are all in a 100m sprint, but low income students have to jump over numerous running hurdles to reach the finish line” says Nahian who graduated with a degree in Economic History. Coming from working class backgrounds and having all attended state schools, the four young students make note of the constant challenges they faced in their journey to secure their places in the best universities and most competitive jobs. “It was a continuous struggle managing the problems that came with living in a poor area, trying to not only realise but also pursue your dream says Sam, a graduate in Geography with Economics. At this point, the three have secured multiple internships and graduate offers spanning from Investment Banking, Real Estate, Trading and Management Consulting and believe it is now time to enable the next batch of

BME students to do the same.

They claim that “Over time we have come to realise it’s just as much about whom you know as it is about what you know”.

The students have set up an organisation called The Smart Network which provides a mentoring service pairing low income BME students in London universities, with top industry professionals in the biggest and best corporate firms. There is an application process for students who apply and if you are successful, you also have access to tailored job application resources and free training workshops. “Our hope is that we pass on our extensive network to the new generation of university students for them to utilise and break down glass ceilings” says Rizwan. The website and application form can be accessed for both mentors and mentees to sign up at Thesmartnetwork. co.uk and you can also follow ‘thesmartnetwork’ on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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| Tuesday 25 October, 2016

Poverty and Policy: What Next After Brexit?

Poverty is everyone’s problem; but the effects are always disproportional.

Hakan Ustabas Comment Editor A PERSON BORN IN 2008 HAD an 80% chance that they would live on less than $10 per day during their adult life. 14% of the entire globe was forced to live on below a single dollar per day — the measurement of absolute poverty by World Bank standards at that time.

In the UK, when poverty is mentioned, it is rarely absolute poverty. Politicians talk in terms of ‘relative’ poverty — 50% of the median average income of an economy. As such, a richer economy will have a standard of relative poverty which is higher than that of a poorer economy, i.e. those in poverty in Britain are far better off than those in poverty in Africa. By calculating yearly income from a Trading Economics source, the relative poverty measure in the UK is £12,792. In dollars, that is $19,820 compared with the $365 of those in absolute poverty. To reiterate, a person in ‘poverty’ in the UK is almost 55 times richer than a person in absolute poverty.

The most crippling fact about absolute poverty is that it is a measure which defines the minimum income needed to consume the basic necessities of life — food, water, and shelter. The 980,000,000 people who ‘live’ below this poverty line struggle to live at all.

We in the UK often take for granted the comfort we have.

Every night we sleep in a bed, with

“We in the UK often take for granted the comfort we have.

Every night we sleep in a bed, with a roof over our heads, and brick walls to protect us from the wind and rain.” a roof over our heads, and brick walls to protect us from the wind and rain. We consume far more calories than we need to survive, and throw away 7 million tonnes of food every single year.

Why is it that in this country, we have a surplus of the basic requirements of life, but billions of people across the globe lack enough for basic necessities? Do we work harder?

Are we in some way superior? No. Simply, we have been lucky enough to be born into a country where levels of wealth and capital were already higher than other nations.

We cannot honestly say that the poorest in our country have worked 55 times harder than the poorest in Africa, and yet the income differen-

tials are so huge.

The migrant ‘crisis’ has been blamed on many causes, from war, to famine, to government action, but underlying each of these reasons is a sense of blame which falls directly onto the migrants themselves.

Popular opinion, and strengthening political rhetoric from parties such as UKIP, talk about stopping immigration, or at least severely limiting it. Many British people do not want more immigrants to come into the country, for fear that they will commit crimes, take benefits, and steal jobs.

In truth, African migrants who undertake the perilous journey to Europe do not do so to undercut wages, break into houses, or sponge from the welfare state. The reason why thousands of human beings decide to risk their life every day is that they want a better life for themselves and their families. They want to join the prosperity which we take for granted, and they want to do so by working for it.

With this in mind, what right do we as equal human beings have to stop them from pursuing a better life? Their actions do not cause us detriment, but can improve their own lives so greatly. It is time to stop punishing people for the accident of birth, and start allowing those in poverty to help themselves out of it.

Contrary to the beliefs of some Remain voters who denounce all Brexiteers as racist, there is a moral argument to be made in relation to leaving the EU. Firstly, the EU

prioritises immigration from other EU countries. Freedom of movement naturally increases the levels of immigration to countries such as the UK, because the state cannot restrict such movement. This (indirectly, through voter pressure) causes the state to do the only thing which they can do to control migration — restrict non-EU migrants

“The migrant ‘crisis’ has been blamed on many causes, from war, to famine, to government action, but underlying each of these reasons is a sense of blame which falls directly on to the migrants themselves.” from entering. This distinction is manifestly unfair, and means that those migrants from countries outside the EU who are more likely to be poor find it harder to enter by

comparison to Europeans.

Immigration controls aren’t even the main problem, however.

The EU also excludes impoverished people from helping themselves out of poverty with internal subsidies, and external tariffs. Many African countries have a comparative advantage in agricultural goods, for example — they are able to produce food at a low cost, and so sell it cheaply by comparison to some other countries. Exporting in such a manner would mean greater income for poorer economies, and reduce poverty. In fact, global free trade has been recognised as one of the leading causes of the decline of poverty. However, the EU subsidises farmers within its border, thus artificially lowering their price. In addition, it places tariffs on goods which are imported from outside of the EU. How can an African farmer hope to compete in the global market when the price of his produce is artificially increased, and the price of his competitors’ produce is artificially reduced? In leaving the EU, the UK now has the opportunity to devise a fairer trade and immigration policy, and thus help impoverished people help themselves out of poverty.

During Black History Month, it is appropriate to remember that BME people around the world are still fighting an incredibly large problem: poverty. In leaving an institution which has contributed to such poverty, the UK has an opportunity to do something about that.

Comment | 11

In Defence of the Freedom of Contract

The LSE has a responsibility to ensure it maximises efficiency and its bottom line Kacper Zajac Postgraduate Student

LAST WEEK THE BEAVER ran an article reporting on a student protest against the LSE policy of outsourcing maintenance responsibilities to private businesses in which it took an overly sympathetic tone given the facts. It is claimed that this policy led to a cleaner, who had worked for the LSE for 12 years, being sacked with only 2 days notice by an Irish firm called Noonan.

Following the incident, a trade union representative also implied that industrial action might be necessary.

One LSE student attending the protest declared that “It’s basically immoral.

When the Uni starts outsourcing, firms competing for the bid create a ‘race to the bottom’ atmosphere. It’s inevitable that the costs are passed on to the most vulnerable people – the workers at the bottom.”

Another student commented

that “institutional racism is fundamental to employment in this city” because outsourcing has a disproportionate impact on migrants and BMEs. Some of the students also chanted slogans such as “Students and workers; unite and fight!” and “Cleaners of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your brooms!”

While it is perfectly natural to feel compassion when it comes to people losing their job, especially at short notice, one should not jump to conclusions.

Firstly, it should be noted that the LSE is entitled to conduct any policy it wishes, including outsourcing. The LSE is, after all, an enterprise and it must minimise its expenses so that it remains profitable. It is profitability that makes the LSE competitive and it is the competition that makes the LSE such a great university.

It is clear that the higher the maintenance costs which the LSE incurs, the more it is likely to compensate those with higher tuition fees.

Consequently, by demanding that the School does away with the outsourcing policy, the protesters also demanded an increase in future tuition fees, at least at postgraduate level. Perhaps they are lucky enough to be able to meet any rise in fees without concern; or perhaps they fail to realise the implications of such a policy; or perhaps they reacted before considering the wider consequences.

Secondly, the LSE cannot be held accountable for the contract between an external business and its employees.

The School cannot possibly oversee all contracts between all bodies it does business with and their employees. It is just unreasonable to expect them to.

Thirdly, despite what some say, competition is good!

The fact that businesses must compete for contracts (such as those offered by the LSE) makes them efficient and moves our world forward.

The high standard of living

we enjoy today is all due to competition. If the LSE did not offer contracts on the basis of competition, it would incur higher costs of maintenance which it would (again) pass on to students in the form of higher tuition fees.

Fourthly, the employee who has been sacked by the Irish firm presumably worked on the basis of some sort of contract: a contract which had been agreed to and followed by both sides as far as we know. Unless there is some form of breach of contract involved, the firm was within its right to restructure itself, including laying people off. Is it pleasant? No. Is it required in tough times to secure the future of the business and countless other jobs? Yes. Unless you prefer to believe that the company merely lays people off for entertainment.

Fifthly, advocates of inflexible employment laws impeding competition and preventing businesses from restructuring should learn

their lesson from history.

Britain once had such laws - in the era of the dominance of Keynesian economics in the 1960s and 1970s - and they led to sky-high inflation and unemployment and ultimately a complete economic breakdown during the Winter of Discontent. I do not think anyone wants to go down this road again.

Finally, the claim that employment relations in London are driven by racism is just preposterous. Every individual is free to obtain any qualifications he or she wishes and then choose employment appropriately to these qualifications. Just because certain ethnic groups happen to work in certain industrial sectors more than others does not make our labour market racist. It seems that screaming “racism!” has became a convenient way to cover the lack of any material arguments, even among students of such a distinguished university like the LSE.

In Defence of the LSE Cleaners

Maximising profit on the backs of the most vulnerable is never an acceptable model.

Greg Sproston Managing Editor IT IS ONE OF THE GREAT things about the LSE that there exist within it a multitude of opinions and views, often strongly held. As editors, we often accept content - good content - that we may disagree with on a personal level. Doing so is vital to create a paper that is genuinely representative in the student body. Nevertheless, I occasionally read an article which I find so outrageously wide of the mark that I feel it deserves a response.

In my personal opinion, the article above is such an example. It is a piece which relies on logical fallacies, misrepresents the positions of campaigners, workers and activists, and offers up robust opinions which are diametrically opposed to the academic research being undertaken at this very University.

The piece begins with a basic factual inaccuracy: ’The LSE is, after all, an enterprise and it must minimise its expenses so that it remains profitable’. Whilst ‘enterprise’ might be something of a vague word, the legal status of the LSE is considerably more specific. The LSE, like all Universities in the UK bar three, is an exempt charity. To quote from the LSE’s own website; ‘Since 1 June 2010, the School has been

regulated for charitable purposes by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).’ In other words, the university functions as a non-profit organisation.

The next argument made is that by campaigning for better treatment for cleaners, students are indirectly campaigning for increased tuition fees on the basis that the school will seek to recoup increased maintenance costs against students. In itself, this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the dispute.

Yes, there are financial elements - staff are demanding contracts which give them parity on pay, sick pay, holidays and pensions.

However, much of the campaign aims to address the poor working conditions and treatment of the LSE cleaners. Furthermore, even if the dispute was purely financial, I would find this line of reasoning quite difficult to accept. Should such an acid test be applied to every problem, issue or campaign that students may have? Don’t ask for improved counselling or well-being services. Forget about improved teaching standards or more timely and applicable examination feedback.

The SU is funded largely from the University, so think twice if you want to start a society which may require funding. I could go on. It is patently ridiculous to claim that campaigning for im-

proved standards is short-sighted because it results in rising costs.

To be reductionist, the logical endpoint would be that rational students should campaign for worse standards at LSE, as the University would reduce its expenditure and pass on savings to students.

The argument that the LSE cannot be held accountable for the contracts between the companies it sources to and their employees is also wrong. This is not opinion - we know that the LSE can be held accountable for these contracts because 3 Noonan employees, ‘The LSE 3’, were reinstated by Noonan last year following pressure from the LSE as an institution and a community.

Whether the LSE should - rather than could - be held accountable is a matter of opinion. My opinion is absolutely yes. The LSE was an institution founded by socially progressive individuals with the aim of bettering society.

These goals still lie at the heart of the university as both an institution and community. It would therefore be a moral dereliction for the LSE to ignore what essentially constitutes discriminatory behaviour.

The one point I agree with Kacper on is competition - it is good, as he says. It fosters innovation and increases efficiency and, crucially, provides the LSE with a tool with which they can hold

external companies to account, if they chose to. Competition can create a race to the top and raise standards; it can also create a race to the bottom in which operating costs are offset on the backs of those at the bottom of the pile.

In a similar fashion, it is absolutely legitimate that the LSE should seek to minimise operating costs.

However, what campaigners are arguing is that this is being carried out in a systematically unfair way. When the Director’s office spend tens of thousands of pounds a year on business class flights, is cutting 5 cleaning supervisor positions really the best LSE can do to reduce a bloated budget? Furthermore, this ‘restructuring’ is being carried out by an external company, Noonan. Do we have any idea whether these savings are being passed on to the University?

Kacper’s fifth point sees a return to logical fallacies, two this time. Firstly he paints campaigners as ‘advocates for inflexible employment law.’ At best, this is a sloppy generalisation. To my knowledge, none of the students or staff at LSE are campaigning for a change in employment law.

They’re arguing that the LSE should be doing more with its own internal policies within the current legislative framework. As impressive as the LSE is, I very much doubt the Facilities Department is going to be deciding la-

bour law for May’s Government.

Even if this dispute could be tied to broader union campaigns (i.e. on the Trade Union bill), it is quite an imaginative leap to assume that the associated campaigners wish to see a return to demand management and spiralling inflation.

The idea that every individual can simply go out and get the qualifications and job they need or want is staggering. It displays a profound ignorance of structural factors which academics and policymakers left behind decades ago. Education is not free. It has either a financial cost, or a time cost. Individuals working full time to make ends meet cannot always sacrifice hours at work to undertake some kind of course or degree. Poverty is gendered and it has a disproportionate impact on BME communities. Institutional racism in the labour market exists. These are not just responses to claims in the articles above - they are facts. A vast, empirical literature exists on persistent poverty and poverty traps, employment barriers, ethnic penalties in the workplace, etc. It is not reasonable to deny such a body of research out of hand.

Ultimately, it seems an irony that Kacper bemoans a lack of material arguments on the part of campaigners - I struggled to find any in this piece.

12|Tuesday 25 October 2016

Examining Institutional and Cultural Racism An inside look at how structural and cultural norms marginalise BME individuals Esohe Uwadiae Undergraduate student GROWING UP BLACK, the hardest lesson I’ve had to swallow from society is that my life means nothing. At this point, family and friends will chime in with cries of: “Of course it does! You matter to xyz people, we’d notice if you were gone”. While this is nice to know, this is merely the personal impact of my life on others. On a more macro, society wide scale, as an ordinary black person, my life automatically does not matter (or, at the very least, it matters less).

The evidence of this is implicit at times and hard to substantiate due to the mechanical way in which this message is communicated to you. It’s visible in the little things, such as nude colouring meaning white, and only being able to buy products for my hair in Greater London.

But there are also bigger instances of it that are harder to brush off, most clearly played out in the media. This lack of meaning placed on our lives subsequently affects what the media feels it is (or isn’t) allowed to show. When TV reporter Allison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were brutally killed by Vesper Lee Flanagan in 2015, there was huge outcry against showing any part of the video. Many stated they did not wish for the pair to be remembered in this way. Facebook and Twitter were criticised for

“When you are constantly bombarded with the implicit message that your life matters less than your white counterparts, it’s hard to stay hopeful.” lifeless bodies of murdered black people. ABC World News Tonight was one of several broadcasters to show the viral video on their daily newscast of Eric Garner being choked by police, including his desperate repetition of the phrase “I can’t breathe”. Their newscast also included video and images of his lifeless body on the ground, before being taken away. How many thousands of people have watched this man take his last

breath? Why is it okay for him to be seen and remembered this way? The Black Lives Matter Movement began for a reason.

Now, because intersectionality is incredibly important, gender must also be considered. This can be summarised in a simple equation: black + female = irrelevant. It’s for this reason that Malcolm X famously said “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman”. Sadly, this is a statement that rings true even today, with black women being left behind and forgotten.

This phenomenon also explains the rise of movements such as #SayHerName in response to Sandra Bland’s fatal encounter with the police. In their CUPSI spoken word poem ‘Stay Woke’, Kai Davis and Miriam Harris note that ”While it’s important that we reblog and retweet Trayvon Martin, we must not forget Renisha McBride”.

This leads to a disillusionment with your life that has been internalised by some black individuals, myself included. When you are constantly bombarded with the implicit message that your life matters less than your white counterparts, it’s hard to stay hopeful. That leaves the question: what can we do?

Firstly, educate yourself. The institutionalised racism of our country means our education system is not one where we will easily learn about people like Claudia Jones (founder

of Britain’s first major black newspaper) or Linda Bellos (gay rights activist and co-founder of Black History Month in the UK). I was 16 years old, studying AS History when I discovered Malcolm X for the first time despite having done some form of History throughout my entire education. The onus is on you to learn your history and then to teach others.

“Malcolm X famously said, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman.”

Secondly, support. When you see events celebrating black people, attend! This is so important. If the world is telling you that you do not matter, at least at this event, for this brief period, they are wrong.

Finally, solidarity.

This support should extend to any and all marginalised groups.

If you see a post....share it, when they protest….go, tell your friends. Speak up. We do not have to accept the rules society is organised by. If we say it enough times, they will listen and things will change.

Ultimately remember, you are history in the making.

You have power. Use it.

Photo Credit Flickr

Features

Guest Editor: Jean Sarhadar Section Editors: Daniel Shears Stefanos Argyros

their autoplay features (stating that seeing these videos could traumatise people), as was The Sun and Daily Mirror for their decision to publish still frames of the video.

ABC World News Tonight refused to show any part of it.

In comparison, there has been little concern on the part of the media with showing the

Features | 13

Diaspora and the Complexity of Blackness A reflection on the distinctive challenges faced by a black diaspora Dhibla Idris BME Officer I WASN’T BLACK UNTIL I came to the UK. Yes, I was born black but my experience of blackness differs according to where I’m located. Back home there were many dimensions to oppression, like being from the wrong tribe or the wrong class, but never was race of central importance.

In the UK, despite being at the intersection of so many identities, an immigrant, a Muslim, a woman, the one that that is intrinsic to my inferiority is the colour black.

Paradoxically the colour that is associated with nothingness is what makes me hyper visible. And this hypervisibility cannot be compared to any other oppression. My blackness is not something I can escape from. The biggest thing I associate with my blackness is my lack of autonomy. I don’t own my body. There is a movement trying to convince

“Paradoxically the colour that is associated with nothingness is what makes me hyper visible.”

people that my life is equal to my white counterparts. Our parents came here to build a better life for us, bringing their children here in planes, and watching them leave in police cars (black people in the UK make up 3% of the

“ We are not the architects of our own misfortune but we’re fortunate enough to be able to mount change. ” national population but 10% of the prison population) and coffins. Doomed because of my body, my skin. My hypervisibility is forcing erasure. Our generation is claiming it back, owning our bodies and blackness through music and social media; through this article.

We are not the architects of our own misfortune but we’re fortunate enough to be able to mount change.

This movement of bettering is very visible in the diaspora community in general. The remittances back to Africa in 2015 amounted to $35.2 billion which is more than all the aid given to Africa in 2015. Many

diaspora have families back where they came from, they have houses and memories.

They didn’t come here to find a new home, but out of necessity. Growing up, I was raised with a strong sense of a duty to back home, to use my privilege to go back and help.

Indeed, in many diaspora communities’ students and young professionals have somewhat of a saviour complex.

The narrative that is most prevalent is the following: “come to the west to gain superior knowledge and experience then lead your country out of its problems”.

A well-intentioned narrative no doubt, that comes from the fact that the diaspora lack a sense of belonging (‘home’ being an odd concept we can’t quite operationalise.)

This narrative however is problematic, with studies showing that in countries like Nigeria, underqualified western graduates are taking jobs from qualified Nigerians simply by being educated in the west. In Somalia, the return of members of the diaspora has created a cleavage between them and locals: often the former are resented by the locals and are accused of being spoiled and undeserving members of society.

The spirit of nonbelonging in my diaspora experience extends far beyond my blackness. With the Justice for Cleaners campaign, through the

common bond of a diaspora trying to create a better life for themselves, I found I identified with the cleaners’ aspiration more than some of my student peers. The cleaners at LSE are mainly

“...the diaspora community at LSE, myself included, [...] should focus primarily on addressing the problems and oppressions at our own university.” made up of diaspora, who were more fortunate back home. There are engineers, and university professors amongst them and yet at the LSE they are made to feel invisible and unimportant.

They are an example however of how charity starts at home, of how the diaspora community at LSE, myself included, should not just endeavour to fix the problems of the third world, but should focus primarily on addressing the problems and oppressions at our own university.

Photo Credit: MCB

Interested in writing for Features? Email us at: features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Pocket Philosopher Musings on Slavoj Zizek and psychoanalysis Edmund Smith Undergraduate Student ZIZEK’S NEW BOOK IS OUT, and once again we have the struggle of working out what, exactly, he means. As part of this, I shall be asking myself a question I seem to end up considering more-or-less any time he publishes something new. What are we to make of psychoanalysis? There are two questions behind this first one. On the one hand, we need to ask what psychoanalysis tries to do. Then we need to ask how well it achieves this aim.

The first question doesn’t have a simple answer. Practicing clinicians tend to fall into two camps. On the one hand we have those who think that the aim of analysis is to somehow ‘know thyself ’ and thus demystify one’s suffering, and on the other we have those who take the goal of analysis to be the patient’s ability to create and pursue long-term projects.

Of course, there are psychoanalytic thinkers who aren’t using the theory in a clinical setting. Zizek is among these.

Does psychoanalysis succeed in a clinical setting? If you take it to be about alleviating suffering, then according to most of the studies I’ve seen it’s as successful (and perhaps even slightly more successful) than CBT. But frankly this doesn’t tell us much more.

A kind of placebo could easily be the mechanism behind CBT’s success, and the extensive duration of analysis would lead one to expect a larger placebo. I think we can tentatively say that modern psychoanalysis hasn’t been falsified, but there’s a big difference between not being falsified and being thoroughly vindicated.

Now, what about Zizek? I think we can appeal to a maxim for clinicians which fits him nicely: Analysis is not concerned with what the patient means, or what they meant to say. It is concerned with what the patient actually said. The clinician doesn’t seek to correct slips of the tongue or clarify ambiguities, but rather to provoke reflection on how the patient’s statements could be taken given that they have made the slip. Zizek might be plausibly read as not really caring about the intended meaning of quantum physics, Schumann, or even his jokes.

He might be best taken as provoking us to reflect on the other ways in which these discourses might be understood, and on whether we already accept any of these unintentional meanings, without even having known it.

But the question of whether this method is a good one, or even how we could test such a thing is not at all clear.

Trying to discover the specifics of his methods and the conditions for their adequacy should be the question that sits in our minds when we read this new text, as it should when we engage with any deeply foreign field of study.

14

| Tuesday 25 October, 2016

Higher University Fees in South Africa Hinder Social Mobility The expense of university in South Africa is detrimental to both racial equality and economic growth Gabriella Gee Undergraduate student THE DEBATE IS A FAMILIAR one. University fee hikes are making higher education inaccessible to students from families on average incomes, let alone the lowest. However this is not a story about the UK, it is post-apartheid South Africa. In 2015, proposals to raise tuition fees by 10.5% triggered student protests which won a moratorium on the increase for one year. Now, the government has announced price rises for 2017 of 8% and once again students are objecting.

Already tuition fees in South Africa are astronomical. Many students with the requisite academic ability are prevented

“Despite huge leaps forward towards racial equality, there remains an intersection between the white population and wealth.” from accessing higher education because their families simply cannot meet the financial costs.

South African society faces a cycle in which only the richest go to university, and then because graduates have significantly better employment prospects, the same group secure the most highly paid and prestigious jobs. Instead of university being a source of social mobility, the South African system in its current form is serving to ingrain the inequalities that the end of apartheid was

meant to eliminate. Given South Africa’s not so distant past, the crossover between race and class is particularly significant. Despite huge leaps forward towards racial equality there remains an intersection between the white population and wealth, and such systematic inequality means the cost of university prohibits vast numbers of black students.

Nonetheless, the South African student population is refusing to be silenced and continues to insist their voice be heard with various forms of protest across the country. For example, at the University of the Free State the flash point was a rugby match where violent clashes took place between spectators and protesters; meanwhile a student housing shortage at the University of Cape Town led demonstrators to burn a bus and throw sewage into teaching rooms. In the University of the Western Cape there was collaboration between students and trade unions, combining the fight against student debt with the battle for higher wages.

As history has shown, student protest can often be representative of wider problems within society.

In South Africa’s recent past the Soweto Uprising, led by high school students, is widely viewed as the beginning of the end for the apartheid system. It seems clear demonstrations will only continue to gain momentum as more groups latch onto the movement.

Unless the government takes action to change the system of university funding they could soon be facing a national crisis.

On the surface the situation in South Africa seems to have many parallels to the debates and controversy surrounding the rise of fees in this country in 2010. Here too, people have emphasised to the government how increasing the cost intensifies the elitist nature of universities,

by excluding students purely on the basis of their family income.

However South African students are in an even worse position.

British undergraduates have the guarantee of a loan to cover their fees, only to be paid back once their income is above a certain

“Instead of university being a source of social mobility, the South African system in its current form is serving to ingrain the inequalities that the end of apartheid was meant to eliminate.” level; plus any remaining debt is written off after thirty years.

Whilst our system may be far from perfect, the problem is much graver in South African.

Often fees are payable up-front, even before registering for a course and furthermore there is no state provision for loans. At many universities, graduation is conditional on full payment of fees so there are some students whose entire degree could go to waste due to financial hardship.

It is not just poor, working class students either; only 5% of South African families feel they can comfortably afford to pay their children’s fees. From nurses to school teachers, traditionally middle class professions are

increasingly finding they cannot afford to send their children to university, and therefore there is a risk of families sliding down the socio-economic scale in the future.

One common thread in the rhetoric of many student groups is the idea that education is a public good, and will help a country like South Africa which is still in the process of economic development. If the aspirations of the younger generations are not met, serious questions should be asked about how the South African economy will be sustained in future years. Many of the economists among you may be asking whether it is financially viable for the South African state to increase funding for universities.

Most mainstream analysts and commentators, along with the government minister for higher education, have suggested it is not possible to allocate more money.

However, a recent study for the South African Institute of Race Relations disputes this, pointing to a number of small changes or cuts to other areas which could easily cover a massive increase in funding to universities and in doing so, enable universities to reduce the fees they charge.

Another alternative that has been suggested is the introduction of a loan system, similar to that of the UK system, which would entail only a minor, temporary burden on the taxpayer, whilst opening the door for vast numbers of less wealthy students to attend higher education.

The new democratic South Africa that emerged from apartheid twenty years ago marked the birth of an era of hope, growth and development, but change seems to have slowed to a halt. Many current black students are the first generation of their family who have grown up in a country based on racial equality and they are the first to

have the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations and go to university.

Such a change is fantastic, but also places tremendous pressure on them to succeed, whilst simultaneously their chance of completing a degree becomes increasingly jeopardised by the financial pressure of everrising, exorbitant fees. Whilst the government plays for time by waiting for a report on the subject from a commission of enquiry, more and more students

“If the aspirations of the younger generations are not met, serious questions should be asked about how the South African economy will be sustained in future years.” are acting to ensure they will not be saddled by a debt that will prevent their hard work from culminating in a degree, and prevent potential future students from fulfilling their ambitions.

Looking at this issue in much broader terms, South Africa needs to assess the causes of ingrained racial inequality which have consistently been a feature of their society since the era of British and Dutch colonial rule. Whatever the explanation, one thing is clear: the student population will not back down, meaning the South African government will face some tough choices in the not so distant future.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Features | 15

South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court

With its withdrawal, South Africa could jeopardise the entire ICC-regime

Philip Apfel Undergraduate student IN THE LATE 1990s AND early 2000s, the introduction of the International Criminal Court was generally a welcome development across many parts of the world. Looking idealistically towards the future, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke of the new court having the potential to deliver on a “promise of universal justice” going forward. Addressing the International Bar Association, Annan stated that – “we ask you . . . to do your [part] in our struggle to ensure that no ruler, no State, no junta and no army anywhere can abuse human rights with impunity.

Only then will the innocents of distant wars and conflicts know that they, too, may sleep under the cover of justice; that they, too, have rights, and that those who violate those rights will be punished”.

Speaking at the 2nd Conference of African National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Durban, Nelson Mandela, looking to the past, stated that “[o]ur own continent has suffered enough horrors emanating from the inhumanity of human beings towards human beings. Who knows, many of these might not have occurred, or at least been minimised, had there been an effectively functioning International Criminal Court”.

As these quotes illustrate, hopes for the ICC were very high. Envisioning a new era of truly global justice free from the fetters of nation-state politics or ‘victor’s justice’, M.C. Bassiouni, Chairman of the Drafting Commission for the Treaty which created the court, went as far as to

say that “[t]he ICC reminds governments that realpolitik, which sacrifices justice at the altar of political settlements, is no longer accepted.”

These days, such statements are best characterised as overly optimistic.

Recent political developments unfortunately make them

“[...]various

human rights organisations have come out strongly against South Africa’s decision to withdraw.” seem like nothing more than pie-in-the-sky idealism.

Last Friday, South Africa stated its intention to entirely pull out from the ICC, just days after Burundi’s president signed a decree making his country the first to withdraw from the court. The reason? A conflict between the ICC and South Africa arose in 2015 when Sudanese President Omar alBashir, who had been charged with various war crimes by the ICC, attended an African Union summit in Johannesburg and was allowed to return to his own country unhindered afterwards. In disregard for the rule of law, South African leaders ignored a local judge’s ruling that al-Bashir should be detained. Under the ‘Rome Statute 2002’, the treaty that established the ICC, countries have an obligation to arrest anyone who has been charged by the court.

The al-Bashir incident

illustrates the problem that some South African leaders have with the ICC-regime.

“South Africa is hindered by the Rome Statute of the ICC which compels the country to arrest officials who also have diplomatic immunity”, Michael Masutha, South African justice minister, told a media briefing in Pretoria last Friday. “The issue of prosecuting, in South Africa, sitting heads of state from other countries can only imply that South Africa chooses to be complicit in the practice of forced regime change”, and this, said Masutha, means that South Africa is actually hindered by the ICC in its attempts to resolve local conflicts and create peace through dialogue.

However, various human rights organisations have come out strongly against South Africa’s decision to withdraw.

Dewa Mavhinga, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that the decision showed “startling disregard for justice from a country long seen as a global leader on accountability for victims of the gravest crimes”.

“...the vehement

backlash against the ICC by African leaders began when the court started to investigate heads of state.”

Dimitris Christopoulos, president of the International Federation for Human Rights, said that South Africa’s decision created “a deplorable stain on the country’s post-apartheid

reputation and credibility”, and that “playing politics with justice is reprehensible”.

Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy director for Africa,

“South Africa’s withdrawal may create a domino effect which brings about an inexorable exodus of other African countries.” said that South Africa’s decision “is deeply disappointing. In making this move, the country is betraying millions of victims of the gravest human rights violations and undermining the international justice system”.

Despite their vehemence, protesting voices from civil society are unlikely to affect South Africa’s decision to withdraw. This is because its decision is bolstered by a growing hostility towards the ICC-regime by many African countries. Relations between the ICC and an increasing number of African states have been deteriorating in recent years, because of a general sentiment that the ICC unfairly targets African countries and their leaders. In its 14-year existence, all those convicted by the ICC have been Africans, leading many African leaders to paint the court as having a neo-colonialist streak.

They are largely mistaken.

Despite what these numbers might suggest, the ICC is not racist or anti-African. The court has a rigid legal framework for the types of cases it has

jurisdiction over, and a clear process for deciding which cases to investigate. At this moment, besides in African countries, it has ongoing investigations in Colombia, Georgia, Honduras, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Ukraine. It has just so happened during the ICC’s short existence, Africa has been an area of the world most in need of intervention and judicial accountability because of the inadequacy of rule of law protections in certain countries.

In truth, the vehement backlash against the ICC

by African leaders began when the court started to investigate heads of state, notably Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta. Before that, they were all too willing to aid the court in prosecuting leaders of rebel organizations that had committed atrocities in the early years of the ICC, Given the ICC’s commitment to creating a global justice system that prosecutes human rights violations regardless of the level of political power wielded by the perpetrator, an adjustment of the court’s modus operandi in line with the demands of some African political leaders is no option.

This would undermine much of what the ICC-regime stands for.

However, that does mean that South Africa’s withdrawal may create a domino effect which brings about an inexorable exodus of further African countries. At the moment, it looks like Namibia might be the next to go, as it already evinced plans to withdraw back in 2015.

Things don’t look good for the ICC at the moment. To anyone who values human rights, and especially those involved in the creation of the ICC, there is much cause to worry. The very idea of an international criminal court is at risk.

LSE SU Michaelmas Term

The Union

General Course President

Derek Fanucci

Eric Jeong

Megan Benson

Michael Kister

Slogan: The Best Year of Our Lives

Slogan: Make General Course Great Again

Slogan: Megan Benson for General Course President

Slogan: Charismatic, Unique, Michael.

Sanjay Mahboobani

Yash Raj Agrawal

Zack Flagel

Slogan: Mahboobani for Student Body

Slogan: It’s secure to bank on me

Slogan: You Only General Course Once

GTA Representative

Eduardo Ibarra-Olivo Slogan: For fairer conditions, its better together

Mature and Part-time Students’ Officer

Erdenechimeg Ulziisuren

Helen Duffy

Slogan: Things from a heart reach hearts

Slogan: Age only matters if you’re cheese!

Jim Alayo-Arnabat Slogan: Vote GYM for a STRONG representation

NUS Delegate × 2

Hannah Kaufman Slogan: COUNT ON KAUFMAN FOR YOUR NUS!

Muhummed Cassidy

Wingchi Yip

Slogan: Student movement for all

Slogan: None

Yichen Yan Slogan: Help building The-Better-SU for Everyone.

17 | Tuesday 25 October, 2016

Elections ’16: Meet the Candidates!

LSESU.COM/ELECTIONS Member of the Academic Board × 2

Ariel Calderon Gonzalez

Benjamin Thomas

Constantin Thierry

Esohe Uwadiae

Faye Brookes Lewis

Slogan: Your Problems. Our Solutions

Slogan: Better With Ben

Slogan: Thierry for LSE

Slogan: You Deserve Better!

Slogan: Have Faith in Faye!

Kruthika Kamath

Michael Rosati

Tamanna Moushumi

Slogan: Create. Debate. Learn.

Communicate.

Slogan: None

Slogan: Don’t say Na to TamanNa

Member of the Court of Governors x5

Alexis Schottenstein

Ariel Calderon Gonzalez

Slogan: Making What Matters to Slogan: Your problems. Our You...Happens.

Bartosz Kubiak

Benjamin Thomas

Chris Fairley

Constantin Thierry

Slogan: Diversity. Unity.

Inclusion.

Slogan: Better with Ben

Slogan: Chris: A Fairley Sound Choice

Slogan: Thierry for LSE

Jim Alayo-Arnabat

James Slater

Jude Chisom Erondu

Mayo Sofekun

Michael Rosati

Slogan: Vote GYM for a STRONG representation

Slogan: For leadership LSE can believe in

Slogan: Let’s Build Bridges

Slogan: We Need a World with Mayo

Slogan: None

Muhammad Waqar Mustaqeem

Rohan Sankhla

Shamayal Hussain

Waleed Malik

Yichen Yan

Slogan: Vote for Rohan, cause he CAN

Slogan: Yell for Shamayal

Slogan: It’s guaranteed, vote Waleed!

Slogan: Help building TheBetter-SU for Everyone

Slogan: Work hard Waqar, play hard

The Union | 18

LSE SU Michaelmas Elections ’16 Member of the LSE SU Trustee Board

1 Year Term Candidates: Farvah Javaid

Constantin Thierry

Jude Chisom Erondu

Michael Rosati

Slogan: Going further with Farvah

Slogan: Thierry for LSE

Slogan: Let’s Build Bridges

Slogan: None

2 Year Term Candidates: Yichen Yan

Alexis Schottenstein

Zulum Elumogo

Rohan Sankhla

Slogan: Help building TheBetter-SU for Everyone

Slogan: Making What Matters to You...Happens.

Slogan: Trust me for Trustee

Slogan: Vote for Rohan, cause he CAN

Postgraduate Students’ Officer

Hari Prabu

Irshad Ali Sodhar

Michael Rosati

Slogan: None

Slogan: Making LSE Experience Richer - Celebrating Diversity

Slogan: None

Kruthika Kamath

Shana Shwetangi

Slogan: Let’s create, let’s debate, let’s learn.

Slogan: None

Muhammad Ibrahim Tari Slogan: Innovation

Sarah Castellanos Slogan: Let Your Voice Be Heard.

Postgraduate Students’ Research Officer

Adrian Rogstad

Gullnaz Baig

Slogan: Fairness, representation, welfare for LSE PhDs

Slogan: Doing the right thing

part

B

21

Overcoming

By Jamil Kowcun To be stepped forever in structure; the weighting of divergent passaging acts.

As equal revelation to the furls of paradigmatic edge Grants only, To be cut through, and forced there, from sullied ground, to hurling ledge A motion of purposeful absence, as from all else, does fear detract And never allowed to bleed, for the incisions of disregard are marred by the chilling beyond of wound’s exposure The end remains the same, Colder, not only confrontation delayed That in the demands of conquest, give way to the struggle of merely, self pitied, disclosure New horizons of disruptive eternity Over and over, trapped between, the realms of lost comforts and broken hope Harsher continuation, refreshes the plan of distant imagining, To carry on: Is as to cope.

And only the same, but betrayed as deservingly From tentative steps, follows tearing, the lucidity of fellow dreaming To be haunted by memory, without the sharing of fearful endeavour A tuneful connection to the indebtedness of our own imagining, forever Occupation’s attempts at harmony constricted by expectations dimming; The lighting way’s ambition, leaving.

I, as others, long solely for boundaries; remnant memories of harboured compulsion But all that dwells doth lies below The realm unknown past horror’s throws In an evertide docked, forgotten the claim of outward totality, hurled in the maelstrom of edge’s defining centrifrugal repulsion.

Part B Editor: Flo Edwards Photographer: J.T. Stokes

22 | Tuesday 25 October 2016 14

Three Sides of London:

For this week’s Beaver Blackout Edition, Part B takes a candid look at three BME students, their homes, and their lives.

Zafri Benjamin, Social Policy, Third Year, Angel

23

Christine, Management, Third Year, Urbanest Westminster

24 | Tuesday 25 October 2016

25

Samantha Goh, Law, Third Year, Rosebery

Faculty & Courses Home

About us

People

Research

Current students

Prospective PhD job students market

News, events Economic Intranet and seminars (Restricted Access)

Site map

New Faculty Members A-Z

Home

Last week we appointed a slew of Celebrities Academics to work alongside Angelina Jolie. This week, we are pleased to announce that the following Jokers Academics have also joined our little asylum prestigious institution!!!

Department People

Professor Jeremy HUNT

People

Lecturer for : LL205 Medical Law

Faculty A-Z Faculty Activity in Research Centres Administrative Staff Visiting Professors and Academics Guest Teachers

Class Teacher for : MG228 Managing the Stone-Age Brain Professor Donald TRUMP Lecturer for : MG306 mis-Managing Diversity in Organisations, IR347 Political Economy of Int. Labour Migration, IR313 Managing China’s Rise in East Asia Class Teacher for : PH104 Formal Methods of Philosophical Argumentation, SO208 Gender and Society

LSE Fellows Research Students

Professor David CAMERON

Graduate Teaching Assistants Professors working outside the Department

Lecturer for : HY315 The European Enlightenment, c. 2016 1680-1799

PAR T 2!

Class Teacher for: HY325 Retreat from Power: British foreign and defence policy, 2016 onwards 1931-68

Professor Jeremy CORBYN

Professor Rodrigo DUTERTE

Lecturer for : ST227 Survival Models

Lecturer for : AN240 Investigating the Philippines - New Approaches and Ethnographic Contexts

Class Teacher for MG100 : Leadership and Communication in Teams Professor Vladimir PUTIN Lecturer for : MG301 Strategy Class Teacher for : GV308 Leadership in the Political World, HY320 The Cold War Endgame

Class Teacher for : LL284 Sentencing and Treatment of Offenders Professor GARY JOHNSON Lecturer for : GY100 Introduction to Geography Class Teacher for : GY205 Political Geographies, Policy and Space

Professor Theresa MAY

Professor Hillary CLINTON

Lecturer for : HY119 Thinking Like A Historian

Lecturer for : IR317 American Grand Strategy

Class Teacher for : GV312 Advanced Topics in Government: Executive Politics

Class Teacher for : MG209 E-business, SO230 Digital Technology, Speed and Culture

GOT SOMETHING FUNNY TO SAY? EMAIL EDITOR@ THEBEAVERONLINE.CO.UK TO SEE IT IN NEXT WEEK’S NAB!

PHD STUDENTSHIPS AT LSE LSE is awarding 100 full scholarships for PhD students in 2017.

64 PhD Studentships 30 ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership Scholarships 6 Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarships

All covering full fees plus an annual stipend of £16,000£18,000.

Apply for a PhD by 11 January 2017 (or 14 December 2016 for Department of Economics) to be considered for these awards.

Search LSE PhD funding to find out more.

Students work in LSE’s new PhD Academy

288 | Tuesday 25 October, 2016

Recent Black History Month?

Am I the only one that is tired of ‘Black History Month’ focusing solely on our recent history?

The City

Guest Editor: Michelle Kibet Section Editor: Alex Gray Deputy Editor: Ramone Bedi

Maudo Jallow LSE postgraduate

AFTER READING THE TITLE, one might raise an eyebrow, or even doubt my motive for writing this piece. However, I am simply trying to point out a simple, yet fascinating oversight (intentional or unintentional) of what I recognise as real black history. I would be remiss if I did not preface this article by saying that our recent history is undoubtedly important and should be told. However, what about pre-colonial Africa? What about ancient civilisations? What about our institutions? Most of us can name our people that were slaves, but cannot name a single African king/queen or even an ancient African kingdom. This is part of the problem!

This is at the root of some of the most persistent misconceptions about African people. Not all Black History Month stories need to be about struggle. It also happens to illuminate, in my humble opinion, the most important issue facing people of African descent around the world today. Economics. Black lives will not matter, until we have economic power. Our culture, features and music will be appropriated until we have the economic power to exploit these blessings ourselves. Our history will continue to be written for us

“Black lives will not matter until we have economic power...

Our history will continue to be written for us until we have the economic power.” until we have the economic power to own the media outlets that write and publish textbooks, newspapers, journals, etc.

David Olusoga wrote a great article for The Guardian in October 2015 and he highlighted that “…among the many justifications for slavery, and later for the colonisation of Africa, was the assertion that Africans were a people without a history.” He even quotes a German philosopher in the 1830s that said exactly that. To counter this German, so-called philosopher’s point, I would like to take you to 1324. This was the year that the great king, Mansa Musa I of Mali went on a pilgrimage for the ages.

Historians say that his generosity in giving out gold in Egypt, on his way to Mecca, caused a prolonged period of price inflation. Referring to the same king and kingdom, Keith Hart writes in his 1982 book that “…Arab historians reveal to us, in their glimpses of the Sudanic em-

pires of Ghana and Mali during the Middles Ages, a fully fledged civilisation based on what appeared to be great wealth…and advanced political achievements”. In addition to that, the world’s first university was built in Timbuktu, within the ancient Mali Empire.

In case your jaw has not dropped yet, I have another historical account that will surely blow your mind. “Contrary to opinions held in certain quarters, life in pre-colonial Igbo…was not that of unmitigated chaos and lawlessness. Law and order prevailed with

“Slavery is not African history, it interrupted African history.” human rights protection being a significant concern of the society.”

This was before we had decades of human rights abuse handed to us by our so-called ‘civilisers’. Yet we need international human rights groups to advise African countries about human rights? On social issues, African kingdoms were known to have female leaders in both the military and the political sphere. In addition to all that, history also tells us that actually, Moors in Spain ‘civilised’ Europeans by teaching them the benefits of bathing, education and medicine. The references above debunk the propaganda

used to not just make us seem like barbarous savages. It also serves as a reminder that we build our own political, economic and social institutions and they worked for us!

Therefore, we need to focus on rebuilding what we lost, primarily through ownership. Let’s celebrate Black Wall Street, the Black Panther Party, Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. They are an equal part of ‘black history’ than people like Nelson Mandela, MLK and Malcolm X. One could argue that the personas a group of people revere and celebrate, determine reflect their aspirations and ambitions.

Unfortunately, MLK and especially Malcolm X’s real messages of black unity, pan-Africanism and economic empowerment have been subdued. Their quotes, similar to Mandela’s ideology, on working together with our former colonisers has been pushed by people who write our history, because it helps maintains the status quo.

I am tired of seeing my people with chains on their wrists, instead of crowns on their heads. We built a university in the 14th Century, we had complex trade routes between African people and we recognised the rights of all people. Let’s celebrate that as much as we celebrate our struggles!

“Slavery is not African history, it interrupted African history” - Mataburuka.

The City |29

CPI: Consumer Pain Index?

There is far more to the recent spike in inflation than meets the eye - we take a closer look at the areas affected, and what this means for the UK economy Jeremy Wong-Kah-Chun LSE Undergraduate THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL Statistics (ONS) has recently published on its website that inflation rates in the UK has hit 1.0%. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) has recorded the highest rate since November 2014, with the rate in the previous month in August at 0.6%. In fact, inflation over the past few months had been very stable, as it remained around zero for much of 2015.

According to the ONS, the main cause for the increase in the CPI was from clothing and footwear, particularly from “woman’s outerwear”, in which prices rose by nearly 6.0% between August and September 2016, compared to only 3.3% during the same period last year. Also mentioned as “main upward contributions to change in the CPI” were overnight hotel stays and motor fuels. What’s going on here?

Besides woman worrying about not being able to afford the latest trends, will there be any adverse impacts on the people working and living in the UK, especially the lower income group if inflation continues to

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rise?

For now, there is no need to be alarmed. A 1.0% inflation rate is not the end of the world. It is still low by historic standards as The UK had experienced much higher rates exceeding 5% just a few years ago. In the 1970s, the inflation rate had attained a

“Many economists say that this is merely the tip of the iceberg as they predict that rates can exceed 3.0% in the coming years.” whopping double-digit figure of 24.2%. To give some perspective, the Bank of England’s official inflation rate target is just 2.0%.

What is worrying about this inflation milestone, however, is the whether further larger jumps may occur in the near future. Many economists say that this is merely the tip of the iceberg as they predict that rates can exceed 3.0% in the coming years. What might happen in the future if this forecast turns out to

be true? Basic economics teaches us that inflation increases the cost of goods over time. This might be bad for those who are struggling to make ends meet, as their salaries may not be able to keep pace. Bank of England’s Governor Mark Carney pointed out that rising inflation will make life difficult for the most vulnerable people in Britain, due to higher consumer prices.

The ONS has listed clothing and footwear as the main contributor to the inflation rate increase. Unless you buy clothes like you buy groceries at Sainsburys or Tesco, there should be minimal negative effects from this on our lives.

While the increase in prices for such goods has been very large by historical standards, this is also in line with normal trends as prices of clothing and footwear has always increased during the same period in the past. Further, prices had been falling between March and July with only a small rise in August. Clothing and footwear are, in general, seasonal goods and prices do tend to have large changes in prices as demand varies during the year. You wouldn’t buy winter jackets in the summer, would you?

Restaurant and hotels are also listed as a contributor to the rise of the inflation rates; with prices rising by 0.7% between August and September 2016 and the main factor being put on the price of “overnight hotel stays”. This should not come as a big surprise. It is possible that with the fall in the value

“Despite the grim forecasts by many economists, we are still far from the inflation target pursued by the Bank of England.” of the pound sterling, increased international tourism may be the cause. Tourist numbers in July are the highest for the year 2016 and tourist spending has also seen an increase. Hence, as in any basic economics lesson, with a greater demand comes an escalation in prices. Unless you travel extremely often in the United Kingdom, the effects of this should be relatively minor, in general, on consumer

spending.

The last contributor may be of concern to many. Despite transport contributing only a small effect on the overall inflation rates, prices of motor fuels actually has a very large upward effect in the inflation rates with petrol prices increasing by 1.2p from August to September 2016. The reason why this increase did not cause a sharper rise in the rates is mainly due to the fall in air fares, which fell greatly at 24.2% between August and September 2016. Rising fuel prices has the power to raise prices across the board as a lot of goods we enjoy today needs to be transported from source to stores. This can lead to even higher inflation rates and greater financial difficulty for many, as consumer prices begin to climb due to this domino effect on prices.

The inflation rate increase had been predicted to occur ever since the European Union (EU) referendum results were released in late-June. So, did the Brexit voters make the right decision? To be honest, there is no straightforward and sure answer. It is unlikely that many voters would have seen this coming, as they had to absorb a sea of information given by advocates from both sides of the political divide before, and during, the days leading up to the referendum. In addition, it is still far too early to tell, as the process of actually leaving the EU is ongoing. There are still many factors that should be taken into account when thinking about the rise in the inflation rates, and the results of the referendum and fall in the value of the pound sterling should not be the only reasons for the rise in rates.

It is, however, still far too early to attempt to predict the major implications of a continued inflation rate increase. Despite the grim forecasts by many economists, we are still far from the inflation target pursued by the Bank of England. Mark Carney has also mentioned that the Bank is willing to tolerate a bit of an overshoot to avoid unnecessary unemployment.

With everything still fairly uncertain, it is important not to speculate excessively as it can make matters worse by limiting the effect of policies designed to rectify the issue. The UK has gone through tougher times and managed to pull through with minimal long-term effects to its economy, so why would it be different now?

30 | Tuesday 25 October, 2016

Black History Month Special: Inclusivity in the AU Yasmin Lakin Track & Field Team Captain

HAVING member

BEEN

A

of the LSE Athletic& Running team since joining the university, I am proud of the inclusivity that has always characterised the team. After ag reeing to write an article on my experiences as a BME student in a sports team at the LSE, I realised that I couldn’t immediately think of anything to say. I had never ref lected on my position as a BME student doing sport at LSE because there was nothing to really think about.

My experiences within the Athletics & Running team have been overwhelmingly positive and there’s always been a mixture of students from various ethnic backg rounds in the team.

When I started delving into my experiences, what stood out to me was not my position as a BME student doing sport, but rather my position as a woman doing sport in a mixed team. Our team is very inclusive in ter ms of BME students, and the same goes for women.

For the last 3 years our Track & Field Captains have all been women, and half of

our committee this year is female. However, prog ress still needs to be made. We may not see explicit sexism in our sport, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still ing rained in people’s attitudes. Only recently I noticed, outside of university, that a g roup of young teens were being told that if they couldn’t do the nor mal push-ups they could do the “girl push-ups” (push-ups with your knees on the g round). A few days later at our university team training I asked the team to equally split for the session and (unnecessarily) heard the comment that we should split into “girls and guys” (which would not have been an equal split). I know that in both circumstances these comments were not intended to be sexist, but that to me just shows how people g row up with these ideas and carry them on into university and through adulthood, passing them on to the next generation. It’s all well and good getting women involved in our sports teams, but more efforts need to be made to eliminate this type of thinking.

Whilst I have already expressed my belief that sports at LSE is generally

inclusive, one major criticism that I feel can be made of all teams, is the lack of inclusivity with regard to disabled students.

While watching the Paralympics this year, my mum rightly made the comment that “they’re the real stars”, and yet I have never previously seen any attempt at even encouraging disabled students to get involved in sport at our university.

Despite the criticisms I’ve made, it is important to note that the Students’ Union is working hard to make changes in order to encourage and celebrate the participation of women and disabled students in sport. I know that the Athletics & Running team is getting involved in the This Girl Can campaign by participating in the ‘London Universities This Girl Can Neon Run’ (look out for details on it), encouraging and celebrating women in sport.

The team is also working with the SU to accommodate the concer ns of disabled students and encourage their participation in Athletics at LSE, and we encourage all other teams to do so too, so that we can all truly call ourselves ‘An AU for All’.

BUCS Success for the LSE Fencing Club Megan Beddoe Captain of LSE Fencing THE LSE FENCING CLUB, founded just this year, has already experienced impressive BUCS success with victories over both the University of Essex and UCL. The club’s first ever BUCS match began with the newlyassembled women’s team fencing away at the University of Essex in Colchester. Each BUCS fencing match consists of three rounds: foil, epee and sabre. The team was small, consisting of just five girls, with a few who were fencing a new weapon for the very first time. The match began slowly with women’s epee, with LSE losing by 10 hits. With only one epee specialist on the team, LSE were expected to struggle - however they were able to prevent too much damage to the overall score. Next up was the women’s sabre, where one team member, Maud, sur prised everyone with her skill, despite claiming she had never trained in the weapon!

With the help of the rest of the team, and with Megan, the Club Captain, playing the anchor role, the LSE team

were able to bring home a sabre win - but only by a margin of 5 hits, which left work still to do in the foil match. Luckily, foil is the LSE team’s strongest area, with their two French foilists Annabelle and Lorene landing hit after hit on the opposing team. The match was all but over going into the last match, where Philippa, LSE Sports Ambassador, brought the match to a close with the final score of 106-125.

This Wednesday brought the second BUCS meeting for the women, as well as the start of the men’s team’s campaign. Both teams were fencing at home against UCL’s respective second teams, which made for a busy Venue on Wednesday after noon. The LSE women’s team started strong and finished even stronger, winning the sabre, epee and foil rounds - the foil by a margin of 29 points which led to their impressive 135-82 victory over UCL. Philippa again anchored the LSE team, conceding just 9 hits across both foil and epee!

The men’s team fared less well, losing their match 119-

105 to a strong UCL team.

This was in spite of strong perfor mances by Mark Lee in the sabre and Edward Choi, of the Hong Kong national team, in the foil. The epee round was the most successful

for LSE, which they won 3429, but it was not enough to clinch the victory overall.

The LSE Fencing Club continue their season with matches next week: the women’s team retur n to Essex,

hopeful of a victory over the second team to match the firsts. The men’s team however will stay a little closer to home - fencing against the ULU fencing team in Bloomsbury.

Sport | 31

Welcoming Disabled Students to the AU

George Bettsworth LSE Running Team Captain THE SLOGAN ‘AN AU FOR All’ was popularised by the Students’ Union in my first year at LSE in order to move on from the 2014 Rugby Club scandal, where a leaflet containing sexist jokes was handed out to first years. The Athletics Union was trying to demonstrate that it was an inclusive organisation.

Indeed, I believe that the drive for an ‘AU for all’ has changed the Athletics Union in some ways and I would like to believe that never again will the LSE be featured in the national media for such

a negative reason. However, I do not believe that we have truly achieved a fully inclusive AU. For disabled students at LSE, AU sport seems to provide almost nothing. Of course, it can be challenging to adequately accommodate the needs of disabled students, but it is by no means impossible and we have a moral obligation to do so.

We need to ensure that everyone is able to fully participate in sports at the LSE. Clearly the AU President, Livi Vaughan, and Engagement Officer, Zoe Oakley, have thought hard about this issue.

In Week 9 of the Michaelmas Ter m, the AU will be holding

“Of course, it can be challenging to adequately accommodate the needs of disabled students, but it is by no means impossible and we have a moral obligation to do so.”

a ‘Disability Week’ where the plan is to engage disabled students in sport in order to show that we really do have an AU that works for all students.

In order to help this initiative to succeed, my team, Athletics & Running, will be striving to get disabled students involved in sports such as wheelchair racing as well as other track & field events and fitness classes (known as AthleFIT).

In addition to this, however, I would advise the AU clubs, with strong and active support from the Students’ Union, to for mulate a long ter m strategy to cater for disabled students and to make sure there are sessions available

Photo Credit: Quartz

for these students, along with everyone else at LSE. I think it would be amazing to go from an AU attempting to stamp out sexism in my first year to an AU fully embracing inclusivity and striving to enable every student to practice a sport and make meaningful friendships at the LSE. If you are a disabled student and you are interested in getting involved in sport at LSE and you want more infor mation then email the Disabled Students Officer, Muhummed Cassidy, at su.disability@lse.ac.uk and the Athletics & Running team at lsesuathleticsandrunning@ gmail.com. .

Send your club updateS, match reportS, SportS articleS and commentary to SportS@ thebeaveronline.co.uk. if you would like to See your name in print Sign up to the beaver on lSeSu.com to receive our weekly emailS.

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32

Inclusivity & Alcohol ; Can the AU work for all?

George Bettsworth Running Team Captain

Sport

Guest Editor: Yasmin Lakin Section Editor: Vacant

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, there has been a big push by organisations, such as Sporting Equals, to engage people from ethnic minorities in sport in Britain. An example is the attempt to engage young black men in sport. According to a study conducted by Sporting Equals, many young black men are put off from doing sport due to the bad media stereotype of what black men typically do. One focus group participant said that the media tended to focus on black men being “footballers, DJs or gangsters”. This, of course, leaves lots of young black men with limited apparent options and, potentially, low self-esteem. A more blatant example of this difficulty in engaging ethnic minorities, is the incident in Nice in France last August, where a women was forced to remove a burkini.

Of course, this is a far more extreme barrier but even this hostility on a low level, could certainly make it challenging for Muslim women to take up swimming, for example.

So, the ability to engage ethnic minorities in sport is certainly an issue. This is actually very apparent from my own experience of sport.

Indeed, in the road running

league in Leicester (where I am from), a city where 55% of the population are considered BME, almost every runner is white. Now, this certainly is not deliberate- Leicestershire running clubs are usually very inclusive- and the ethnic diversity is slowly increasing.

But there are clearly barriers for certain communities. So, this got me thinking about

“Indeed, the AU’s undoubtedly strong association with alcohol would be enough to put off students from some backgrounds and, similarly, some students who do not wish to drink heavily” whether this was an issue at LSE as well or was there something specific about the

sporting make-up of Leicester?

Well I’ll start with what I know best. In Athletics & Running, we are proudly a very diverse club. We have strived to make club training and socials as inclusive as possible (and sometimes have been taunted as ‘less fun’ in doing so, with regard to the latter). Indeed, we have embraced ‘an AU for all’ and Yasmin’s article, also in this issue, demonstrates the success we have had. In that way, the club is in a very different place to the road running league in Leicester, it appears to attract and integrate students from all backgrounds. I am sure this could be said about all of the AU clubs, at least with regard to the playing of the sport itself.

So, the bigger question is: do BME students feel welcome in the Athletics Union in general?

On the face of it, the answer is a tentative yes. Indeed, we have forty-nine AU clubs all apparently supporting and embracing the ‘AU for all’ slogan.

Further more, my experience as a club captain tells me that the single biggest barrier to sport at LSE is actually the ability of students to play the particular sport they want to. However, this is focusing very much on the playing of the sport itself and not about the AU-wide events. The AU is known for

its notorious list of socials such as Carol and the AU Ball which are usually fairly drunken affairs. Although they are certainly fun and produce some of the most memorable LSE moments, these events do not seem particularly inclusive for students from all backgrounds. Indeed, the AU’s undoubtedly strong association with alcohol would be enough to put off students from some backgrounds and, similarly, some students who do not wish to drink heavily (though, this is not a requirement, I will point out).

There is, understandably, great difficulty in solving this issue. Toning down these AU wide events or abandoning them all together would be extremely unpopular and would also throw away one of the most unique, and fun, aspects of LSE. So, considering our woeful student satisfaction rating, getting rid of something students enjoy seems like a bad idea. But to keep the AU’s events calendar as it is leaves many students feeling that the AU is not for them and perhaps this means they have a worse experience of LSE due to this or they simply miss out. There is probably a balance that can be met which truly embraces ‘an AU for All’ and that is the challenge for the current leaders of the AU.