Edition 6

FREE STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES

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SPIRIT

SOAS awakens from its holiday slumber.

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SOAS SPIRIT

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SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR EDITION 7: January 29th THIS PAPER COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE FOLLOWING: Dougal Wallace Jefferson Regan www.commentmideast.com Nicholas Rodrigo Michael Pope Peter Baran

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THE SOAS SPIRIT EDITORIAL TEAM

Editor-in-Chief Jon Pillay

Asia Vidya Venkat

Deputy Editor Peter Moore

Sports Pravin Wadhwani

Sub Editor

Billly Mason

To get in touch, editorial staff should be contacted at spirit@soas.ac.uk

Africa Julian Boys Middle East Gloria de Waal - Montgomery

WANT TO BE IN THE TEAM? SOME EDITORIAL POSITIONS ARE STILL CURRENTLY UP FOR GRABS! SEND AN EMAIL OR JOIN OUR FACEBOOK PAGE AND GET INVOLVED!

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INTERESTED IN RADIO? GET INVOLVED WITH

THE RUSTLE! If you have any interest in Radio or just talking your mouth off! Get involved with the flagship radio program ‘The Rustle’.

Headed up last year by Joe Buckley, SOAS radio last year won the award for most prestigious media outlet and this year has been continued by Austin Cooper.

Have look at their website and get involved! www.soasradio.org/soas-rustle

January 2012

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Where Has the Spirit Been? And Where Will it Go? Hello All, Jon Pillay here, third year Politics and Economics student and editor on the SOAS Spirit for this year.

Hope the holidays have treated you well and that wherever you found yourselves, or whoever you found yourselves with, it was an enjoyable and relaxing time.

We’ve been enjoying getting your articles in and we are looking forward to the rest of the year.

Some of you have asked where the Spirit has been last term. We are at the moment changing the way the paper is run, changes are going to occur as to how we operate and report all things SOAS and beyond.

We are at the moment negotiating with the union to gain some funding while protecting the independence of the paper. This will also involve future editors being democratically elected. I will share information on how this process will work when we have something firm set down, but if James Meadway is working on a PhD on financial markets at the SOAS, he is also the Senior Economist at the ‘New Economics Foundation’ and a vocal critic of the current coallition’s economic policy. The Spirit asked him to shed some light on the current global economic situation with his economist’s eye.

The outlook for the world economy is now, by common consent, the bleakest it has been for a generation or more. Unemployment continues to rise across Europe, with the UK figures hitting a 17 year high just before Christmas. Reputable forecasters, like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, forecast further recession in the new year. At the epicentre of the slow-burn crisis, the eurozone continues to creep towards disintegration, threatening a further financial crash.

The starting point to understand this is the financial crash of 2007-8. After years of debt-fuelled growth, right through the 2000s, the financial system – perhaps most spectacularly in the AngloSaxon economies, but similar tendencies developed everywhere – was hugely over-extended. US subprime mortgages, paid out often to those not just on low incomes, but with no income at all were one symptom of this. The increasingly baroque forms of financial “innovations” like collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) were another. Sub-prime mortgages began to default in increasing numbers from 2006 onwards, triggering a collapse in lending that, by late 2008, had become a rout. But once the

you’re interested keep an eye open.

As well as this we will be getting a brand spanking new website to publish articles on. This will give us the ability to be able to report on issues within SOAS and also the general community faster and more effectively. Information about UGM motions, reports from and on your union officials can be shared instantly.

This will also open up the possibility for you to be able to comment on stories... and as we all know; a single SOAS student can debate themselves, a soapbox for 5000 odd makes for an interesting prospect. The website will also allow SOAS students to explore different media formats. Being able to share links with the wonderful SOAS Radio and also move into visual media. With the large amount of views and talent on offer at SOAS this is all a very exciting prospect.

The one thing that will never change about the Spirit is the fact that this is your paper, a paper produced by you, but also a paper produced for

you, a space for you to air your opinions and test your journalistic skills and reporting prowess. We aim to be publish as much of your work as possible, the Spirit is open to almost any view that SOAS can produce. But that we have to place limits on how we report, journalistic integrity is central to keeping our reputation. This will become clearer in the next few weeks, a ‘constitution’, or ‘rules of engagement’ about our journalistic approach is being written.

We are always looking for new writers and ideas for the paper. Want a new section with a new angle? Then get in touch. The paper is nothing without you. If you have concerns about something SOAS and want us to investigate then get in contact with us, via email or in person. We have the ability to make this a brilliant paper and the team will continually strive to make this happen and give you the space to air your opinions.

Sincerely, Jon Pillay (233871@soas.ac.uk) Editor-in-Chief

A New Economic Logic for the New Year?

system had become so bloated and so far removed from underlying economic activity, it was always going to fall over itself.

Critically, the ballooning of financial values and the swelling of debt took place against a backdrop of far weaker activity elsewhere. The UK provides a graphic example: weak productivity growth and stagnant or even falling real household incomes for much of the decade were masked by skyrocketing debt. By 2008, average household debt in the UK was 163 percent of disposable income – the highest in the G8 group of developed economies. The entire boom, heralded at the time as a new paradigm in economics and the end of “boom and bust”, had been nothing more than a giant credit bubble perhaps one of the biggest in history.

But debts have to be repaid. And if the underlying economy is weak, repayment is a terrible burden. This is the mechanism of stagnation now.

Governments everywhere, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros – third-largest investment bank in the world at the time – in September 2008 resorted to a programme of bailouts. The state’s power of borrowing was used to prop up a collapsing financial system. On the IMF estimate, some $7trillion was mobilised by governments over 2008-9 – of which the UK, with the chronic burden of the City of London, was close to one-third.

This did not end the crisis. It merely shifted it somewhere else: from a crisis of private finance, to a crisis of public debt. This situation has become chronic in Europe. The euro was and is a profoundly flawed mechanism, trapping its member states into a permanent current account imbalances. States in the north export more than they import; states in the south have the opposite problem. Far from the

mythology, the debt crisis is not a crisis of excessive government spending: of those economies worse affected by sovereign debt issues, all – bar Greece – had lower debts, relative to output, than Germany before the crash. It was the financial crash, and the recession and bailouts, that broke the system, pushing up debts and deficits everywhere.

All debt is debt owed to a creditor. For European governments, those creditors are European banks.

If European governments cannot pay their debts – and it is increasingly likely they cannot – European banks are at risk. A further financial crash is threatened. The response of the EU to this risk is austerity – desperately cutting away at spending to repay accumulated debt.

But austerity ruins economies. As government spending falls, demand in the economy falls.

As demand falls, firms cut wages and make redundancies. A spiral of decline sets in. Stagnation results, just as in the 1930s. By attempting, now, to give austerity legal grounding – as the most recent EU deal proposes – EU leaders are condemning the continent to permanent stagnation. In the UK, Cameron’s government is following the same path of economic illiteracy.

There are, at present, no reasonable grounds to expect a recovery. To even begin to restart activity, a complete reverse of current policy is needed. Austerity must end. Government investment is needed to create sustainable, secure jobs in the green economy. Rising inequality must be choked off. Financial systems must be transformed into vehicles for public investment, under democratic control. And where debts commissioned in the last decade are illegitimate or unpayable, they should be written off.

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Student Comment Dear SOAS,

When word spread around SOAS that an unused university building on Gordon Square had been occupied, most people’s response was surprise that the building had existed at all. Several times I heard the words “hang on, we’ve been sitting on the floor of our lecture theatres but they have an entire empty building going spare?”

So it wasn’t as simple as that – the building had been subject to an ownership dispute, and shut off thanks to lots of lovely healthy exposed asbestos that was expensive to remove – but there was understandable surprise. And a kind of inevitability that when management finally decided to get around to opening up and renovating the place, within a few days it was decorated with a banner declaring “COMMUNISM” (with added anarchist symbols, of course). The Percival David Foundation museum of Chinese art had been transformed into the Museum of Neoliberalism – otherwise known as the Bloomsbury Social Centre.

The group announced: “in Bloomsbury the recession has been used as an excuse to stagnate wages, casualise employment, and to impose redundancies. It has been used further to separate workers, residents and students. Things have to change. Empty buildings wait across our city.”

In the next few weeks, the building would see political meetings and debates, late-night banner painting, classes and workshops, film screenings, an ongoing war of words with postgraduate students, and a final, sudden eviction as soon as term had safely ended.

Although I wasn’t heavily involved with the project, the few nights I stayed were fascinating – there was a determination among the occupiers to turn the building into a radical space where students, academics, staff and local residents could engage with each other. One employee of SOAS called the building a “subversive space in the heart of Bloomsbury” and that describes it perfectly. As one of the occupiers pointed out, there’s nothing like an occupied space in an affluent area of London to remind people that everything isn’t business as usual.

Unfortunately, it was a reminder which management claimed was costing the school quite a large amount of money, holding up the transformation of the building into a postgraduate study centre. Which SOAS needs – SOAS needs all the space it can get (although using the top floor as a luxury apartment, which seems to be the plan, is an odd use for that space). The negotiations between the occupiers, the SU and the postgraduate students were protracted and aggravating, and it wasn’t long before management were seeking a possession order, complaining that SOAS had been “convulsed with occupations” in the past year. They also decided to send an email out to all staff pretending that the Student Union, which had struggled to stay neutral and mediate, supported the legal action.

It was just after the end of term – and around the time when the occupiers had agreed to arrange a date to leave peacefully – that bailiffs broke in through the roof and forcibly removed the people sleeping inside. They were accompanied by HR manager Charles Perry, who apparently cheerfully commented “would have thought you fuckers would have had a better resistance.” From that date until the beginning of term, the occipiers claim, the building was left empty and work did not start - so why the urgency to remove them?

The Bloomsbury Social Centre might not have been a SOAS occupation, and perhaps the students didn’t engage much with it – but it still raises quite a few questions for SOAS students.

How is it that for three years, SOAS owned an empty building – yet made no effort to get past the obstacles that stopped us from using it? Why is it that it took an occupation from outside to put the building to some kind of creative use? And was it really necessary for it to end with legal papers and bailiffs sawing their way in?

And here’s another one, as the work on transforming Gordon Square gets underway – why did we as students not get to take part in the conversation which decided that a postgrad school and a luxury apartment is what SOAS needed? And what other surprises about the way the school is run are we in for?

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BYPASSING DEMOCRACY?

Photo Courtesy of: www.CGPGrey.com

Some simple sums: Take 400,000 homeless people nationwide; add 300,000 families on housing shortlists in London and divide by nearly 1 million unoccupied houses in the UK. Result? Lip service to public consultations over criminalising squatting, a ‘pork-belly’ style amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders, or LASPO bill to criminalise squatting in residential buildings, flanked by laughable print-media campaigns to oust ‘unwashed parasites’.

The bill itself was ushered through with barely a murmur from the backbenches – a bill that ranged from cutting legal aid to victims of domestic violence to minimum jail sentences for schoolchildren involved in knife crime – and is now statute. The ramifications of the amendment for squatters are a moot point, given the legal ambiguity in the terms implied, but are a continued erosion of the safety net for those who wish to squat or have no other choice. The trend in government, spanning the last 20 years, has been to demonise those in need of housing and to repeatedly ignore positive solutions.

Rather than compelling landlords to use empty buildings or allowing people to use unoccupied buildings, tax breaks (0% VAT) are given to those building new homes and speculating on the price of existing empty ones. Sir Andrew Green, of Migration Watch, would rather cite inflated immigration as a sticking point for housing shortages, posing that it is 1/3rd of the whole housing problem. The diversion tactics and buck-passing on pressing issues of housing in the UK have been so efficient that

Austin Cooper 265504@soas.ac.uk

very few see squatting as a pragmatic solution.

The arguments for squatting are often dichotomised into two concurrent conversations; that of pragmatism and of fur-flung ideology. However, the solutions that squatting could provide to homelessness are closely connected to the debates over property, and the cringe worthy proverb that an ‘Englishman’s home is his castle’.

In England over 80% of occupants own their homes – in Switzerland, this figure is just 23%. Post-war governance has heavily promoted mortgages that tie people into perpetual debt, and fixation with the idea of ‘owning’ the land on which one stands. This unfettered obsession with ownership of land gives rise to the largely held tenet that the limits of one’s property should only be equal to the limits of your ability to own it, and any attempt to contest it is both immoral and illegal. This, in turn, is what creates both a housing shortage and an empty housing surplus, which no mass deportation, council house sell-off orgy or anti-squatting amendment will resolve.

Squatting exists as a rebellion to a system of property that identifies ownership as an end goal, the means of which is years of struggling through debt, and as a solution to the problems that such a system causes. The new legislation will not stop this. It will, however, make it harder for those who have little option, and demonise squatting yet further.

According to G.K. Chesterton, ‘A man’ s home is his Art’, not his investment capital.

Lawrence Convictions Only Small Step The conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence was a small step to healing the wounds that the attack and the following blunder by the Metropolitan police opened. The wound however had been apparent in ‘minority’ communities for a long time and still persists today.

Stephen Lawrence was an unfortunate victim of hate crime, but he was not the only one. Britain’s postwar history has been riddled with incidents of migrants and their descendants being subjected to racially motivated attacks which has, on many, many occasions, resulted in murder (between 1975-1981 the figure stands at thirty-one).

Given this history, Stephen’s case is a unique one. Unlike families of previous victims, the case was propelled into the media and political spotlight through the gritty determination and efforts of his parents, who through their suffering fought hard for justice for their son.

The public exposure that the case has brought forward gave rise to the commissioning of the Macpherson Report (1999) by Jack Straw, the then Labour Home Secretary, some six years after the murder of Lawrence.

This report was damning in its criticism of the Metropolitan Police, infamously suggesting that this most high-profile public service organisation was “institutionally racist”; that there should be a complete restructuring of the police force in terms of its attitudes and conventions.

This week, eighteen years after the murder, two members of the gang who engulfed Stephen at a south

London bus stop, and then proceeded to stab him twice – once in the collarbone, and once through the arm into the chest – were sentenced to life imprisonment. The two have never shown any remorse for their actions, nor have they admitted any wrongdoing.

The convictions can only be seen as positive for Stephen, his family and the justice system in this country, but it is only a small step. Not only are there seven more suspects still at large, but the state of the relationship between ethnic minorities and the police services are continually being brought into question. The handling by police of the family of Mark Duggan, after he was shot by police in Tottenham last year, scarily echoed the same pattern that the Lawrence family experienced after they lost their son. Although Duggan was allegedly carrying a concealed weapon in his car, his family deserved not only an explanation from the police but also support, they got neither. This led to the first instances of violence in the London Riots after a protest outside the local police station brought the family no response from the police.

Home Office figures show a disproportionate use of Section 60 stop and search powers, which allow police to search individuals without the need for reasonable suspicion (brought in with the infamous Criminal Justice Bill of 1994 to tackle football violence and illegal parties). Ethnic minorities make up the largest part of those searched (60% as of 2009-10) and you’re seven times more likely to be stopped if have black skin.

Community relations should be of top priority for the police, but with the government spending cuts

community outreach budgets Photo: Steve Punter © are being slashed. If the Met and rest of the county’s police force wish to secure safer streets for us all, then the power, security and force that the they exert upon society needs to be felt the same by all, irrespective of race.

This case galvanised the nation. It horrified people from all walks of life and led a society that thought its race relations were improving, and in large part prided itself on this, to question its very fabric and values.

What must be reiterated again and again; is the fact that Stephen’s case is not an anomaly. People have suffered from racial abuse in the past and continue to the present day. The “semi-conclusion” of the Lawrence case is by no means the end of the road for race-relations in this country. Justice remains elusive.

Jon Pillay 233871@soas.ac.uk

SOAS SPIRIT

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Union and Societies

Official Notification of 3rd UGM of the Academic Year Date: Tuesday 17th January 2012 [NOT TUESDAY 24th AS PREVIOUSLY ITERATED] Time: 5:00pm Venue: JCR (Junior Common Room)

The Importance if Your UGM: Message from Finance and Communications CoPresident: Ali Khan ““Say whaaaat?”

A UGM is seriously important. It is where the Students’ Union (that means you, students) meets to discuss and debate the state of the union, what we believe in, and what we should do. For example, if a member (again, you) believes that SOAS Students’ Union should invest in a Jacuzzi, they have to put a motion in.

Once the motion has been sent to the Co-President forFinance and Communications (that’s me) before the deadline, it will be included in the agenda of the Meeting.

“Great. Sounds like a monumental waste of time. Besides, someone else is bound to go instead of me.”

Firstly, we need at least 50 Union members for the meeting to be able to go ahead. This means that we need you, but it also means that it’s usually one of the best attended events in the JCR. Secondly, they have been known to be really quite interesting. Past UGM’s have become so heated that the debate has carried on way past the meeting. They have traditionally been the battleground on which the Union members have challenged their Executive Officers’ mandates and agendas - sometimes having led to resignations taking place. They have been where the spirit of the Union has been defined, and that very definition is the very reputation that SOAS is known for - for better or for worse.

More importantly, unless you go and have your opinions aired and acknowledged, you have lost your say in the shaping of that reputation. Unless you really don’t care about SOAS, what it believes in, who it agrees with and who it doesn’t, and what it needs, you really REALLY should make the effort to attend.”

For The Full Message from Ali Check your SOAS Email

SOAS Saturday Club Gives Guidance to Future Students Saturday Club has an excellent reputation in creating opportunities and giving an insight to young people into university, especially to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Saturday Club is putting the principles of free education in practice offering children from London the opportunity by undertaking academic and non-academic subject which are not part of their curriculum, this includes for example Asian languages, Politics and Samba. We try to give the children an insight into what SOAS does and to promote the Saturday Club teachers meeting accessibility

and opportunities available for teenagers to come to University in general. With the Saturday Club we try to reassert the values of art, humanities and social sciences at university level.

At the moment we are looking for people that want to teach the children Chinese or Japanese.

The Saturday Club runs from the 21st January until 3rd March, every Saturday from 12.00 till 17.00 o’clock. There will be no Saturday Club session during Reading Week. Please contact us by sending an email to saturdayclub@soas.ac.uk. We would be really pleased if you want to contribute to this wonderful project which has made a base at SOAS and is there to continue.

Many thanks Clarence

January 2012

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After the Romance, Tragedy?

Jared McDonald

In 1994, Nelson Mandela, the first democratic president of South Africa, pledged that if the African National Congress (ANC) was elected to government it would “strive for an open society in which vigorous debate [would be] encouraged through a free press and other media...” But those were the heady Mandela days and seventeen years is a long, long time in politics. These, rather, are worrying days for one of the world’s most celebrated, young democracies. On 22 November, the ANC used its parliamentary majority to push through the “Protection of State Information Bill” in one of the country’s two houses of Parliament.

Dubbed the “secrecy bill” by many detractors, including the likes of Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu, this new piece of legislation threatens one of the fundamental tenets of South Africa’s democracy: the freedom of the press. Further, it flies in the face of citizens’ right to know. In terms of the Bill, any government information deemed to be in the interests of state security can be classified. The subsequent possession and dissemination of any classified information could result in lengthy prison sentences of up to 25 years.

What is most worrying is that without a public interest clause, in terms of the Bill, any journalist who received and published classified information which revealed, for instance, state corruption would risk imprisonment. The Minister of State Security wants the public to trust the government that it will

only allow information relating to state security to be classified and that the law will not be used to hide dodgy government dealings.

Given the ANC’s dominance of the political system since 1994, the media and judiciary have been crucial checks on the party’s power, holding it accountable and exposing numerous high profile cases of corruption.

The “secrecy bill” still has to be passed by the National Council of Provinces. Thereafter, all it would require to become law would be President Jacob Zuma’s signature. Should this happen, numerous civic organisations including the “Right to Know Campaign”, the “Congress of South African Trade Unions”, and the official opposition, the “Democratic Alliance”, plan to challenge the legality of the Bill in the Constitutional Court. This would be a fairly straightforward matter, as the Bill in its current form is unconstitutional. It is not surprising then that on 24 November, two days after the parliamentary vote, the ANC announced that it would be reviewing the rulings made by the Constitutional Court since its establishment in 1994 in order to determine whether those rulings are complementary to the ideals of the “national democratic revolution”.

So in one fell swoop over the course of two days, both the freedom of the media has been put at stake and the independence of the country’s highest court looks set to face intimidation. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the ANC’s founding. Hopefully some within its ranks will reflect upon, and rediscover, its historical democratic ethos.

The not-so-Democratic Republic of Congo Julian Boys

Walking through Trafalgar Square on a chilly December evening isn’t the first place you expect to encounter an impassioned chorus of voices chanting “No more rape, no more rape!”. But for the Congolese community in London the systematic use of rape as a weapon against women, men and children, is a crucial issue in the politics of their country and the election last month whose result has left many unsatisfied.

The widespread sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo – one report suggested that 48 women are raped every hour - is sometimes portrayed as symptomatic of the incomprehensible chaos which reigns in the conflict ridden central African country. Yet the apparent anarchy, especially in eastern provinces, is the result of a concrete history of brutal exploitation of natural resources and human labour by foreign and domestic powers, which continues to this day and implicates all of us.

The free mobile phone upgrades and new laptops pursued by prosperous consumers worldwide come with a hidden human cost: 80% of the world’s coltan, an essential component in wireless communications equipment, lies under Congolese soil.

The supply chain of such minerals is long and complex, but includes the forced labour, rape and murder of civilians by competing militia groups selling to household-name multinationals via intermediaries.

The international community therefore has huge power to limit the extent of abuses in DRC. The UN Security Council last month extended for another year its decade long arms embargo and other sanctions on armed rebel groups in the country. Legislation was passed in the US last year to force companies to carry out ‘due diligence’ checks on their supply chains, but is currently being watered down in the corridors of Washington by corporate lobbyists. This is despite the US law already catalysing the demilitarisation of mining in some areas, according to Global Witness.

No-one is under any illusions that elections are a shortcut to democracy in DRC, which is still recovering from decades of dictatorship and civil war. Real power comes not from public support but control over mineral wealth, and the revenue streams it generates. These are routinely diverted from public coffers into complicit overseas tax havens through tax evasion by companies and deals with officials: in 2007 the government received US$13 million in taxes from mining when the World Bank said the total should have been more like US$200 million. The level of capital flight from DRC is staggering, especially given the size of the economy, estimated to be US$30.7 billion since 1970.

At the same time the country has significant external debts, so the few tax revenues which are received cannot be simply spent on public services and infrastructure. A new book, Africa’s Odious Debts by Ndikumana and Boyce, reveals that three times more is spent on debt servicing than on public health in DRC, 4.1% of GDP as compared to 1.2%. Yet still a ‘vulture’ fund is in the process of suing the DRC through a court in Jersey, a British Crown Dependency and tax haven, for a debt incurred by a previous regime.

Through various nefarious channels, from the arms and minerals trade to the international financial system, outsiders are still heavily implicated in abuses in the DRC. Foreign intervention might not be as blatant now as when American and Belgian forces conspired to assassinate Congo’s first democratically elected president, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961. But in the days and years following DRC’s second ever election, global powers will continue to play a large role in determining prospects for the country’s citizens.

Photo: Flikr user André Thiel

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MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: The People’s Champion Milaad Rajai 205033@soas.ac.uk

If you are following the developments within Iran, you’ll realize a few truths:

Whatever the media, or ‘specialists’ with Iranian names say, is make- believe. In a world where the United States actively promotes sanctions and a campaign of demonization reminiscent of the campaign Saddam promoted during the 1980s, it seems the world has made its mind up about the secluded superpower.

Another truth. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the people’s champion. Like the great Rocky Johnson aka. The Rock, of ‘Walking Tall’ fame, Massive Mahmoud as is known in his super-hero alternate reality, is ‘the’ most electrifying man in political entertainment.

To those who have switched off, let us make clear: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been on the end of some of the world’s most awful gaffes, leading us to ask whether we should investigate the accounts of the translators involved, as to question whether they were paid off by a third party.

Firstly, ‘Israel being wiped off the map’; a soundbite which could kick-start a conflict, if revised, sounds more to be a statement regarding, ‘the conflict and violence that has erupted in Israel needs to be wiped clean.’ This is quite different in meaning. Iran has, since the time of the Shah and after the revolutionary process, clearly demanded a referendum. As a nation, it has been around long enough to document the atrocities that have besotted the Palestinian people. As a superpower that succeeds in countering the United States as a regional hegemon, it shall not be swayed into silence by an aggressive force. Israel is no different to Saddam’s Iraq in this regard.

Second, Holocaust denial is a serious violation not only in Europe but also in Iran. As the country with the highest population of Jews in the Middle East, Iran has a responsibility to its indigenous Sephardic Jews still residing within Iran. The Holocaust is still fresh in the mind of Iranians.

It was not so long ago that Adolf, Goebells, Gertrud and co. killed innocents. Yet, as with every genocide, a process of silencing begins that

tends to be abided by. The Assyrian genocide in Iraq does not make the broadsheets, the Rwandan genocide is left out of Rwandan history books, and the evil of humanity as realized by the failure of enlightenment in Western Europe, culminated with the ‘final solution’ as organized by the Nazis. At no point were Palestinians responsible, and if we are to accept the Nazification of the Palestinians by the European Jewry to what we have as the status quo, then an illogical leap has been made which forces us to question whether intelligence and logic are still valid in this current age. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admittedly focuses on the Holocaust, especially during UN General Assembly speeches, to project a point of view central within questions arising since the formation of the State of Israel. Why Palestine? But just as valid, is a question never aired in Europe. Why stop at Germany? In a period where anti-semitism was widespread in Europe, Ahmadinejad has asked countless times as to how it occurred that the nations who have garnered enough

legitimacy to be part of the decisionmaking elite sacrificed our Jewish brothers and sisters without hesitation.

I believe that were the inquest to deliver an outcome, the conclusion would favour the Jews and Ahmadinejad, a man who attempted to show the world that Muslims care more about the welfare of the disenfranchised, be it Shi’a, Palestinian or Jewish.

Ask yourself a question. Were these conclusions that I have set out to be true, changing our assumption of Ahmadinejad, or as the English have re-named him as a sign of the inability to pronounce too many syllables, ‘Ahmadinnerjacket’ would not be the villain he is portrayed to be. Furthermore, the Green Movement protests that focused their attention on ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, and furthermore, discrediting Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy as the popular candidate, if re-analyzed, could have shown a darker image, one which fooled Iranians and the outside world alike. In my opinion, Mahmoud Ah-

madinejad was the popular winner of the 2009 General Election. His popularity cannot be seen in the urbanized centres, but if you go to rural Iran, where Iran lives and breathes free from the intoxication of car fumes, you can understand why Iranians respect his resolve. It should be noted that to this day, Ahmadinejad has still not taken his wage for Presidency, rather donating it to charitable foundations, living on the lesser wage that comes from his responsibilities as a lecturer.

Let us add a different dimension. In the face of sanctions from beyond its borders, a hostile America which pumps funds into subverting the sovereignty of the nation, and furthermore, a media which sided with the Green Movement, demonizing the President whilst paying little attention to the other offices which control the Iranian political sphere, Iranians were duped into convicting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the key actor against the aspirations of the Iranian people.

In today’s Iran, the cracks in the leadership are there for all to see. The rift between the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who has recently called for a re-evaluation on whether the office of the President is needed, and Ahmadinejad, who has been on the end of scathing criticism for many issues which are not directly part of his responsibilities, indicates that, like with any leader who gets too popular for the power structure, they can either leave voluntarily, or get pushed to the curb.

In a world where the ‘People’s President’ and the Supreme Leader are at odds, I wonder who the democrats, free-thinkers, bazaaris, students and religious classes would side with, let alone spectators outside the country. Would they side with Ahmadinejad, an unsuspecting leader of the right to invoke assembly and democracy, or the Supreme Leader, and with it, the velayat-e- faquih with a revised interpretation as to what is meant by representation.

The martyrs of 1979- 1988 knew one truth that still resides to this day. The call for the route of the intentions of revolution (Rah-e-enghelab), or the line, however ferocious, of the Supreme Leader (Khat-e-imam), will end in bloodshed if open negotiations do not emerge.

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Sri Lanka: Failures in Liberal Peacebuilding - Notes on the "Pawns of Peace" Report.

Anonymous contribution at request of Journalist.

In May 2009 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were militarily crushed by the Sri Lankan Government at the cost of massive Tamil civilian dead and wounded.

Allegations of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide now hound the Sri Lankan government from both the Tamil diaspora and the International Community.

The recently published report, Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka, 199720092, is an analysis of how the Peace Process began to unravel and ultimately collapse.

With the LTTE having achieved relative military parity

with Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) by 2001, a Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), under Norwegian auspices, was signed on the 22nd February 2002 and was backed by the Co-Chairs comprised the EU, Japan, Norway, and the US. In 2003 the LTTE released the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) document dropping their earlier demands for a separate State accepting instead extensive Federalised autonomy.

In March 2004 Colonel Karuna, the ex-LTTE commander of the Eastern Province, split and formed a breakaway paramilitary group backed by the GOSL. Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected in 2005 and the last direct talks between LTTE and GOSL occurred between February-October 2006, in January 2008 GOSL officially pulled out of the CFA (though all out military conflict had been raging since 2006). In January 2009 Kilinochchi the administrative capital of the LTTE fell; barely four months, later following Indian election results which proved indifferent towards the massacres of Tamil civilians and the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran sometime around May 17th 2009, the LTTE announced its decision to “silence our guns”.

The LTTE bear huge responsibility for their defeat. Increasingly numerous and catastrophic political blunders were committed from 2003 onwards. The LTTE, through an enforced

boycott of Tamil voters, made possible the election of Mahinda Rajapaksa as president; the LTTE failed to assess the effects of the US sponsored paradigm of a “War on Terror”; and Karuna’s split in 2004 dealt a severe blow to the LTTE’s manpower reserves and strategic control over the Eastern Province.

“ …the sole, ulterior purpose [...of...] stabilising the Sri Lankan state in a manner that would make it sufficiently pliable to accommodate the strategic and economic interests of the US-UK-Japan Bloc.”

However important questions also need to be asked of the role Norway played in Sri Lanka (and peace processes around the world) as Sathananthan points out, Norway has long been a “handmaiden”5 used by the US as its ‘benign face, without the despised scares of history of colonial occupation’.

The Sri Lankan peace process…began as an experiment in liberal peacebuilding and ended as a result of a very different ‘Asian model’ of ‘conflict resolution’.

Indeed it did, but shifting the responsibility to emerging Asian powers, is both questionable and erroneous, even with the benefit of hindsight. The Tamil people are now defenceless in the face of a State that is employing Israel’s militarised settler colonisation model for the Tamil homeland.

The Future is ours to Shape – Hope from SAACR 2011 Aishath Rizna 551699@soas.ac.uk The 17th regional summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was held in the island of Addu in Maldives on the 10-11 November this year. The Association is an important regional body promoting peace, stability and progress through strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Non- Alignment Treaty. The theme of the summit this year was ‘Building Bridges’, symbolising a promising start to bridge regional gaps of differences. With the meeting of the head of states happening for the first time in the sunny, southern hemisphere, it is time for us to reflect on whether the warmth generated will last.

The efforts to establish a free trade zone – South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) - similar to that of the European Union – has been in the pipeline for the past five years but due to political and economic concerns primarily between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, this has not been materialised. However some encouraging initiatives were taken in this direction, which includes expediting the work of the Ministerial Council to effectively implement SAFTA and the work on reduction in Sensitive Lists, which will help to realise the goal of liberalising trade through tariff reduction and removal of non-tariff barriers.

Another step that was initiated was to conclude the Regional Railways Agreement, which will include conducting the demonstration run of a container train between Bangladesh, India and Nepal by the end of this year.

They have also agreed to convene the Expert Group Meeting on the Motor Vehicles Agreement before the next Session of the Council of Ministers.

These steps do offer a ray of hope, but in the light of past events, one has to take these developments with a pinch of salt. Established in 1985 by the heads of

states and governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, SAARC had a set high benchmarks for achieving peace and economic cooperation within member countries. Afghanistan is the most recent entrant, joining the body in 2005.

As any other regional body, SAARC too has had its fair share of criticisms of being all talks and no action. Summit after summit agreements are reached but no tangible outcomes appear in view. Lofty goals were set in previous summits to combat terrorism and the threats of climate change, but precious little has been done in this regard so far. Though the leaders who attended the summit claimed it to be a huge success, only time will tell. South Asia is becoming more powerful and more prominent than at any other point in our history and the future is really ours to shape.

One of the challenges that SAARC has faced over the years is the lack of powers for the Secretary General and the shortcomings with regard to enforcing many of its decisions. This issue has been solved to some extent whereby leaders have agreed to confer more powers on the Secretary General to carry out her functions effectively. It is hoped that the first woman appointee to this post Fathmath Dhiyana Saeed will manage to make some progress in this regard.

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FOOTBALL BEYOND BORDERS 2011: EGYPT, PALESTIN Joseph Watfa tells the story of a football tour that had a lasting impact for all those involved

Preamble to tour

September is generally a quiet month for SOAS sports teams, captains, club secretaries, union officials and team members gear their energies towards planning for the current year, getting all the essentials in check – kit, ground, playing squad and committee to name but a few. However for three years now I have been part of SOAS Football Firsts unprecedented football tours. That title gives it a lads on tour, binging Britain ring, but these tours can be described rather as Football Tours with a difference.

Football Beyond Borders, the concept initially thought up under Jasper Kain’s captaincy. In 2009, we travelled to Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, the aim of the tour was centred on transcending perceived differences with inhabitants of a region condemned with simplified, and at times pejorative, descriptions such as the ‘Axis of Evil,’ or presented as part of an ‘Islamic monoculture.’ 2010 saw Beyond Borders keep with the

established mantra of promoting cross-cultural dialogue and mutual understanding, but the focus shifted towards development in Ghana, under Toib Olomowewe’s tutelage.

The power football has to enact social change and unite supposedly differing communities which supposedly exist in opposition to each other is unparalleled. FBB presents an alternative, not only do we seek to operate in spite of established political institutions, we aim to tackle the artificial boundaries created and perpetuated by them using football. Often often lauded as a global language, football can be used as a useful platform to engender dialogue, debate, and in making obvious the common humanity shared with supposedly different people.

Come August 29th, Football Beyond Borders: Middle East 2011 planned to travel to Egypt, Palestine and Jordan, we were 20 student footballers travelling to engage with students, local communities

Above: : Manshiyet Nasr other wise known as ‘rubbish city ’

EGYPT After a long summer of training (most of us!) and raising last minute funds, we departed fro Hurghada, Egypt on 29th August, the decision to fly to the seaside resort, was a pragmatic cost cutting measure, where we would spend three days training, rising at 6.30am and conducting two training sessions a day, it took great discipline to say no to the buzzing activities and nightlife of Hurghada. Anyone who knows of the region will surely stress the ‘bubble’ that is Hurghada in the wider Egyptian context, we were under no illusions. We departed to Cairo on 2nd September, after a nine hour journey, we entered the aptly named ‘city of a thousand minarets,’ it was impossible to miss the pencil like structures piercing the skyline, if that wasn’t enough, the smell of food, dust, heat, fumes and the sound of beeping horns is sure to confirm it.

While in Cairo we were exposed to a variety of social issues, remnants of the failed, greedy politics of the Mubarak and Sadat regimes, the economic liberalisation and the implementation of a strong police state, amongst others had left a huge scar on

and various groups. We sought to use our love of football to foster lasting relationships, learn about each other and to challenge supposed truths. Football’s level playing field was to provide an alternative to the boardroom and highlevel diplomacy, which we feel fails to represent our views and has failed the people of the region. We are seeking to providing an alternative narrative of Westerners, away from David Cameron’s eagerness to secure arms deals with post revolutionary Egypt, away from Tony Blair’s ludicrous role as the Middle East’s peace envoy and away from the British government’s incessant support for despotic regimes and their unparalleled support for Israel at the sacrifice of the Palestinian people.

Palestine was undoubtedly our most unprecedented leg of the tour, we sought to provide an alternative narrative of Palestine, not one solely based on conflict and high level diplomacy, expose the failure of our elected representatives in articulating our despair over the Israeli occupation and finally to use the power football to transcend cultural differences and engage with the local communities.

Right: Pictures from a football match at Manshiyet Nasr

Cairenes society. Almost immediately apparent are the huge income inequalities, which exist, during our stay, we had our training and match base at the American University of Cairo campus, in Cairo’s suburbs. Sports cars parked outside, a palm tree lined promenade, state of the art sports facilities – including an Olympic sized pool, football and rugby stadium, gym and steam room, we were well and truly mixing with Cairo’s wealthy, debates started within the team as to whether this was in fact why we came out here, and within the team people began to realise that it this was in fact an educational experience, we were witnessing the supreme gulfs in living standards, fighting this was one of the main aims of the Egyptian revolution. An event on our final day with an NGO which was born as a result of the Egyptian Revolution, the Nebny foundation in one of Cairo’s poorest slums showed us the direct antithesis of what we had seen at the AUC. Manshiyet Nasr is a slum known as ‘rubbish city’ where median income is 50 dollars, one third of Cairo’s average wage and has an average gross floor space per person is 6.2 square metersOur day with them involved a football match with the local team, who have been unable to play league matches as opposition clubs did not want to go into the derelict Cairo slum. We

also played matches and other games with the kids of Manshiyet Nasr, our arrival was greeted with television crews and the appearance of a famous Egyptian actor who showed solidarity with the proposal for funding for Manshiyet Nasr to rebuild.

The juxtaposition of AUC and Manshiyet Nasr was a clear portrayal of the scars left on Egyptian society by previous regimes.

We also partook in workshops with Coptic Orphans and the increasingly precarious position that Egypt’s Christians were finding themselves in was conveyed to us. In drama workshops children re-enacted religiously inspired abuse they had suffered by people they referred to as ‘Salafis.’ The complex nature of identity in the region, so often ignored in the media, was elucidated by kids younger than 12, they always referred to the tattoo of a cross on their hand (which they had done when they were babies) when asked about their identity. It was necessary to brand themselves, they believed.

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NE & JORDAN HAILED ‘BEST SO FAR’ PALESTINE Naturally travelling through this region, especially Palestine, complications were bound to occur, the structures we sought to act in spite of controlled the borders and a strong military influence affected daily life. Unfortunately, we were unable to enter the Gaza strip, one week before our departure to Egypt, Israel resumed its aerial bombardment of Gaza, however it all seemed to calm down until the day before we were due to leave, an Egyptian crackdown on the Rafah border, aimed at rooting out illegal tunnels to Gaza. The control of borders was perpetuated further upon our entry to Israel, via Eilat en route to the West Bank. After much warning we created a counternarrative, a lads on tour to Tel-Aviv for a few nights of partying was our new line, we got rid of Facebooks, the FBB website, tour gear that made obvious who we were and attempted to enter. Faced by a heavily fortified, and well manned border crossing, we entered, many nervous, worrying they might not get in, I was however quietly confident, strength in numbers I believed. Here, my first interaction with the Israeli state was an unsavoury one, myself and Omar, the two Arab looking guys in the team, were subject to the Israeli state’s open policy of racial profiling. Allowing the rest to pass the first stage of immigration, we were held and questioned on questions ranging from our wealth to our origin, despite holding British passports like most of the team. After being allowed through, a further nine of us were held in the terminal while an investigation took place on why we went to Syria in 2009, by investigation, our passports

JORDAN After leaving the West Bank, we had a slightly more relaxed schedule in Jordan where we were hosted by Wihdat Football Club, the club was formed in a refugee camp and has gone on to become one of the most successful clubs in Jordan’s history. We conducted several workshops with the Jordanian (Palestinian) Women’s Union and various political active youth groups. In Jordan we witnessed one of the many manifestations of the conflict, exile and displacement. We were told by some Palestinian volunteers about the ‘occupation of the mind’ they suffered in Jordan, an attempt to suppress the Palestinian influence in Jordan, for example prohibiting Palestinian flags and scarves. Further, we witnessed further military control in Refugee camps, one anecdote we were told was of Jordanian military bulldozing a row of houses down in order to create a path big enough for tanks to pass through in order to suppress future protest or ‘rebellions’ as they are described.

However, something that came as a pleasant sur-

were stacked up at the end of the table and officers browed on iPads and iPhones. Regardless, we made it to the West Bank after a 31 hour round trip.

In the West Bank we had an enriching, but mixed experience. I use the word mixed because of the fact that we were exposed to the welcoming, hospitable reception we received from Palestinians, and the harsh realities of occupation and the settlements. My perception of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was exacerbated by what I saw and what I heard. We witnessed countless checkpoints, settlements scything through Palestinian towns, settlers lining lampposts on Palestinian roads with Israeli flags, dumping rubbish and sewage on Palestinian land, and closing of parts of Palestinian villages while they (armed) are escorted to religious sites in Palestinian villages, limiting movement in the occupied West Bank, especially limiting travel to and from Occupied East Jerusalem. Whether it was in Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus, or in the post game ceremony in Farkha, a small Palestinian refugee camp, in Dheisheh refugee camp, in crosseducational workshops with kids, or in various discussions we had with students an activists we learnt a great deal about the Palestine and Palestinian culture, as well as the real sensitive nature of the situation and the IDF’s physical and emotional control of the area. On more than one occasion, talks or celebrations were cut short and smiles quickly turned to worried frowns as rumours spread that an IDF patrol was coming through the area, euphoria quickly turned into urgent distress.

prise was the desire in the young to champion the Palestinian cause, they were all keen on studying the history, culture and geography of their homeland and had begun to play an active part in youth groups, they firmly told us ‘The spirit of Palestine is in your birth milk, we are born to fight our cause.’

The trip gave us a nuanced view of the complexities of the region and especially the conflict, we met with and interacted with activists and students who had brought down the Mubarak empire, witnessed some of the realities of life under occupation and saw one of the many manifestations of the conflict, exile and dispossession. The trip was an extremely humbling experience, never before have I been exposed to such highs and lows emotionally, each image has its story and each person has theirs. The place was full of stories, both happy and sad. We will learn from our mistakes and take FBB forward as a tool for social change.

“Having been on all 3 tours since Football Beyond Borders began in 2009, I genuinly think this past tour was the best so far. Its one thing to read about it but being here is completely different” Taurean Ethnomusicology MA

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MOVEMBER AT SOAS Since its humble beginnings in 2004, Movember has fast become a worldwide phenomenon. This famous form of facial hair can now be seen sported by celebrities, top sportsmen and the individual on the street. During the month of November, you can’t go anywhere without being reminded that it is actually Movember. TOMS have limited edition Movember shoes, Qantas has a giant moustache painted on the front of one of its planes, Google Chrome created a video to help raise awareness that has already had over 1.1 million views, Links of London have created Movember cufflinks, bracelets and necklaces and the list goes on.

The first aim of its Melbourne based founders was to get 30 men to grow moustaches for the month of November to raise awareness and draw attention to men’s cancers. It now has over 1.1 million participants worldwide and has raised 106 million pounds since its foundation. Its ambassadors now include Australian cricketers Andrew Siddle and Andrew Symonds, England rugby player James Haskell, Dutch football legend Ruud Gullit and even the man himself, Snoop Dogg. The funds that are raised in the UK help to

Timothy Henderson 212794@soas.ac.uk support the two key male specific cancers, prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly

by Movember and their men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with their goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

With many of the top rugby teams in the world supporting the Movember cause, the SOAS rugby team didn’t want to feel left out. This is why we hosted a Movember party in the JCR on the evening of Friday 2nd December.

The evening was filled with drinking games such as beer pong and boat races, cheap drinks, the all important best moustache competition and more. Prizes were won and for those who cannot grow a moustache, fake ones were provided. All the proceeds from this night went towards the Movember supported charities. It total, we raised £402.85! We hope to see the Movember cause supported every year at SOAS! Mo Out!!

The Spirit Sits Down SOAS HOCKEY Sports Editor Pravin Wadwani met with Alexandra (pictured left), the captain of the SOAS Hockey Team to find out how she’s enjoying leading one of SOAS’s newest teams.

How do you rate your start to the season out of 10?

8 – The season has started out amazingly well. As a new team we still have a lot of room for improvement but we’ve gelled really well both on and off the pitch, and I think that’s a real achievement in itself. Of course the results have been pretty good too.

Tell us about yourself. How long have you played hockey for?

I started playing hockey when I was 11. I was a defender/mid until I was about 16 before trying Keeping and never looked back. I’ve been playing for clubs and obviously school and university for the past 4 years.

How often do you a train and do you feel you are backed by the Union?

I usually train twice a week, once with SOAS and once with my club. I then have matches on Saturdays and Sundays. I feel that the Union backs me as best as it can and although it’s been stressful to organise and there are a few things that could have been done better to make it easier, my decisions so far have been accepted and supported.

What are your aims this season?

I was asked this before we started and I said “To have a team”. Well now we have a team I guess it’s time to aim high. I would love for us to get promoted this year and there’s no reason why we couldn’t. If we can win the cup too, even better – we’re through to the quarter finals so fingers crossed!

January 2012

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SPORTS EDITOR PRAV’S MONTHLY REVIEW As 2011 draws to a close there is much to celebrate on the sporting front, especially amongst women’s teams at SOAS. For SOAS women’s teams it is certainly was the season to be jolly.

Let’s start with SOAS’s newest team, the Women’s Hockey Club, who remain unbeaten after a solid 4- 2 victory in a Cup match against Imperial despite having only 8 players available to play in this fixture, as opposed to Imperial who put out a full squad of about 13. Beginners such as Bianca Rangecroft and Sandra Sfier are looking like naturals. Which has worked in tandem with the more senior players such as Nayela Wickramasuriya and Ayesha Kalaji who are leading the defence as boldly as ever.

The Womens Netball Team continue to deck the halls with bells of glory by registering two triumphant victories against LSE and RUMS, beating them 72-27 and 41-10 respectively. The Womens Football Team’s great start to the season was halted by a 3-1 defeat to St. George’s in November. However the side showed great ‘bounce-backability’ by thumping City University 4-0 last weekend. The Women’s Basketball Team have also ended 2011 on a high after thrashing St George’s 48-24.

However, the Mens Football teams are still singing ‘Silent Night’. The 1st XI’s defensive problems are still prevalent. I point to the back-to-back 7-0 defeats last month. Similarly, the 2nd XI’s good start to the season came to an end, when they lost to KCL Medics 2-0 recently. Luck has had a big part to play in this however. SOAS Football highlights the on-going plea for the restructure of timetabling at SOAS. Nearly half of the team has lectures on a Wednesday afternoon, when their games are scheduled. Surely it is time for something to be done?!

vived this year. They plan to embark on a ‘5 Countries in 5 Days’ tour in February. If anyone would like to get involved with this society, please email Keiko Ono (249134).

All these success stories show the ever-growing sporting ethos at SOAS. We hope to build on it this and have a prosperous 2012. And a very Happy New year to you.

But its not all doom and gloom this holiday season. Santa seemed to have left some exciting presents in the SOAS Rugby Club’s stocking. Not only are they good at growing glorious moustaches, The Warriors have now extend their unbeaten run to 5 matches! We hope that their excellent form extends into 2012. The SOAS Men’s Squash Team’s historic 15-Match sadly came to an end recently. Nonetheless, the undefeated run is an epic achievement that will be lauded for years. With 5-0 victories against RVC, captain Jan Fox assures us that sure business will return to normal in the New Year.

The SOAS Cycling Club has been re-

THE LATEST SOAS SPORTS RESULTS Rugby:

SOAS 21- 10 Imperial Medics SOAS 31 - 0 University of Creative Arts SOAS 19 – 5 University of West London SOAS 14 – University of Portsmouth 15 SOAS 24 – Uni’ of Buckinghamshire 5 SOAS 25 – LSE 12

Hockey Team:

SOAS 5 – 4 St. Georges SOAS 4 – Imperial College 2

Womens Football Team: SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS

1 – UCL 1 4 – City 0 1 - 3 St. Georges 1 - 0 KCL Medics 9 - 0 RUMS 4 - 1 RHUL 11 -0 RVC

Mens Basketball:

SOAS 71 - 61 University of the Arts

SOAS 46 – 28 LSE SOAS 30 – 31 Queen Mar y SOAS 41 – RUMS 10 SOAS 72 – LSE 27

Mens Squash Team: SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS SOAS

5 3 3 3 3 2 5 1 2

– – – – – – – – –

0 Imperial 2 KCL 2 Queen Mar y 0 Essex 0 Imperial 1 Queen Mar y RVC 0 Queen Mar y 2 St Bar ts 3

Women’s Basketball

Womens Badminton

Netball Team:

Womens Tennis Team:

SOAS 48 – St George’s 24

SOAS 31 – 26 St Georges

SOAS 6 – Roehampton 2

SOAS 4 – 2 Royal Vets

January 2012

PAGE 16

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SOAS WARRIORS BOUNCING BACK Pravin Wadhwani 249197@soas.ac.uk Not many would expect SOAS to have a huge pool of decent rugby players, however, two years ago, the SOAS Rugby Club (SOAS Warriors) was one of the few success stories for SOAS Sports Teams. Getting promoted into the higher division was an achievement considering we are such a small university. After gaining promotion in 2010, the new-look Warriors team, despite hard efforts, got relegated, but we are glad to say that the glory days are back and, in the form that they are in, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they’ll bounce back to the division in which they belong. They currently lie at the top of the BUCS League on the back of a five-match winning streak.

After loosing their first game, they rolled their socks up and committed to a dogged style of play, eventually leading them to see off tough opposition. After thrashing the University of Creative Arts 31-0, they eased past University of West London and University of Buckinghamshire, 19-5 and 24-5 respectively. Leading try-

scorer Johann Barbe is on exceptional form and as usual Max Riley-Gould is leading the leading the forwards making them a threatening pack. The five-match winning streak was achieved recently when they beat a strong LSE side 25-12.

This year’s captain, Timothy Henderson is leading by example, putting in excellent performances in each match.

Most of the veterans such as Max, Timothy, Bradley Hopkins, Matt Lee Sang, Austin Cooper, Ross Adkin and Lewis Eliot have been playing together for at least three years now and their continual commitment to SOAS Rugby has started to show dividends, sitting comfortably at the top of the League and having not lost a match since October.

Adam K. James has come out of retirement, after taking break from the team for a year, and is still as good as ever.

SOAS Rugby Club has always had a sense of camaraderie. Co-President of the Students Union, Ali Khan, remembers the days he was a SOAS Warrior and how they would, without fail, win or lose, meet

up for a pint at a local pub after every game. This tradition has been passed on from captain to captain and now they enjoy their post-match pints in the SOAS Bar after every night.

Other sports teams at SOAS could learn from this tradition. They are also getting involved with the Union, after having just hosted a fundraising event in the JCR last week.

Back to their on-pitch per-

formance. Unfortunately, they are knocked out of the BUCS Cup, narrowly loosing in a thrilling encounter, 15-14 to the University of Portsmouth. This does however mean that they can focus on winning the league, which is by no means an unrealistic target. So, if you have a Wednesday afternoon off, head down to Regents Park to cheer on your Warriors!

SOAS Sport pays Tribue to Basil D’Oliveira Alec Macgregor

259941@soas.ac.uk

Basil D’Oliveira came to prominence late in his cricketing life; he was 32 before he finally got his chance in first class cricket, yet rather than fading into obscurity as a county pro whose chance had come too late, D’Oliveira grew into one of the most significant cricketers of all time. This was both as a political talisman who indicated all that was absurd with apartheid, and also as a player who achieved genuinely remarkable things in a career that once threatened to never take off.

Born in Cape Town in 1931 D’Oliveira was classified as “coloured” under the apartheid system. Amongst the many things that he was excluded from was playing for South

Africa’s national side. It was in 1960 that his luck changed when he was signed by Middleton in Lancashire, from here his talent was quickly spotted and he rose through the ranks of Worcestershire before, in 1966 at the tender age of 35, he was selected for England. Despite strong performances he was not selected to tour South Africa in 1968, this was interpreted as an attempt to appease the SA government who knew it was politically untenable for a non-white player to be seen in South African test cricket. However the combination of a late injury and a dissenting British press forced the MCC to pick the player who was clearly the strongest. After much negotiation, the tour was cancelled and the political fallout started a wave of sporting boycotts that continued until the end of apartheid.

Despite the politics, it was ultimately as a cricketer that D’Oliveira made his name, and in this regard he was outstanding. Averaging just over 40 with the bat and just under with the ball, it is clear that D’Oliveira was prodigiously talented.

However, it was his mental strength and his abilities as a steady hand that compounded this reputation. His tough and intelligent approach led to many great innings especially in big games, most notably his 117 at the MCG after England looked set to collapse, as well as his game changing 158 against Austalia at the Oval 3 years earlier.

Former Captain of SOAS cricket Pravin Wadhwani summed up his af-

fect when he stated that “In November, the sporting world lost not only a great cricketer, but a humble and gracious man whose dignity cannot go unnoticed. Here at SOAS, we appreciate 20th Century African history and the Basil D’Oliveria case is a prime example of the cruel nature of Apartheid. In a time where racism in sport has been discussed a lot in the media, we should take a minute to laud this incredible sportsman”

Throughout his career, he stood out as a man who stayed calm, composed and continued to love the game despite the adversity he faced. His sad death on November 19th last year leaves the cricketing world a poorer place.