Issue 24: 23 March 2023

SOAS SPIRIT

INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER

ISSUE 24

BUTCHERY IN DAMASCUS

AI IN JOURNALISM: AN AUTOMATED PROMISE OF STREAMLINED OBECTIVITY

THE SHADOW THAT STICKS: A REVIEW OF DINA AMER’S ‘YOU RESEMBLE ME’

SOAS’s Board of Trustees: Censoring Students & Silencing Concerns

On ursday, February 23rd, a group of SOAS students were prohibited from delivering two letters to the Board of Trustees during one of their institutional meetings held in Senate House Library. ese letters were written by two student groups on campus concerned with increasing levels of Islamophobia and securitisation at SOAS. As per procedure, the Students’ Union submitted the letters to be added to the meeting’s agenda ten days prior, but they were le o

Students trying to deliver the letters were confronted by 10 to 15 security guards stationed both inside and outside Senate House Library, who barred students from entering the meeting room. Upon entry, security threatened to call the police on students. is comes weeks a er an extremely

violent arrest occurred outside of SOAS, where eight o cers forcefully detained a SOAS student in the main courtyard. A er being denied entry to the meeting room, students read a brief statement aloud, part of which is quoted below:

‘ e removal of the SU update is no surprise to a student body that has been actively resisting Habib’s directorship and the Board of Trustees for its years of silencing and attempted dismantling of any form of mobilisation and union work on campus… is is yet another show of our University’s management style, which prioritises o cially and ociously the removal of any form of dissent and free speech.’

A erwards, students passed the letters to the security guards and stayed for ten minutes further in an attempt to ensure they were delivered to the meeting room, but it remained unclear if they were. ey then le the building.

e rst letter, written by the Students’ Initiative Against Racism and Islamophobia at SOAS, details a number of allegations of Islamophobia which have occurred on the SOAS campus over the last few years. ese include inappropriate comments regarding Islam and Muslim identity made by lecturers during class; numerous occurrences of discrimination involving verbal, written, and physical harassment; and an unwarranted removal of a student from the female prayer area by security sta , among many more. Despite countless attempts to resolve these issues through formal complaint channels, little has been done to ameliorate the problem and provide the substantive action that has been called for. Highlighting a perceived hypocrisy, the letter notes the following: ‘ is is unacceptable, particularly in a university that advertises itself on its diversity and teaches Black and Global South Feminist thoughts.’ It concludes

#FIREHABIB, from December 2021 UCU Strikes. (Credit: Sam Landis)

Sam Landis, BA Social Anthropology and International Relations

SOAS’s Board of Trustees: Censoring Students & Silencing Concerns

The Economic Benefits of (the ‘A’ in) SOAS

Stateless Shamima Begum Continues To Fight for her Return To The UK

What’s Happening in Las Anod, Somalia?

Dear Spirit readers, As we approach the year’s last edition, I’d like to take a moment to look both forward and back. At the risk of sounding cliche, the bulk of this letter will be taken up by a massive thank you to all those who have worked on the paper this year.

Firstly, a massive thank you to all of you - the SOAS community. It’s truly been a source of pleasure for us to see interaction with the paper growing issue by issue, something which I hope will continue next year. Release day has been a particular source of joy for all of us at the Spirit, every comment of “I love the paper”, or “I read it every time”, has truly been the motivating factor behind our drive to improve edition to edition. Similarly, I’d love to thank all those who have taken the time to write and contribute to the paper, particularly those who have come back to contribute time and time again. Reading each and every one of your articles has truly been a pleasure, and has con rmed one thing that we all already knew - SOAS truly boasts the most politically engaged, socially conscious student body of any university.

Secondly, a thank you to the team that makes it all happen. No organisation like this is run alone, and whilst it’s me who writes these letters each edition, the truth is that everyone amongst our team has the ability to be in this position. I owe each and every one of you a debt of gratitude for the way in which you curate each of your sections. Whilst it’s impossible to choose a favourite, I’d like to shine a spotlight on our international News and Culture sections. roughout the year, the International News section has consistently highlighted stories that would otherwise be neglected in the mainstream, doing so in a way that has been both entertaining and accessible. Its editor, Viandito, is not someone who o en seeks the limelight (so apologies in advance for this shoutout), but this does not mean that his work has gone unnoticed. Truly an expert on international a airs, his dedication to his section has been admirable and will be missed in years to come. e Culture section is a part of the paper that will always have my heart. Anisah is an editor who never takes her nger o the pulse of pop culture, continually putting the rest of our celebrity knowledge to shame.

The Rise of Pink Pantheress: The TikTok Star turned Popstar

What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything or Maybe Nothing at all.

Her ability to intersect politics and culture is a talent that has made her section unmissable.

Finally, it would be disingenuous of me to say goodbye without thanking three very important people - Amelia, Millie, and Sanna. Sanna is our Creative Director, although to me her job is more akin to witchcra . She masterfully puts the layout of each paper together, o en alone, and o en without the thanks that she genuinely deserves. Aside from this, she is a tireless campaigner for the causes she believes in, uncompromising in her belief that change is possible. Amelia is our Managing editor, essentially the Swiss army knife of the Spirit. She diligently carries out all the tasks that would otherwise puzzle me, (like composing proper emails and public speaking), and generally ensures that the paper is in good health. Despite the fact that she scares the life out of me, it’s been a pleasure to get to know her as a colleague and friend, best of luck wherever your year abroad takes you - they don’t know what’s about to hit them. Finally, Millie. Millie is our Executive digital editor, although realistically she’s been so much more. She tirelessly runs our digital presence, overseeing our website and social platforms at a time of great digital expansion. Aside from this, she’s been the best co-investigator I could have asked for, digging with me to uncover the secrets that so o en remain covered. I’ll genuinely miss spending ungodly hours being sat in the SU, going through meeting minutes line by line in pursuit of a scoop. With the most experience out of all of us, Millie basically is the SOAS Spirit. She knows every policy, regulation, and technicality better than I ever could, truly a girl boss - without the problematic centrism.

With love to Amelia, Millie, Sanna, Ele, Madihah, Viandito, Naaz, Emily, Naeema, Anisah, Hala, Lulu, Unzeela, Clayton, Danyal, Amy, Eman, Sophia, and all those who worked on the paper this year.

Signing o , Toby Editor

in Chief of e SOAS Spirit

Amelia Casey-Rerhaye • Managing Editor

Toby Oliver-Clarke • Editor-in-Chief

Millie Glaister • Executive Digital Editor

Sanna Hamid • Creative Director

Eleanora Catenaro • SOAS News Editor

Madihah Najeeb• National News Editor

Viandito Pasaribu • International News Editor

Naeema Mahmood • Co-Opinion Editor

Emily Holdcro • Co-Opinion Editor

Naaz Hussein • Features Editor

Anisah Mahamoud • Culture Editor

Hala Haidar • Sport & Societies Editor

Lulu Goad • Contributing Designer

Unzeela Manzoor • Contributing Designer

Amy Kan • Contributing Designer

Lulu Goad • Senior Sub Editor

Eman Baasti • Sub Editor

Clayton Barrington-Russell • Sub Editor

Danyal Sabir • Sub Editor

SOAS

Sophia-Fai Roche • Digital reporter

Unzeela Manzoor • Digital reporter

Millie, Sanna, Toby & Amelia• Senior Editors

https://soasspirit.co.uk/category/news/

News Editors: Eleanora Caterano, Madihah Najeeb & Viandito Pasaribu

SOAS News

Continued from page 1

with a set of demands including the creation of an independent external panel of enquiry designed to adequately investigate the complaints of racism and Islamophobia at SOAS.

e second letter, written by a group of students angered by the heightened security presence at SOAS, brings attention to the harmful consequences of a campus which prioritises securitisation and surveillance over decolonisation and liberation.

e letter cites various instances of intimidation and harassment from guards (including one allegation of a student being told they would be ‘broken in half’); management’s decision

to hyper-securitise picket lines and student rallies; the diculty of accessing campus spaces and the frustrations of constantly having to present ID cards; and security’s forbidding of students to hand out yers and literature at the start of term. e letter states: ‘Teaching and learning lose their value when taken place in a heavily securitised space which aims to restrict expression and undermine the worth of students.’

e inability to present student concerns at the Board of Trustees is regarded by some as part of a trend in limiting the democratic capacities of the Students’ Union. In addition to

Food for Thought - Feeding The Soul of SOAS

Nana Oforiwaa is a familiar face amongst SOAS students, some of whom excitedly interrupt our discussion in the SU to nd out why she hasn’t been selling her delicious food on campus recently. In the hour or so we sit talking, I can’t count how many people she’s waved to, embraced or caught up with - and it’s not just her magic with avours that causes this warm reaction to her presence, her magic with people certainly has a lot to say for it too. Since she started her stall at SOAS seven years ago now, Nana Oforiwaa has fed thousands of students hearty Afrikan meals as well as a multitude of international cuisines from Iranian, Malaysian, and British to Eastern European. Every week she takes three days to prepare the array of dishes - vegan-orientated and packed with fresh, organic produce - yet this is not even a personal business venture.

Nana Oforiwaa’s food funds go towards the vital cause of healthcare for African women su ering from lupus, broids and bromyalgia. Given the deeply embedded racism in the British healthcare system, these conditions that most commonly a ect black women o en don’t receive the research, funding or treatment options that are so needed. As a result, many women have to seek private healthcare or therapeutic treatment options which are far more costly. Nana Oforiwaa’s fundraising is able to help facilitate some of these options, even helping some SOAS students who struggle with the conditions - all whilst dealing with chronic pain from bromyalgia herself.

Her sel ess commitment to aiding others around her and within her community is evident in the number of prestigious awards of recognition she has received throughout her lifetime. Even within the walls of SOAS, she gi s the cleaners free food, has donated to campaigns like J4W and the Palestinian society, as well as ensuring that students struggling in the dire economy of London can eat something delicious and homemade. e collective community environment she helps to foster is seen in Nana Oforiwaa’s words, ‘sometimes I’ll say a plate is only £3 if you buy a book from Rani’ referencing another one of SOAS’s favourite familiar faces. To many she is an agony aunt (aptly trained in the area of mental health support),o ering comfort and solace they haven’t found within the university services.

Despite all the joy Nana Oforiwaa brings to this space, throughout the seven years (and plenty more, given generations of her family have studied at SOAS), she tells me that she had her right to be in the SU space questioned, and the terms of her being able to fundraise at SOAS continually changed. rough her time at SOAS, Nana has felt continually disrespected and endured what she names ‘hostilities’ on the part of SU Sta . From all of this, she no longer feels comfortable

returning. In the last couple of months Nana Oforiwaa has had her precious tableware, silverware and candleholders - used for fundraising dinners and some of which were sentimental gi s from friends - thrown away. In an email response from SU management they detailed ‘Khaled [Zaida] had a Health & Safety Inspector arriving from Camden Council so he was clearing the space. He opened your bag and found mouse droppings in there, so he had to dispose of it immediately.’ Zaida also ‘had concerns with the health risks associated with the way the food was being served’ (as written in an email to Nana Oforiwaa from the SU CEO). On top of this, her hotplates were also thrown away, at a personal cost to her of £140.

“ ere is a notable contrast of SOAS’ branding of ‘inclusivity’ and ‘the world’s university’ is starkly clear in the treatment of an Afrikan woman fund-raising for other Afrikan women.”

ere is a notable contrast of SOAS’ branding of ‘inclusivity’ and ‘the world’s university’ against the treatment of an Afrikan woman fund-raising for other Afrikan women. In our conversation, Nana Oforiwaa speaks of her experiences, which include allegations of racist micro-aggressions, such as being called ‘aggressive’ by a former SU manager.

is follows a trend of afrophobic behaviour at SOAS; from Habib’s racist comments, to the defunding of the Africa department that makes up the acronym, to the attempt to wipe history from the SU walls, and a forceful securitised response to freedom of speech. SOAS has been regarded in the past as a radical community stronghold, yet the current occurrences at SOAS suggest otherwise.

Many students, even those who are now alumni, have found a beautiful friendship in knowing Nana Oforiwaa. Given Nana Oforiwaa has been ghting to stay fundraising for years now, with the support of many others, there was an SU motion dra ed and voted on in 2016. e motion was dra ed a er the claim that ‘the SU Shop will lose ‘£300’ each time Maame (Nana Oforiwaa) sells food’. However, the vote con rmed that she was allowed to continue selling her food. Since then, the SU management have again developed a new ‘process and procedure for any sort of external food selling’ which they argue

being prohibited from delivering important updates to the trustees, elected sabbatical o cers have alleged that their ability to send all-student emails has been revoked, with further restrictions being imposed by managerial gures in the SU. While o cial SOAS channels frequently send out emails proclaiming the value of students’ voices, many argue that things seem to be operating di erently on the ground.

e full letters have been published on the SOAS Solidarity Instagram.

will ensure ‘no perception of unfair or unequal treatment.’ In the same email as detailing this commitment to equal treatment, the SU CEO informed Nana Oforiwaa that due to there being ‘no witnesses’, her complaints will not be upheld. is is a response that many argue speaks to a wider culture of black women being disbelieved and dismissed. Where it stands, Nana Oforiwaa has received an apology ‘on behalf of the organisation for any miscommunication or misunderstanding’, which she feels disregards the lack of investigation into her reports of harassment. Nana Oforiwaa was told that the ‘SU is not in a position to compensate (her) for these items.’

SOAS students across the years have been compelled by these actions to shout loud about why they care, and why people like Nana Oforiwaa are of such deep importance to the shared space and experience. Whilst we sit on the mismatched furniture, scattered in crumbs, more students come to join us, they exclaim they need to tell their friend who ‘waits the whole week’ for her to return with her feasts. Another friend comments that this is the only place on campus where she can nd food from her culture. As we close up our conversation, Nana Oforiwaa shakes her head, telling me, ‘it’s enough’; the fatigue felt with the situation is visible on her warm face - although not enough to stop a bright smile breaking through as she waves to another student.

SU Management’s response to this article can be found on our website.

Emily Dickinson-Holdcroft, BA Social Anthropology

The Economic Benefits of (the ‘A’ in) SOAS

Kamto Nzelu, MA Linguistics

e removal of the BA African Studies from the undergraduate programmes continues to cause outrage within the student body, not to mention the decrease of curriculum material involving Afrika and the Afrikan diaspora. is is especially detrimental for students of African heritage hoping to come to SOAS and nd a decolonised curriculum. Indeed, ‘Revitalising Endangered Languages: A Practical Guide’ links knowledge of one’s heritage language to healthier self-esteem and higher academic achievement in general. is is one of the most e ective ways to reverse the legacy of trauma from (colonial) Africa.

Prospects of additions to the African language programmes at SOAS will hopefully improve the academic achievement of students. SOAS currently o ers language options and degree programmes in Swahili, Zulu, Amharic and Somali. Indeed, partnerships with East African universities in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi enable the continuation of the SOAS’ Swahili programme. Unfortunately, BA Hausa was recently discontinued at SOAS a er Professor Phil Jaggar passed away in February 2023. However, there are new projects of adding Hausa (and Yoruba) programmes to the list, as Dr Carmen McCain, Lecturer in African Studies, is travelling to the University of Ibadan in Nigeria to establish ties to West Africa.

Building strong partnerships with African universities is key to re-establishing the richness of the SOAS’ African Studies department. Currently, the most viable option is distance learning, as SOAS students will be taught by native speakers. One success story from the 2021/22 academic year was the Swahili lectures delivered by the University of Kenyatta, Kenya. During Lockdown, distance learning replaced

the year-abroad element of language degree programmes.

“However, investments in heritage language education would otherwise be spent on the NHS and preventable health issues - meaning such education is capable of paying for itself.”

Causes of language loss at SOAS include pressures on new graduates to convert their education into earnings and the government cuts made by the coalition government in 2010/11. African language courses were o ered at SOAS and UCL when they won a £2 million grant for language courses in 2005. Secondary school language programmes such as Arabic have few training routes for teachers, meaning European language lessons are typically the only options on the table.

Successful heritage language courses have been shown to be more e ective than directly preaching higher education, healthy diets or active lifestyles. Real-world examples include Maori communities in New Zealand and First Nation communities in Canada.

According to e Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, there are almost 7000 languages spoken worldwide and approximately 30% of them are

African. e typical African country is home to many di erent languages, each corresponding to a speci c ethnic group.

e African economic superpowers are Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. ese countries are relatively welldeveloped and have higher internet speeds. Nigeria is the planned host for similar distance learning programmes in the future a er the success of the Swahili programme.

For partnerships with African universities to be successful, they must be equitable. Reversing the current apartheid in academia is an ongoing challenge for any African Studies department.

e University of Ghent, Belgium, has a strong Lingala (Congolese) language department, but due to government cuts, SOAS could not give anything in return to make the exchange equitable. Currently, SOAS o ers just one African literature module.

Increasing pressure to convert higher education into earnings meant that programmes whose classes include less than 20 students were discontinued. However, investments in heritage language education would otherwise be spent on the NHS and preventable health issues - meaning such education is capable of paying for itself. Furthermore, the majority of graduate employers are ‘degree agnostic’, meaning most employers will recruit graduates with degrees in any discipline.

Any African Studies department aims to build strong partnerships with African universities. Perhaps more importantly, this will cut the cost of preventable health issues in the UK.

Pause in Strikes Causes Confusion for Students and Staff

On February 17, the UCU announced their strikes would be paused for seven days a er breakthroughs in negotiations regarding pay, conditions and pensions. is move has drawn criticism from many members of the Union, as no vote took place on whether to pause the strikes, as well as the immediate return to work, leaving academic sta scrambling to plan classes.

e UCU’s General Secretary, Jo Grady, said, ‘Strike action by 70,000 university sta has secured unprecedented commitments from university employers on pay, conditions and pensions. Action can now be paused to allow for a period of calm. is moment belongs to every university worker who has courageously stood on picket lines.’

e UCU strikes have been ongoing since 2018, but the most recent strikes come alongside a new wave of trade union militancy, with the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) and Communication Workers Union (CWU) spearheading massive public sector strikes against wage stagnation whilst in ation skyrockets. e UCU announced that strikes would be occurring in 150 universities and colleges, with upwards of 70,000 academic workers striking over the spring.

e demands of the UCU at SOAS were as follows:

- Increase of pay

- Closure of pay gaps in regard to race, disability and gender

- Elimination of precarious work

- Reduction of excessive workloads

- Reform to full-time contracts of 35 hours with no loss of pay

e pause on the strike a er the beginning of negotiations was widely unpopular, even at the highest ranks within the union. Saira Weiner, who sits on the UCU Higher Education Committee, which usually makes decisions on industrial action, told Times Higher Education, ‘Our strike action has clearly put pressure on the employers, but there is no evidence that there is enough movement to justify in any way the general secretary’s decision to impose a “pause” on our strike action. UCU is a member-led union and many are extremely disappointed that this decision was made without reference to the UCU’s democratic structures or membership.’

At SOAS, discontent around the sudden pause to the strikes was widespread. Student confusion regarding which classes are ongoing and which aren’t has led to lower turnout in tutorials and lectures, while tutors and lecturers have been le scrambling to nd material for classes that were supposed to be cancelled.

One teaching fellow, who wished to remain anonymous, stated, ‘I don’t necessarily see the decision as undemocratic given the union’s mandate, but the decision seemed arbitrary and based on goodwill and vague promises rather than meaningful and substantive progress in negotiations. e short notice of the decision had a negative impact on my workload and my ability to commute, which as a precariously employed teaching fellow, felt as though the decision had an adverse e ect on me.’

Director Adam Habib made no statement on the pausing of the strikes, but had initially made statements condemning the strikes, claiming that they were not ‘the most prudent course of action’. According to an email sent out by the Student

Union, Habib has also encouraged crossing the picket line and encouraging in-person and online teaching to continue. e strikes, alongside other disruptions to student life, have pushed the SOAS Strike Solidarity campaign to publish a series of demands, primarily around tuition refunds. Financial compensation for students, upwards of a full term’s worth of fees, must be returned to students from the University’s documented surplus and reserves. Likewise, the campaign has made its solidarity and support for the striking workers clear, refusing to blame them for the disruption but rather the University administration. Although no ‘fee strikes’ have occurred yet, the campaign is collecting signatures to lobby the University administration.

Jacob Winter, BA Politics and International Relations

SOAS UCU members on strike (Credit: Socialist Appeal)

National News Asylum Backlog has Reached New Highs While the UK Home Office has Reached New Lows

Unzeela Manzoor, BA Politics and International Relations

e Home O ce has spent the last few years drawing up di erent reforms. For instance, the controversial Rwanda Asylum Deal in April 2022, initiated by Home Secretary at the time Priti Patel, outsourced the UK’s asylum responsibilities to Rwanda. Measures such as these are becoming desperate attempts to ease the burden of the asylum backlog on the UK government, which has now reached a momentous record of over 160,000 unresolved claims.

and that they will be reviewed by caseworkers with appropriate training and expertise. ey have also encouraged the use of online translation tools to help with the answering process.

is new questionnaire program has been met with severe criticism by legal experts, who have claimed that 20 days is not enough time for claimants to obtain consultation and advice from specialists. Further criticism has been received over the fact that the questionnaire is only being o ered in English. Many have claimed that these questionnaires are being aimed at people who are not uent in English. is has led organisations, such as Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director Steve Valdez Symonds, to conclude that this policy is not just ‘ine cient’ but also ‘discriminatory’. e nature of the questions is complex and includes inquiries into the personal and familial histories of asylum seekers, as well as questioning their journey to the United Kingdom.

In late February of this year, the Home O ce announced reforms to their asylum system. ese reforms include a new 11-page document containing a questionnaire which is set to replace the initial interview process. e Home O ce has requested for the document to be completed in English within 20 days and will be sent to over 12,000 asylum seekers who are eeing from war-torn countries such as Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

e backlog of this current asylum system is a result of several factors, including the lack of resources, legal complexities and a high volume of demand. is has been worsened by delays and inactivity as a result of the UK lockdowns during the COVID19 pandemic. e decision to use questionnaires comes as an e ort to address these issues, and the Home O ce has stated that questionnaires will only be used for straightforward cases

Making Space for Underrepresented Voices: Meet British-Punjabi trans artist Mya Mehmi

On 10 February, British-Punjabi trans musician and artist Mya Mehmi (she/her) made history by becoming the rst ever trans artist to feature on BBC’s Asian Network playlist.

Mehmi’s featured song, Parivaar (Interlude), was written during the lockdown of 2020 in honour of her cousin and father a er the death of her aya (uncle in Punjabi). ‘Parivaar’ translates to family in English, wherein the song aptly explores themes of family heritage (speci cally the Punjabi experience), loss and queer identity.

‘ e song was an e ort to console my loved ones and to immortalise someone that has been and continues to be so in uential in my life,’ Mehmi wrote in an Instagram post from 1 February.

Launched in 1996, BBC Asian Network is a national digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It features music and speech aimed at appealing to those with an interest in British Asian lifestyles.

In a celebratory Instagram post, Mehmi recalled how her father would listen to the network’s radio listings ‘all the time growing up’ and speculates what her song might mean for transAsian girls today - speci cally those of South Asian heritage.

While Mehmi is honoured to have been included in this playlist, she reminds audiences to take this fact with ‘a pinch of salt,’ telling the BBC that ‘there could have been artists in the playlist before that are transgender, but did not have the support to come out.’ Mehmi’s comments

highlight the need for a more intersectional inquiry into what representation holds in today’s cultural economy.

With South Asians making up the largest ethnic minority in the UK, highlighting the work of queer Asian artists in the eld marks a signi cant cultural moment - but there remains more work to be done. Mehmi’s inclusion on the radio’s network, while historical, shows the need for more diverse voices within the UK music space - even for a station like Asian Network - and the importance of cultivating a safe community when doing so.

e artist further told the BBC that it is surprising to see a lack of queer representation across the music industry - even now in 2023. It is thus of little surprise that, as a member of the queer Asian community in the UK, making visible the works of queer artists becomes ever more important from a community perspective.

Mehmi herself is no stranger to this: She is one of the producers of the iconic London nightclub, Pxssy Palace, which provides an ‘arts platform rooted in intentional nightlife, celebrating black, indigenous and people of colour who are women, queer, intersex, trans or non-binary.’ (Taken from their website).

More recently, in wider e orts to bolster the queer South Asian community in London, Mehmi launched her podcast, Straight No Chaser by Mya Mehmi, which addresses the gap between trans women and trans amorous men, in the hope of building coalitions and serious dialogue about the nature of queer relationships today.

London-based community platform and

O cials from the organisation Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants have commented that this policy is unfair to refugees that have ed ‘desperate circumstances’ and have been waiting for over a year for their requests to be processed. Caitlin Boswell, from the same organisation, has noted that ‘No one’s right to refuge should be jeopardised because they weren’t able to ll in an unwieldy form in a language they don’t speak.’

creative agency Diet Paratha celebrated Parivaar’s inclusion in BBC Asian Network alongside Mehmi on Instagram, calling her feat an ‘absolute milestone for [herself], the trans community and [South Asian] culture.’

Diet Paratha, much like Mehmi, has also touched on the lack of South Asian representation, namely in the UK. In a feature for British Vogue, Parveen Narowalia reported how the rise of online activism for marginalised communities on platforms such as Instagram has allowed talents from such communities to garner a voice. Diet Paratha is one such brand, where through its platform, it celebrates the best of South Asian talent, particularly South Asian creatives.

Citing a harrowing lack of representation and too much misrepresentation of South Asians in Western media, Diet Paratha founder, Anita Chhiba, hopes the brand will ‘help shi the perspective’ on South Asian communities and bring on stronger allyship from other communities.

‘It’s been 99 per cent of SA people who have helped me so far in terms of press and opportunities,’ said Chhiba - once more reinforcing the urgency with which the UK’s creative and cultural industries’ ought to champion and celebrate its dynamic range of voices.

(Credit: Alamy)

“Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director Steve Valdez Symonds, to conclude that this policy is not just ‘ine cient’ but also ‘discriminatory’. ”

Giana Siddiqui, MA Global Creative and Cultural Industries

“[She] further told the BBC that it is surprising to see a lack of queer representation across the music industry - even now in 2023.”

Nicola Sturgeon Resigns; SNP Leadership Contest Begins

“Voting in the SNP Leadership election will close on March 27th, with the new leader declared that day.”

Raising the question of a name change for the SNP or a new party entirely.

On February 15, Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation from the leadership of the SNP (Scottish National Party) and as First Minister of Scotland. She cited the personal toll of the job as the main reason for the decision. e announcement brings further uncertainty for the nation of Scotland and the future of the United Kingdom. By the 27th of March, Scotland’s largest and the UK’s third-largest party will have a new leader.

In a surprise press conference in Edinburgh, Sturgeon gave her resignation speech outlining the reasons for stepping down. e rst female and longest-standing First Minister of Scotland said that ‘part of serving well would be to know, almost instinctively, when the time is right to make way for someone else and when that time came to have the courage to do so ... In my head and my heart, I know that time is now.’

Sturgeon was keen to dismiss any claim that the shortterm pressures her government is currently facing were a potential cause for her resignation. She admitted there are di cult issues confronting the government but asked, ‘when is that ever not the case?’

Lately, e Scottish government has faced two major constitutional battles. Last November, the UK Supreme Court ruled against the Scottish parliament holding a new independence referendum. e court unanimously ruled that only Westminster holds the power to legislate for such a vote.

More recently, Downing Street had blocked the Gender Recognition Bill from being sent to the King for royal assent, despite the bill passing 86 votes to 39 in Holyrood. is is the rst time a bill has been blocked in 25 years of devolution. As a result of these battles, new divisions have emerged

ere are three candidates in the running to be the next leader of the SNP and move into Bute House. Humza Yousaf is the current Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and, at the time of writing, is narrowly ahead in the polls. Yousaf is seen by many as the ‘continuity candidate’ and is the only one of the three to back gender recognition reform. Yousaf, though, has courted controversy over him missing a vote on equal marriage, which former First Minister Alex Salmond claims were due to ‘religious pressure’. He also takes the view on independence that as long as the SNP governs well, the mechanism for independence will work itself out.

Kate Forbes currently serves as the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and was the early favourite for the leadership. She has positioned herself stridently against improved Transgender rights and on the issue of independence, which is pitched to be most similar to Nicola Sturgeon. Forbes lost the backing of a number of her SNP colleagues a er a series of interviews in the rst days of her campaign. In these interviews, she expressed her personal opposition to samesex marriage, abortion, and sex outside of marriage, though she stressed that she would not roll back any existing rights.

within the SNP. e most important issue for the SNP is independence, but there is no consensus on how to achieve it.

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, Nicola Sturgeon’s government had suggested that the next Holyrood election could be seen as a de-facto referendum, but this would not be until 2026. Some within the party want an early election to be called and for it to act as a referendum. While others are opposed to using an election as a de-facto referendum entirely. Even within Sturgeon’s government, there were divisions, with minister Ivan Mckee proposing that ‘yes’ must be on the ballot for it to be a de facto referendum.

Ash Regan is the only candidate who is not currently a minister; she resigned in 2022 in protest over the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Regan is the most bullish on the issue of securing independence. She proposes taking either a Holyrood election or a Westminster general election as a de-facto referendum on independence.

Voting in the SNP Leadership election will close on March 27th, with the new leader declared that day.

Archie Thomas, BA Politics and International Relations

Nicola Sturgeon stands outside of Bute House, the o cial residence of the First Minister. (Credits: Scottish Government, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

“ e most important issue for the SNP is independence, but there is no consensus on how to achieve it.”

Stateless Shamima Begum Continues to Fight For Her Return to the United Kingdom

Amran Abdiqadir Mohamed, BA Global Development and Social Anthropology

Shamima Begum is a former British citizen who has caused much controversy over the best part of the last decade. Born and raised in Bethnal Green, East London, Begum ed the UK in 2015 to join the Islamic Extremist group ‘IS’ in Syria. Aged 15, Begum travelled through Turkey before entering Syria to meet Yago Reidijk, a man whom she met online and would later marry. Begum and Reidjik had 3 children who all died as infants. She has spent most of her time since leaving the UK in various refugee camps in northern Syria.

In 2019, the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her British citizenship on national security grounds. What does this mean? Citizenship is the legal status that allows you to live in a country and access public services such as the NHS and education. For many, citizenship is a large part of their identity. As per international law, the UK can only remove citizenship if the individual is eligible to apply for citizenship elsewhere. is is because the UK is duty-bound not to leave former citizens stateless.

In 2020, a tribunal summary established that as Shamima Begum is a citizen of Bangladesh by descent, she’s entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship and thus is not stateless. How does this work? Essentially, as Shamima Begum’s parents were born in Bangladesh, she was entitled to provisional citizenship until she turned 21. A er this, the provisional citizenship lapses, and she’s no longer able to apply for it. erefore, she was a citizen of Bangladesh in a purely technical sense. It’s important to note that Begum has never visited Bangladesh and, other than her parents, has no links to the country.

In an interview with ABC News, shortly a er her citizenship was removed, Begum said, ‘I felt like my whole world fell apart right in front of me. You know, especially the way I was told. I wasn’t even told by a government o cial. I had to be told by journalists.’

However, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister publicly stated that Begum might face the death penalty if she were to enter Bangladesh as they have a zero-tolerance policy concerning terrorist acts.

Begum was not allowed to re-enter the UK to appeal the Home Secretary’s decision to remove her citizenship. Her lawyer has recently challenged the citizenship removal at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). ey claimed that Javid’s decision was unlawful as Begum was a victim of child tra cking, sexual exploitation and grooming.

e Honourable Justice Jay, a judge of High Courts of Justice, summarised the SIAC’s assessment of Begum’s case: ‘ ere was a credible suspicion that Ms Begum has been tra cked to Syria’

‘ e notice for bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation to which, as a child, she could not give valid consent’ ‘However, under our constitutional settlement these sensitive issues are for the secretary of state to evaluate and not for the commission’

be aided by political pressure on the Government regarding the judge’s comments on tra cking and sexual exploitation.

e general public had a mixed response to the SIAC’s ruling. Government terrorism law reviewer Jonathan Hall KC argues that the UK should allow Shamima Begum to return for multiple reasons, the rst being that she could still pose a threat abroad. In an interview with the Guardian, Hall says, ‘the UK’s experience is that women are far less likely to carry out attacks or any other sort of terrorist o ending … the status quo does not eliminate risk… plotting in detention may be easier than plotting at home.’ Hall has also argued that underage citizens who travelled to join IS, need to be removed from that environment and allowed to return to the UK under controlled conditions.

Begum’s lawyer has announced their intention to appeal this decision, claiming that the UK has le Begum ‘de facto stateless’. is is because she has been denied re-entry to Britain, alongside Bangladesh threatening the death penalty. As Begum is now 23 years old, regardless of the death penalty threat, she no longer has a legal claim to Bangladeshi citizenship. Her lawyer has expressed that their legal case would

Vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on tra cked Britons in Syria, David Davis, claimed that the SIAC’s decision was shameful and must be remedied as soon as possible. Both Davis and Hall have highlighted that other European countries have, at the very least, allowed ex-citizens to appeal their case in person. As a result of the UK’s justice system, Shamima Begum is le with no country to call home; her ght for citizenship against the UK government continues.

Shamima Begum (Credits: Dunya News)

“In an interview with ABC News, shortly a er her citizenship was removed, Begum said, “I felt like my whole world fell apart right in front of me. You know, especially the way I was told. I wasn’t even told by a government o cial. I had to be told by journalists.”

International News

Constant Devastation: Third Earthquake in Three Weeks to Hit Turkey & Syria

Where were you on the night of February 6, when two massive earthquakes measuring up to 7.5 and 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Turkey and Syria? Or when two additional earthquakes hit two weeks later, on February 20? Or when yet another devastating earthquake hit a week later, on the 27 February?

e events of the last three weeks have brutally changed the lives of millions in Turkey, Syria and its surrounding areas as the region has seen its ‘worst natural disaster in a century.’

e world was le in shock when the news of the massive twin earthquakes on the 6 February hit. Footage of collapsing buildings, civilians desperately running for their lives and families searching for their loved ones in the ruins of what used to be their homes abound the internet as the death toll continues to rise by the day. Turkey has declared a three-month state of emergency in the ten provinces a ected by the enormous quakes that have so far claimed the lives of well over 46.000 people. e twin earthquakes turned out to be the beginning of a never ending devastation as a series of reverberating a ershocks, as well as three additional earthquakes that followed. Two short weeks a er the initial earthquakes hit, with rescuers still searching for people trapped under the rubble, two more followed, measuring 6.4 and 5.8, with the epicentre in the southern province of Hatay in Turkey. e earthquakes brought further devastation to a region still trying to recover from the quakes two weeks prior, with hundreds of a ershocks still rumbling. Adding to this environment of uncertainty was another quake hitting Yesilyurt in Malatya on Monday 27 February. In a region already ravaged by destruction, trauma and desperate conditions, fresh panic was sparked again.

As any earthquake between 5.8 and 7.8 on the Richter scale would, the quakes in Turkey and Syria have led to mass destruction and devastation. However, the region was especially ill-prepared for a disaster of such scale, and the earthquakes wound up particularly deadly.

“As a result of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey is the home of well over 3.5 million Syrian refugees, almost half of them children. In the Turkish provinces a ected by the quakes, more than 1.7 million of the inhabitants are Syrian refugees.”

e staggering amount of deaths is the outcome of a number of factors. Not only did the strongest earthquakes happen during the night, trapping sleeping people inside their collapsing houses, the sturdiness of the buildings of vast parts of the region must also be taken into account. According to Mustafa Erdik from the Earthquake Research Institute in Istanbul, ‘one of the reasons why the number of casualties has been so high is the poor quality of the buildings.’ Combined with the cities of the region being especially vulnerable to natural hazards resulting from the ´poorly supervised urban development´ from the rapid migration during the 1950s, this earthquake is ‘one of the deadliest of this decade.’

If we include war-torn Syria, ravaged with con ict, food insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, and millions of internally displaced people in the equation as well, the reality becomes even darker.

Because of its close proximity to Turkey and due to their shared border, Syria has su ered gravely at the hands of the last month´s earthquakes. A er 12 years and counting of civil war, Syria is especially vulnerable when facing such

catastrophes. e unfathomable quakes hit northwest Syria, an area in lack of a uni ed government, with an estimated 90% of its 4.6 million inhabitants being reliant on humanitarian assistance. As a result of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey is the home of well over 3.5 million Syrian refugees, almost half of them children. In the Turkish provinces a ected by the quakes, more than 1.7 million of the inhabitants are Syrian refugees. In the province of Kilis, as much as one in every two people are Syrian. According to the UN, well over 9 million Syrians have been severely a ected by the quakes, and the numbers increase by the day. e country is facing major power outages, a growing shortage of water, food, fuel, and medicine, hospitals lled to the brink and freezing temperatures in the wake of a deadly cholera outbreak.

e consequences of the disastrous earthquakes, in combination with the state of the country, are so severe they are at risk of ‘wiping out the future generation of Syria.’ Amidst this seemingly unending devastation, there is a pressing need for the international community to fully engage in the recovery work necessary. e scope of this enormous disaster must be acknowledged everywhere, in the case of both Turkey and Syria, and a concrete plan going forward must be put to the pen. In the meantime, there are a number of organisations, international and local, doing what they can to help. As the future of Turkey and Syria lies uncertain, any form of assistance towards the two countries is bene cial.

The devastation seems to know no end as huge parts of Turkey and northwest Syria are almost completely attened. (Credit:Al-Jazeera)

Mia Jin Haagensli, MSc Politics of the Middle East

11 Dead, 103 Injured in Nablus Massacre

Israeli soldiers were injured, and they su ered no casualties. Videos of the attack showed large convoys of assault vehicles being surrounded by crowds, with youths throwing crates at the vehicles once they arrived in the marketplace before retreating, videos also showed Israeli soldiers ring tear gas at the crowds. Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior o cial in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, has referred to the attack as a ‘massacre’. In response to the attack, a general strike has been called, which has paralyzed the economy of the West Bank, with rallies to be held on ursday 2 March.

Lion of Nablus’. ey have opposed both the Israeli state but also the Palestinian Authority, which they claim to be corrupt and open to collaboration with the Israeli state.

Upwards of 150 Israeli soldiers in armoured vehicles assaulted the Palestinian city of Nablus last week in one of the deadliest attacks by Israeli forces on occupied Palestine since the Intifada. According to the Israeli Defence Forces, the attack was targeting three members of the Lions’ Den militant group headquartered in Nablus. All three of the wanted men were killed in the attack, as well as seven others, including three elderly men between the ages of 60 and 72 and one teenager.

According to Mondoweiss, the attack began as an undercover special forces team entering Nablus, searching for the Lions’ Den militants but ended with a full assault on the city by military vehicles. e Palestinian Ministry of Health claims outside of the 11 people killed, at least 103 were injured, with 85 of the injuries being the result of live ammunition. Six of the injured are reported to be in critical condition. Only two

e attack comes a month a er Israeli assaults on the Jenin and Aqabat Jabr refugee camps, which targeted the militant wings of Palestinian resistance groups such as Hamas. Likewise, the attack on Nablus comes a er a long-running Israeli siege on the city since October 2022, a er members of the Lions’ Den group killed an Israeli soldier. 62 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli military action since the start of the year. According to Israeli sources, Palestinian militants have killed ten Israelis and one Ukrainian tourist since the start of the year.

Tensions between Israeli and Palestinian militant groups have reached a boiling point, with a new Israeli cabinet dominated by ultra-nationalists who have engaged in campaigns against Palestinian resistance groups, while a West Bank settler organisation has claimed that the Israeli government has approved 2000 new homes for Israeli settlers. In response, the Palestinian Authority has suspended all security ties with Israel and will not assist in the detaining of militants. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have vowed to continue attacks not just within the West Bank but also within Israel proper.

e Lions’ Den organisation was formed in August 2022 following the killing of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, nicknamed ‘ e

e US State Department has expressed its “deep concern” over the civilian loss of life in response to the Nablus raid. Negotiations between the Israeli state and the Palestinian authority atlined under the Trump administration, while the Biden administration has claimed it is working towards a new settlement. CIA chief William Burns visited both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in January.Arab states in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have both condemned the raid.

“

e attack on Nablus comes a er a long-running Israeli siege on the city since October 2022”

e names and ages of those killed in the raid are as follows:

Mohammed Khaled Anbusi, 25

Tamer Nimr Ahmad Minawi, 33

Musaab Muneer Mohammad Oweis, 26

Jasir Jameel Abdelwahhab Qan’ir, 23

Husam Basam Isleem, 24

Walid Riyad Hussein Dakhil, 23

Mohammad Abu Bakr Juneidi, 23

Adnan Sabe Bara, 72

Abdelhadi Abed Aziz Al-Ashqar, 61

Anan Shawkat Annab, 66

Mohammad Farid Shaaban, 16

G20 Finance Summit in India

make up over two-thirds of the world’s population, 75% of its trade, and 85% of its gross domestic product. e G20 was given the title of Heads of State, or Government, in the wake of the global nancial and economic crisis of 2007 and was dubbed the ‘primary forum for international economic cooperation’. On December 1 2022, India took over as G20 President from Indonesia. In 2023, Pragati Maidan in New Delhi will play home to the inaugural G20 Leaders’ Summit.

dedication to accomplishing the goals outlined in India’s 2030 Plan for Sustainable Development, with a particular focus on resolving the COVID-19 pandemic’s e ects. To promote socioeconomic development and the ful lment of the SDGs, there has also been a focus on women-led development, with a particular emphasis on women’s representation and empowerment.

Prospective by-line: India itself opted to adopt a neutral approach, declining to assign blame for the invasion to Russia in favour of nding a diplomatic resolution while simultaneously dramatically expanding its consumption of Russian oil. In order to provide nance ministers and central bank governors with a forum for discussing global economic and nancial challenges, the G20 group of 19 nations plus the EU was founded in 1999. Combined, the G20 nations

e slogan for India’s G20 presidency is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which translates to ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future.’ e goal is to identify global solutions that will bene t everyone. For the G20 Summit, India has several priorities. Green development, climate nancing, and LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) are some of the most signi cant objectives. e main focus is addressing climate change, with additional attention paid to climate nance and technology, as well as guaranteeing equitable energy transitions for developing nations. e launch of LiFE emphasises the signi cance of reaching environmental sustainability on a personal and a societal level, thus guaranteeing a cleaner and greener future. Its goal is to encourage ecologically responsible behaviour that is grounded in India’s sustainable customs.

Additionally, India wants to hasten the progress of the SDGs’ (Sustainable Development Goals), emphasising the renewed

Accelerated, Inclusive & Resilient Growth is another objective. is objective focuses on areas that have the potential to bring about structural transformation, such as supporting small and medium-sized businesses in international trade, advancing workers’ rights and welfare, addressing the global skills gap, and developing inclusive agricultural value chains and food systems.

Other objectives include Technological Transformation & Digital Public Infrastructure, which advocates for a humancentric approach to technology and increased knowledgesharing in areas like nancial inclusion, digital public infrastructure, and tech-enabled development in industries like agriculture and education, increasing the availability of digital technology. Additionally, it aims to step up e orts to modernise multilateral institutions for the twenty- rst century and build an international system that is more accountable, inclusive, representative and capable of handling complex challenges.

Palestinians resist Israeli military incursion (Credit: CNN).

Jacob Winter, BA Politics and International Relations

Mahina Wasim, BA Politics

G20 Summit 2023 Logo (Credit: PTI)

Retweets Are Not Endorsements? The Debate Around the US ‘Section 230’ Law

Bernardo Amaro Monteiro, MA Middle Eastern Studies and Intensive Language

‘Retweets are not endorsements’ is a Twitter jargon that has been obsolete since 1996, ten years before the platform was created in 2006. Now, this might be about to change, and Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State) played a crucial role in it. e US Supreme Court is currently questioning the responsibility of social media platforms in hosting and recommending harmful speech. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 helps protect the internet platforms from being legally liable for the content in their service, or as the law puts it, ‘No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.’ is is the logic that has been powering the internet, from search engines to social media platforms, algorithms and machine learning so ware. It’s not hard to understand, but much harder to put into practice, particularly when tech-savvy terrorists use it to their own advantage. Recruitment and ideology dissemination promoted through online marketing campaigns was key to Daesh’s success. As a result, the Supreme Court is now trying to nd the balance between protecting free speech and preventing the spread of dangerous ideologies online.

‘Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh’ and ‘Gonzalez v. Google LLC’ are two cases that are rocking the foundations of the Internet. Section 230 has been the ‘all problems one solution’ law for defending big tech rms’ immunity over the consequences their products created. e case against Twitter, however, is based on the allegation that the platform is providing a key service to terrorist organizations, meaning that Twitter has been aware of how terrorists use the platform and failed to kick them o . While the accusation against Google claims that YouTube’s algorithm for video recommendation promotes terrorist content, implying that the platform is endorsing this sort of discourse. e cases are being taken together, as the outcome of one a ects the other. e accusations came a er Daesh’s attacks in Istanbul in 2017 and Paris in 2015 and assigned indirect responsibility to Twitter and Google under the antiterrorism US law.

Judges are trying to understand how social media works and how algorithms help users nd the content and conversations they are looking for. Automated tools have proved to be e cient in ltering unimaginable quantities of data and are essential to how we use the Internet. Despite these advantages, the internet’s underbelly also contains of undesirable content used for exploitation and criminality.

complexity to the decision-making process. Proving that viewing harmful content leads to an increase in violent activity is an investigation that enters into an abstract level of human social relations. Both cases will have to make the argument that there is a provable pattern between the people who saw certain content and those among them who maybe went out to practice an attack. If so, service providers will be legally liable for hosting and promoting harmful speech. Making this case will require that everyone agrees on who gets to determine the de nition of ‘harmful speech’. is won’t come free of complications. Until now, Section 230 allowed service providers to independently decide what speech they allow through their terms of service. A legal outcome that establishes the boundaries of acceptable speech is, indeed, a conversation about free speech.

What about amending Section 230?

e reason why the Supreme Court is revisiting Section 230 is because it came to realize the need for laws that are equally as advanced as the technologies that we use. is process will require the court to decide if the service provider’s immunity helps establish equal footing for everyone to raise their voice in a free environment or if its main e ect is the creation of misinformation and hate speech bubbles. Another element the court is considering is the behaviour of algorithms and how they interact with human social behaviour. For example, the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed how targeted advertisements could polarize opinions and shape election results. Acknowledging that the Trump campaign pro ted from the Facebook recommendation algorithm also implies recognising that it is e ciently able to surveil and manipulate users by promoting certain discourses and excluding others. It is very hard to know how the algorithm works and if there is truly a di erence between how it recommends what it thinks we want to see and telling us how to think. is is an important question to ask since it is here that the di erence lies between a tool for e ciency and a tool for mass control.

e scale of human interaction on the internet brings additional

If the Supreme Court rules against Big Brother, it will mean that service providers will have to come up with much tighter policies for how we use social media. On the one hand, this could mean that users may start choosing platforms according to their content mediation policies, leading to a more diverse range of platforms. However, it is more likely that the need for regulation will empower the platform’s legal departments as they will have the rst say in establishing the rules for mediating content. It is evident that the big platforms will try to stay out of the courtroom, but they are in much better shape to contest cases, while the smaller platforms may nd it hard to defend themselves.

A much scarier consequence of changing Section 230, is it may imply that retweets can become endorsements - changing the way we interact online.

(Illustration Credit: Lex Villena; Arturaliev )

What is at stake in the trials?

“ e case against Twitter, however, is based on the allegation that the platform is providing a key service to terrorist organizations, meaning that Twitter has been aware of how terrorists use the platform and failed to kick them

The Displacement of the Yanomami: A Struggle For Human And Biodiversity

In a vast area in the middle of the Amazon rainforest that stretches across Brazil and Venezuela, the Yanomami community has lived for centuries, following their autochthonous cultural practices in harmony with the surrounding nature. Yet, for the past four decades, they have been struggling for their survival, and as some of their land, formally recognized as an indigenous protected land under Brazilian law, was violently invaded by gold miners eager to put their hands on the gold lying under the territory. What was a peaceful cohabitation between the community and the surroundings became a real-world nightmare, a human tragedy and environmental degradation, for which criminal networks, with the full compliance of the Brazilian government, especially during the Bolsonaro administration, are to be held accountable.

government the power to grant permits and conditions to miners, even though these o en violate International Law, according to Jasmine Plummer from Georgetown University Law Center. However, Law limits mining to y hectares for ve years and requires the restoration of degraded land. Bolsonaro’s policies resulted in the systematic removal of constraints and facilitation of the authorization process of prospectors’ activities. is led to increasing deregulation of mining activities, in which illegal miners and criminal networks were free to operate in what was discursively constructed as a ‘no man’s land’. According to the journalistic report, 2,430 hectares of land were destroyed by illegal mining. Large areas were deforested, rivers and air were contaminated by mercury, and the indigenous population is currently at risk of extinction due to diseases, hunger, and direct killings perpetrated by garimpeiros. CNN reported 5770 deaths due to hunger alone over the past four years. Women were raped, and social unrest was di used, as attested by the UN. Cultural and natural destruction are deeply linked in the case of the Yanomami and other indigenous communities of the Amazon, who are facing the same struggles.

e Gold Rush

e Yanomami community is now at the centre of Brazil’s fourth Gold Rush, a er the ones which occurred between the 1970s and 1990s. According to the journalistic report Yanomami Blood Gold series, conducted by the two media groups, Amazonia Real and Réporter Brasil in 2021, the Gold Rushes were sustained by a route controlled by criminal gangs, colluding with government employees and politicians that starts from mines operating in the territory and ends in luxurious jewellery stores. e Hutukara Yanomami Association counted the presence of 20,000 gold miners (known as garimpeiros) in March 2021. Bolsonaro’s election in 2018, as the title of a Guardian article states, was ‘catastrophic news for Brazil’s indigenous tribes’. In his populist-neoliberal, anti-environmental and anti-indigenous political discourse, the indigenous population were an impediment to the development of the Brazilian nation.

In what is a colonial logic of expropriation, his dehumanising rhetoric was a green light to exploit, with impunity, the Yanomami cultural heritage, land, and resources, on which the community relies for its livelihood. It also paved the way for the elimination of indigenous land rights and the empowerment of mining corporations, according to the Guardian. Brazilian Law is ambiguous about gold mining in the Amazon, especially because there are di erent land statuses, each one of which presents its own regulations. It gives the

“What was a peaceful cohabitation between the community and the surroundings became a real-world nightmare, a human tragedy and an environmental degradation; for which criminal networks, with the full compliance of the Brazilian government, especially during the Bolsonaro administration, are to be held accountable.”

Yanomami ethics

Yanomami people have a vital bond with nature. e forest has spiritual and religious value for the community: it is not only their source of livelihood but it is also assigned religious and cultural symbolism. Respect for nature and its diversity is an ethical responsibility as it is what permits the ourishing of their culture in every aspect. According to the UN, ‘nature and life are inseparable for indigenous peoples,’ and therefore, the protection of their cultural heritage is interlinked with the protection of the land they live on. is is why the Yanomami have been deemed ‘guardians of the Amazon rainforest’, an example of positive and respectful cohabitation with nature and its diversity that gave life and to which life must be guaranteed. Because of their beliefs, the human rights of the Yanomami people cannot be guaranteed unless those of their environment are respected too.

e policies of the Bolsonaro administration reveal the essence of a neoliberal idea of development, in which cultural distinctiveness, as well as biodiversity, are disregarded as an impediment in the path towards economic progress. e government, which should be the authority responsible for the safeguarding of its citizens’ rights, becomes their exploiter, yielding to the power of economic corporations, accumulating money over the blood of indigenous communities and devastating the Amazon rainforest: ‘the Earth’s lungs’.

e Lula administration’s attempts to restore harmony e Lula administration has promised that it would act to preserve the Amazon’s natural richness and indigenous rights from what Lula has de ned as a ‘genocide’ perpetrated by Bolsonaro against them. Two international indigenous activists were nominated ministers in the new government. Marina Silva was appointed as environment minister, while Sonia Guajajara now leads Brazil’s rst-ever ministry for indigenous peoples. e new ministry is considered a great step towards the empowerment of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, e World reports. Also, the call for a ‘new democratic ecosystem’ recognizes both human security and natural preservation as cornerstones. e ministry will now have jurisdiction over ‘FUNAI’, Brazil’s government indigenous a airs department, which Bolsonaro threatened to close, while an executive order was also signed to relaunch a billion-dollar Amazon fund.

e new administration’s agenda was welcomed as, in the words of the activist Ingrid Sateré Mawé, ‘a historic moment to rewrite the history of the indigenous peoples of Brazil.’ It is, in fact, certainly a crucial responsibility of the government to act on what, for now, has been a situation of systematic exploitation and violence. e new government seems to be led by the conviction that development does not come out of exploitation, but, following Amartya Sen. Greater inclusion is necessary, not only between people but also between humans and nature. It is only the rst step in what will be a long path towards the dismantling of the industrial complex that is responsible for a natural and humanitarian crisis in the Amazon.

Yanamomi woman and children gathering leaves to make inot timbò, a substance used for shing. (Credit: Survival International)

Lucrezia Santa Maria, MSc International Politics

An illegal mine on the Mucajaí River, Kayanau region. It was built on Yanomami territory. (Credit: Chico Batata, Greenpeace)

Mexico’s Former Public Security Chief Convicted in US Drug

Mahir Ahmed, MA Global Media and Communications

Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s public security minister, was recently found guilty of taking millions of dollars from Mexico’s biggest crime group, the Sinaloa cartel. García Luna is one of the highest-ranking Mexican o cials ever accused of ties to drug tra cking. In 2001, he led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency and was public security minister from 2006 to 2012. During his tenure, he had worked closely with U.S. counter-narcotics and intelligence agencies as part of former President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on cartels.

his role in this corruption case all the more concerning. Saritha Komatireddy, an American prosecutor, told

very close relationship for many years with U.S. intelligence.

Luna had accepted ‘millions of dollars’ in bribes from the cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman in exchange for protection from arrest, safe passage for drug shipments and tip-o s about forthcoming law enforcement operations. Luna received an award from the CIA for his ‘friendship, collaboration, and support,’ which makes

jurors, ‘ ese leaders paid the defendant bribes for protection – and they got what they paid for,’ Komatireddy said in her closing argument, referring to Guzman and two other top-ranking Sinaloa cartel gures.

is court case has cast doubt on the U.S.’s role in the War on Drugs. A new report from the U.S. Institute of Peace claims that Mexican elites ‘captured’ the bene t of U.S. security assistance while drug tra cking continued to take a toll on both Mexican and U.S. civilian lives.

In the press release that followed García Luna’s guilty verdict, current DEA administrator, Anne Milgram portrayed the conviction as a pivotal victory in the drug war. ‘ is case a rms DEA’s dedication to target and bring to justice those that enable the Sinaloa criminal drug cartel to ood the U.S. with deadly drugs that are killing Americans at unprecedented rates,’ Milgram said in a recent statement. However, the U.S. government’s ability to continue with the War on Drugs has proven to be problematic. Security analyst Alejandro Hope suggested that ‘[García Luna] had a

What is happening in Laascaanood?

Safiya Warsame, BA International Relations

Laascaanood (pronounced Las Anod), a city located in the north of Somalia, has recently faced a period of intense violence and dispute. e situation in the city has drastically escalated, leaving many concerned about the future of Laascaanood and the safety of its residents.

e roots of the con ict date back to the colonial era, when Laascaanood was considered a part of the former British protectorate. Following Somalia’s independence from Britain, the Somaliland government attempted to regain control of the former British territories and was successful following the battle of Laascaanood in 2007.

Clan a liations hold signi cant importance in Somalia’s politics and social landscape, and they continue to in uence the ongoing con ict over Laascaanood. e neighbouring cities Laascaanood, which are categorised under the Sool region, were considered to be a part of the Puntland state and are primarily inhabited by the Dhulbahante clan, who are historically associated with the Puntland state as well. While Laascaanood consists of a Dhulbahante majority, the city is currently under Somaliland authority, although the majority of its citizens view it to be a part of Somalia and not the Somaliland administration. is is because the city once was a part of Puntland but was captured and occupied by Somaliland authorities following a con ict in 2007, continuing to remain territory disputed by Somaliland and Puntland. Since then, especially a er 2010, tensions in the city have remained high, with periodic outbreaks of violence and protests against the administration following the killings of in uential intellectuals and o cials who belong to the Dhulbahante clan by unidenti ed perpetrators in 2010.

Since December 26th, the citizens of Laascaanood have been united in their outrage following the killing of Abdifatah Hadrawi, an in uential Dhulbahante politician. e killer remains unnamed and unknown; however, citizens feel frustration and anger towards the Somaliland government. Some rumours are being circulated about why these attacks are occurring, including the assumption that the Somaliland authorities are behind these attacks. is has stoked upheaval against the Somaliland government. Citizens also believe that the Somaliland ocials are failing to pursue the culprits of these killings, leading to protests that escalated to ongoing violence and this push toward removing all Somaliland authority gures from the city.

ere have been reports that there was a period when the Somaliland authorities cut o the internet and phone lines in Laascaanood from the rest of the world, leaving those who reside in the city out of communication with the outside world.

e situation in the city is extremely volatile, with ongoing violence and bloodshed. According to recent accounts, deadly clashes have erupted between Somali demonstrators and Somaliland o cials, leaving around 100 people dead, 400 injured, and thousands displaced. ese gures are constantly rising. According to the United Nations, it has been estimated 185,000 people have ed the city and have become displaced as a result of these violent clashes.

e issue has received some attention from international organisations. In a recent tweet, Amnesty Eastern Africa expressed concern over the escalating violence and humanitarian crisis. e organisation stated that they

If he did what they say he did, that is a harsh sentence on all the veri cation mechanisms of U.S. intelligence.’ e U.S. approach of funnelling military aid to top Mexican o cials in the hopes of stopping drug tra cking has largely been seen as a strategic failure. García Luna’s lawyers had argued the prosecutors relied on inconsistent narratives from convicted violent criminals, implicating him to get revenge on the man who arrested them. In a bid to lower their U.S. prison sentences, Cesar de Castro, a defence lawyer, portrayed García Luna as a hardworking family man and said his accusers had ‘incredible motives to lie.’ Luna maintains his innocence despite the corruption charges.

are closely monitoring the situation and are ‘appalled by reports of large numbers of people killed, injured and displaced, and damage to homes and a hospital. Unlawful killings and other violations must end and there must be immediate unhindered access for humanitarian actors.’

e situation continues to unfold and escalate with deepseated divisions and territorial disputes. e violence and instability in the city have raised concerns about the trajectory of Laascaanood, and many are calling for urgent action to address the killings and end Somaliland’s control over the city.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Genaro García

Courtroom sketch of Genaro García Luna on Jan. 23 at his trial (Credit: Jane Rosenberg, Reuters)

Genaro Garcia Luna served as Mexico’s top public safety o cial from 2006 to 2012. (Credit: Tomas Bravo, Reuters)

“Luna received an award from the CIA for his ‘friendship, collaboration, and support,’ which makes his role in this corruption case all the more concerning.”

Laascaanood locals protesting against Somaliland control (Credit: Horn Dispatch)

Opinion editors: Emily Holdcroft and Naeema Mahmood

Opinion

Should There be Support for Eco-Anxiety at Universities?

Lulu Goad, BA Arabic

2022 was the hottest year on record for Britain, achieving a daily maximum temperature of more than 40°C. Once the multiple heat waves had subsided, there were storms and heavy rain to follow, which led to the infamous sewage spills around England and Wales. Climate change was making itself known, and it was no surprise that people were feeling a bit s***; pun intended.

Researchers have discussed the link between climate change and emotional well-being since 2007. But it wasn’t until 2017 that the American Psychological Association put a name to the ‘chronic fear of environmental doom’: eco-anxiety - otherwise known as ‘climate anxiety’ or ‘eco-distress’. Eco-anxiety can come as a result of both rst and second-hand experiences, and with information at your ngertips, you don’t need to have been in Florida or Cuba during Hurricane Ian to endure the emotional e ects. Although research from the Environment Agency suggests that if you did, in fact, experience the hurricane rst-hand or even a storm in the UK, you’re ‘50% more likely to su er from mental health problems, including stress and depression.’ Stress and depression are among a variety of symptoms that are associated with eco-anxiety.

Others include trauma or PTSD, panic attacks, and feelings of guilt or helplessness, to name a few. And it’s the younger generations that are su ering from these e ects the most. In a survey with participants aged from 16 to 25, ‘over 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively a ected their daily lives.’ So why aren’t we hearing more about eco-anxiety from universities? If this issue is so prevalent among the target audience of higher education, why don’t

Itchy Feet

Olive Hay-Edie, BA Social Anthropology

I am a fourth-generation third-culture kid, four generations of itchy feet. My father’s father’s father, my father’s father, my father and I, all have itchy feet. We aren’t the shadows of imperialism (I have checked), we simply reject that of what we are, authentically, begrudgingly and with privilege, which makes way for guilt.

My father is something, a mixing bowl of experiences, a little cinnamon and a touch of grey in his later years. He has the itchiest feet. His identity is scrambled, made apparent through 100 homes, 1000 hobbies and 10000 memories. If I were to ask him who he was, there would be no straight answer, no clear-cut crispy immunity from self-doubt. I feel that he would stare at me blankly and then say his name.

When people ask me where my father is from, I o en say, ‘I don’t really know’ because he has never told me. I sometimes say Portugal because that’s where he’s most at home, his place to return to, but his passports are British and Brazilian, yet his father is Norwegian? If I were to ask, he would not recite citizenship nor a nationality, he would never say he was English or that he feels at home on this soil. If I were to pick up his passport and hand it to him as proof, he would probably put it away.

If he were to look in a mirror, I wonder what he would see? e wind chill from Portugal, the hard jaw from Scotland, the tall

we see eco-anxiety in student well-being support programs?

Well, rst of all, there is the issue of budget. As students, we saw the e ects that Covid-19 had on our well-being and on well-being services. e entire health system in the UK suffered hugely. e fact that there is limited well-being funding comes as no surprise. But, on this basis, it seems illogical to forfeit eco-anxiety-related support and have to, in turn, face “hidden costs”; by hidden costs, I am referring to any unforeseen expenses that will result from perpetuated mental health issues at the hands of worsening climate conditions. And Eco-Anxiety support doesn’t need to cost a pretty penny.

e paper ‘Young People’s Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon’ suggests that one of the most supportive things an institution can do is to allow for students‘ ‘feelings and views [to be] heard, validated, respected, and acted upon.’ Taking it one step further, the initiative ‘Anxiety to Action’ uses group, parent and individual workshops, which are conducted to encourage movement towards positive action, identifying goals and challenging negative feelings. A similar group, ‘Force of Nature’, founded by climate activist Clover Hogan in 2019, advocates for young people to use their eco-anxiety for good by “mobilising mindsets’’. rough their student programs and teacher training, Force of Nature has collaborated with the likes of King’s College London and the University of Oxford to support students through their experiences with eco-anxiety.

However, a more productive alternative to addressing ecoanxiety head-on may be to invest in sustainable projects or

work on mitigation solutions to climate change. In doing so, not only is the university more climate-conscious - rst green ag - it can also reduce the e ects of eco-anxiety by providing students with a sense of agency, knowing that they are part of a mindful community - second green ag. Take Keele University, for example; they have made a 25-year deal with ENGIE, a global energy and services group, ‘to develop a wind, solar and battery storage park to generate 50% of the university’s power,’ says Julie Tam from Universities UK. If SOAS were to invest in well-being to tackle eco-anxiety, there would be less of a budget for it to confront climate change, and like many other universities, SOAS does not have the capacity to have its cake and eat it. So, it seems that our universities should look to invest in the climate, to begin with, and perhaps, in turn, students may be relieved of their climate concern, for the time being anyway…

Whilst an acknowledgement of eco-anxiety would, I’m sure, go a long way for the students of SOAS, it is important that universities make some di cult budget trade-o s and invest in the climate in order to improve student well-being for the long term. In the words of Sir Anton Muscatelli, the Principal of the University of Glasgow, ‘we cannot achieve our goals at the expense of the environment.’ Renewable energy at SOAS? I’m a big fan.

brow from Norway, the sunspots from Hong Kong, the smile lines from Brazil, or the tired eyes given generously by the UK?

My mother is English. Yet she has adjustments about her - from her own experiences elsewhere. Her smile lines are from Hong Kong, and her moles are from ailand, yet both of her feet are buried deeply in English soil. Not once have they been itchy since she returned home. Home is her house in the countryside. Home to her is solid and tangible, it has never been shaken. My mother has changed since she rst le , her clothes are colourful, and her house is lled with things you’d nd elsewhere, but home has always stayed the same, in the soil, on this island.

I am grateful to my mother as one of my feet is free from the itch and is buried deeply. Yet thanks to my father, one foot is sticking out and is hyperactive, existential and on re. I think it’s hard to feel rooted when you’re moving all the time. ere have been moments where I have tried to dig my deepened foot free, you could say I’ve used pickaxes, shovels and my bare hands to get it out so I can be detached from my half homes altogether. It works for a bit, I go manic, I am energetic, enthusiastically so, yet my tired foot always nds its way back down, deep in the cold and so English soil. ere have been times where I have buried the itchy foot as deep as the other so that I can be still, be English too. Again, this is a temporary x.

My identity is English, yet when I say it, I feel empty. I don’t remember long summer evenings playing in elds or ice

cream vans, wood pigeons and metal slides, picking blackberries or village fetes. To me, that’s two feet in the ground English. Yet I’m not anything else. I’m informed by other things; my tastes and memories were given to me elsewhere. My hair has been bleached by Hong Kong, my teeth damaged by ailand, my knees worn out by Portugal, my ribs bruised by London, and my nose singed by Sta ord.

I think there are plenty of itchy feet. We all itch in di erent ways, some for home, some for adventure, some for a person or a culture. I think there are as many deep feet; feet under the surface; grounded and buried in belonging. Do your feet tickle for something or somewhere, do they need to be seen too? Or do you prefer them buried deep, would you bury them deeper? Or do you circle, pirouette like me? If so, let’s talk about it, let’s hook toes. We can complain about that itch on the one foot, and the inability to scratch it, as the other has nowhere to go.

I think that belonging and identity speak through metaphors, images and senses. I’ve never had a straightforward conversation about it. We’ve always liked the belonging to something and the nostalgia or longing for another. So if I asked you to draw it, would you draw itchy feet like me or a rug you used to curl up on? If you’d like to nd out more, drop me a message at 682200@soas.ac.uk, and we can talk about it.

“over 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively a ected their daily lives”’.

Women, Life, Art: Reflections on Creativity, Divine Femininity, and Revolution

“It is the spirit of these women, not their power or powerlessness, but their will to create, to live within this cultivated liminal space of artistic expression which transcends the shackles of political oppression and frees them.”

I was intrigued by her inspirations as an Iranian woman who had spent the majority of her life living and working in the UK, and whose immersive exhibition re ected her transcendent positionality; tied down by no singular label or identity.

A common thread which connects all of Sokhanvari’s muses is their artistic conviction. One of these, Forugh Farrokhzad, had been forced to sacri ce part of her life to be an artist. Farrokhzad lost custody of her son in her divorce in 1954 because she refused to give up being a poet.

She rejected accusations that her poems were purposefully controversial: ‘If my poems, as you say, have an aspect of femininity, it is, of course, quite natural’ (Wolpé, 2007). Sokhanvari’s description of her compulsion to become an artist when a bike accident gave her a wake-up call re ects Farrokhzad’s experience of ‘art as natural instinct’ and indicates how feminine creativity is a powerful force transcending generations, cultures, and elds of study.

On the evening of the 9 February, I helped host an event entitled ‘Women, Life, Art: In Conversation with Hayden Changizian and Soheila Sokhanvari’. ese Iranian female artists were guests at a roundtable discussion chaired by SOAS PhD candidate and research assistant Katayoun Shahandeh, aimed at highlighting a primordial tie between female artists and their rebelliousness. ese women made it clear to me that creativity is a boldly revolutionary act. e infusion of their artwork with an ever-present feminine divinity allows their revolution to transcend the shackles of their political and social oppression and transforms them into timeless pillars of monumental history.

I was initially inspired to write on this subject of female creativity and revolution when I read I am Imbolc, the Dream of Awakening, by Caroline Mellor for the rst time. One line in this poem reads, ‘I am hope, potential, rebirth and promise. I am the kindling breath which transforms the icker of inspiration in your creative core into a blazing torch.’ is poem succeeds in conjuring a ‘dream of awakening’, which weaves together elements of personal consciousness and the seasonal awakening of nature (Imbolc is a traditional Gaelic festival celebrating the coming of spring).

e language of ‘promise’, ‘ re’ and ‘courage’ is also an unmitakable marker of rebellion. is is not a new revelation; the word revolution itself is derived from the Latin

words ‘re’ and ‘volvere’ and comes to mean a ‘turning/rolling back ’, reminiscent of the cyclical rolling of the seasons, or indeed the menstrual cycle. Revolutionary propaganda has historically employed rhetoric about nature to capture a common imagination and convey something universally shared (eg. the Arab Spring). But this poem speci cally positions female creativity at the fulcrum of such a rebirth.

Creativity is innate to femininity. Perhaps connected to the biological role of producing life, ‘creativity’ is another way of saying ‘ingenuity’ or ‘imagination’ in a state of nature that depends on women to protect life. Creativity, then, becomes a crucial tool for subversion and rebellion in societies where life is threatened.

Soheila Sokhanvari is one such woman whose natural creativity is abundant. Having already visited the exhibition Rebel Rebel at the Barbican twice, I was excited to hear from the artist whose portraits of iconic Iranian women had conveyed such instinctive rebelliousness. I wanted to know about her use of egg tempura which she paints onto calf vellum with a squirrel-hair brush; this ‘labour of love’ using elements of the earth, drawn from an ancient tradition of Iranian miniature painting, which led her to coin herself an ‘alchemist’. Sokhanvari explained her frustration that ‘we live in a society where it is no longer okay to be a polymath’, an insightful statement given that it was her knowledge of physics (she had previously worked as a scientist at Cambridge University) which had enabled her to visualise how she would suspend perspex shards from the ceiling of the Curve Gallery and position them around a hologram.

is event made the resilience of Iranian women artists across generations and artistic mediums brightly apparent. With a nascent lyricism and love for her time as a ballerina in pre-revolution Iran, Haydeh Changizian described her ballet practice in a series of nostalgic soliloquies. For her, ballet is the purest and most divine art form because it incorporates all other art forms into one spectacular performance. Like Sokhanvari’s, Changizian’s in uences were not limited to her home country. Her education in ballet even took her to the Ballet School of Kirov Opera in St Petersburg at a time when it was unheard of to cross the Iron Curtain, a chapter indicative of her desire for artistry, transcending any concern for super cial, political limitations.

e doing of creativity, the active production of art, poetry and myth, enables us to dehistoricize the imsy ideas of femininity found in the media (about powerlessness or crude objecti cation), to instead transcend them. It is the SPIRIT of these women, not their power or powerlessness, but their will to create, to live within this cultivated liminal space of artistic expression which transcends the shackles of political oppression and frees them. ese women artists exist in and reinforce a pillar of monumental time that transcends linear time (Nietzche in Kristeva, 1981) and makes them timeless. is, by de nition, is revolutionary.

Artemis Apergi, BA Persian and International Relations

(Credits: Forugh by Soheila)

Butchery in Damascus - How the Apartheid State Heaps Agony on Syria

Barrington-Russell,

Israel has yet again demonstrated its perpetual disregard for human life as the recent onslaught came a mere week a er one of the most deadly natural disasters in Syria’s history.

e early morning of 19 February brought a downpour of Israeli rockets on Kfar Sousa, a leafy suburb in the Syrian capital. According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, the strikes resulted in 15 deaths, amongst them civilians.

It is claimed that the latest Israeli infringement on Syrian territory targeted o cials living in the neighbourhood, some of whom are allied with or part of Iranian forces on the ground. Although it is no secret that Iran does indeed ex its military muscles within Syrian borders, neither Syrian nor Iranian military forces are currently in a position to defend Damascus from such aggression. e war is not over, Turkish incursions in the North and the long process of rebuilding are hindering national security. is means the latest bombings are likely to go without reprisal. Of course, it is the Syrian people who are paying the price.

It is clear that respecting international principles of sovereignty is of minimal relevance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his increasingly fascist cabinet. e Syrian

Ministry of Defence claims that these recent strikes came from a military base in the Golan Heights, a plateau in Southern Syria which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.

Of course, this is not the rst time Israel has directly attacked Syrian sovereign territory, having consistently conducted bombings, assassinations and missile strikes aimed at destabilising the war-torn country. For the past two decades, Israeli foreign policy towards Damascus and its inhabitants has shi ed to one of unapologetic loathing. In 2017, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen begged the Trump administration to oppose a cease re in Southwestern Syria, whilst the thenDefence Minister Avigdor Liberman maintained that ‘the rebels are not our friends, they are all versions of Al-Qaeda.’

erefore, it does not come as a surprise that this latest surge of indiscriminate bombings has put many Syrians in an

extremely uneasy position - both at home and abroad. ‘Of course, I miss my family there,’ says Mohammad, a Syrian shopkeeper from North Damascus. Speaking from Amman, Jordan, he continues, ‘I will return, God willing if I am able to. But for me now it is impossible, as the bombing and the war continue. ere is no country le .’

ese words echo those of millions of Syrian nationals in exile. For those waiting to return, this prolonged threat of bloodshed at the hands of yet another foreign party is salt in a tortuously raw wound.

So what next? It is without doubt that public resentment towards Israel will heighten, despite many Arab governments’ adverse policies of normalisation with the Apartheid state. However, what may not be clear is how to bring this remorseless government to justice for its uncompromising antipathy towards the Arab people.

Addressing the BAFTA in the Room

Hiba Ul-hasan, BA History

e British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs) was held on 19 February, and the list of winners was shocking. Although 40% of those shortlisted were of ethnic origin, all 49 winners were white. is is both disheartening and concerning. e lack of diversity among the winners does not truly represent the nature of the lm industry, suggesting that there may be bigger issues within, particularly when non-

and foremost, there is a longlisting stage in which industry experts with BAFTA memberships submit their picks for the year’s top lms, performances, and other achievements.

en during the Nomination round, a minimum of 100 BAFTA members who are industry professionals vote on each category, and the longlist is then reduced down to a shortlist, with members selecting their top picks. Finally, the winners are determined by a nal round of voting and announced at the annual award ceremony. e involvement of BAFTA members is constant throughout the stages. ere is a suitable eligibility criteria which includes at least ve years of experience in a senior or executive role.

Although this may have been designed to ensure the quality of members by selecting experienced professionals, it also limits the diversity of members because of internal prejudice within the industry. is will hinder people of di erent origins from obtaining top positions, and if they do, this may be attributed to their social or economic standing.

It is critical to remember that diversity is about more than just representation; it is also about inclusion. A lack of diversity in award ceremonies such as the BAFTAs can reinforce structural inequalities, keeping talented individuals from diverse backgrounds from receiving the awards they deserve.

white voices and viewpoints are marginalised and ignored. To gain a better understanding of the BAFTAs and the various reasons why the results were so shocking, it is necessary to understand how the winners are chosen. e voting process is divided into three stages, according to the BAFTAs’ o cial website: longlisting, nomination, and winners. First

Another feature of the membership is a yearly subscription fee. Aside from the initial £150 fee for new members, there is a yearly regional membership fee ranging from £360 to £540. ere are circumstances where a fee reduction or aid can be o ered, but this implies that there is an economic aspect involved in determining winners. For example, some individuals’ votes may be in uenced by their own business interests in certain projects.

BAFTA trophies (Credit:

Hraybould)

“

e lack of diversity among the winners does not truly represent the nature of the lm industry and suggests that there may be bigger issues within, where non-white voices and viewpoints are marginalised and ignored.”

View of South Damascus (Credit:Yamam al-Shaar, Reuters)

Clayton

BA Arabic and International Relations

The Future of Journalism Panel: Why Writing Matters

To commemorate the importance of journalism and the role of media across the world, the executives of the SOAS Spirit hosted a creative panel, ‘ e Future of Journalism’, to inspire and encourage both beginner and novice writers into the world of media and journalistic writing.

e panel of journalists, who were all former and fellow ‘SOASians’, Khadija Kothia, Ali Mitib, Joana Ramiro and Muhammad Elmaazi, shared their expertise on the current a airs of journalism and advice on some of the challenges they faced in order to achieve their current roles in the media world. rough this discussion, we learned some valuable guidance on the world of media and journalistic writing.

Khadija is currently an Assistant News Editor at ITV News, where she produces daily news bulletins and feature stories. She also writes local, national and international news for the website. Ali Mitib is a news reporter at e Times, covering major stories from crime and social a airs to education and the environment. Joana Ramiro is a freelance journalist, writer and broadcaster and political commentator who has worked for renowned mainstream media platforms such as the BBC World Service, the Associated Press, Al-Jazeera and the Guardian. And nally, we had Muhammad Almaazi, who is a freelancer who has contributed to numerous news outlets, including the Jacobin, the Dissenter, e Canary and Open Democracy, he has also covered the hearings of the Julian Assange case.

It is important to reconcile your politics with objective reporting as it can be di cult to be fully impartial without recognising your biased perspective on it. In the media world, there is a hierarchy when it comes to freedom of expression; you can have a bias as long as you can back it up with objective facts. It is also important to note that you are providing information with your writing, so you must be fair and accurate as it is di cult as a writer to choose who or who cannot access your writing if it is available to everyone.

are, and Mohammad’s perspective on this matter concerning journalism, which touched upon the lack of journalistic defences. From this, a discussion on the dangers of journalism took place, and the panellists shared their views on how UK laws are lacking in amendments to protect journalists, which means there is more to what a journalist cannot report on than what they are allowed to report on. I was unaware of how closely linked law and journalism could be, and also learnt that there are lawyers for journalists that can keep them safe in di cult investigations when carrying out a report.

Topics on ethical journalism were covered, and the panellists discussed the importance of following protocols and being aware of what stories not to include as well as what stories you can include, emphasising the element of trust. Being humane and telling an accurate story is vital as you are in the face of people who are going through trauma, it should be avoided that these people are treated as case studies. Preventing misrepresentation is vital as these stories will eventually become commodi ed products which are shared with a wide range of audiences, and that by being a freelance writer, in particular, you can manage the expectation of people you are speaking to but must always maintain respect and keep the interviewees and speakers informed with your work.

Looking at the line between platforming dangerous ideologies and informing them, we learned that mainstream media can overall censor your personal views when you are writing.

Another question which was discussed was whether the media can hold political institutions into account. Responses by the panellists began by mentioning that journalists do not decide whether the government is doing a good job or a bad job when it comes to running this country. It was highlighted that broadcasters have rules on impartiality because they receive public money, but there are some newspapers which o en back candidates and people for elections, and we tend to see le -wing papers supporting the Labour Party and right-wing papers supporting the Conservatives. Journalism can do its part in contributing opinions and support for certain political institutions because both institutions use each other, so it is di cult for media to hold political institutions such as the government and UK politics into account when it comes to issues with society.

e topic was then shi ed to Mohammad and his involvement in the Julian Assange extradition hearings, where we were provided with an overview of who he is, what his charges

e talk then ended with questions on Twitters impact on Journalism and how it is useful for networking but can be an issue for mental health if it is overused. e lack of diversity was also mentioned regarding how di erent voices are needed, otherwise the same story will be told by the same people.

Ending on this important note, this panel provided us with a valuable insight into the realities of working for the media and being a journalist in today’s world. Hopefully, this will encourage students of SOAS to write journalistically to inform wider audiences of the matters of the world and be expressive with their own thoughts. By connecting, informing and inspiring, the world needs journalism to provide voices for the voiceless and support initiations for change.

FEATURES EDITOR: Naaz Hussein

Madihah Najeeb, BA Global Liberal Arts

“By connecting, informing and inspiring, the world needs journalism to provide voices for the voiceless and support initiations for change.”

The SOAS Spirit Instagram post promoting The Future of Journalism Panel discussion (Credit: Instagram Username: @soasspirit)

The World Cup, Orientalism, and Power in the World of Journalism

When Russia held the World Cup in 2017, the BBC provided full coverage of the tournament’s opening ceremony. ere was no criticism nor lecturing, while by this time, Russia had already annexed the region of Crimea and was occupying Eastern Ukraine. Fast forward four years, the BBC’s coverage of the World Cup began with Gary Lineker speaking out against Qatari human rights abuses, and the opening ceremony was not shown. Besides the irony of a celebrity presenter such as Lineker criticizing the regime, the Western coverage of the World Cup was another reminder of the racial dynamic which still dominates journalism. Criticism of Qatar’s human rights record may well be justi ed, yet it should not take away from the clear racism and stigma that was on show during the World Cup. e racial and Orientalist coverage of non-Western events is a major issue today.

e Moroccan team won many hearts as it went on a fathomable journey to place fourth, the highest position ever for an African country at the world cup. eir heartfelt celebrations, camaraderie, and dances captured millions of fans’ love and attention worldwide. Yet, German media outlet ‘Welt’ attempted to sour their journey by claiming the Moroccan players posed with the ‘Islamic State gesture’ a er their win against Portugal. e gesture in question is a raising of the index nger to the sky, a testament to there being one God, and a very common gesture amongst Muslims worldwide. e racial accusations did not stop there. A Danish TV channel attempted to draw comparisons between the Moroccan players dancing with their mothers a er the match with pictures of monkeys. e Moroccan team also faced criticisms by Israeli media, who

claimed their waving of the Palestinian ag was an antisemitic gesture aimed at “orchestrating hostility towards Israel”. ese are but a few examples of the racist and Orientalist hostility shown by Western media. e strength of Western journalism allows these media outlets to create and circulate racist and discriminatory claims and accusations with free reign.

above the natives. ese ideas of cultural superiority were ingrained in Orientalist scholarship and have remained the status quo since then. A er the rise of Islamic extremism, these ideas have been reinvigorated by Western journalism and brought back into the spotlight. Furthermore, these racist and orientalist ideas can be utilized in a manner that is dangerous to the group. Some examples we see are the activities of Tommy Robinson’s English Defence League and, on a larger scale, President Donald Trump’s tenure in power. As journalism functions as a tool to circulate ideas and events, Western superiority that is based on an Orientalist and colonial legacy controls the narrative and ensures the hierarchy remains.

Coverage of the World Cup and the Moroccan team is also a testament to the anti-Muslim and anti-Middle Eastern coverage that the media has been perpetuating for more than two decades. e construction and circulation of ethnic stereotypes among journalism today is a result of this type of coverage. Ethnic and racial stereotyping is a pillar of Orientalist and racial journalism today. For more than 20 years, Western journalism and media have helped to perpetuate the idea that Muslims and Arabs are backward, extremist, and uncivilized. Much of this perspective stems from colonial-era prejudices against minorities. e British and French both ruled over parts of the Middle East during the zenith of their administrations. ey governed with the impression that they were

Pessoptimism and Social Media

Social media has seeped into every aspect of life, including con ict. e Russian/ Ukrainian war, which started on 24 February 2022, has been branded the ‘World’s rst TikTok war’, with an almost ceaseless ow of content surrounding the crisis. Four days a er the beginning of the war, a video showing a blonde-haired and blue-eyed eightyear-old girl circulated on TikTok, a popular streaming platform for short videos. It was accompanied by the caption, ‘An 8 year Ukraine girl confronts a Russian soldier telling him to go back to his country. is is courage simplicitta [simply]’. e footage was viewed over 12 million times.

Ahed Tamimi, the girl in the video, is from the village of Nabi Salih in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. e video was shot 10 years before its re-emergence on social media, branded as an act of Ukrainian resistance. In it, Tamimi demands the return of her 15-year-old brother, Waad, who was arrested minutes before the video was shot. e video received almost one million likes on TikTok before being debunked by multiple news outlets, Al Jazeera and Reuters among them.

On the same platform, TikTok user ‘Valerisssh’ posts videos showcasing daily life in Ukraine. ‘My typical day in a bomb shelter’ at the time of writing has 51.1 million views. is video, among others, was included in the Shefeld Documentary Film Festival 2022. Arguably, engagement with social media puts a human face to the con ict, and the platform’s user-friendly nature makes it accessible.

As digitalisation runs its rampant course, there is a consistent increase in the number of people relying exclusively on social media to stay up to date with current a airs. A 2019 study conducted by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford

surveyed 75,000 respondents across ve continents and 38 markets. Amongst the questions asked was ‘What is people’s main source of news?’, with an overwhelming majority (46%) answering ‘online’. is includes social media, which the report says has increasingly become a news source since 2014.

e fact of the matter is that Orientalism and racializing still exist within journalism today. ere is a clear ‘othering’ of the non-Western world and a cultural superiority when it comes to discussing ideas and concepts that are non-Western. e journalistic hegemony that the Western world holds critically limits the e ectiveness of journalism in places such as Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. e hierarchy at play doesn’t just focus on narratives but also culture, race, ethnicity, language, and religion. e reach of mass media outlets allows the power to remain in Western journalism and for a successful undermining of attempts to break the status quo. e damage that Orientalism has done to the colonized world is unquanti able, but there needs to be a greater drive among new journalists today to ensure a plurality. e ‘othering’, racial stereotypes, and cultural superiority that exists in Western journalism need to be eradicated to allow greater diversity in the eld.

In a world that is seeing the breaking down of traditional forms of community life in the face of globalisation, social media provides a space to be a part of something. To connect, which is the most human of desires. However, interconnectivity will always be mutually inclusive with the news. e very purpose of staying connected with other people is for the purpose of updating each other.

Social media is unique in the way that it enables underrepresented voices to be heard, for example, that of a 20-year-old girl living in war-torn Ukraine. However, the lack of checks and balances surrounding creating and posting content can lead to the circulation of fake news. e piece may eventually be fact-checked, but not before it has reached a global audience. It is far easier to publish on Instagram than it is to publish in e Economist.

Additionally, predetermined and exceptionally personalised algorithms mean that a lot of the time, the user is only exposed to content that reinforces their existing opinion, leading to con rmation bias. It creates a personalised digital echo chamber, which is an environment where the only information available is that which reinforces the user’s existing bias. is has been termed a ‘ lter bubble’ by Eli Parisier, and is especially poignant as it combines with already personalised algorithms. As we morph, so does the content we consume and the way that we do so; digitalised adverts on the sides of London buses distract from the quotidian while Google suggests Christmas presents based on recipes from months prior.

Yet, a great danger is posed when the only kind of news that someone receives is from social media. It risks perpetually reinforcing existing views, making them stagnant in the shi ing world around them. A person is less likely to question something when they agree with it. is is especially dangerous when the content consumed may be factually inaccurate, as with Tamimi’s video.

is is not to say that social media is not a useful tool. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence routinely publishes content on various platforms and has said that international engagement with their memes and videos has been pivotal in ensuring that international support for Ukraine maintains momentum.

However, it is important to challenge the kind of content that we consume. e fact that Tamimi’s video only gained widespread international traction when linked to Ukraine exposes a lack of international attention on Palestine and double standards in the media surrounding race and representation.

As life moves ever more from print into the online realm, the checks and balances that print ensures erode along with it. It is up to the reader to implement them, especially when those who o en are the most in need have the least access to them.

Artemis Sianni-Wedderburn, BA Arabic and Politics

“As life moves ever more from the print into the online realm, the checks and balances that print ensures erode along with it”

Saad Ul Haque, MA Postcolonial Studies

“

ere is a clear ‘othering’ of the non-Western world and a cultural superiority when it comes to discussing ideas and concepts that are non-Western”

AI and Journalism: An Automated Promise of Streamlined Objectivity

e world as we know it is constantly evolving, with the materialising of new technologies aiding individuals’ ability to understand, process and solve emerging questions. e forthcoming of ChatGPT can pose multiple questions that challenge our perception of AI. ough many of us, that might be you too, are users of this worldwide phenomenon, it is one that is multifaceted and questions the integrity of one’s writing as well as the overall production of creative knowledge.

Initially, the proposition of AI playing any tangible factor in the world of journalism might seem far-fetched. Journalism as a whole is fundamentally an interhuman endeavour. Still, with the ongoing growth of AI, there is an overwhelming sense of uncertainty about where the world of news production or journalism as a whole will take us. At the most recent SOAS Spirit journalism panel, a panellist said ‘I’ll be in Hawaii, Persecute AI’. But is the technophile drive that is crashing over the world a sign of enlightenment towards the evolution of the journalism world? Could AI aid us writers in being ‘more e cient’ and able to present facts in a more ‘objective’ nature?

E ciency and factuality in journalism are o en a realm deeply associated with ‘breaking news’. is is news that is understood to be, or at least should be, presented as factual and devoid of subjective interpretation. It is exactly in the newsroom where AI is understood to streamline ‘journalistic production’. is has been made clear through Axel Springers’ most recent announcement of designating their newsroom as a leading sight for the future of automation. eir stated rationale is that news constitutes automatable journalistic production, as opposed to journalistic creation, under which they categorise ‘original’ and ‘specialist’ content. Now imagine the newsroom at the NYT, bustling with people attempting to latch onto the newest story, then imagine it lled with a singular system dispelling a simpli cation of stories into automated jargon.

“43 killed in anti-Muslim violence wave in Delhi”, “4 people killed in Vienna terror attack” “Over 50,000 casualties in earthquake in Turkey and Syria”; straight-forward, factual and nearly devoid of any subjectivity and bias. Right? Of course not. e ‘breaking news’ is far from being devoid of subjectivity. What constitutes ‘terrorism’ and what does the invocation of such a term evoke? What is a ‘wave of violence’? What is the di erence between ‘casualties’ and people ‘killed’? What role do numbers play? e use of AI’s terminology and statistics carries a ra of unwritten biases, and its passengers are us, waiting to dismount and tell people the real story. To

also limited. AI systems are programmed to draw on large or, potentially even scarier, limited databases, and we all know what that entails: the establishment of echo chambers.

e potential of (un)wanted homogenization and capitalization in news platforms is daunting. In a world where ‘clickbaitability’ and ‘reader retention’ is becoming exponentially more important, could AI fast track the transformation of media into a clickbait wonderland? is would leave people with a depiction of the world as a monolithic entity, one that solely serves the purpose of producing attention-grabbing but ‘factual’ news. But what does it even mean to produce factual news? is notion of factual news delineates the production of empathy and resonation that humans create through journalism. To remove humans from the newsroom is to remove humans from the respective truth, and the lack of human critical engagement supplemented with the aid of AI will only continue to perpetuate the known banal term of ‘echo chambers’.

understand AI’s output as factual news and value it as a form of journalistic work is to deny the ra of biases that it carries. What Axel Springer and other AI advocates in the realm of journalism tend to gloss over is the prominent fact that AI systems drawback on an array of human information where human bias itself is enmeshed. ese biases aren’t new; the unequal value towards the loss of life has always been prominent in the news world; whose stories and lives are more signi cant: Ukrainians’ or Yemenis’? To draw on this array of information ridden with bias and churn it into ‘automated news bits’ is to solidify these biases inherent in the language of today’s media and to sideline critical human engagement. Let us not forget, as with humans, AI is

Humans have always resided in this epistemic bubble that we call the world, but to automatize the ways in which we receive news is to perpetuate that notion and leave us unquestioning of the result. With the simple click of an ‘add to cart’, we are submerged and entrenched within a digital world that guides what we feel and what we need. is is what echo chambers create, it is a false sense of understanding ingrained into the human psyche, almost removing our own agency and replacing it with a fallacious form of technologically enabled production of thought.

e demand for critical and unarti cal engagement is pertinent and highlights the need for human journalism now more than ever.

Kian Abadi & Naaz Hussein, BA International Relations and Arabic & BA Politics and International Relations

“ e demand for critical and unarti cal engagement is pertinent and highlights the need for human journalism, now more than ever.”

AI produced image through DAL.E 2 (Credit: DAL.E 2)

Culture Editor: Anisah Mahamoud

Art or Not? The debate on AI Art

AI (Arti cial Intelligence) art, and debates on the topic, have been all over social media in recent months. From internet users feeding absurd prompts to AI, to professional artists using AI in their artwork, AI has become more prevalent in cultural and artistic elds. While seemingly a fun and innocent tool, the proliferation of AI art has sparked multiple conversations about the nature of art, the future of “human” artists, and the potential evolution of AI in the art world.

In our modern times, arti cial intelligence has become omnipresent, with its applications being seen in various elds. One such eld is art, where its use is relatively new and subject to ongoing criticism and analysis. e development of AI has a long history, spanning the 20th century, with scientists and science ction writers contributing to its development. It was not until 1973 that the rst application of AI to art was made, when Harold Cohen, an American artist, created a series of computer programmes called ‘AARON’. ese programmes could independently generate original stylized images. e use of AARON by Cohen sparked conversations about authorship and the extent of the artists’ responsibility for the art created using AI. is debate is still ongoing and is a topic of interest among artists and critics alike.

Today, AI Art is less of a prospect and more of a reality. It has become a point of contention in the art world, with many artists speaking out vehemently against the use of AI to generate art. Among the criticisms AI art has received is the question of datasets used. Indeed, AI requires very large datasets to “learn” before being able to generate any images. Within

these datasets are the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of artists who share their work online. AI can produce art in the same style as a particular artist if asked to do so. is poses legal issues, as most of these images tend to be copyrighted and cannot be used commercially. However, most artists do not have the resources to sue the large corporations and tech companies that own the datasets and programmes.

work on their cra in a natural, organic way. e artist’s work is bought and sold, consumed and destroyed in the same manner that a commodity is. e artist lives to work, just like his proletarian counterparts in the rest of society. AI art simply answers the demands of capitalism - it can provide an unlimited amount of images quickly and for cheap, eliminating in the process the artist, who may demand compensation and recognition. AI e ectively accelerates capitalist competition.

AIs are just machines. ey themselves cannot be the root of artists’ plight. Capitalist logic prevents art, i.e. authentic, free, creative, human expression, from being created. All that is le is masses of commodities and a worker slaving away at a canvas.

But the point is not simply to have more ethical AI. Certain artists believe AI does not have a place in the art world at all. It is seen as being “unfair” to human artists who are limited in how fast they can learn and create, and as lacking a “human touch”a fair criticism when one looks at AI-generated images, which o en seem eerie or o -putting. Yet, it seems that those criticisms do not take into consideration one crucial aspect of the art world today: the commodi cation of art under capitalism.

Art and culture in general, are subject to the same logic of mass production and exploitation. Artists are pitted against each other and made to compete rather than being able to

The Rise of PinkPantheress: A TikTok Sensation Turned Popstar

Songs such as ‘Just a waste’ gained an immense amount of social media attention, with the clip receiving over 500,000 likes and thousands of views, making waves on the platform.

e start of her career began in early 2021. Adopting the stage name PinkPantheress, she released two singles in January titled ‘Pain’ and ‘Attracted To You’. Both songs encapsulate garage and house beats with a mix of wistful bedroom pop ambience. Walker credits ‘Break It O ’ as the single that broke her into the mainstream.

Her debut mixtape, ‘To Hell With It’ has 10 songs and only an 18-minute run time. It was a short but creative body of work that allowed PinkPantheress to expand her creativity beyond viral TikTok hits. Along with ‘Break It O ’, ‘Pain’ and ‘Passion’, new tracks ‘I must apologise’ and ‘Just for me’ have racked up a combined 187 million streams on Spotify.

bedroom pop and underground dance music, with songs such as ‘Do you miss me?’ and ‘Boy’s a liar’ becoming fan favourites from her three-song EP Take Me Home.

Last year, she won the BBC’s previous “Sound Of…” poll in 2022, putting her in the company of past winners like Adele, Haim, and 50 Cent. She also gathered collaborations with the likes of Lil Uzi Vert, WILLOW, and Baby Keem, among many others.

Her success shows that the solo tracks and small EPs are getting the job done for streams and rising popularity. She has quickly become a breakthrough artist and pop celebrity in the making. Recently, Walker released ‘Boy’s a liar Pt. 2’ featuring Ice Spice, who performs a guest verse on the track, which has garnered much attention on social media.

PinkPantheress is de nitely an artist to keep an eye on in the near future.

Vicky Beverly Walker is a 21-year-old artist from Bath, England, who rst began releasing her mainstream singles in 2021. Walker initially began uploading music on her TikTok account.

roughout the project, she explores the garage/house beat theme, incorporating lots of kicks, snares, and occasional sound e ects that mesh it all together. e British music press was quick to champion her mix of

PinkPantheress performing at Lollapalooza (Credit: Steven Nunez)

AI-generated image, from the prompt ‘What exists behind the veil?’ (Credit: Steve Jurvetson)

“AI art simply answers the demands of capitalism - it can provide an unlimited amount of images, quickly and for cheap; eliminating in the process the artist”

Sarah Cotte, BSc Politics, Philosophy and Economics

Mahir Ahmed, MA Global Media and Communications

The Shadow that Sticks: A review of Dina Amer’s “You Resemble Me”

Amelia Casey-Rerhaye, Managing Editor, BA Arabic

‘People are going to think you’re crazy’, my mum says to me on the phone. Sat outside Belsize Park tube station, I’m just about pulling myself together a er ten minutes of hysterical sobbing. I always thought it would be cool to have a dramatic crying-inpublic-and-not-caring-about-it as London carries on around me moment. I did not think it would be caused by a lm, though.

You Resemble Me is Dina Amer’s rst lm, and considering the response it has garnered, it is unlikely to be her last. ‘It took every bit of me to make this lm’ Amer revealed to the audience before its rst screening in London, ‘my gut, my heart, my soul…everything’. You feel it from the rst scene, the rst time the young girl playing Hasna starts her mantra: ‘je sais qui je suis/I know who I am’. e lm took just under seven years to make, most of that was spent researching and talking with Hasna’s family. e lming itself was done rather quickly, the opening scenes with the children in Paris being nished in a matter of weeks. e hours of dedicated work, of time and e ort, comes across potently in the care given to the creation of Hasna’s character, the words that make up the script and the movement of the camera as it follows the girls around Paris. is lm could have been a multimillion-dollar project in collaboration with Amazon, but Amer turned it down. DP Omar Malik could run with the girls if the camera was small, Amer told us, he couldn’t if it was a “bigass” expensive one.

e lm tells the story of Hasna Ait Boulahcan, a FrenchMoroccan woman who died in November 2015 during a police raid on a terrorist threat. An explosion in an apartment killed her and two men – and, in the coming days, was reported to have been set o by Hasna herself. ‘ e rst female suicide bomber’ dominated headlines following the incident. When it was eventually revealed that she had only been present, not an active participant, Dina Amer’s journey with this lm began. Amer herself had been reporting on the explosion in Paris for Vice News. She, in turn, had propelled this story which turned out to be false, in turn propelling the spread of three images which were supposedly Hasna but in truth were Hasna, her sister Maryam and another Moroccan woman of no connection to the Ait Boulahcen sisters.

Amer took this trio-ism that was so crudely created by the media and allowed it to seep into the lm. ree actors, Mouna Soualem, Sabrina Ouazani and Amer herself, take on the role of adult Hasna, creating a persona that morphs into di erent visages. e introduction of Hasna as an adult is in a nightclub. Amongst the lights and confusion, the audience is lost in her ever-changing face, Hasna appears unfocused and unreal. Amer took the actions of an indi erent press and con gured them to exemplify the intensity of identity war that Hasna, and women like her, experience within themselves. What reaches out and grabs you in this lm is its ability to force the audience to completely empathise with Hasna in every moment. Her lack of solid corporeal being and the repeated shots of herself being re ected in multiple mirrors lets the audience visualise the internal fractures of Hasna’s person. Alma Har’el said ‘You [Amer] make the viewer feel and you humanise the characters in a way that makes it hard to feel.’ e lm forces you to cry when Hasna watches her cousin’s radicalising video, forces you to understand the rejection that leads her to want to nd something solid to hold onto, and nally makes you follow her in her grapple for God and her cousin in her desperation.

emes of dualism and dichotomy are omnipresent throughout the lm. It was only on my second, and long agonised over, watch that I noticed her eyes twice change from dark brown to light blue . Both times it is during a scene in which Hasna is removed from her culture and individual identity. But the dualism is between her and her little sister Maryam. Separated when they are young, they experience two different worlds. Maryam rejects her Arab-ness, she regularly straightens her hair, gets a nose job to not be stigmatized –in the story and in the documentary both, Maryam represents a life that could have been for Hasna, had she lived. e shadow of this life unlived looms large throughout the lm.

Maybe what is most impressive about this lm is that it is not a tragedy. ough it is tragic, there is no moment of woe, even the point where Hasna dies is not the end of the lm nor the climax. ere is no sense of inauthenticity or dramatization. It is painfully clear that every irony of her life, every unfortunately timed moment, even the obvious artistic

lmography choices, were true and accurate in some sense.

Dina Amer was able to get an interview with Hasna’s mother, unlike all other press, because she looked like Hasna. I sobbed on the phone to my mother because young Maryam in the lm looked like me when I was little, and because, though my life has not known the hardship that Hasna’s did, I saw the same identity battle in her as in myself. I haven’t gone into a lot of detail on the social commentary that this lm expresses – on racism, islamophobia, classism, and oppression - I want you to watch the lm and understand it for yourself.

“ e shadow of this life unlived looms large throughout the lm.”

You can watch the You Resemble Me on BFI player or Curzon Home Cinema, check this link for more information: https://www.modern lms.com/youresembleme

Still from You Resemble Me (Credit: Modern Films)

You Resemble Me Poster (Credit: Modern Films)

‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’Everything or Maybe Nothing at All.

‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’ an award-winning crosscultural comedy starring Lily James and Pakistani actress Sajal Ali, nally hit UK theatres on the 24 February.

e comedy is said to be inspired by writer and SOAS Alumni Jemina Khan’s own experiences when she moved to Pakistan a er her marriage. Directed by Shekhar Kapur, the movie stars Lily James as Zoe and Shazad Latif as Kazim, better referred to as ‘Kaz’.

Zoe is a successful documentary lmmaker who embodies the “modern” independent woman. Meanwhile, Kaz, the boy next door, is every Asian parent’s dream - a doctor. So when Kaz decides he wants to get an arranged marriage, Zoe sees it as an opportunity for her next project and convinces him to allow her to lm the journey. Zoe follows Kaz as he has a humorous encounter with the matchmaker and then is introduced to Maymouna, an aspiring civil rights lawyer in Pakistan. is process provides insight into the bustling Pakistani environment and lively wedding scene.

is rom-com is an excellent example of British humour. ere is a show of Pakistani comic references in the form of Asim Chaudhry as the matchmaker and Kaz’s grandmother. Zoe’s mother, Cath (Emma ompson), is a source of laughter as she deepens her knowledge of Pakistani culture through her interactions with Kaz’s family. Cath, unlike her daughter, immerses herself in

participating and admiring the culture of her neighbours.

e movie refers to topics that are less lighthearted in tone. Beautifully done, the lm explores identity in a scene where Kaz is forced to explain to Zoe that “Britishborn” is not the same as “British” and explains the impact of Islamophobia in the media. In various instances, Kaz attempts to explain cultural distinctions to a ba ed Zoe, who cannot grasp the signi cance of these di erences.

ere is no clear response as to what the lm is seeking to emphasise about arranged marriages. However, it implies that they are not as terrible as some people may believe. Like love marriages, there are examples of both failures and successes, indicating that it is not the type of marriage that de nes its happiness, but the people in it.

SOAS SPIRIT SUDOKU

Each column, each row, and square must have the numbers 1 to 9. No column, row or box can have two squares with repeating numbers.

Hiba Ul-hasan, BA History

“It is not the type of marriage that de nes its happiness but the people in it.”

What’s Love Got to Do with It? Poster (Credit: StudioCanal)

Sport & Societies

Editor: Hala Haidar

Sport & Societies

SOAS Football Teams Gain Gold and Silver Titles in Paris Tournament

Omala Abrol & Line Currimjee, BA Chinese and Economics & BA International Relations

Les Parisiennes is an international sports tournament organised by Sciences Po university students in Paris. Both the SOAS Women’s and Men’s Football Teams went for an 8-aside football tournament which lasted three days, with the men’s team winning a rst-place title and the women’s team winning a second-place title. During those days, we were met with several challenges, including some questionably stale baguettes provided by the organisers and their dangerous interpretation of an AstroTurf pitch, which consisted of a solid concrete slab with a worn-down piece of green carpet gently cemented on top to represent grass. May our many bruises and cuts be proof of the horrendous pitch conditions.

e matches started early Friday morning with a nail-biting London derby match against LSE 1 where we shockingly lost 3-2. A er this, we vowed never again. e second match was against AUC from Amsterdam, where we won 3-0.

When Lil Benson wasn’t stopping, Captain Vendela Werkelin’s nose bleeds, we all enjoyed watching the men’s games in our free time which always ended with a feisty argument to keep us entertained. e men’s team must get an award for the most ghts started during a game. A special mention goes to, SOAS Men’s, Khadar for live streaming and recording all of their games.

At the end of day one, the goal tally was headed by Werkelin and Lina Currimjee, who collectively scored ve goals. We also had Mimi Longchamp’s little sister Jojo there, who came to cheer us on and was dubbed as our ‘little biggest fan’. In the evenings, the tournament organised social events, but nothing could match the team dinner our executive committee planned.

e dinner on Friday was serene but the trek up around 27 ights of stairs, not so much. However, this led up to the amazing view of the city’s lights in Montmartre.

e French culinary classics like escargot, duck and beef tartar lled us all up, and a wholesome dish of gossip was

served for dessert during our walk towards the bar night.

e city’s metro system must be mentioned for not loving tourists, so readers, if you’re taking the metro in Paris, please keep your metro ticket on you - especially on a Friday night! Events led us to skip the bar night planned and instead enjoy the serenity of the Parisian waterways. A group meditation and team bonding by the Seine River led our minds to be at peace and prepared us for the games to come on Saturday.

Saturday was a day for the books. Mariam Beltran-Lozano was able to join us a er taking many many planes to reach France from Spain, providing us with an extra oomph of energy. We had our second leg of the AUC versus SOAS match, which we won with a score of 3-0. Goals from Eva van der Vliet, Werkelin and Currimjee were beautifully scored. ey were celebrated in style by both the men’s and women’s teams screaming in celebration each time. If anyone needs cheerleaders, have the men’s football team on speed dial. We greatly recommend them. e second game was the return xture against LSE 1. is time we thrashed LSE with a win of 3-0, thanks to goals from Werkelin and Timaf Yacoub. Although Vicky Indreiten spent a lot of time falling over, her attacking prowess was one of the highlights of the tournament, in addition to Benson giving the opposition a concussion. e two wins meant that we nished top of our group, putting us through to the semi- nals against Sciences Po. Despite them having a home advantage, Yacoub heroically squeezed in the winning goal leading us to a 1-0 triumph!

Following a long day, mama Werkelin and grandma Benson hosted drinks and catch-up in their room. No football was discussed, and it was a good opportunity for the team to get to know each other outside of the sport. Several of us le to go to the organised clubbing night with the ounce of energy we all gained from our a ernoon power nap. Seeing everyone from the tournament not in football gear was a small shock to some of us, with Currimjee’s newly made LSE

Spotlight: SOAS Book Club

Mohsin Haider, BA Economics

Attention all bookworms!

Words don’t just paint a thousand pictures, they paint a whole new world as well.

We here at SOAS Book Club are dedicated to creating a community for like-minded individuals to come together and share their love of all things bookish. Whether you read ction or non ction, we welcome you all. SOAS Book Club is a new society established at the beginning of this academic year, but we have already successfully hosted a variety of events—with more to come!

We have monthly book meetings where we discuss the chosen book(s) of the month; we discussed Murder on the Orient Express in December, e Wrath and the Dawn in January, and most recently, romance books in February. Alongside this, we have also held a games night. e games night was a huge hit and many of our members had an enjoyable time, especially those who managed to win the prizes. Furthermore, we held a book

swap event where our members came along with old books they no longer wanted and le with brand-new books to read. One of our most popular events, which we collaborated with the Writers Society for, was our Poetry Slam Night. We had numerous people come up to the stage and share lovely written poetry and compelling short stories, including our very own Co-President, Anika Wadood, who wrote a beautiful piece of poetry.

SOAS Book Club aims to create a space for all book lovers, as well as those who are interested in becoming a bookworm. Books may sometimes hurt the bank account, but it is worth the magic. Books are a powerful form of escapism; nothing compares to that special feeling of being swept away in a book and forgetting about reality for a while.

We have many more exciting events on the way including bookstore visits and collaborations with other societies—maybe even other universities! If you want to be a part of the committee, we are going to be hiring for some exciting new roles soon. Of course, if you just want to be a member as well, that is perfectly ne too. We hope to continue growing as a society and reach out to as

fans kidnapping her mid-night and dancing away with her.

e whole tournament led up to this day. Sunday, the tournament nal. e nal was against Edinburgh University, who, like us, were tired and exhausted from the past matches yet gave us a good battle. e game was tight; however, Omala Abrol got confused between football and handball, giving the opposition a free kick. Mimi Longchamp was challenged ( nally…) as goalkeeper, and despite all her e orts, Edinburgh netted the ball.

is was nerve-wracking and had us all on edge, with Diana Son making sure the referee knew what she was thinking. e second half was lled with beautiful attempts from both sides however, we, unfortunately, conceded another goal sealing the 2-0 loss. At the nal blow of the whistle, Currimjee’s revenge plans included spraying both teams with fake ‘champagne’ leaving us all sticky and ending the tournament on a somewhat sweet and bubbly note.

Monday arrived, and it was time to go home. As we zoomed past the French ‘paysage’ in the Eurostar, we re ected on this wonderful experience. Even though we were second best, we were content with the outcome of the tournament, and it taught us that we can’t always win.

Oh well, c’est la vie!

many SOAS students as we can. To join our club, follow us on Instagram (@soasbookclub) or send us an email at soasbookclub@gmail.com and we can add you to our WhatsApp group and mailing list. We look forward to recruiting new members and hosting plenty of exciting events. See you all soon - over and out.

SOAS Women’s Football Team at Les Parisiennes Tournament (Credit: Maddy)

“SOAS Book Club aims to create a space for all book lovers, as well as those who are interested in becoming a bookworm.”

Bookmarks from a SOAS Book Club ‘Make your own bookmark’ event (Credit: Mohsin Haider).

Deadlines, Love, and Politics: SOASk Me Out Interview

Archie Thomas, BA Politics and International Relations

page became what it is today. At that time, there wasn’t any other space to ask for advice or give opinions that weren’t made directly by SOAS. So SOASkMeOut really became a free space to just express yourself as a SOAS student.’

Scrolling through the more than 17,200 posts o ers a great insight into the culture of SOAS. ough the page started with the realisation that ‘SOAS didn’t have a crush page like UCL’ it has matured into a page that is uniquely SOAS. e admins ‘take a lot of pride in how this page has developed from just a crush page to a page that actually represents SOAS. e way we discuss in-depth real issues and take into account global context and intersectionality is really unique.’

to be ‘a free space to just express yourself as a SOAS student,’ I asked them about this crucial topic: How does the page censor the confessions? What do you censor? How much do you have to censor? Do you have any speci c guidelines for it?

‘Technically speaking, we do not have o cial guidelines when it comes to censoring the posts because, as we said before, it’s a page for students to express themselves; however, we draw the line at anything that can be harmful or hateful... we also put up to vote any submissions that we are unsure of. When political/general debate becomes too overwhelming, or people message us with their concerns, we delete all pending submissions and the posts that are causing too much anguish.’

A group of rst-years desperate to nd love. It’s a common predicament on campus, but ve years ago, SOAS didn’t have a place to anonymously confess your crush and have it published for all to see. So between two classes, this group of ve friends decided to change that. On 22 January 2018, the rst submission to ‘SOASk Me Out’ was posted, and a cornerstone of SOAS student culture was born.

Today, SOASk Me Out has evolved to become more than just a crush page. e admins describe it as ‘a space for students to feel safe to express their ideas and ask for advice, especially for new students that might not be fully accustomed to SOAS.’ I interviewed the anonymous admins of SOASk Me Out to learn more about their creation, the challenges involved, and their favourite submissions.

ey told me about how the page has grown: ‘It really started as a joke; we spent so long trying to gure out a wordplay with SOAS. We would have never imagined that it would become such an important part of the SOAS student life …we rapidly saw that the students of SOAS needed a space where they could ask for advice, and that’s how the

Of course, it isn’t all a positive re ection of SOAS. ‘We get a bit of everything on this page... I think a good chunk of the submissions are trolls because the page is anonymous. Being anonymous has its disadvantages. If you want to know the best re ection of SOAS they are the people who comment on the posts.’

I asked the admins about their favourite confessions: ‘Some of my favourite confessions are o en the ones that start trends. For example, in 2020, a student submitted something like: “is it okay to work for MI5 as a SOAS student?” and it started a huge trend of other students submitting confessions putting their own silly twist on the question.’ Censorship is o en discussed on the page. With their claim

On the page, there are o en calls for no censorship whatsoever. e admins explained why this didn’t work when they tried it: ‘the submissions became more and more hateful, and it ended up being a platform for bullying, which wasn’t our intention. Around this time, people would criticise the SU extensively just to be hurtful. We ended up receiving a warning from the SU and feared they would take it to the board of SOAS. Although it was already in discussion between admins to start monitoring the submissions again, this accelerated the process.’

From the interview, it was clear that the admins were proud of their creation, ‘Hearing people talk about it on campus is surreal.’ ey thanked ‘everyone who has submitted confessions, liked our posts, given us suggestions and interacted with us on our platforms. Even people who have messaged us to take things down or critiqued us, thank you all so much. We love this page and how it allows people to be involved in the community in such a unique way… We hope we can continue to bring you all entertainment as the years go by.’

SOAS Cuban Big Band: Latin Rhythms of Diversity and Joy

Orquesta Estelar, also known as the SOAS Cuban Big Band, is a musical group that specialises in performing a wide range of traditional and modern Cuban music as well as Colombian, Puerto Rican, and other Latin repertoires. e band is directed by the lovely professional Latin musician, Sara McGuinness. She brings her wealth of experience and knowledge to the band, inspiring and motivating the members to continuously improve their skills. We welcome all musicians and singers. We are 35-40 members strong and still growing. We feature members from all walks of life—SOAS and beyond—including students (undergraduate and postgraduate), sta , and members from the wider community. e band has even collaborated with Cuban musicians, including members of the legendary Buena Vista Social Club.

One of the unique features of the SOAS Cuban Big Band is our commitment to maintaining the authenticity of Cuban, Colombian, and Puerto Rican music while also incorporating our in uences and salsa dance moves. Many of the band members come from diverse cultural backgrounds and bring their own musical traditions to the group. We embrace our di erences and celebrate our common love for music, creating a harmonious and joyful atmosphere that we believe radiates from the stage to the audience.

In addition to our performances, the SOAS Cuban Big Band also o ers workshops and masterclasses, where we teach students and other musicians about Cuban music and its rich history. e band has previously worked with schools, community groups, and other groups to teach young people about the rich cultural heritage of Latin American music.

e SOAS Cuban Big Band is a testament to the power of music in bringing people together across cultures and backgrounds. Our joyous, rhythmic performances are a celebration

of the rich and vibrant musical traditions of Cuba and beyond, and a tribute to the talent and dedication of the musicians who make up the band. We believe to o er a unique and authentic experience that hopefully will transport you to the vibrant streets of Havana or the sultry beaches of Puerto Rico. Come join the party and feel the rhythm of the Latin beat!

“We embrace our di erences and celebrate our common love for music, creating a harmonious and joyful atmosphere that we believe radiates from the stage to the audience.”

We rehearse weekly on Tuesday evenings in G52 (Main Building) at 7:15 pm and play regular gigs in the JCR, the Post Bar and beyond. Our next gig is at the Post Bar on Tuesday, 21 March at 7:30 pm, so save the date and come through with your dancing shoes!

Viktor da Silva, BA Music and Social Anthropology

SOAS Cuban Big Band performing at a Post Bar gig in February 2022 (Credit: Ian Shaw).

“It really started as a joke, we spent so long trying to gure out a wordplay with SOAS. We would have never imagined that it would become such an important part of the SOAS student life”

A SOASk Me Out thread that provides a re ection of the page (Credit: SOASk Me Out Facebook page)