The Sundial Press Issue 1 (29.11.2021)

The Future of Universities

Before beginning my undergraduate degree at Sciences Po, I was a law student in Berlin. My classes started in the fall of 2019, the last months in blissful ignorance of the impending pandemic we can only wish we had seen coming sooner. Little did I realize at the time, I was already witnessing a transformation of university life, one that has been forced to exponentially accelerate due to COVID-19’s restrictions. Nearly two years later, as students have returned to their campuses lured by the promising scent of a return to normality, we must remember that time has not stood still. After such a period of dramatic upheaval and strenuous adaptation, university life will never be the same, perhaps for the better and perhaps for the worse. I walked into my first law lecture filled with enthusi-

asm. It was a satisfying compensation for years of hard work in high school, met with the nervous excitement of starting a new chapter of my life. I was shocked by what our law professor had to tell us on our first day. He suggested we watch the online civil law podcast done by the law faculty in Munich instead of attending his very own lectures. This podcast presented the content of the class “better than he could possibly present it.” I spent the following months alone in front of a screen listening to recordings produced a year or two prior by someone I had never seen in person, freely available to the public on the website of a university I was not even enrolled in. I later spoke to a friend whose sister was studying law in Heidelberg. She had also listened to the entire series.

Editor’s Note:

Henri Jackson, Anglophone Editor-in-Chief

Cover Art by Ning Chang

As far as I could tell, every law student in Germany was following this podcast the same way an entire country might binge-watch the same Netflix series. This was the best that the centuries-old tradition of higher education in Germany’s most respected universities had to offer. The digital transformation was changing university life right before our eyes, even before the word corona meant anything more to us than a Mexican beer. In hindsight, I see these developments were merely in their infancy.

I need not outline in great detail the many ways universities and schools were forced to adapt due to the pandemic. Sciences Po invested immense sums in equipping every classroom for hybrid learning with state-of-the-art cameras and screens, not to mention issuing Zoom licenses to every student, shifting to 24-hour exam formats, and at times limiting access to the campus entirely. Although a purely online form of education has proven unsustainable and utterly undesirable for many students and teachers alike, the pandemic has left universities worldwide equipped to embrace new technological opportunities previously unimaginable.

Education can now be mass-produced on an unprecedented scale. Lectures, once secrete and secluded by the educational elite to be enjoyed behind closed doors, can now not only be broadcast live instantly all over the world but also stored for generations to come. This mass-production of learning materials has the potential to massively democratize access to academic experts. Anyone could tune into Harvard’s Nobel Prize-winning economist, or in my case, Germany’s civil law guru from Munich. I am not necessarily talking about the lecture recordings we had to endure last year, where teachers recorded from home with bad sound and poor lighting. I am talking about professionally recorded lectures with interactive elements included that have been highly coordinated with entire faculties and teams of technicians. After the pandemic, most every university has

invested in technology to make this possible. Interactive online university degrees are already becoming increasingly available, take for example the University of Phoenix, a purely online college that claims to help you “earn your degree faster, and for less.” It is now only a matter of time until the world’s leading universities offer their own.

Why would universities do this? If there is one thing we all learned from the pandemic, it is that no one wants more online classes. However, we must remember, even universities are financially driven, and so are students. From their perspective, such an option is very cost-effective: one that can be scaled up with no increasing marginal cost. There is a one-time investment in the production phase of such a course (one that is already been greatly reduced since universities have invested in the technology during the pandemic), and after that universities can use it year after year. They also could admit exponentially more students to their programs, as they do not need to host them on campus. This might also finally solve the student debt crisis, which again has been called into the spotlight during COVID-19, forcing universities to lower their absurd tuition fees or at least offering an affordable alternative for students not quite as well off. It could also facilitate people returning to university later in their lives, something today considered unconventional and quite daring and risky. In a slightly provocative and utopian thought experiment, anyone in the world with a stable internet connection could graduate from Sciences Po for spare change regardless of geographical location, and Sciences Po would make incredible profits. We could educate the world, one video at a time…

Where universities are already free but often underfunded as a result, they could reinvest their budget to include more intimate, hands-on seminars with the money saved. After all, it can be quite nice to learn the large amounts of information presented in lectures at home at your own pace,

(c) Valeriia Shakhvorostova / Dreamstime

rather than struggling to keep up in an overfilled lecture hall. With their spare time, professors could offer more interac tive Q&A sessions, during which students could ask more meditated and challenging questions. How many times has a professor asked you at the end of the lecture, “any questions?” only to be answered by the sound of crickets?

However, digitalization is not all a bed of roses but could have serious implications for the world of academia. Education and knowledge are already becoming increas ingly commodified and subject to the rules of a capital ist market, in which there are winners and losers. Every one will want to attend the best universities with the best professors who stand out in the digital format. Students will herd around the courses with the best advertisement campaigns and gravitate towards the leaders of the mar ket. In the end, knowledge could become incredibly cen tralized. Everyone will learn from the same professors, take the same classes, and stand-point diversity and ac ademic confrontation could become increasingly scarce. Not only does this imply the incredible danger that those who dominate this new market for knowledge could im pose their ideologies and perspectives, but is it not diver sity of opinion and academic debate that brings the human race forward? This centralization of knowledge may take place across a geographical dimension, but also a temporal one. Could the availability of reusable video lectures keep us locked in the past, disincentivizing our education to evolve as the world changes around us, as new questions arise that desperately need answers? This is especially true in medicine where new techniques and theories are being discovered annually.

Additionally, the very profession of the academic could be at risk. While the Nobel Prize winners could reach a wider audience and spread their knowledge to the greater public, scientists of all fields are often reliant on part-time teaching to finance their research. As these jobs get replaced in this digital education revolution, the positive externalities of their work as teachers get lost. The world’s greatest thinkers might be out of a job, forcing their research to a screeching halt, and new generations might have less incentive to pursue such academic careers. Even Nobel Prize winners were once teachers as doctoral students. This shift in the labor market for academics also has implications for the students. Even if access to education could be democratized, new forms of inequality could emerge. Increased access merely fuels the phenomenon known as “degree inflation”, which can have an ad-

verse impact on workers and employers alike and slow the economy. Additionally, as in-person classes become more scarce and in higher demand, there could be increased dicted that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system” and that “in a few years it will

though progress has been more steady, we must always ments of tomorrow before it is too late. After all, I think we can all agree that university is more than a place we attend lectures. It is our first experience away from home, our turity and responsibility. It is a place of social interaction that fosters intellectual curiosity, innovation, and diversity.

topian vision for the future of universities, it perhaps also reawakened our sense of what education is truly about. In

The Sundial Press Website

Seasonal Love

Elektra Papathanasiou-Goldstein, Creative Writing

Life on the back of a motorycle in August doesn’t get much better, doesn’t get easier, or freer, or more blissful than this. This blip in time is circled on an invisible calendar, reserved for simplicity and happy little adventures in the small village by the sea. It’s reserved for lying on your chest, releasing dancing smoke through parted lips, and watching it pirouette elegantly around the atoms in the air. Bonfires that make eyes glow, rays of sunlight that bounce off waves, and heat that blurs the air right above the burning sand. Reserved for nights where you hop through the fishermens’ boats anchored near the shore, screaming as one of your friends pushes you off the edge, or gliding in a dive so smooth that you barely disturb the peace of the sea. Maybe one night you’ll have the guts to climb on one of the yachts and jump from there, but you probably never will.

Although there’s no speaker, jazz rap floats out of a cracked silver Android phone, drifting into the silence of the beach and mixing with the soft sound of cicadas and calm waves. A clipper lighter flicks, you can see each others’ faces in the dark. The stars are so beautiful and infinite, only millimeters between them and sparkling so many light years away. He holds your hand and traces the Big Dipper with your finger, and the constellations seem to connect and fit together. You look at stars that may not even be alive anymore - shooting stars that leap in the black sky. Photons and supernovas and black holes and the lightyears between them remind you that nothing really matters. We’re just another one of those, made from stars and endlessly orbiting a star, stuck in a loop that lasts forever, trying to make sense of why the planets will perpetually spin around the sun, never letting her go and clinging on in an orbit that circles and circles. We gaze into night skies, into the past, into stars that are so far yet so close.

You stare at the sunset together sometimes, watching clouds turn pink, the ocean swallowing the sun, and then night falls, until the sun emerges from the waves and paints the sky blue again. Swimming at 5am, the water is still untouched by kids in floaties splashing around, volleyballs skidding off the surface, swimmers heading towards the horizon alone, or flat gray stones skipping one, two, three, more times, if you’re lucky. Ripples trailing behind them until the journey stops and they sink back to the bottom where another million similar stones sit in underwater peace. An early morning ocean so flat, so clear and almost motionless that you’re almost scared to ruin its perfection, but you’re not that scared so you just let the water hold you as you lie on your back with eyes closed, feeling like this is the one moment in the universe that is truly yours, the moment that everything is where, how, and when its supposed to be.

There's a row of rocks that lead to a little abandoned lighthouse, just a bit shorter than a tree. Rusty, but

you hold hands to balance and climb up the stairs to where the wind makes it impossible to light the Marlboro reds and could blow you away if it weren’t for the one thin rail on the circumference of this little deck. It’s nice to live nocturnally sometimes, wake up at 5pm and fall asleep at 5am on a sunbed, wake up burned some days, but the water is a cool remedy against it. It’s nice to see the lifecycle of the sun and the town that buzzes at night with bars and restaurants and arcades and teenagers using the steps of the dock like couches at a party. Watching people slowly drift off back home, shops being locked, and lights turning off, the last sounds of bike wheels and laughter fading in the direction of someone’s house or hotel -- while you both stay on the beach and ‘kill time’ until the town wakes up again.

Of course, this isn’t labeled long term “love”- but it’s not one forgettable night either that doesn’t feel great in your chest the morning after with the hangover pounding in your head. It doesn’t have to be either one of those, it’s just what it wants to be - a few weeks, to lie on a mattress without a bed frame while the molten gold of the late afternoon light makes the room glow, illuminates flushed cheeks and smiles with half-closed eyes. Basking in golden hours, absorbing the light like a plant finally moved from the shade. No, this isn’t anything really, just a way to make sure we squeeze every last droplet of spontaneity and liberty from our youth, to exist in a dream-like state of sun, salt, each other, water, and sand -- sit under contorted olive trees lined up in rows and eucalyptus trees that tower so far above, whose scented leaves brush the edge of the heavens. Again, just a blip in time of lives that happened to intersect in a little village town. Two threads of life that crossed, and tangled, and weaved together over the course of a few weeks. But threads of life keep unraveling, only sometimes does it feel like two of them knot together and cling to each other without letting go for a while, stuck in a fragile moment in time. Two weeks out of who knows how many decades.

When the plane takes off the feeling might last a little longer, probably because your body is flying through the sky. Looking outside the window you see the details of every little light like fireflies on the surface of the city. You wonder who else sitting on the plane is holding on to the beautiful village you saw just minutes before arriving at the airport, trying to use their mind’s eye to picture it as vividly as possible and replaying the visions over and over again so they don’t slip through your fingers, soar away like the plane that is getting closer and closer to the runway of a different airport.

You’ll go back to a place without the olive leaves and turquoise sea and sun gleams - a city of skyscraper trees with concrete trunks and glass leaves. A sky gray like the stones that gleefully skipped on the water and left ripples that disappeared from one moment to the next. And when the leaves back in the now-empty village fall off the olive trees, leaving skeletal curving trunks above them, the sun stops being able to burn skin, and the first snowflake lands gently on the sand - it’s just another August memory, tucked in between turquoise waves and resting in the spot where the ocean kisses the sand, over and over again.

Canal, Culture and Travel

Nous sommes nombreux à nous être rendus dans les salles obscures pour voir l’adaptation de Dune par Denis Villeneuve. Le film a fait 2 964 911 entrées en France au cours de ses 8 premières semaines d’exploitation. Vous avez probablement eu le temps de digérer l’œuvre et de vous en faire un avis. Pour ma part, le bilan était mitigé: si les effets spéciaux étaient magnifiques, la colorimétrie surprenante, la bande-originale enivrante, et la musculature de Timothée très appréciable, le récit était beaucoup trop long, et puis le dialogue entre Duc et Paul sur la falaise ressemblait étrangement à celui entre Mufasa et Simba dans le roi Lion, non? À vrai dire, j’avais une autre adaptation de Dune en tête, que je ne pouvais pas m’empêcher de comparer à celle de Villeneuve. Non, il ne s’agit pas de celle de David Lynch, sortie en 1984. Celle qui trottait dans ma tête est la version qu’Alejandro Jodorowsky n’a jamais réalisée…

Retour en Novembre 2020, tandis que j’étais confinée dans mon 15m² rémois et que je cherchais une bande-annonce de Dune sur Youtube à deux heures du matin (y’avait pas grand chose d’autre à faire pour cisailler l’ennui) j’ai découvert par hasard, au détour d’un clic, un documentaire au titre intrigant: Dune: La Versión de Jodorowsky - Documental (Subtitulado). Curieuse, je clique et reste captivée par ce documentaire d’une heure et demie qui retrace la trajectoire d’un ovni cinématographique, de son envol à son crash, en alternant témoignages, extraits de story-board animés et images

d’archives.

Comment Alexandro Jodorowsky, cet artiste contemporain connu pour ses films expérimentaux à la limite du dérangeant, fut-il à deux doigts de réaliser un film de science-fiction regroupant Salvador Dali, les Pink Floyd, Orson Welles et Mike Jagger ?

Alejandro Jodorowsky, un artiste à mi-chemin entre la démence et le génie.

Né au Chili en 1929, il émigre durant sa jeunesse à Paris, où il exerce les professions de mime puis de metteur en scène de pièces de théâtre absurdes. En 1965, il part au Mexique et réalise son premier film expérimental: Fando & Lis. Scarification, ingurgitation de nombreux objets non comestibles, je ne vous fais pas de dessin, le film est si provoquant qu’il fut immédiatement censuré au Mexique. En 1970 il réalise El Topo, un Western révolutionnaire exporté aux USA qui devient un film de minuit culte. Le producteur français Michel Seydoux est séduit par l’originalité de la réalisation, et planifie une rencontre avec Jodorowsky. Les deux hommes s’entendent bien et décident de collaborer pour le prochain film du réalisateur, La montagne sacrée, réalisé en 1973, qui contre toute attente rencontre un franc succès. Cette réussite offre à Jodorowsky une crédibilité artistique manifeste et un an plus tard, Michel Seydoux lui donne carte blanche pour réaliser son prochain film. Pour Jodorowsky, pas de doute, ce sera une adaptation de Dune.

Dune par Jodorowsky: le film le plus incroyable de que vous n’ayez jamais vu

Valentine

La genèse du projet

Selon ses propres aveux, il n’avait pas lu le roman de Frank Herbert, publié en 1965. Un ami lui avait parlé de cette épopée spatiale, centrée autour de la sacro-sainte épice gériatrique, à la fois drogue et carburant pour les habitants de la planète Arrakis. Cependant, loin d’en faire une série Z de Science-Fiction ou un récit géopolitique, il décide d’en faire une œuvre extravagante et spirituelle. “Je voulais faire un film qui aurait donné aux gens qui prenaient du LSD à l’époque les mêmes hallucinations que donnaient la drogue, sans en prendre”.

Design des vaisseaux spatiaux, effets spéciaux novateurs, acteurs aussi talentueux que charismatiques, bande-originale au service de la narration; rien ne sera laissé au hasard. Ses idées sont visionnaires: trois ans avant Star Wars, il aspirait déjà à mettre en scène des combats intergalactiques sur une planète couverte de sable à la Tatooine. Pour s’octroyer un maximum de liberté dans sa démarche artistique, Jodorowsky refuse que l’auteur du roman prenne part à l’adaptation. Son objectif est clair: “Pour moi, il ne s’agissait pas seulement de faire un film, je voulais créer un prophète, quelque chose de libre.” Pour ce faire, il constitue le casting parfait, une armée de “guerriers spirituels”.

Un Casting 50 étoiles

Pour élaborer le storyboard, il s’associe au dessinateur français Jean Giraud alias Moebius, connu pour ses bandes dessinées de science-fiction. Ils constituent ensemble un recueil impressionnant de plus de 3 000 illustrations : costumes, mouvements de caméras, chaque idée de Jodorowsky est couchée sur papier par le dessinateur, avec un crayon en guise de caméra.

Pour réaliser les effets spéciaux de son film, Jodorowsky s’offre le luxe d’écarter le talentueux Douglas Trumbull, directeur des effets spéciaux de 2001 Odyssée de L’espace, trop vaniteux à ses yeux. Le réalisateur ne veut pas des techniciens mais des disciples virtuoses. Il poursuit donc ses recherches. En avril 1974, alors qu’il se rend au cinéma pour voir Dark Star de John Carpenter, il tombe sous le charme des effets spéciaux réalisés par Dan O’Bannon. C’est décidé, il est l’homme de la situation. Il fait aussi appel au dessinateur allemand Giger pour illustrer les décors des fremens et compléter son équipe technique.

Quant aux acteurs, Jodorowsky obtient la participation des artistes les plus charismatiques du XXème siècle: Salvador Dalí, qui devait jouer l’empereur Shaddam IV (à condition d’être payé 100 000$ la minute de tournage !), Orson Welles dans le rôle du baron Harkonnen, Mick Jagger ou encore Amanda Lear. Pour le rôle de Paul Atreides, oubliez Timothée Chalamet, l’élu devait être joué par le propre fils du réalisateur, Brontis, alors âgé de 12 ans. Ce dernier avait notamment dû endurer un entraînement aux arts martiaux de six heures quotidiennes pendant deux ans afin qu’il puisse jouer lui-même les cascades du film. Enfin, le moteur sur le vaisseau, (il n’y a pas de cerises ni de gâteau dans l’espace), la bande originale devait être

composée par les Pink Floyd, qui venaient de sortir leur album iconique The Dark Side of the Moon et le groupe de rock français Magma.

Une œuvre trop avant-gardiste ?

L’équipe aura travaillé d’arrache pied pendant plus de trois ans sur le film, avec un budget initial de dix millions de dollars alloué par le producteur Michel Seydoux. En 1977 cependant, alors qu’il manque près de cinq millions de dollars pour finaliser le projet, l’équipe en quête de financement envoie à tous les studios hollywoodiens un pavé décrivant précisément les ambitions du film, le scénario, les méthodes de production etc. Cependant, tous refusent, craignant la démesure de Jodorowsky et effrayés lorsque celui-ci évoque un film d’une durée finale de douze heures.

D’un jour à l’autre, le projet tombe à l’eau. Dune de Jodorowsky ne sera pas. L’abandon du projet marque profondément Jodorowsky, amer d’avoir été ainsi écarté par les producteurs de Hollywood pour son extravagance artistique.Car son projet a attiré leur attention, notamment celle de la productrice Raffaella de Laurentiis, qui décide de confier l’adaptation de Dune à David Lynch, moins imprévisible que Jodorowsky. Ce dernier confessera sa joie suite au visionnage de sa version de Dune, tant elle représente à ses yeux un échec, avouant “petit à petit, je souriais en m’apercevant que le film était horrible ! C’est un comportement humain après tout.”

Concept d’affiche du film Dune d’Alejandro Jodorowsky, réalisée par Matt Chinn

Que retenir de cette histoire ?

L’influence du Dune avorté de Jodorowsky est manifeste et latente dans l’histoire du cinéma de science-fiction. De Star Wars à Prométhéus en passant par Star Trek et Flash Gordon, de nombreux films se sont inspirés de mises en scène imaginées par l’équipe de réalisation. C’est aussi grâce à ce projet que Giger, Moebius et O’Brian entrent en relation, et établissent une collaboration qui donnera plus tard naissance au film culte Alien. De son côté, Jodorowsky se reconvertit dans le milieu de la bande-dessinée, et réalise notamment l’œuvre légendaire L’Incal, toujours en collaboration avec Moebius. Cette dernière va d’ailleurs être prochainement adaptée au cinéma par Taika Waititi.

Georges Lucas aurait-il réalisé Star Wars si le Dune de Jodorowsky était sorti seulement trois ans auparavant?

La team des guerriers spirituels aurait-elle travaillé main dans la main sur Alien ? La B-O des Pink Floyd aurait-elle été culte ? Dali aurait-il bien joué ? Timothée nous aurait-il un jour dévoilé ses pecs en incarnant le rôle de Paul à l’écran ?

Finalement, ces questions sans réponses, à l’origine de débats sans fin, entretiennent la légende du Dune de Jodorowsky, dont la spiritualité réside peut-être dans la fascination que les gens entretiennent encore de nos jours autour de cette œuvre qui n’existe pas. Si vous voulez plus de détails sur cette folle histoire, je vous recommande de visionner le documentaire Jodorowsky’s Dune, disponible gratuitement sur Youtube (en français, espagnol et anglais à la fois, donc recommandé pour les trilingues !) ou de l’acheter légalement en VOD.

Privacy in Crisis: The Consequences of Ignoring the Pegasus Project

Trinabh Banerjee, Foreign Affairs

The past two years of the global pandemic have revealed the true extent of our reliance on technology. And yet, it is difficult to conceptualize how vulnerable our online activities make us. Our data is the petrol that fuels the profits of the companies whose services we use, and our privacy is just another commodity to be bought and sold.

Despite making an initial splash in July 2021, the scandalous revelations of the ‘Pegasus Project’ have all but dissipated from public discourse. Notably, the Israeli NSO Group initially marketed its Pegasus spyware tool as an investigative weapon for human-rights abiding governments in narrow criminal and counter-terrorism efforts. However, the ‘Pegasus Project’ uncovered how the technology we relied on had been used to spy on journalists, political opposition figures, presidents, and prime ministers. It shines a light on the fragility of our right to privacy.

But only weeks after the abuses of the ‘Pegasus’ spyware tool were revealed, public attention turned elsewhere. By the end of July, headlines had shifted away from these historic allegations towards the Olympics, COVID-19, and more timely issues. The media did not press the NSO Group, the creator of the spyware, effective-

ly leaving the company without any significant blowback.

Although the company was left relatively unscathed, it was senior political figures, from the President of France, to opposition MPs in Hungary, who found themselves in the crosshairs, with their phones potentially hacked and monitored for political purposes. This is not a Westworld-esque episode of technology off the rails: it’s real life. If the privacy of presidents and prime ministers, on whom the powers of government rest, can’t be protected, then neither can the privacy of the citizens they represent. The stakes are almost impossible to overstate. Naturally, with a scandal of such scale there has been some political fallout. Faced with allegations in the media, Morocco was forced to deny that it was using Pegasus to spy on the French President. The Supreme Court of India also authorized an independent investigation into the use of the spyware to snoop on political opponents of the ruling BJP party in the country.

But despite this exposé on the threats to privacy, there has not been a renewed global push to regulate surveillance, nor one to strengthen privacy rights. Authoritarian governments that were exposed in this scandal, as well

as governments trending in that direction, have had nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Popular sentiment has simply not formed against these gross violations of privacy.

Arguably, this deficit in public outrage stems from the lack of immediate real-world consequences. Digital globalization implies that the sheer number of devices and services that exist will collect data on everything we have done and everything we will do. This makes it incredibly easy for intelligence agencies, or private actors with sufficient resources, to spy on us. The information they want is stored in databases and in servers, and is obtainable with the right tools. Hidden in the shadows, it is this ease of access that allows privacy violations, like a caustic acid, to slowly but surely eat away at the foundations of a strong democracy.

Our phones and the apps on them are the gateways to our lives. If cyber weapons can be used against the leaders of our countries; it is a short step to making a mockery of the privacy of every other citizen. Digital globalization inherently means the possibility that every text, call, and photo can be monitored, with Pegasus just one tool to make that easier. This is why the sacrosanctity of privacy must be ensured.

In light of the abuse of Pegasus, a few calls to create a global framework for regulating such weapons have been made. Strengthening privacy rights would make clear that governments cannot simply benefit from the products of companies that act in an anti-democratic manner. It would disabuse authoritarian states of the notion that their actions can go unpunished. States must

take an active role in protecting privacy, not just because power in a democratic society demands righteousness, but also because democratic principles depend on it.

Well-written, specific regulations could go a long way to ensuring that privacy is reinforced for years to come. Governments have clearly shown that they are willing to hold themselves and companies accountable: the G20’s recent agreement on a minimum global tax rate for companies is evidence of this. However, no global agreement on privacy regulations or regulations of spyware appears to be in the works.

The right to privacy is fundamental. As a democratic right, it underpins freedom of expression and the ability to live freely. The concept of democracy has evolved as technology has. But more than ever, it appears that a radical evolution of democratic principles is necessary, including one on the right to privacy in the age of massive privacy violations.

Every unwarranted violation of privacy, however small, chips away at the pillars of democracy. Before long, the consequences of these small cracks may become too large to rectify. The fallout from ignoring the ‘Pegasus Project’ will only grow, leaving our societies increasingly vulnerable.

Privacy has the power to shape global affairs, as the ‘Pegasus Project’ so clearly demonstrates. How we decide to protect our right to privacy, and our democracies at large, will determine the strength of our global society for generations to come.

Italian Senate Crushes Anti-Homophobic Law: What Does This Mean for Italy and its Future?

Elena Muglia, Foreign Affairs

Silence in the Italian senate after six hours of debate was broken by senators zealously clapping after burying DDL Zan, painting a grim picture of modern-day Italy. This picture, however shocking, is anything but new. The failure to pass this piece of legislation simply scraped off a coat of paint, exposing an increasingly conservative and regressive Italian political sphere.

The Legislation

The DDL Zan is a piece of legislation aimed at making discrimination against the LGBTQIAP+ community, disabled people, and acts of misogyny a crime. It is important to note that political debates have mostly focused on the clause addressing the queer community, but the political implications extend to communities facing ableism and sexism. On October 27th, 154 Senators voted to veto the legislation against the 131 who voted ‘no’.

The Disegno di Legge (DDL), which was introduced by Democratic party member Alessandro Zan, attempts to amend the 1993 Mancino law against discrim-

ination on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity. The DDL Zan would add provisions against homotransphobia, making it punishable by up to four years of imprisonment or community service. The law was originally passed in November of 2020 by the lower chamber of parliament, after persistent opposition by the main far-right parties la Lega and Fratelli D’Italia.

The Italian Catholic Church

The most significant dissident that consistently objected to the law since its inception was the Italian Catholic Church, which holds a vast amount of power over Italian society and politics. The involvement of the Church was conspicuous and unprecedented in modern times. In June, Pope Francis demanded the government revise the law out of fear that it would restrict freedom of speech, as the law aims to criminalize homophobic language.

The Church’s unusual intervention provoked Prime Minister Mario Draghi to reprimand the Vatican, saying that ‘Italy is a secular state.’ This self-evident

statement served to remind the Pope of the independence of parliament from the Church and its liberty to discuss and legislate. Draghi also emphasized that ‘secularism’ does not signify indifference towards respecting religion but rather ‘the preservation of pluralism and cultural differences’, indirectly addressing the DDL Zan’s attempt to safeguard the rights of various communities. This intervention did not impede the discussion of the law in parliament. Nonetheless, it confirmed the cultural and religious friction that has stalled Italy in its uphill road towards universal civil rights. The Vatican’s interference also legitimised popular views that the law infringes on freedom of speech.

The Church’s involvement in the DDL Zan epitomizes the intensified collusion between religion and politics due to the rising popularity of far-right parties. Prominent leaders such as Matteo Salvini, the Federal Secretary of the far-right party La Lega and former Prime Minister, have displayed the cross and rosaries at political gatherings. Considering that 83.3% of Italians identify as Catholic, this reference to religion is an effective strategy to gain popular support. In fact, an estimated 40% of the most devout Catholics oppose the law.

Youth Activism and the DDL Zan

Despite major opposition on the political front, over 60% of Italians are in favour of the legislation, with the youth constituting the majority of supporters. The youth has led the protest movement around the DDL Zan: first demanding the parliament adopt the law and then rebuking the Senate’s burying of the law.

The sentiment behind the youth’s protest movement is encapsulated in queer youth activist Sofia Bandini’s disclosure that “this law would have made [her] feel safer.” She argues that the DDL Zan would have “made [her] feel like a citizen, equal to the rest, who deserves the same

amount of protection from the government.” Instead, with its failure to pass the law, the state has left the community legally defenseless and has turned a blind eye to homophobia. Rete Studenti, a union made up of Italian highschool students, has thus ardently campaigned for the passage of the law through protests, assemblies, and photomobs. Camilla Velotta, the coordinator of the Rete Studenti, has furthermore expressed that ‘the burying of the law symbolises another missed opportunity for Italy to disprove the common narrative of its slow progress in terms of civil and political rights.’

Italy made same-sex unions—not same-sex marriage— legal in 2016, but lags behind other European countries in equity without any anti-homophobia measures. In this way, youth activists protested the burying of the DDL Zan as they argue it represents the Italian government’s failure to seize an opportunity to ensure civil rights and raise Italy's political standing. Importantly, activists emphasize that the passing of the DDL Zan would not have truly addressed the infringement of rights suffered by the queer community. At its core, a change in mindset througout Italy is necessary to combat this hatred and discrimination.

This change in attitudes and mentality can be achieved, as argued by Rete Studenti, through education. Italian high-schools have a conservative approach to education which often fails to address crucial modern-day issues. Velotta conveyed the need for an ‘education on sexuality and affection which is secular and inclusive, and which goes beyond being strictly heteronormative.’ As evidenced by the widespread conservative political opposition against the DDL Zan, Italy’s youth will need to spearhead these changes. The progress of the country is in their hands.

Claudio Furlan/LaPresse .

Concept d’affiche du film Dune d’Alejandro Jodorowsky, réalisée par Matt Chinn

Vers une nouvelle guerre froide

Joséphine Vial, Opinion

“Guerre froide”, “Guerre économique”, “Guerre commerciale” : pléthore de termes qui caractérisent les récentes relations sino-américaines. Élu président, Donald Trump lança une guerre commerciale et technologique afin de contenir la montée de la Chine. “Les guerres commerciales sont bonnes et faciles à gagner” disait-il. Son calcul était le suivant : la Chine a exporté pour 558 milliards de dollars de biens vers les Etats-Unis en 2018 alors que les Etats-Unis n’ont exporté 178 milliards de dollars de biens en direction des consommateurs chinois. La balance commerciale étant donc déficitaire de 380 milliards, il s’est donné comme mission de rétablir cet équilibre. Alors que les relations sino-américaines se sont nettement dégradées, un bilan s’impose: les Etats-Unis sont sur le point de perdre face à la Chine. Quant à son successeur Joe Biden, la rencontre entre le nouveau secrétaire d’État américain Antony Blinken et son homologue chinois, Wang Wi n’a pas désamorcé les tensions. Vers une nouvelle guerre froide entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis ? Rappelons que la Chine est le premier partenaire commercial des États-Unis. Depuis la fin de la guerre froide, leur relation est particulièrement houleuse : la Chine voit les États-Unis comme un rival qu’elle veut supplanter mais aussi comme un partenaire indispensable pour développer notamment ses nouvelles technologies. Économiquement, les deux superpuissances représentent les deux premiers PIB de la planète, par conséquent ils sont interdépendants.

En cause de cette nouvelle guerre commerciale, la suprématie économique, scientifique et technologique. La relation paraît déséquilibrée au profit de la Chine puisque cette dernière exporte quatre fois plus vers les États-Unis qu’elle n’importe de son rival, un phénomène qui s’est accentué avec la pandémie de la Covid-19 provoquant la mise à l’arrêt de la machine économique américaine.

Par ailleurs, les investisseurs chinois sont les premiers créanciers de l’économie américaine. Mais l’Empire du milieu, aussi endetté, a naturellement besoin de son adversaire. Ce sont les exportations vers les États-Unis, de technologie, de textiles, qui font tourner la machine économique chinoise et donc nourrissent les habitants.

Les hostilités ont été lancées avec une hausse des taxes par les deux protagonistes dès le début du mandat de Donald Trump. En effet, Trump a voulu taxer les produits importés de l’atelier du monde pour enrayer son déclin industriel. Depuis mars 2018, on peut noter une surenchère de taxes (annonce de la mise en place de droits de douane par Washington, réplique de Pékin, promesse de représailles). En mai 2019, 200 milliards de produits chinois sont taxés à hauteur de 25 % (acier, cuir, caoutchouc, électroménager, TV, ameublement, tissus). Alors que les taxes se multiplient, cette guerre commerciale révèle l’in-

capacité de l’OMC à réguler le commerce international. Ainsi, Donald Trump ayant conscience de la dépendance des États-Unis aux importations chinoises a souhaité relancer l’industrie américaine.

Les conséquences de ce conflit apparaissent déjà : d’une part, Washington a beaucoup à perdre, comme trois fois plus de marchandises font le trajet de la Chine vers les États-Unis que des États-Unis vers la Chine. Cependant, cette dernière n’a que peu de leviers en termes de taxes et droits de douane. Elle peut surtout activer le levier de la dette américaine qu’elle pourrait vendre massivement (elle en détient près de 1000 milliards) ce qui fragiliserait l’économie américaine. Effectivement, l’Empire du milieu représente 17% de la dette souveraine américaine détenue par les investisseurs étrangers.

Ainsi, les consommateurs américains subissent donc les premières répercussions de cette guerre commerciale. Dans les grandes surfaces, tout est ‘Made in China’ engendrant une élévation des prix. C’est donc l’américain modeste qui subit directement cette escalade commerciale. Ironie du sort : c’est l’électorat de D. Trump qu’il avait promis de rendre plus riche. Ensuite, cette guerre commerciale entraîne une diminution des échanges et donc un ralentissement de l’économie mondiale, touchant particulièrement le Vieux Continent.

Les négociations sont bloquées sous l’administration de Trump. Les taxes américaines impactent aussi la Chine (l’industrie de l’exportation a reculé de 2,7%). Cette tendance est encore plus lourde en direction de Washington qui frappe surtout l’industrie des composants électroniques.

Aucun des deux protagonistes ne peut se permettre de quitter la table des négociations. C’est pourquoi, en janvier 2020, les Chinois s’engagent lors par un accord bilatéral à réduire leur excédent commercial en augmentant les achats de produits américains de 100 milliards de dollars sur deux ans. De plus, les États-Unis ont renoncé à augmenter encore les taxes sur les produits chinois importés et force est donc de constater qu’ils ont mis sous le tapis les vrais problèmes de cette guerre.

Le ton de la rhétorique sous D. Trump était beaucoup plus cru, mais la stratégie reste la même (les tarifs douaniers sont maintenus; les mesures contre Huawei, ZTE sont renforcées). La guerre va même s’étendre sur le terrain des droits de l’Homme et de la démocratie, terrain favori du parti démocrate (persécution des minorités musulmanes au Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taïwan etc.). Le principal contraste entre Biden et son prédécesseur réside sûrement dans sa volonté de protéger les droits de l’homme.

entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis ?

Concernant le terrain diplomatique incarné par Blinken, l’émissaire de Biden, il y a un renforcement des alliances et partenariats entre les USA et les pays de l’Indo-Pacifique. Washington soutient vivement l’Australie : il n’y aura pas d’avancées économiques sur la relation bilatérale avec la Chine tant qu’il n’y aura pas une levée des sanctions chinoises sur l’Australie. Ainsi, Blinken tente de rattacher la relation économique avec la Chine avec d’autres acteurs alliés aux Etats-Unis. Les tensions s’exacerbent d’autant plus que la Chine est le seul pays en compétition dans tous les domaines à la fois, diplomatique, militaire, économique et technologique.

Le premier sommet du Quad indopacifique (alliance créée en 2007 afin de contrebalancer la puissance chinoise) fut aussi un symbole fort de la volonté de la nou-

velle administration de relever avec les alliés régionaux les défis posés par la Chine. Ils considèrent que le néolibéralisme, qui a accéléré la montée en puissance de la Chine sur la scène internationale et a nui aux emplois industriels des classes moyennes américaines, s’avère être une menace.

Contrairement à son prédécesseur, Biden souhaite promouvoir le multilatéralisme et renforcer la position américaine dans la politique industrielle et technologique. Il réinvestit les organisations internationales, où le vide créé par Trump a été comblé par la Chine. La véritable rupture avec l’administration précédente réside sûrement dans la sortie de l’unilatéralisme, pour proposer une alternative économique, technologique et stratégique à l’expansionnisme chinois.

COP26 Q&A

Clara Zibell, Creative Writing

The climate summit was part of Boris Johnson’s agenda to place Britain on the map as a pioneer in climate change. Although you might have read all the possible articles on the Glasgow conference and think you might know everything there is to know, we wanted to give you the opportunity to ask him your most pressing questions. We’ve compiled a list of your most Frequently Asked Questions for you to read:

Q: In the few weeks since the COP26’s end in Glasgow, many students, scientists, and citizens feel that the conference was overall “disappointing,” and did not live up to expectations. What can you say about this?

A: I would disagree actually, I think we made great progress! We made very good progress on trees, and we also spoke of coal, cars, and cash. I am cautiously optimistic that we might actually reach our targets for 2030.

Q: What do you mean by cautiously optimistic?

A: I just mean that there might eventually, potentially be hope for future generations.

Q: And what about current generations?

A: They’ll live too.

Q: What measurable goals have you set for 2030 and how do you plan to achieve this?

A: We want to remain under the goal of 1.5C warming by then. This means rapid, deep and sustained emission reductions. We'll look back at COP26 as the moment humanity finally got real about climate change.

Q: How do you plan to go about to take this rapid, deep and sustained emissions reductions?

A: We are reviewing the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Q: How are you reviewing these goals?

A: Every year we will hold a very high profile meeting to discuss the targets and see what we can do with them.

Q: So your plan of action is to keep talking?

A: Yes. But we’ve also got the data, the science, and the funds to back up what we talk about. The most important thing is transparency.

Q: What other successes are worth noting?

Q: Why are you waiting so long?

A: Hopefully this will give us enough time to build up heaps of supply for the future! We need to plan ahead for our green recovery.

Q: How can the United Kingdom pave the way for other countries?

A: We want to create a Global Britain and Make Britain Great Again. We will create jobs in the clean energy sector and stimulate growth in the economy.

Q: Is that why you gave the greenlight for the opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria or the Cambo oil field in the North Sea earlier this month?

A: We are thinking in the long run. This will allow us to create jobs to make cleaner steel, needed for infrastructure for clean technologies. We need to put Britain first. This is also part of the green recovery.

Q: Can you give an example you are proud of where countries successfully collaborated on an issue?

A: When drafting the Glasgow Climate Pact, India successfully managed to fight for a “phasing down” of coal, rather than a radical “phasing out”. This lets us open our new Cumbria coal mine next year!

Q: Of all the 40,000 total delegates at the conference, which country had the largest number of representatives?

A: The oil and gas industry…

Q: How can you sleep at night knowing all this?

A: I actually have no trouble sleeping at all! I usually make myself a relaxing infusion to wind down, then watch the next Downton Abbey episode on the telly as I eat from my family sized Quality Street sweets box. Usually within five minutes I am snoring like

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a freight train! It works splendidly, really.

Q: You posted a Twitter saying that “COP26 is the moment humanity finally got real about climate change.” What makes you say this time people were ‘actually real’ about climate change?

A: To use a football analogy, in a game of climate change against humanity, I think the score would be 5-1 !

Q: 5-1 for humanity or for climate change?

A: The importance is that both sides scored at least one point.

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