Lighthouse TT 17

1

Sponsored by:

2

Unity in Language

Speaking as One O. Sherry ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 7 Discussing a Little Red Dot S. Gupta ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 10 Suheir Hammad E. Casale ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 13 Power to Unite, Power to Alienate M. Munro Kerr ... ... pg 16

Unity in Diversity

Empowerment Through Unity A. Halsall ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 20 Unity in Faith, Faith in Unity R. Roi ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 24 The Shadow of the Iron Curtain N. Rebow ... ... ... ... ... pg 28 Shattered Unity C. Boegl ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 32

Unity in Conflict

United by Great Unity S. Bot ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 35 The Changing Face of Hamas T. Wells ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 39

Unity in Dissent

The Unifying Force of Protest A. Eardley ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 44 With the River Flows Peace? S. Novak ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 48 Sacred Cows S. Ahuja ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pg 51 3

A Note From the Editors...

Welcome back to The Lighthouse with our latest edition for Trinity 2017.

We write to you on the eve of the General Election here in Britain. As we look forward and back at the events that have forever reshaped the dimensions of domestic and international realpolitik throughout the Western world, we come to pause and ask ourselves what Unity means. Has Brexit marked an end to the idea of European unification? Does an increasingly ambitious China mean we’re on the brink of another divided, bipolar world? In a world globalizing ever more rapidly, do we resist or accept attempts to break down boundaries and traditional ideas of nationhood?

It is an unsurprising paradox that when we look back in history at times of great division, we find simultaneously moments of great unity. When German families risked their lives by hiding Jews in their homes, that was Unity. When women in rural India responded to mass rape by forming an activist group (Gulabi Gang) that storms rapists’ houses, that was Unity. And when individuals queued for hours to donate blood after the Manchester terror attack last week, that too was Unity.

Today may very well be remembered in the history books as a time of great division. If not because of the threat of European disunification, or the continuing enslavement of millions of people, then because of our impending failure to tackle climate change. Just as Americans walking into Nazi concentration camps to liberate the Jews exclaimed “oh no, it can’t be”, shocked at the failure of the US to stop the Holocaust, so too may future generations hold us responsible for failing to defend our values. As Michelle Obama has said: “there are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made”.

In this term’s publication, our wonderful Lighthouse contributors have explored their individual interpretations of Unity through poetry, art, and above all, writing. Divided under the four subcategories of Language, Diversity, Conflict, and Dissent, we challenged our writers to think of Unity as it manifests through a variety of lens.

Amongst other subjects, they discuss the failure of language policy to unite heterogeneous populations, the possibility for environmental collaboration to expedite the Israel-Palestine peace process, the implications of the Cold War for European attitudes towards refugees, and the potential for protest to form intersectional coalitions within minority groups.

We hope this edition of Lighthouse might help you contemplate Unity through a different lens, and that you enjoy reading this edition of the journal as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

- Meera and Michael 4

Meet the Team!

Editors Michael Shao & Meera Sachdeva

Editor-in-Chief Katherine Pye

Graphic Design Robert Harrison

Photography Peter Hudston

Sub-Editors:

Sarah Novak

Tom Wells

Ross Roi

5

Margo Munro Kerr

6

SPEAKING AS ONE:

THE INEVITABILITY OF LANGUAGE POLICY HURDLES

Oskar Sherry

notations of unifying a large majority of the population. Those implementing such measures see a removal of linguistic autonomy as a fair price for the breaking down of what is arguably the largest barrier to a single cohesive labour market.

What governments such as Cameroon fail to accept is that where linguistic difference is indicative of demographics such as a heterogenous population, the road to linguistic unity (and accompanying benefits) is fraught with either friction or failure.

As is often the case with 20th Century economic miracles, the paradigm of language policy and its rewards is China.

The mandate of Putonghua (Standard Chinese) as the primary language of education and public office across the nation began before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and continues today (the first official policy of exclusivity being in 1956). Beyond creating a single social identity in the wake of civil war, Putonghua (“common speech”) facilitated the shifting of individuals across what was a culturally, economically, and

From February to April this year, Cameroon’s central authority placed the Anglophone Southern Cameroons under siege with an internet shutdown. Directing the measure at ‘extremists, secessionists, and enemies of the state’, one might not think that the Communications Minister had nonviolent proponents of the English language in mind. But Cameroon’s official language is French (the divide a result of arbitrary post-colonial border drawings), and since absorbing the region the government has strived to put the republic under a single language.

Officially, the need for linguistic unity justified cutting 20% of the population off from the internet, and the lasting damage done to most of the nation’s technology start-ups (many of which are based in the region). We might think this disproportionate, but a survey of the influence that language policy can have on economic development better places us to understand why such a measure seems so attractive.

Many nations have gone to great costs to ensure that an official language becomes a national language, the latter with con7

socially uneven landscape. The previously immense barrier of language was removed for the resident of rural Yanqing to move to Beijing proper. People collected in the cities, providing vast pools of labour centred around industry to fuel the economic miracle that was to come in the 1970s. The rest is history.

“Where linguistic difference is indicative of demographics such as a heterogenous population, the road to linguistic unity (and accompanying benefits) is fraught with either friction or failure.”

No wonder so many other states have pursued similar aims, particularly as a single language policy allows governments to pursue social cohesion and economic development without trade-off. The Republic of Korea, after regaining sovereignty, revived and subsequently mandated the Korean language across the nation. Once more, language was used as a clear signalling mechanism as to the social identity of “Korean” that citizens shared. At the same time, it is no coincidence that the Republic’s “Miracle on the Han River” during the latter half of the 20th Century took place in the wake of such reforms. A common language facilitated an employer’s ability to “treat employees like family” (a motto coined by ex-President Park Chung-hee that is credited with increasing productivity in the Korean workforce) by establishing an underlying commonality. Citizens had no trouble investing in heavy chemical industry on a wide scale, where the economic infrastructure used to achieve this was mutually intelligible.

The unity allowed by a common language greatly contributes to economic development. Governments instituting these policies envisage a nation in which law is published in one language alone. We might even say that they see a nation where every

child could grow up and move to the capital, working in the central authority – although this is somehow less intuitive. That is because whilst language exists as a significant barrier to the integration of peoples across a nation, it is by far not the only barrier. Our intuition that authorities do not simply wish for common language to result in an amalgamation of all people across social divides is correct as we recognise the existence of these other barriers, and that they do not fall with language. These are factors dividing a populace ex post language reform.

Governments often recognise these ex post factors, and legislate to integrate, after language policy, in ways that specifically allow for a harmony of peoples (e.g. anti-discrimination legislation). Those nations such as Cameroon, however, err in not recognising the significance to which these same factors can act ex ante – they inhibit the promulgation of the single language. This is clearest in countries with fundamentally heterogenous populations, such as India.

The Indian Constitution (part XVII) declares Hindi as the official language of government, but carves out the widely applicable (and widely used) exception that any language with “official” status may be used by the regions of India. The Constitutional language policy, contrary to popular belief in its endorsement of linguistic pluralism, should be read as a concession – resistance to Hindi implementation began in 1937, long before the framing of the Constitution. The first Indian National Congress government introduced compulsory Hindi teaching in schools of (then) Madras, which was immediately opposed by the opposition in the state. The following two years were marked with large-scale demonstrations, fasts, and over a thousand “agitators” brought into police custody. We begin to see more of a likeness to the Southern Cameroons’ crisis.

The Hindi policy exposed much wider divides than mere language. Tamil speakers 8

interpreted the policy as not only an imposition of a population based in the North (ethnic divides), but also as an imposition

by Brahmins of their culture and influence (caste divides). Part XVII of the Indian Constitution bows to the hurdle that the central authority was unable to surmount in promulgating a single national language: It represents a concession to the resistance by those not identifying with the cultural and ethnic identity of the Hindi-speaking legislators.

Faced with the historical struggles of Hindi implementation policy, and the modern dilemmas facing countries such as Cameroon, it might seem like there is no method whereby language policy can overcome high ex ante barriers. There is, however, a clear exception, though one with limited empirical evidence pertaining to an entire nation. I term this the “buy-in” exception: Where individuals from fundamentally different backgrounds actively take steps to move towards a cohesive national identity, they “buy-in” to an identity and the central authority might designate a single language to cement this identity. We see this mechanism working on a smaller level when nations such as Sweden note extremely high attendance at the free (but optional) community elementary Swedish classes.

“Whilst language exists as a significant barrier to the integration of peoples across a nation, it is by far not the only barrier.”

To find a comprehensive national single language policy succeeding solely on the basis of a heterogenous population “buying in”, we need a population with x substantial cultural/ethnic groups (each with their distinct language), where at least x-1 of these groups implicitly accede to the policy.

The x groups need not be at all similar. In fact, in one clear success story, x represents Anglo-European, South Indian (primarily 9

Tamil), Malay, and Chinese. This success story is Singapore.

The buy-in of Singapore’s population stems from the fact that it is a nation whose national identity is founded on the back of migration. Only in the 1930s did native births in Singapore overtake net immigration. What is more, native-born Singaporeans, whilst espousing a “Singaporean identity” (demonstrated nominally by policies of single citizenship and National Service) hold close cultural ties with the nations from which their families emigrated. This is demonstrated by the bilingual education policy mandating second-language education in the language of one’s cultural/ethnic group. Immigration can be seen as a vesting of at least part of one’s cultural identity in the target State.

Thus, this nation of migration is founded on the very buy-in mechanism that made it possible to mandate English education to bridge social divides for economic progress.

The number of students registering for English-language schools rose from 50% to 90% from the 1960s to the 1970s. The buy-in mechanism is the only explanation for this growth without friction in a population fervently divided along ethnic and cultural lines.

This is our lesson for Cameroon. The French/English language divide is not arbitrary: It is the result of the Southern Cameroons existing as a British Mandate for forty years, and the population developing a cultural identity in response to this. The rest of the Republic existed as a French territory, undergoing integration with the French economy and social value alignment by the central authority at the time. It goes without saying that the people of Britain would have the French language pressed upon them with a degree of resistance matched by the French with English. Without the people of the Southern Cameroons “buying in”, why would we think their situation different?

DISCUSSING A LITTLE RED DOT: THE PARADOXES OF LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE

Saanjh Gupta

In Singapore, a tightrope stretches taut between the words “cultured” and “clinical” on a dictionary page. On 14th April 2017, as part of the grassroots-organised Singapore Poetry Writing Month, hundreds of writers created poems written in Singlish (Singaporean English), inspired by this tension and posted them on the government-run “Speak Good English Movement” Facebook page.

The poems appeared to undermine the campaign’s insistence that Standard or “proper” English is key to communal harmony and international repute. More broadly, this conflict is central to the linguistic construction of Singapore’s national identity, and the nation-state’s drive to create a unified national identity nonetheless grounded in ethnic and cultural diversity.

Modern Singapore’s history necessarily includes its relationship with Empire and, by extension, the English language. Historically part of the British Empire, Singapore became a Japanese-occupied territory in 1942, attaining self-government in 1959.

The adoption of Malay, not English, as the new state’s national language was a pragmatic move towards recognising ethnic

majorities and symbolically renouncing the consequences of imperialism beyond national structure and status.

During its integration within the Federation of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965, Singaporean linguistic policies reflected political shifts. Article 153A of the 1965 constitution outlined English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil as the independent republic’s national languages. The inclusion of three more ethnically-affiliated national languages was an extension of the multicultural pragmatism previously seen in 1959. Even so, the return to English stands out. Although it appears to contrast with the very notion of independence, it simultaneously facilitated the same through its status as a comparatively neutral lingua franca, particularly resonant in the light of racial riots between Malay and Chinese communities in the previous year.

This duality dominates government language policy, although its efficacy remains unclear. The study of a second language was made compulsory for primary and secondary school students in 1960 and 1966 respectively. The policy was redefined 10

as the study of a mother-tongue chosen from one of the constitutionally-defined national languages of Malay, Chinese and Tamil. These developments took place against the conversion of vernacular schools to English-taught institutions by 1987, although this was partly due to declining enrolment rather than any specific policy. Each ethnic mother tongue was therefore subsumed under a national-linguistic whole.

The idea of creating a collectively bilingual, cosmopolitan populace through education soon fragmented. A 1978 report by the Ministry of Education (MOE) conceded flaws in the bilingual education system. It outlined high second-language examination failure rates, and the potentially problematic use of Mandarin Chinese for native speakers of other Chinese varieties, effectively making them study two new languages rather than one and erasing intra-ethnic diversity.

While the 1990s move towards providing Hindi, Bengali and other Indian varieties to supplement Tamil, demonstrates the resolution of a similar problem, the same has not been implemented for Chinese varieties.

This may, at least in part, be attributed to background demographic trends. In 2015, English was the most common language spoken at home in Singapore. In the 1980s, there was a move amongst minority-language Chinese families towards speaking Mandarin, and later English, at home. In contrast, the economic migration of non-Tamil speaking Indians to Singapore seems to have increased, possibly influencing the bilingual policy’s shift to providing non-Tamil Indian language varieties as well. Linguistic policy may therefore be reflective of the decrease in diversity among one population, and its increase in another.

Yet such an interpretation seems speculative, particularly when considering language policy outside of bilingual

education. What lay underneath the 1979 launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) – in direct response to the MOE report – was the principle that the use of multiple Chinese dialects encouraged the fragmentation of the Singaporean Chinese community. The Campaign required front-office government workers to speak Mandarin to Chinese customers under the age of sixty, oral examinations for Chinese taxi drivers seeking to renew licenses, and publicity materials urging youth to use Mandarin in public places. This resulted in a 36% decrease in the number of dialect-speaking Chinese households between 1980 and 1990, along with a 17% increase in Mandarin-speaking households. The rhetoric of eliminating competing “dialects”, defined as linguistic varieties specific to regions or social groups, directly corresponded to the rhetoric of eliminating social rifts. This was because of the perceived status of dialects as more regionally localised than Mandarin Chinese as a language.

“The rhetoric of eliminating competing dialects directly corresponded to the rhetoric of eliminating social rifts.”

The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) tackles a different opponent, namely “bad” English, which Singlish allegedly exemplifies. Launched two decades later by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on 29 April 2000, the Movement calls for the use of Standard English to represent Singapore positively on an international level. Such a principle is distinct from the reduced prevalence of linguistic Anglo-reliance in Singapore’s South-East Asian neighbours. More importantly, such support assumed the SMC had succeeded, both in its use of SMC-style prescriptivism and as a move towards a pan-national, rather than ethnic identity.

11

Nonetheless, it would be reductive to claim that subordinating Chinese dialects to Mandarin parallels partially subordinating Mandarin, Malay and Tamil to English, because the former represented an effort to erase social identity and diversity. Consequently, one cannot directly compare the Speak Mandarin Campaign to the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM), despite both being instances of state support for certain linguistic varieties over others.

In some ways, the SGEM synthesises two strands of Singaporean language planning: the maintenance of linguistic pluralism, and the overt preference afforded to certain varieties. Singlish, lexically and syntactically influenced by both Malay and Hokkien, among other varieties, is a cultural as well as geographical convergence. From one perspective, it represents an ideal form of intercultural interaction, in which mother-tongues interact with each other and their national language, creating a shared cultural experience that is more personal than neutral. From another, it represents a crude, provincial pastiche of English that characterises Singapore as a small, mimicking state among many, prone to both evolution and cultural collapse – thus mandating paternalistic regulation in a possible demonstration of state authority.

From below, the variety’s local literary usage, such as in poet Joshua Ip’s 2012 anthology, Sonnets from the Singlish, is testament to its development outside of, and in opposition to, state policy. From this perspective, Singlish is distinctive rather than derivative, repurposing a language of monolithic authority into one of mutable multiculturalism and challenging the literal authority which resists its legitimisation. The SGEM’s official website does acknowledge Singlish’s role as a cultural marker and generational icon. In doing so, it situates Singlish outside of state management and does not actively contain its social spread.

Language planning in Singapore is as multifarious as its population. In considering government-led initiatives of bilingual education and prescriptive state campaigns, two paradoxes emerge. Firstly, there is the paradox of maintaining both linguistic diversity and sociocultural stability. Secondly, the conflict between inward- and outward-looking linguistic expressions of national identity, neither of which the state or civil society actively undermine, remains to be negotiated.

Regardless, a striking commonality resolves each: that is, the linguistic source of national identity lies in pragmatism over pluralism, a principle which undergirds Singaporean policy beyond language alone.

12

SUHEIR HAMMAD:

BRIDGING PALESTINE AND THE WORLD

Elena Casale

In his searing portrait of Palestinian life and identity, After the Last Sky (1986), Edward Saïd writes “It is almost impossible to imagine a single narrative of the Palestinian experience.” The life of Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian-American poet, is a testament to this. The daughter of 1948 al-Nakba refugees, she was born in the Jordanian Jabal Husayn refugee camp and raised in New York. Hammad speaks of growing up in a home infused with poetry from the Qur’an, the words of Palestinian poets Fadwa Tuqan and Mahmoud Darwish, the sounds of her neighbourhood’s emerging hip-hop artists and the slang of “Puerto Rican, Black and poor White kids” in Brooklyn. At 43 years of age, she has received a number of awards, including the Morris Centre for Healing Poetry award, a New York Mills artist residency, and an Emerging Artist award from the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Institute at NYU. She has performed her work on college campuses, spoken word venues, rap concerts, on Broadway on the

Tony award-winning Def Poetry Jam, and on TED Talks. Hammad’s poetry finds unity in collective suffering, bridging the archipelago of a Palestine under siege to the diaspora and beyond.

Hammad’s work of woman torn (from ZataarDiva) addresses the beheading, or so-called “honour killing,” of Nora Marzouk Ahmed in Cairo in 1997. Characteristically, Hammad’s poem fuses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a putatively unrelated subject. For instance, in a direct address to the girl’s attacker, the speaker asks “did her skin smell/ of zaatar her hair of/ exploded almonds/ between the olive trees”. The olfactory and visual imagery combine connotations of violence (“exploded”), with those of Palestine (“zaatar”, “almonds”, “olive”). Nora’s vitality is then swiftly shattered as we learn of her visceral death: “They beat you blue,” “ripped each hair out of your head” and “paraded/ her head through/ cairo,” a symbol of the “evil that is/ woman” – again, Palestine threads itself into the 13

poetic discourse as the idea of beheading lends itself as a powerful metaphor for a forcibly fragmented nation. Within this discourse, we are left to ask whether of woman torn is a comment on Palestine as symbolised by this young, Egyptian victim, or whether its focus is simply on the individual and the surrounding context of honour-related violence in Egypt. I would argue that Hammad’s poem is, emphatically, doing both. As seen, the poem describes Nora’s tragedy comprehensively and gestures towards its local context, while intermittent, purposeful references throw light on Palestine’s political past: family pride laid between her thighs honor in her panties and no oslo accord or camp david signing could free her sex from its binding Just as the poem’s title of woman torn conveys a sense of forced dispossession and somatic aggression, this stanza’s rhyme conflates the “signing” of the Oslo

Accord and destructive connotations of “binding,” suggesting the inadequacy of these past peace agreements in attempts for liberation. Hence, Hammad is neither presenting Nora’s narrative to comment on the Palestinian conflict, nor doing the opposite, rather, both instances stand as just two manifestations of a wide-spread violence: this is a love poem cause i love you now woman who lived tried to love in this world of machetes and sin i smell your ashes of zaatar and almonds under my skin i carry your bones Of woman torn is a poem about universal marginalisation and cruelty “in this world of/ machetes and sin,” and the responsibility of survivors to “carry” its victims. It is about a woman’s body that was literally torn, of the women “torn” from their homeland, and of other global literal and metaphorical parallels.

In letter to anthony (critical resistance) Hammad analogously aligns global experiences of marginalisation by asking what the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and liberation says to the struggle of people of colour within the US, and vice versa. Hammad associates the incarceration of “anthony,” a “puerto rican rhyme slayer” in America, with the criminalisation of Palestinians. Both are implied to be corrupt practices, “Israel made itself holy and chosen/ and my existence is a crime,” and the jail is a “system based/ on money [that] deems you rehabilitated.” Despite this, the speaker’s conversation with Anthony is one of “intimacy,” and archetypal notions of the criminal are disrupted by the evocation of empathy for Anthony’s silenced voice: “shit I got a lot to/ say let someone pay me to talk.” Hammad writes: 14

i have always loved criminals and not only the thugged out bravado of rap videos and champagne popping hustlers but my father born an arab baby boy on the forced way out of his homeland his mother exiled and pregnant gave birth in a camp

In her works, Hammad frequently returns to the inadequacy of language. In beyond words, for instance, language divides and isolates more than it unifies. “Haiti is not Chechnya/ Chiapas is not East L.A./ Iraq is not Palestine” exposes language as a tool for isolation rather than unification, leading the speaker to ask “Where has my language gone?” She considers the inability of words to reflect the horrors of reality, “Do words such as/ humiliation and torture/ truly fit the immensity of these acts?” and the fact that, they sometimes are not heard at all: “women scream at a frequency the living cannot hear.” However, Hammad’s innovative use of language metaphysically reflects an attempt at finding a new, inclusive method of expression, a multiethnolect that does not impose any punctuation or capitalisations, that vocalises rather than silences.

The relationship Hammad constructs in her poetry between Palestine and the world is enforced even at the lexical level, literally exhibiting the way the Palestinian experience can be conveyed through other

The “thugged out bravado of rap videos” and “my father” again subvert notions of criminality, and a lexis of coercion (“exiled,” “forced”), suggests that criminality is not necessarily caused by the individual but by their circumstances. Indeed, Hammad calls for those who can make a connection between Anthony and “young girls twisted into sex work,” as prisons profit from “the young the poor the coloured the/ sexualised the different.” The site of danger is not the criminal, but the prison: so i have always loved criminals it is a love of self And i will not cut off any part of me and place it behind fences and bars and the fake ass belief that there is a difference between the inside and the outside

cultures and their languages, and vice versa, to create a world where there is no your people or my people but our people

In these lines, Hammad unites the criminalisation of Anthony and the occupation of Palestine in the motif of the prison.

Linking global struggles in their collective marginalisation Hammad reaffirms that her own exile from Palestine cannot be disengaged from the broader history of imperialism and colonialism that scatters peoples across the world and severs them from their homes.

Hammad harnesses her peripatetic upbringing to create poems that are political and artistic achievements. Her incantatory verse speaks of Palestine, the world, and the dialectic between the two, calling for unity in the face of violence and marginalisation. This drive for unity pervades her work, her activism and the very fabric of her language itself. For ultimately, as Hammad reminds us, “to find ourselves we hold up a mirror to the worlds we all inhabit.”

15

POWER TO UNITE, POWER TO ALIENATE: LANGUAGE REFORMS IN IRAN & TURKEY, AND THEIR LEGACY

Margo Munro Kerr “Language is history and the strength of each nation and people depends on the strength of their language”. So said Kermani, an early Iranian nationalist.

Language purity became a vital part of nationalist policy in Iran and Turkey in the 1920s and ‘30s. For both, language was symbolic of national unity and strength.

Both newly formed countries, rising out of the remnants of broken empires, instituted vast language reforms to rid their respective dominant languages of loanwords. Although this was the culmination of nearly a century of intellectual efforts, the enforcement of broad reform was instigated by two military leaders who have often been compared to one another: Atatürk in Turkey and Reza Khan, who became Reza Shah, in Iran.

Both wanted to bring their dominant languages back to an idealised “pure” version of itself. In Turkey this took the form of Öz Türkçe: words of Turkish origin were deemed preferable to those of Arabic,

Persian, or European origin, and where possible, alternatives to these loanwords were created. The Türk Dil Kurumu, or Turkish Language Association, was established in 1932 for this intention, and was soon publishing dictionaries of Öz Türkçe alternatives for words of foreign origin. It continues to do so to this day. Meanwhile, in Iran the Farhangestān, established for the first time by Reza Shah and later re-established by his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, sought Persian alternatives for Arabic or European words.

However, while the Farhangestān’s reforms were largely ineffective and even ridiculed, reforms in Turkey were much more widespread and effective. For one, the Ottoman alphabet based on Arabic script was abandoned in favour of a Latin-based alphabet in 1928 – such action was never taken in Iran. For another, modern Turkish is so different from the Ottoman Turkish of the early 20th century that modern Turks can no longer understand it. Contrastingly, it is a famous 16

the north-western provinces were less persecuted, although bilingualism was required. Meanwhile, education in Turkey was unified under a national system and the new alphabet was required to be taught in all schools. A national curriculum was introduced, including the history of the inkilap, “revolution”, or rather, the founding of the Republic of Turkey, and the routine veneration of Atatürk began.

property of Persian that modern speakers can understand poetry from a millennium ago with relatively little difficulty.

Implicit in the language reforms of the 1920s and ‘30s was a sense of anti-Semitism which accompanied the “dislocative nationalism” that allowed them. That is, nationalists in both countries saw their place in the Islamic world as special, superior, and separate to the countries surrounding them. Nationalists in Turkey, which is at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and was a major power of the Triple Alliance in World War One, considered Turkey to be European as much as Asian. The adoption of a Latin alphabet was indicative of this sentiment.

Meanwhile Iranian nationalists, influenced

by European ethno-linguistic theorists such as the Oxford-based Max Müller, believed that the Indo-European Persian language had been corrupted by the Arab invasion and the penetration of Semitic (Arab) influences. It was believed that in order for Iran to be a strong nation, its language must too be uncorrupted. In 1935, Reza Shah ordered that the country’s name should change from “Persia”, associated with the old empire and the region of Fars, to “Iran”, an ethnic term that is cognate with “Aryan”. Alongside this came renewed interest in and promotion of the country’s pre-Islamic past and religions, particularly in the legacy of Cyrus the Great, and in the Zoroastrian religion. This was a part of the Pahlavi (the dynasty of Reza Shah and his son Mohammed Reza Shah) state ideology and allowed Iranian rulers to consider Iran to be fundamentally different from, and even better than, other Islamic countries.

Alongside these changes came vast education reforms: a national curriculum was introduced and the children of nomads, such as Baluchis and Qashqais, were required to go to school and to learn, speak, and write only Persian there.

Azeri Turkic culture and languages in

“Nationalists in both countries saw their place in the Islamic world as special, superior, and separate to the countries surrounding them.”

Both reform movements have had huge consequences to this day. One of the remarkable features of Erdoğan’s presidency today is his extensive use of Arabic-origin words. This is indicative of the fundamental difference between his nationalism and Atatürk’s. Erdoğan’s brand of nationalism is populist and Islamic: he speaks the language of a populace prizing Islamic education, having himself been to an Imam Hatip (Islamic religious) secondary school, rather than a regular secular school. His use of Arabic words marks himself out as “un-literary”.

In this he is a divisive figure. Politicians, usually educated, are known to use Turkish-origin words instead of Arabic- or Persian-origin words, aware of what it means for the national integrity of the

17

country. This has often alienated the large proportion of people for whom religious identity may be more important than national identity.

However Erdoğan is aware of the potential of using this alienation to his advantage. By reacting against the secularist and ethnic nationalism of the Turkish republic, as symbolised in his disregard for the use of Turkish-origin words, he sets his nationalist parameters in terms of religion, populism, and the power of a strong leader.

“Erdoğan’s brand of nationalism is populist and Islamic: he speaks the language of a populace prizing Islamic education.”

Meanwhile in Iran, the conscious use of Persian-origin words in the place of Arabic-origin words marks the user out as cultured and literary while the excessive use of Arabic-origin words by the ruling Mullahs is often ridiculed. Anti-Arab nationalism along Pahlavi lines was for many years the most mainstream way of indirectly expressing opposition to the Islamic republic. The Zoroastrian Faravahar, a winged figure that has become a secular national symbol, is one of the most common tattoos amongst Iranians.

However, in recent years, even the politicians of the Islamic republic have embraced such symbolism, including Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, the populist hardliner who was president from 20052013.

The way that people speak marks them out socially and ideologically. Language has the power to unite and to alienate.

Nowhere is this truer than in post-language reform Iran and Turkey, whose languages bear the evidence of the past, and are being readapted once more.

18

19

EMPOWERMENT THROUGH UNITY:

RETHINKING WESTERN ATTITUDES TO DEVELOPMENT WORK

Annalise Halsall

In recent decades, changing discourse from the United Nations has altered the focus of international relations from preventing interstate conflict to furthering the human security of individuals. The UN Development Programme 1994 Human Development Report highlighted these new ideals of “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” for all people, and claimed that this was the best way to overcome global insecurity. Although this new view of international relations has not changed, international aid in many Western government budgets is currently in the process of being cut. Without this interstate intervention, the burden of facilitating international development falls more heavily onto the third sector: notfor-profit organisations that belong to neither the public nor the private sector.

Traditionally value-driven, and reliant on volunteers, charitable organisations are now a growing source of aid for many communities across the world.

The increase in the number of young

people travelling to volunteer abroad is just one example of these changing trends.

The costs of travel are decreasing, and as more charities offer volunteer abroad projects, optimistic millennials are turning to journeying to developing countries to offer whatever support they can.

Many have heard the tales they regale upon their return. Countless testimonies recount the inspiration they felt due to the positivity of those they went to help, and volunteers often talk of the transformative impact of their experience on their outlook on life. Clearly these volunteers seem to benefit from these schemes, but what about the effects upon those they aim to help? There is a dark underside to all of those sunny photographs on social media. A sceptical view lingers in the minds of many: a fear that these heroic efforts can actually make the situation in these countries worse. If not done correctly, by focusing on the necessities of the people in need, these methods of providing aid to vulnerable communities can lead to the 20

further disempowerment of those we seek to support, and the opposite of the unity we seek to promote.

The plague of voluntourism can be criticised for many reasons, not least because of the danger of faux-orphanages, where conditions are made worse for children in order to provoke the sympathy of visitors and encourage donations. The increase in young and privileged people travelling from the Global North has actually stimulated a market for orphaned children in places such as Siem Reap in Cambodia, which has lead to parents renting out their offspring to faux-orphanages where they take on the responsibility of entertaining visiting volunteers. This is a systematic problem, but there are also emotional and psychological problems created by the influx of voluntourism: the abandonment issues many children have when living in these orphanage institutions are only aggravated with the coming and going of overseas volunteers.

Another danger of voluntourism is its perpetration of the same ideas of colonialism, which is often assumed to be confined to history. Many schemes harken back to the phenomenon of the “White Saviour complex”, as Westerners intervene based on the assumption that they know best about the needs of their “grateful recipients”. Although understated, this issue is no less dangerous. This problem highlights two other concerns: the first is the misinformation about the needs of communities; the second is that building people’s lives around the actions of volunteers in the third sector is fundamentally unsustainable. Voluntourism is inherently a transient enterprise: summers end, gap years eventually turn into a job or university, and communities, having learnt to rely on these strangers, are left in the lurch.

Moreover, the burgeoning culture of providing these “poor passive African children” with aid is one that inherently segregates cultures. It can consolidate the

mind-set of White and Western superiority, where we focus on the grace of our own actions and ultimately, neglect the value that these communities hold without us.

“It can consolidate the mind-set of White and Western superiority, where we focus on the grace of our own actions and ultimately, neglect the value that these communities hold without us.”

Faced with these criticisms, it is easy to conclude that overseas aid ought to be scrapped altogether. However, with or without these dangers, the third sector is vital in furthering the goals of the international community. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals which include eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education and combating HIV aids are just one example of these aims in action. If we are to reach these goals, we must harness the power and potential that NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) have in playing a role to achieve this. By virtue of being smaller and more specialised, these organisations in the third sector have opportunities where states and bureaucracies do not. NGOs are much better able to talk to the communities they wish to help, to spend time understanding their culture and customs, and hence come up with programmes that actually have the potential to address the problems they face. International organisations such as the UN have little choice but to delegate to NGOs and grassroots organisations if they want to see tangible returns to their policies on human security.

Cooperation and collaboration on the organisational level will in turn allow for the partnership between not-for-profits and individuals in developing countries. NGOs are able to facilitate the direct provision 21

of aid with a lower risk of corruption than the state or the private sector.

Encouraging unity and collaboration across actors in the international field in recognition of their common goals will ultimately help these goals to be realized.

Still, in order for this to succeed, the work of not-for-profit organisations has to be examined. It is easy for charitable organisations to fall into the same traps as any other player in international aid, by assuming they know best, and failing to understand the history and culture of the people they aim to help. Organisations in the third sector have to make use of their ability to form lasting relationships with communities and understand their needs.

Locally based in Oxford, the Nasio Trust is an organisation that does exactly this. With a focus on children orphaned due to HIV and other vulnerable young people, the Nasio Trust aims to break the cycle of poverty in rural western Kenya by providing education, a daily meal, and medical care. Their innovative approach to providing aid is proving successful.

In speaking to the founder of the Nasio Trust, Nancy Hunt, their philosophy becomes clear. Hunt emphasises the importance of building trust between all parties involved in the aid process. An example of this is the fact that the Kenyan guardians who elect to look after children are not paid in cash – instead they are provided with a house and food, or whatever else will enable them to provide a safe and stable home for the children they’re caring for. They are in turn asked to volunteer for the organisation for one day a week. The results of this, Hunt says, have been clear. The guardians, freed from ex22

pectation of handouts from overseas visitors have become empowered and united. The guardians work together to improve their living conditions, and have become deeply invested in the future of both their children and their wider community. One of the children, Rajab, who attended Nasio’s day centres when he was young, now volunteers for the organisation himself.

When it comes to overseas volunteers, the stance of the Nasio Trust is also well defined. They welcome helpers, but are adamant that their communities are not spectacles to be ogled at by tourists. Instead, they organise trips to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, with all of the proceeds from the £3195 fundraising goal going towards the charity’s work. Volunteers wishing to visit Nasio’s work in rural western Kenya must contribute in a practical way. If UK builders travel to Kenya for example, they use their expertise to help build houses; a partnership ensues between UK builders and the local builders in the community. They exchange skills, working together and respecting each other as equals, avoiding any separation of status between the visitors and the locals.

“International organisations such as the UN have little choice but to delegate to NGOs and grassroots organisations if they want to see tangible returns to their policies on human security.”

Hunt also highlights the importance of these experiences for those living in the Western world, where political leaders seem to become more and more polarised by the day. In an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear of “the other”, there is value in exploring the world for yourself and recognising that humanity exists beyond the borders of your country: on the most basic level, shared experiences are just one way to encourage unity across societies. But it is of course vital to know the organisation you’re volunteering for, and whether or not their work is in line with your aims. Most important is the need to consider whether the focus of the organisation is to serve the individuals within their care, or whether they fall into the common trap of morphing into a business mostly intent on turning a profit.

By taking a bottom-up approach, actually communicating with locals and asking them what they require, the Nasio Trust also makes no assumptions about the needs of the communities they wish to serve. They have learned from past mistakes, made by themselves and others. By promoting the unity of common goals and a common status in their relationships, they prove that overseas aid or volunteering does not have to be centred on “the White Saviour”, following the historical pattern of the West disconnecting itself from the rest of the world. Instead, they offer a model and a philosophy that could be adopted by actors on multiple levels, from other NGOs, to the volunteers themselves as they research different schemes.

The lesson is clear for all of us. By prioritising the needs of those we wish to help through the third sector, and by seeking to understand the lives and culture of the people receiving aid, we can maximise the impact of our actions. The benefits of this reach far beyond ourselves, to fostering unity across societies, promoting human security in international relations, and most importantly, having a lasting effect on those who inspired the action in the first place.

23

FAITH IN UNITY, UNITY IN FAITH:

WHY RELIGION STILL MATTERS

Ross Roi

In the aftermath of the tragic incident outside the Houses of Parliament in London earlier this year, popular political commentator-cum-journalist Andrew Neil launched a tirade against “jumped up jihadis” and “Poundland terrorists”. In the short introduction to his weekly programme on the BBC, Neil took it upon himself to speak on behalf of the British people and issue what was subsequently described as a “warning” to whoever would dare challenge “the country that stood up, alone, to the might of the Luftwaffe, airforce of the greatest evil mankind has ever known”. He then went on to assert that the attacker “was not fit to breathe the same air as the man he killed” and no one batted an eye.

Neil believed that the so-called “terror attack” was indeed just that: an attack on “our civilisation” by a “barbarian at the gate”. Almost as soon as it occurred, the incident was splashed all over the news as another example of “Islamic terrorism”, regardless of validity. Indeed, a couple of days later, the tragedy was deemed unrelated to any kind of wider terrorist organisation, and was not found to have been inspired by global Jihadist trends. Nevertheless, the damage was done: both the media’s depiction of the incident as an important event (still called a “terror attack” on the BBC news website) and Neil’s particular brand of aggressive rhetoric falsely framed

the event in religious terms. In so doing, they misinformed the public in a moment of vulnerability and confused the complex narratives at play. Looking at the BBC article, the term “terror attack” remains undefined and unjustified. Of course Neil was right to offer tribute to the victims, but he should not have simply assumed that the perpetrator was associated with the wider threat of global terror, nor actively spread that assumption. By dividing the world between “the British people” and “the enemies of our civilisation”, as he puts it, Neil embraces and spreads the oversimplified “Us vs Them” rhetoric that extremist organisations crave and actively manipulate to attract new members.

This is a call to challenge our perceptions and the loud reactions that accompany them. Simple narratives like these cannot be indulged in a complex world, and one can only wonder what kind of unity Neil is appealing to when he speaks of “our civilisation”. More worrying still is what this kind of distinction implies for those who aren’t part of “our civilisation”. What kind of unity can we hope to find if we continue to believe in the “Us vs Them”?

Neil’s rant is talismanic of a wider movement in European society pushing back against the perceived threat of Islam to Western secular values. These values, it is often argued, hark back to the En24

lightenment (17th/18th century), which paved the way for secularism’s founding principles: the separation of Church and State, increased attention to the rights and responsibilities of the individual, and the importance of reason. Together, these values form the basis of European nation states and what has become known as “the West”, or “our civilisation”, as Neil puts it.

Since the Enlightenment grew out of liberalizing religious reform movements in Christian majority countries like Germany, France, and Britain, it can be argued that these countries’ cultures are informed by Christian values. If we take this position, then where does Islam fit, if at all, into “our civilisation”? To PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West), members of the National Front, and other right-wing movements who have targeted Muslims, it doesn’t.

It is little known that almost since its inception, the role of religion in the public sphere has been contested within the Islamic tradition. The Prophet Muhammad (d. 632 AD) was not only a prophet like Jesus or Moses, but a powerful combination of political leader, military commander, and legislator. He embodied both religious and secular authority within his person and, while alive, the question of dividing the two never arose. But when Muhammad died with no named successor (ar. sing.

Khalifa, pl. Khulafa’), the question of authority plunged the nascent community into crisis. Some believed that ‘Alī, the prophet’s cousin, should take over so as to build a religious dynasty that was preordained by God, while others believed the leader should be chosen according to custom, through the consensus of tribal leaders, (shūra). This group ultimately prevailed and chose Abu Bakr as the first Caliph.

This early episode marks the divergence of religious and secular authority in the Islamic community, and provides a basis for compatibility between secular gov-

ernment and religion within the Islamic tradition. By selecting Abu Bakr, the early community opted for a secular rather than a divine leader, whose selection was man-made and not divinely ordained. In so doing, the nature of the community and the role of the Caliph changed, and in the subsequent centuries of the Islamic empire, religious authority, with the exception of Shi’i states, was not exercised directly by the Caliph, who remained a religious and cultural figurehead as the leader of the Islamic empire. His unifying presence became apparent when the Caliphate was abolished in 1924, but one could argue the Islamic Empire adopted elements of secularism long before Western Europe, and that consequently secularism is congruent with Islam.

If elements of secularism are inherent to the Islamic tradition, how can Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, among others, maintain that Islam is inconsistent with “secular values”? The answer to this question could be a matter of willful ignorance and oversimplification, or it could be a subversion of what is meant by secular values. “Real Islām”, like any other essentially contested term, has as many different meanings as there are people to interpret it. To say that “Islām is…” anything will almost certainly lead to controversy and misrepresentation, especially at the individual level, where enmeshed and often conflicting conceptualisations of identity come together, informed not only by scripture and practice, but by education, local culture, and the socio-economic environment. For instance, the Islam of a Salafī reformist like Muhammad ‘Adbuh, who advocated European ideas within an Islamic identity, was markedly different from the Salafism of his contemporary Rashīd Ridā, who veered increasingly towards Wahhabism in its rejection of all Western influence.

By the same token, “secularism” is also an essentially contested term, one that 25

eludes definition and application, as is evidenced by the many varieties of secularism across the globe: France continues to ban the headscarf while the UK does not, while Donald Trump recently stated that Americans “worship God, not Government”. The question we must now ask is this: are Christian values actually masquerading as secular principles? If they are, then perhaps this is why so many Europeans feel threatened by increasing Muslim populations. What kind of unity can exist within Christian majority countries if their populations feel their native culture is being eroded?

“The question we must now ask is this: are Christian values actually masquerading as secular principles?”

If secularism is inherent to Islam, then the only difference between a Muslim secular state and a Christian one is cultural. In theory, both protect the rights of religious minorities and their freedom of expression, while retaining their distinctive features.

To an extent, this is true of today’s world: Muslim nations are informed by religious roots that define most aspects of day to day life, including prayer and fasting and, similarly, Western countries cling to many religious festivals and principles, like Easter and Christmas, without finding them incompatible with secular values. So why should Islam in Europe be so different?

Given that the Muslim population in France is around 6%, the amount of debate on this topic seems disproportionate, and it is only recently that fears of a growing Muslim minority within Christian majority countries have become explicit. Disquiet may stem from the almost constant media coverage of militant jihadist movements around the globe and the refugee crisis bringing different cultures into sharp contrast, leading to the revival of the “Us vs Them” rhetoric espoused by some politicians. But is there any substance to it?

It is true that, faced with failing nation states, civil and sectarian wars, and congruent crises of identity, some countries in the Middle East are experiencing renewed religiosity. Studies on what has been called the “public piety movement”, whereby some citizens (usually lower-middle class urban women) express their faith through religiously oriented public endeavours (volunteering in mosques, religious schools, or charities) and through political activism, are on the rise. The headscarf, first discarded publically in 1924, has also made a comeback, and a number of religio-political parties have experienced electoral success for the first time in their histories: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Ennahda in Tunisia.

While not overtly political and more of an evolving trend in social phenomena than an organised movement, public piety does entail political ramifications.

Increased public religiosity expresses the belief that society should be run according to religious principles, even if the government itself is not a religious body. This fact, while not necessarily placing such piety movements in opposition to the principles of secular nation-states or their native cultures in the Middle East, does pit their specifically Islamic nature against the Christian cultures of Europe.

If Islam can seem at odds with western secular values, it is because it seems at odds with the Christian values that underpin Western European secularism and the congruent conceptualisations of “our civilisation”, as Neil puts it. In a sense, he is not wrong. Islam is alien to Europe: it exists within Europe but is not of it.

Like Judaism, which suffered centuries of denigration and persecution at the hands of Christian majorities, Islam appears foreign and exclusive, making it an obvious scapegoat for current societal ills. But unlike Judaism today, Islam is relentlessly linked to violent atrocities and extremism, which only serve to reinforce the existing bias.

26

In order to address this problem of perception we can, first and foremost, encourage a frank discussion about the nature of political Islam in order to answer the sometimes legitimate concerns of Europeans who feel their culture is being eroded. Secondly, a critical distance needs to be created between the majority of Muslims and the Islamic practices they do not necessarily abide by, a distance of the kind some Jews actively maintain between themselves and the State of Israel. Finally, awareness can be raised about the varieties of secular experiences and Islamic cultures, simply by recognising that over one billion people do not necessarily share the same views or aims.

Undercurrents of religious tensions between Western nations and their growing Muslim populations reveal a deep insecurity about national identity and values. Rival visions of the future, as defined by Christian or Islamic values, are perhaps the unrecognised cause of the growing malaise between Muslims in the West and their Western environment.

While the French election ultimately vindicated advocates of tolerance and equality, the massive success of Marine Le Pen should be recognised for what it is: a warning sign of things to come if these tensions are not recognised and addressed.

“No Burial for Our Enemies” There’s no burial for our enemies, the ones we cannot see, The ones we know from on the page, or from bombs on our TV. We come for them at sunrise and long into the night, then go home, turn off the drone, and kiss our kids good night.

There’s no burial for our enemies, the ones we’ll never know, The ones whose language we don’t speak, from places we won’t go or remember, when, we look back to find there’s no one left to fight.

No burial for our enemies, of cultures great and small, Who dare to fight against our might and Freedom, after all.

There’s no burial for our enemies, no trial up in the Hague, Just bombs and blasts and shattered glass, and screaming, death, decay.

Blue skies above the Hell below and you wonder why they hate us so?

There’s no dignity in death, no wisdom borne of war, Just money making “for the cause” whose only word is “more!”

- Ross Roi 27

THE SHADOW OF THE IRON CURTAIN: ONE UNION, TWO VISIONS OF EUROPE

Norbert Rebow

In May of this year the European Commission put forward a proposal that would fine member states of the European Union for not accepting agreed numbers of asylum seekers, stressing the need for solidarity on the basis of European values.

These plans have been met with hostility from governments of Eastern European countries. The Prime Minister of Hungary in particular has framed his tough stance on migration in terms of protecting the Christian heritage of Europe, accusing Western European governments and EU institutions of undermining this patrimony through open-door policies towards refugees and migrants. These divisions between East and West could easily be dismissed as temporary and superficial, chained to one divisive issue and the ideological difference between the current governments of Eastern and Western Europe. The question of migration will be settled, new governments will be elected, and the unity of purpose of the 2000s will be restored. This narrative is, in my view, deeply misguided.

Recent years have only highlighted the different meanings that the Old West (the existing member states before the 2004 expansion) and the New East (countries which have joined since 2004) can attach to “Europe�. These are meanings borne out of very different social histories that continue to evolve and define the relationship between East and West. These two halves of Europe spent almost half a century in radically contrasting political realities, which sent them on divergent trajectories with regards to their global outlook. It would be intuitive to ascribe the disagreements on migrant quotas solely to the economic consequences of decades of the operation of a command economy: poorer states are less willing to pay to maintain foreign nationals in their territory. While economic arguments as well as explicit racism are not irrelevant, they obscure this more fundamental issue of diversion on what it means to be European and what the function of European institutions should be. The latter will be my focus here.

28

Before delving into the intricacies of Cold War social history, it is prudent to establish a clear understanding of the present. Until recently it appeared that the populations of the new member states of the European Union were more enthusiastic about the European projects than the Western European states who initiated them. Indeed, the 11 post-communist member states voted emphatically in referenda to join the European Union in 2003, 2006 and 2012. Since then, Eurobarometer surveys have consistently shown that generally Eastern Europeans value their EU citizenship more highly than their western counterparts. It would appear, therefore, that there is little threat to European solidarity on the East-West axis.

This conclusion, however, would miss the point of difference regarding definitions of “Europeanness” between the two regions.

The debates surrounding accession, especially in the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states of the 2004 enlargement reveal the specific motivations at play in Eastern Europe. In these contexts, apart from being seen as a motor for economic growth, the European Union was perceived as a guarantor of national sovereignty in the face of potential Russian aggression and influence. Joining these institutions increased the formal obligations of Western European states to bolster their Eastern European counterparts against the threat of unwanted foreign interference. This is evidenced by the fact that all these countries successfully sought to join NATO. Former bloc countries recognised that their involvement in both military alliance and economic-political union would tie in Western partners on the levels of collective security duty and economic interest.

Protecting the autonomy of the nation state was thus a key aspect of support for accession. “Europeanness” was a way of protecting the nation rather than an end in itself. Indeed, the two parties in Eastern Europe which are now seen as the major

challengers of the power of European institutions, Law and Justice in Poland and Fidesz (“Hungarian Civil Alliance”) in Hungary, both campaigned in favour of their countries joining the European Union. Having established that there were strong national motives for joining the European Union and noting the use of religious identity surrounding the debate on migration from outside the continent, we must ask where these characteristics of a strong attachment to the nation-state and the ethno-cultural definition of the nation emerged from. To find the answer we need to turn to the period of the Cold War and the different ways in which secularisation and nationalism developed in the East and West.

“‘Europeanness’ was a way of protecting the nation rather than an end in itself.”

Attitudes towards nationalism were very different on either side of the Iron Curtain for half a century. In Western Europe, nationalism became associated with the outbreak of World War Two and was identified as a danger that needed be contained. Indeed, the tempering of French and German nationalisms and their rivalry was perhaps the most important immediate motivation for the initiation of institutionalised European cooperation.

It seemed that reverence for the nation had caused unification wars, plunged the whole continent into two total wars and had been used to justify the horrific actions of totalitarian regimes. Nationalism was thus perceived to be a danger to peace and democracy, and its influence on events in European politics needed to be limited. Rejecting nationalism was not a shared position across the free part of the continent, however, as Spain, Portugal and Greece continued to be ruled by rightwing dictatorships at the inception of the European project. However, the three key 29

founding states – Germany, France and Italy – were all united by this idea. Europe as a guarantor of peace and democracy through the tempering of nationalism was an appealing concept for many: initially, for the citizens of countries ravaged by war and later, when the Mediterranean dictatorships fell, to those who had lived under authoritarian regimes with nationalistic accents.

In the Soviet sphere of influence, the situation was markedly different. Here, the political establishment also portrayed nationalism as evil. It was, however, an establishment that was dictatorial, did not enjoy popular support and, perhaps most importantly, was imposed and maintained by a foreign power. Soviet propaganda was based on a supranational communism, thus the most salient rallying point against these oppressive regimes was the nation and the concept of national self-determination. A strong sense of nationhood became a symbol of struggle against op-

pression and economic malaise rather than the potential root of such problems as it was seen in capitalist Europe.

Reaction against the ideology of communist dictatorships also spilled over into the realm of religion. Just as they sought to suppress strong feelings of national identity, the regimes of Eastern Europe also supported secularisation from above. It must be acknowledged that the strength of these efforts and backlash against them varied considerably from state to state and region to region. At the end of the Cold War, Estonia emerged a lot more secular than Lithuania while Slovakia emerged more religious than Bohemia and Moravia. In Poland, the role of the Catholic faith in the opposition to the regime was particularly striking. In 1960, the residents of Nowa Huta, a model socialist district of Krakow, successfully protested against the removal of a cross by communist authorities. One of the demands of the Gdansk stockyard strikers in 1980 was the

30

erection of a monument to their fellow workers killed during industrial action a decade earlier. This memorial took the form of three crosses arranged together.

The imprisonment of Prelate of Poland, Stefan Wyszynski, the killing of Warsaw priest Jerzy Popieluszko and the speeches of Pope John Paul II all became symbols for the opposition to the regime and linked the struggle for freedom intimately with Catholicism. This was not replicated to the same degree across the Eastern bloc, but a shared core narrative emerges: secularisation was seen as an alien force imposed on these societies, which heightened the contribution of religious traditions to national characteristics. With Christianity being traditionally perceived as a European phenomenon, we can hypothesise that this also influenced how people exposed to these ideas approached the concept of European identity. A notion of the shared cultural heritage of Christendom, rather than common values derived from a mix of religious thought and secular processes, became the basis for “Europeanness�.

A second dimension to this issue is that while communist dictatorships attempted to weaken the influence of the churches, they only took limited steps in promoting social liberalism for fear it would lead to challenges to their authority. This experience clearly contrasts with the slow march of social liberalism in Western European societies. In the West, the link between Christianity and individual identity was slowly eroded and the importance of religion to concepts of nations and, by extension, Europe, was also affected. European civilisation, in this mindset, was no longer to be defined by a common faith but rather a set of values that were a product of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought. These values were also subject to open debate on questions of identity and morality which could only take place in the free societies that had not been governed by coercive communist dictatorship. Arguably, these

tolerant values were secular variations of Christian teaching on compassion and inclusiveness. This, however, underscores the importance of the Cold War. Despite sharing in the Christian faith for a millennium beforehand, the experiences of liberal democracy and communist dictatorship encouraged people on the two parts of the continent to put emphasis on different aspects of the religion going into the 21st century.

These differences have significant implications for European unity. Out of them flow two competing visions of Europe that are not fully compatible, which are ingrained in the cultures of the two sides of the fallen Curtain. On the one hand, we are faced with an acute sense of the potential dangers of nationalism and the definition of European values in socially liberal terms, while on the other we have societies that attach great value to independent nation states and the significance of Christian cultural heritage to European identity. In some ways, this distinction represents the civic and ethnic conceptions of nationhood elevated to the European level. If the European Union is to continue integrating it must manage these two ways of understanding Europe. Many nation states have successfully overcome this question of what the basis of national identity should be. The plurality of citizens in most countries on the continent means that they think of their national identity in a mix of civic and ethnic terms. Europe could therefore still forge a common sense of self but European leaders should not be under the illusion that economic development in the East will harmonise social relations across the bloc. Winston Churchill’s curtain running from Stettin to Trieste is no longer made of iron but the scar on the continent is not fully healed.

It takes a long time for the past to be truly confined to the history books; we would do well to remember this central lesson of European history.

31

“Shattered Unity” This painting was inspired by contemplating two kinds of global unity.

Unity is first represented by the dark world to the left. This image depicts what unity has historically looked like in international relations: unity through force.

Conquering nations impose unity through coercion. Peoples are subjugated, crushed, and united in their chains. Throughout history this narrative of unity has prevailed, causing lasting harm to oppressed groups. The rusty chain and lock which hold the earth in bondage symbolise the bonds of the oppressed. Deep divisions between nations are illustrated in the cracks in the earth itself. This is “shattered unity”.

But there is a second, radiant kind of unity. It is represented by the colourful globe to the right. In stained glass artwork, broken shards of glass are melded together into a beautiful whole. Like vibrant stained glass, each nation in this image maintains its unique culture instead of being forced towards one, bleak ideal. There is also a greater sense of understanding between nations and this clarity allows light to shine through the cracks where previous divisions existed.

Despite the fact that steps of reconciliation and peace building have been taken, this second unity has still not been attained. Presently, nations remain self-interested and seek power at others’ expense. This, too, is “shattered unity”.

The two kinds of “shattered unity” are before us, just as they appear before us in this painting. We must choose which version of “shattered unity” we will pursue.

- Caris Boegl 32

33

34

UNITED BY GREAT UNITY:

THE CONCEPT OF DATONG IN MODERN CHINA

Sabine Bot

In 1926 Guo Moruo envisioned a visit by Karl Marx to a Confucian Temple, and an exchange between the two philosophers.

Hearing Marx’s description of his ideal Communist society Confucius responds: “truly your ideal society and my world of Datong are completely the same without us having deliberated over it” and goes on to cite a passage of a handbook on Great Unity, or in Mandarin, Datong. Datong is the utopian ideal of a truly harmonious, united society. Within a few decades Mao launched his Criticise Confucius Campaign. In order to build the Communist dream, society had to be purged of all its Confucian elements.

What happened to the agreement between Marx and Confucius? The utopia of unity evoked by Guo might contain the answer.

The passage cited by Guo is part of the Liji (the Record of Rituals), a Confucian handbook compiled c.200-100 BCE. It contains the first reference to Datong, described as a utopian society in which the state promotes harmony and citizens are

committed to serving the greater good.

It is no surprise that the concept emerged during the Han Dynasty, which had unified much of East Asia in the aftermath of the collapse of the Qin Dynasty. Nor is it remarkable that Confucius, who lived through years of political unrest in the Spring and Autumn period, dedicated his life to drawing up a template for harmony.

In the Datong paradise the difference between individual and societal interests has ceased to exist. All citizens are united in their aim to promote the greater good.

At the heart of Confucius’ roadmap for building such a utopia stand the values of Li and Ren. All members of society must cultivate these values for Datong to be achieved.

Li translates to ‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’. A life lived in accordance with Li is a life spent adhering to societal norms and performing the duties associated with one’s role in the community. Confucius outlined these roles and their duties as part of a highly 35

detailed theory of social relations. Where Li is rigid and impersonal, Ren is its human counterpart. In a well-known Confucian anecdote, a student asks, “What is Ren?” to which Confucius replies “Love all people”. Confucius claimed that to know what it was like to experience Ren, one only had to think of his or her feelings and behaviours when caring for his or her child. When Ren is fully cultivated, the experience of suffering when another suffers occurs not only with regards to one’s children but with respect to all people.

The two Confucian values balance to promote perfect unity. Li provides the structure for a society to efficiently promote the greater good. When Li is cultivated, every member of society will have a specific role to fulfill, allowing for cooperation without strife. As a result, overall welfare improves. The segregation that Li would seemingly cause by imposing a rigid social hierarchy, is counteracted by Ren uniting citizens under a common cause. In Datong, Ren is equally present in all citizens. Any substantial difference between individuals and personal interests is destroyed. When one member suffers, all suffer. Li’s social structures are the tool to achieve the goal that all citizens in Datong strive for: well-being for all.

“In a well-known Confucian anecdote, a student asks, ‘What is Ren?’ to which Confucius replies ‘Love all people’.”

Fast-forward to the early 20th century.

In 1911 revolutionaries overthrew imperial rule after 2000 years of dominance, putting the authority of Confucianism up for debate with it. As part of the imperial ruling class’s ideology, Confucianism had become deeply embedded into the social and cultural life of the Chinese; many revolutionaries believed that the Chinese “cultural state” had to be deconstructed

first in order to create a new Chinese “nation-state”. Yet, they could not ignore the cultural attraction of Datong.

Even when Sun Yat-sen preached the destruction of imperial values, he claimed that the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people) had the aim of achieving Datong. The line “Three Principles of the People, the aim of us, to build the Republic, to advance into Great Unity” can still be found in the Taiwanese national anthem today. It seems easy to claim that Datong, divorced from its Confucian roots, had become a mere tool of propaganda, a buzzword adding an air of legitimacy to the new elite’s reforms.

Yet, doing so would ignore the fact that one of the greatest works on the concept was written right after the old empire had fallen.

The Datong Shu or “Book of Great Unity” was written in the early 1900s by Kang Yuowei. In the book, Kang provides his interpretation of what is required to achieve Datong. He claims history presents itself in three stages, the age of Disorder, the age of Increasing Peace and Equality and the age of Complete Peace and Equality in which Datong is achieved. In the age of Increasing Peace and Equality the people work to dismantle the nine divisions that stand in the way of unity and lead to human suffering (such as class, race, sex and national divides). Kang claims that the root of these divisions is the existence of private property. The free market not only prevents unity by creating inequality, but also by diminishing overall welfare. Kang is highly critical of capitalists, writing that they “hoard profits” which leads to resources failing to be distributed to those with the greatest need. As a result, poverty, hunger and suffering pervade society. When Datong is achieved, private poverty is abolished and the economy is centrally planned, creating the efficiency that will lead to abundance for all 36

members of society. Once well-being for all is guaranteed, divides between individuals become obsolete and all are united in their cause to promote overall well-being.

The values of Li and Ren are apparent in Kang’s utopian vision: Li is embodied by a planned economy in which each worker plays his or her specific role and Ren unites members of society in their quest for abundance for all.

While Kang appears to be a committed Confucianist, his ideas must have sounded strangely familiar to the Maoist reforming China several decades later. As the communist scholar Li Zehou pointed out to his colleagues, who often regarded Kang’s work as reactionary and bourgeois, Kang’s vision of history echoes Marx’s materialist analysis. In Marx’s mind, history consists of six stages, which unfold as a result of society’s relation with the production of goods changing. The final three stages – Capitalism, Socialism and Communism – are strikingly similar to Kang’s three Ages. Society moves from capitalism to socialism by the working class gaining collective control over production. When Marx claims that under socialism the process of abolishing private property begins and social classes start to disappear, Kang’s destruction of the nine divides does not seem far off. Marx argues that abolishing private property will result in improved overall well-being. Inevitably, this will prompt the establishment of communism, under which there are no longer any class divides and, in Marx’s words, “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”. Again, the parallels with Kang do not seem hard to draw.

In recent years Chinese scholars have asked whether Maoism was pervaded by “unconscious Classicism” and if the communist project failed because China could not escape its Confucian heritage.

This might be the wrong question to ask; Confucianism might not be the enemy of 37

communism it is commonly perceived to be. Perhaps Confucius’ influence on the Maoist dream was not subconscious. Li Zehou’s work allows us to paint a picture of two visionaries (Kang and Mao) constructing visions of unity expressed at a time in which China was abandoning its old values without any new certainties at hand. Li considers Kang’s and Mao’s visions to be two responses to the very same challenge. While imperial rule had imposed stability, its hierarchical bureaucratic structure had lost its legitimacy. A new form of politics was needed to unite a vast and diverse nation. Although they belong to seemingly opposing schools of thought, both men have clearly been influenced by the same Chinese cultural context. With all their self-evident differences, Mao and Kang’s roads seem connected when striving for unity.

“Confucianism might not be the enemy of communism it is commonly perceived to be. Perhaps Confucius’ influence on the Maoist dream was not subconscious.”

As China moves into a new era, the concept of Great Unity does not appear to have lost its power. Speaking at the UN’s 60th anniversary, former President Hu Jintao stated that a “united world” is the primary condition for peace and development in international relations.

This reference to Confucius could not go unnoticed. While China will face new challenges in national and international politics, it is not unlikely that those seeking for answers will – just like Mao and Kang – be unable to ignore the vision of unity dreamed up by Confucius.

38

THE CHANGING FACE OF HAMAS:

COMPARING THE NEW POLICY DOCUMENT AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR PALESTINIAN UNITY

Tom Wells

2017 is a year of many important centenaries in Palestine. It was 100 years ago exactly that the British campaign in Palestine began, leading ultimately to the capture of Jerusalem in December. Together with the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, 1917 was to be a fateful year in shaping Palestine’s history, but 2017 looks to be an important one for the whole region. Things are moving fast in Palestinian politics. There are a lot of reasons to think that the next few months and years may well be formative in influencing the nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations for decades to come. One occurrence has certainly captured the imagination of many in recent weeks: the release of a new Hamas Policy Document for the first time since 1988, aimed at “amending” its controversial Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

39

So goes the part of the original’s dramatic preamble. It has been cited by critics of Hamas as proof of its anti-Semitic genocidal intent. Article 22 is the key item here; this is where the movement’s founding members identified Jews as “the enemy” and claimed that “with their money” they started “most of the revolutions we heard and hear about”, “control imperialistic countries” and “were behind World War One, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate”. So far then it is hardly a surprise that the majority of media attention has been directed towards the new document’s moderation of this language. The document declares a shift in Hamas’ attitude towards Jews; where Jews were the “enemy” in 1988 Hamas now “differentiates between Jews”, Judaism, “the occupation and the Zionist Project as something separate” from each other (Art 15). “Anti-Semitism and the injustice against the Jewish people is a phenomenon related to European history” (Art 16) and has no place in Palestinian dialogue. In

the view of Hamas, Zionism, not Judaism, is the enemy that occupies Palestine.

Interestingly an article in the Palestine Information Centre (Hamas’ news branch) called the original “a mistake.” Other much remarked upon changes have been the acceptance of the 1967 borders, hailed

by President Erdogan as a “key move for the Palestinian Question” and the deletion of references to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Analysis from Israeli, Palestinian, regional, and international media outlets and governments has focussed on these three key areas in order to pick apart the motivations and significance behind them.

Netanyahu denounced the idea of moderation as “fake news” in a video where he launched a scathing attack on Hamas and threw the new document in a bin. Israeli outlets have been uniform in analysis of the shift as the “same old Hamas” trying to “delude the world” (Jerusalem Post).

And why should they not see it this way?

Israel has fought three wars with Hamas since 2007; this document has taken four years to put together meaning that that at least one of those conflicts has overlapped with its creation. The Economist, The Guardian, and the BBC have all asked the same question: is it too little, too late?

These are all pertinent responses to the document, but in many there is a gap in the analysis on what this can tell us about Hamas and the state of national unity in Palestine and how it is being influenced by trends at regional and international levels.

One aspect of the document that has been given significantly less air-time than shifts in policy is the rhetoric surrounding Islam and Jihad. The original 1988 document frames the Israeli-Arab conflict as a Judaeo-Islamic one, but there have been a raft of revisions that have deleted or toned down Islamist rhetoric. The idea that “the Movement is a universal one” because of its Islamic foundation has failed to make an appearance in the newer text. Palestine is no longer referred to as

an “Islamic Waqf”: it may be the centre of the Islamic and Arabic world, but the acknowledgement of “Christian holy places” in Jerusalem and a reference to Jesus of Nazareth are telling signs that Hamas is trying to distance itself from modern Islamic movements. Is it a coincidence that the original demand for the establishment of a State of Islam has gone?

“What Hamas is demanding now comes much closer to what one might understand as traditional nationalism; the blend of religion and nationhood that was so dominant seems to have given way to a far less potent mixture of the two.”

Probably not. Hamas still claims Jihad as a “legal right” but it is comparatively absent. Certainly what references there remain to it are a far cry from earlier inclusions like “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” Other deletions mark a subtle but noticeable shift in rhetoric as well.

Sections of the original Covenant make reference to the Crusades on eight occasions and use them as a rhetorical point of reference for the modern conflict.

They do not appear even once in the new document. No clauses on the establishment of Sharia Law exist in the new policies, articles on the role of women have been gutted – their role as mothers and in rearing families, prominent in the original, again have been deleted. Much like the anti-Semitic rhetoric, we cannot expect these views to have disappeared entirely, or even at all. What we can see is Hamas attempting to control the kind of language that has been associated with them and in doing so, perhaps distancing themselves from other Islamic organisations.

40

What has instead replaced this discussion of Islam is a much sharper focus on Palestine as a national unit, and a far greater sense of nationalistic enterprise. The document leads now with a definition of Palestine’s lands and people, followed by their relationship to Islam. One phrase stands out as embodying this crystallisation of purpose that is absent from the old Covenant: “The Palestinian personality is an original quality.” It is an inalienable quality that does “not dissolve with time”. What Hamas is demanding now comes much closer to what one might understand as traditional nationalism; the blend of religion and nationhood that was so dominant seems to have given way to a far less potent mixture of the two. This new document brings its official aims into closer (but not total) alignment with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the body recognised by Israel at the Oslo Accords as the official representative of the Palestinian people. It goes so far as to recognise the PLO as a “national diagram” for Palestine. But why this shift? Why has it come now? And what does it actually mean for national unity in Palestine?

It seems as if it is a positive step in the reconciliation process between Hamas (which control Gaza) and Fatah (which control the West Bank) after the civil war they fought just over ten years ago. But timing and context are central to reading this document. One important aspect to bear in mind is that this new document is part of a wider shift in Hamas policy and strategy unveiled over the last year. Recently Khaled Mashal’s tenure as the political leader of Hamas has come to an end; on May 6th he was replaced by Ismail Haniyeh, who is widely seen as a pragmatist. The new document is a result of four years of internal wrangling and although some of the spirit of the 41

original remains intact in order to appease hardliners, certainly Hamas’ new position is focussed on a much moderated stance.

But while this moderation brings Hamas policy towards Israel into much closer alignment with Fatah there is a lot to be sceptical about when using it to analyse the idea of national unity in Palestine.

The new document was officially released on May 1st 2017, clashing with Mahmoud Abbas’ state visit to the US. Instead of that trip dominating the headlines around the world (and more importantly in Israel and the Middle East), Hamas’ new policy document did. It was an important meeting. This trip was the first time that Abbas had met with President Trump and it was supposed to be the first step in developing a positive working relationship. Instead it was overshadowed by a rival Palestinian authority. Abbas’ announcement just a few days later, that he was prepared to meet with Netanyahu without any pre-requisites being filled, seems to have been a response to Hamas’ move in an attempt to demonstrate that Hamas remain behind the times. Palestinian unity and nationhood might well be at the centre of Hamas’ new rhetorical strategy but it has emerged at a point when reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hammas have stalled – this new document, therefore, does not necessarily point to greater national unity or reconciliation, rather the immediate reactions it has provoked suggests it is a further evolution of their ongoing conflict.

The start of Mr Trump’s presidency seems to have had some influence on these shifts.

American presidential handovers are inevitably always important to this part of the world in particular, and Trump’s outspoken anti-Islamic policies make it even more so.

Along with the rise of the Islamic State and the outlawing of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Gulf States, the Islamic rhetoric espoused in the original Charter has increasingly become a political liability for Hamas. Their distancing from it is a natural response to this problem. And as President Trump promises to weigh in on the Middle East (and has already launched raids in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria and has met with Egyptian, Saudi, and Israeli heads of state) courting him will be an important feature of the region’s foreign policy in the next few months.

In Israel and Palestine this has already begun. Abbas’ visit and announcement are just one aspect of this, but Netanyahu has enthusiastically picked up on Trump’s lexicon. Within hours of the document’s release he had released a video denouncing reports of Hamas’ “moderation” as “fake news,” happily accusing global media outlets of peddling “alternative facts.” Like Hamas and Fatah, he too seems to be trying to cultivate his relationship with the new president but he is doing so by parroting his phrases and playing up his style of statesmanship. The Hamas document has emerged within this context. As regional interests scramble to woo the new president, this new document may well prove an important piece of Palestinian history, but so far it seems difficult to divorce it from the power struggles that seem to dominate the divided state’s politics. For all its talk of national unity it is still too early to tell if it can provide a meaningful basis for change in the current status quo, but as of yet the early signs are not promising.

42

43

THE UNIFYING FORCE OF PROTEST: HOW DISSENT OPENS DOORS

Abigail Eardley

are none too subtle, all too evident to a local’s, a tourist’s, or a passerby’s eyes: of Hungary’s alleged innocence, Germany’s militant and crazed force, and the clear opposition between the two countries.

Clear, that is, until you step back just a few metres. Immediately preceding this monument is a second structure – almost another piece of art – attacking and tearing apart the liminal space between itself and the “Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion”. Obscuring any clear view of the original construction with its aggressive steel and angular frame, it bears a bold white banner: “TEAR DOWN YOUR MONUMENT!” This peaceful protest calls for the government to acknowledge the inappropriate nature of the monument, and to correct its erroneous representation of history by exposing the suffering of Hungarian Jews.

While the statue of the angel and the hawk was initially accepted as an accurate depiction of the past, it has

In a quieter part of Budapest is Liberty Square. It’s a space that, muffled by towering buildings and the hush of the river running alongside it, is oddly calm in comparison to the rush of tourists elsewhere in the city. Commanding the centre of this square is an often-overlooked monument, one that is rarely placed on tourist maps or recognised in guidebooks. This is the bold and engaging “Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion” (pictured above).

A clash of green-rusting bronze, imposing, spotless pillars of white stone, steel arches, and uncompromising lettering, this Memorial – the grandiosity of which can only be captured through capitalization – depicts a scene of tortured brutality and suffering. Nazi Germany is represented as a looming, coarsely hewn eagle, with the date “1944” on its ankle: the date of Hungary’s invasion by the Axis powers.

Hungary, meanwhile, is represented by the archangel Gabriel, whose vulnerable helplessness is sculpted with far more delicate sympathy. The different depictions 44

since been repudiated as a piece of propaganda constructed by the Hungarian government. Such an interpretation is not unfounded: Hungary, during World War Two, was far from the totally blameless appearance suggested by the first statue.

Rather, as part of the Axis powers until 1944, it is proven, complicit with Hitler’s regime, that Hungary sent hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews and Roma to their deaths. With the “Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion” mere minutes away from the infamous “Shoes on the Danube”, that harsh reminder of the cruelty with which so many Hungarian Jews were treated, there are perhaps fewer inappropriate places to install such a structure. Even if the angel were emblematic of the Hungarian government as opposed to Hungary as a whole, the statue remains problematic, indicating an erasure of Jewish and Roma suffering entirely. This is already an issue, due to the conspicuous absence of any mentions of the Jewish community anywhere on the memorial.

Given the palpable tension between the two monuments – the airspace between them saturated in conflicting perspectives – how can unity genuinely be believed to exist through this act of dissent? It is difficult to imagine that dissent and anti-conformism is able to perpetuate unity.

Broadly speaking, we are encouraged to think that unity exists in conventionality and traditionalism, and that only through a society of totally identical beliefs can harmony occur. This is the motivation behind May’s “strong and stable” hopes for a homogenous government after the general election, which can supposedly only be achieved when dissenting voices are removed. Yet increasing the number of Brexit-supporting members of parliament is unlikely to solve conflict over the European Union in wider society.

Yet it is protesters, not government structures, who are depicted as a

fractured minority group, brimming with contradictions and splintered into even smaller factions. However, protests like this one against the “Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion” place the belief that “protest” is the antithesis to “unity” into doubt. Such generalisations are often perpetuated by media and government structures, who benefit from the alienation of such groups. Coverage of student protests by Fox News at Bethune-Cookman University against Betsy DeVos, for example, was biased and misleading. Rather than being described, not as an organised demonstration, but as merely “jeers”, “interruptions”, “boos” and “catcalls”, the protest was portrayed as a disorderly rabble. In fact, the student protest was defended by the university president and therefore represents a show of unity, rather than an instance of misguided rebellion.

“Protests like this one place the belief that ‘protest’ is the antithesis to ‘unity’ into doubt.”

Similarly, through this alternative and state-condemned statue, there are greater examples of unity than in the divisive initial monument. The secondary construction is not simply an infrastructure of steel beams, but extends beyond into the surrounding area. On the ground are mementoes from Jewish families from across the world: broken glasses, stones bearing dates and names, letters, photographs worn by weather, flowers wilting with age. Stapled to a fence are formal expressions of outrage by European historians and academics – each one compels tourists to embrace an accurate representation of Hungary’s involvement in the Second World War, and demands that the government removes the memorial.

Further structuring this protest is a barrier made of barbed wire. This image connotes the exact terror Jewish and Roma Hungar45

ians experienced at the hands of their own government before 1944.

It is not, then, the initial, state-built structure that perpetuates a sense of unity among the public. Its intentions may have been to transcend the divide between government figures and marginalized groups, but its actual effect is the opposite: perpetuating isolation. Moreover, it is the outraged and outspoken, the dissent, anger, and anarchy, that unifies men and women from among a range of backgrounds and beliefs. Jewish people are finding support not only from individuals and tourists from Budapest itself, but academics and journalists across the world. What began as a small act of resistance has grown into an example of unity that does not include the government, the traditionally unifying force of management and rule. Rather than expressing the voice of the people, inadequate governance compromises concepts of common unity.

Further examples of unity in dissent are present in a variety of instances all over the world. Whether in marches, demonstrations, or rallies, the past few years have been increasingly punctuated by protests that criticise divisive government policy.

The Women’s March, for example, was an intersectional attempt to show unity in the face of controversial governance.

Meanwhile, protests against an attack on a gay couple in the Dutch city of Arnhem acted as an explicit example of unison of different sexualities in opposition to anti-LGBTQ+ violence. Muslim and Jewish Americans, furthermore, have found greater unification in opposing Trump’s policies of exclusion and discrimination.

Typifying this kind of unification is an image from the protest at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where a Muslim and Jewish father stand side-by-side with their children, championing a peaceful and unprejudiced future. With the “world’s largest strike” performed in India in 2016 by trade union members, class issues such as unequal

and unfair pay were contested through acts of anti-conformist unity. In all these examples, structures of exclusivity were challenged from below through unifying protest, rather than imposed from above through lawmaking.

“Rather than expressing the voice of the people, inadequate governance compromises concepts of common unity.”

Some may say that such examples of peaceful protest in fact reveal an element of compliance with establishment structures, which directly undermines the very unifying force of protest. Yet, in peaceful protest, these groups refuse to partake in the dialogue of violence that is more often a symptom of government than marches and rallies: police brutality against Black males in the United States, tear gas used against protesters of Marine LePen in Paris, or security forces shooting protesters calling for political reform in Ethiopia in 2016. It is more likely that in refusing to resort to violence, peaceful demonstrations reveal the fractured nature of the government itself, rather than compromising the genuine meaning of non-conformism. This is achieved through refusing to resort to the panicked actions of governments but remaining calm, with conviction in their beliefs. Peaceful protests reveal the harmony that exists in rebellion as opposed to the cruelty of many forms of governance.

Moreover, it is easy to argue that dissent inevitably creates divisions within its own movement – how can demonstrations, which only exist in an environment of opposing viewpoints, spread unity? A fully functioning liberal democracy is one in which dissent must exist and be accepted, with a state that listens to and permits interaction between civilian protest and formal established structures. Disagreement between different perspectives on 46

social issues does not result in a disintegration of unity in its totality. Instead, it attempts to establish a community in which opposing viewpoints are markers of unity, through the use of free speech and expression. Yet these notions of modernity, based on Western values, perhaps do not exist in reality and are rather an ideal expression of liberal democracy.

Protest can, therefore, be used in many countries in order to create a haven of unity opposing a hostile government.

However, this method is limited largely to developed countries with the right to freedom of speech, such access to unity could be viewed as a luxury unavailable in corrupt regimes. Rather than viewing dissent as a form of uncontained, fractured, and unproductive anarchy, it

permits a social unity for all of those not included in broader society. In this way, it is only by allowing conflict and dissent that unity can be found. The government, believed to be the traditional instigator of unity, is truly only tailored for a select few.

Through dissent, there is a space available for genuine unity of any gender, religious belief, sexuality, physical ability, race, and class, as the unifying factor is recognition of the inadequacy of government systems.

Without this space there is no arena through which to question traditional concepts of society that are thoughtlessly assumed to be inclusive. Dissent and protest in itself has unity, but more significantly, attempts to create greater unity across social structures.

47

WITH THE RIVER FLOWS PEACE?

ENVIRONMENTAL COLLABORATION AND UNITY IN THE LEVANT

Sarah Novak

The River Jordan flows for some 251 kilometres down through the dry, sparse landscape spanning from the northern Sea of Galilee to the salt-laden Dead Sea in the South. On its way down, it brushes the borders between the Palestinian West Bank and the Kingdom of Jordan and Israel, and forms a crucial water source for all of those water-scarce nations, as well as for Syria and Lebanon. As the main tributary to the Dead Sea, it is also essentially the tap that keeps that famous and historically significant lake full. Except that that tap is no longer flowing at quite the rate it used to.

Extensive upstream use of the river since the 1960s has meant that by the time the river reaches the Dead Sea it is less than 5% of its initial volume, and most of that water is either brackish or highly polluted by sewage.

It is no surprise, then, that around the edge of the Dead Sea thousands of sinkholes are appearing as the water level drops by a metre every year, and that the surface of

the lake is now 430 metres below sea level – the lowest exposed land area on earth. A hotel that once boasted of lapping waters at its edge now lies in ruins hundreds of metres from the new shore, and the busy highway carrying cars full of tourists along the western edge of the lake is becoming unstable. As years pass and people upstream continue to tap into one of the only surface water sources in the region, the surface level of the lake continues to drop, and people are beginning to worry that one day the Dead Sea may simply be a distant memory. Clearly, countries in the region need to look elsewhere to quench the thirsts of their growing and increasingly socially mobile populations, and to prevent the complete disappearance of a religiously and historically significant natural feature.

In February 2015, Jordan and Israel signed a bilateral agreement called The Red Sea-Dead Sea Conveyance Project. Israeli Energy and Water Resources Minister 48

Silvan Shalom has called it “the most significant agreement” to be signed by the two nations since their 1994 Peace Treaty, and it has been proclaimed by some as a new path towards a broader form of cooperation in the region. The agreement outlines the intention to build a USD$900 million desalination plant in Jordan’s city Aqaba on the edge of the Red Sea. From this, Jordan will sell fifty million cubic metres of water per year to Israel.

The pipeline itself is estimated to cost USD$250 million, to be funded partially by the European Union and the World Bank. As per the agreement, Israel will sell an equivalent amount of water to Jordan in the north of the country, sourcing this water from the Sea of Galilee and Mediterranean Sea desalination plants.

first phase of the project is set to start at the beginning of 2018), many politicians, scholars, and NGOs have already pointed to the positive signs of collaboration between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.

They argue that cooperation on the environmental front might pave the way for future peace between three nations with fraught histories. Cooperation may also have positive side effects, such as helping manage resource pressures induced by the refugee crisis: Jordan’s Prime Minister, Dr. Abdulla Ensour, has emphasised the link between a large influx of Syrian refugees and water scarcity in his country, stating that there is potential for such shortages to cause “new armed conflicts” in the region.

To counter such possibilities, he says that this is an opportunity for “using the water element for cooperation rather than conflict and confrontation”. In 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Palestine, Israel, and Jordan leadership at the World Bank, where it was agreed that Palestine would also receive a portion of desalinated water from Israel. Both the Israelis and the Jordanians have argued strongly for this initiative as a means to supply water desperately needed on the coastal Gaza Strip, where an aquifer is already severely polluted by seawater and surface water sources are few and far between. Shaddad Al Attili, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, has stressed that Palestine’s involvement in the agreement was instrumental in exercising Palestine’s rights as a riparian state to the Jordan River. Palestine’s participation in these negotiations was interpreted by some as a significant legitimating force for the project as a whole, and a possibility for improving relations between the three countries.

Yet some scholars have interpreted this new agreement as simply a continuation of the inequality and manipulation that is inherent in the asymmetric power

“The surface level of the lake continues to drop, and people are beginning to worry that one day the Dead Sea may simply be a distant memory.”

The project aims to significantly reduce the distance that water must be pumped (and hence, reduce huge energy costs), giving water to extremely water scarce regions in both countries without draining the limited resources of the Jordan River.

Another benefit of the project is that the brine that is produced as a byproduct of desalination will then run downhill to Jordan’s Lisan Peninsula to help refill the Dead Sea. Most of the water will move passively downhill through hundreds of kilometres of piping. Part of the first phase of the project also involves building a series of dams to generate hydroelectricity, some of which could be used to power the desalination facilities and pumping mechanism further upstream.

Though none of the stages of the project have yet begun (Jordan’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation indicated that the 49

relations in the region. Jan Selby, who has analysed the history of water relations between Israel and Palestine from the perspective of the 1995 Joint Water Committee, a part of the Oslo Accords, has found that Palestinians have been systematically denied the legal and political means to address issues such as water confiscation and Israeli vetoing of the construction of new groundwater wells for Palestinian citizens. The new agreement, then, has a broader context of inequality and disagreement which has often been glossed over by headlines proclaiming a new era of collaboration.

“Cooperation on the environmental front might pave the way for future peace between three nations with fraught histories.”

The problems of the Red Sea-Dead Sea project extend beyond the realm of the political: some might argue that the “refilling” of the Dead Sea is an environmental farce. Though the brine that is to be pumped from the desalination plant will be high in salt content, just as the Dead Sea is, environmental groups such as EcoPeace Middle East have warned that this is not sufficient for the two to be a good match.

In an independent study commissioned

by EcoPeace and supported by USAID and the Geological Survey of Israel, models found that the mixing of calcium rich waters of the Dead Sea and the sulphate rich seawater will cause crystals to form, inducing the stratification of water layers and large algal blooms on the surface of the lake. All these factors risk upsetting the many fragile ecosystems present in the Dead Sea and possibly rendering the water transference project more harmful than beneficial.

EcoPeace has proposed alternative solutions to help save the Dead Sea, such as tapping groundwater sources or pursuing demand management reforms such as

more efficient agricultural practices and sustainable water use to regenerate the flow of the Jordan River. According to their report, the “peace dividend” associated with the Red Sea Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project could still be preserved in these alternate scenarios. By working together to revitalise the river they argue that lower segments of the river (currently part of a closed military zone) could open, and joint tourism initiatives could be pursued. Yet the World Bank’s response to this proposal echoes the critique of many scholars of water scarcity, stating that “no degree of reform and change in management of freshwater resources in the region is likely to keep pace with the demand, attain even the minimum standard of water availability or significantly contribute to the restoration of the Dead Sea.” The fact remains that demand for water has long outstripped supply, and with growing populations and increased pressure on resources driven by large population movements, countries in the region must move beyond the micromanagement of the resources that already exist.

If the Red Sea-Dead Sea project is a path towards greater collaboration between nations of the Levant, we must ask whether the price of a ruined Dead Sea is too high. Though recent agreements and discussions indicate that some form of cooperation is occurring between Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, the existence of historical inequities indicate that this is unlikely to be a panacea, and that broader initiatives will also have to be pursued.

The Red Sea-Dead Sea project looks set to go ahead next year, but whether it can be interpreted as a truly promising path towards unity and collaboration in the Levant is open to question.

50

SACRED COWS:

YASMIN ABDEL-MAGIED AND THE HYPOCRISY OF THE CONSERVATIVE RIGHT

Sparsh Ahuja

Every year, on the 25th of April, a collective murmur rises from the lips of all Australians. These are three solemn words, uttered in the earliest hours of the morning, and they strike a chord deep in the heart of the national conscience.

Lest We Forget.

We say these words to remember over ten thousand soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Corps (ANZACs), who died in the tragic Gallipoli campaign in 1915, protecting their country and empire during the turbulence of World War One. The ANZACs failed to reach any of their military goals, but their sacrifice left a defining mark on the Australian identity.

It is not simply our duty, but part of our very being, to remember these soldiers and the liberal values that they fought for on ANZAC day.

This year, we forgot to remember those values.

When Sudanese-Australian television presenter, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, used

ANZAC day as an opportunity to highlight Australia’s controversial treatment of Muslims in her Facebook post “Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine).”, she was met with bitter backlash, ranging from calls for her sacking, to being called a “bitch” on national television. Citing “offence” and the “disrespectful” nature of her comments, Australia’s conservative right struck down harshly on the activist, publicly lampooning her as a shrewd opportunist who leveraged the ANZAC legend to score some quick political capital.

Significantly, Australia’s conservatives have long been calling for a repeal of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, a piece of legislation that curtails freedom of speech if it is deemed to “offend, insult and humiliate” racial minorities. Bolstered by the public support behind the #JeSuisCharlie movement and, more recently, the outrage generated over the brutal lynching of Pakistani student 51

Mashal Khan, neoliberals have argued that diluting the right defeats its very essence.

Australia’s right fears the creation of a hyper politically correct culture, in which ideas are stifled rather than examined, where minorities can hide behind “offence” in a blunt refusal to assimilate, and where the regressive left protects anyone from critique so long as they are not white.

Their fear is not unjustified – freedom of speech is definitely under attack in Australia. In 2009, conservative writer Andrew Bolt was found in violation of 18C for his comments on “fair skinned Aborigines” using their ethnicity to claim social advantages. His remarks were incredibly offensive to the common Australian, not to mention factually incorrect. However, soon after the hearing, many Australians rose to Bolt’s defence, claiming that banning his views was a mistake, as it communicated to our society that certain fringe views could never be discussed.

They saw Bolt’s prosecution as an affront to liberalism, and rightly so – the case illustrated that, for a country that prided

itself on its liberalism and free debate, Australia had found itself a sacred cow.

Many of us, for example, feel deep shock at Turkey’s law preventing public affirmation of the Armenian Genocide – yet would not think twice about banning those who similarly deny the Holocaust.

We shudder at the harsh crackdown of LGBT rallies overseas, but deny neo-Nazi groups the same privileges here. The message from the conservative right was clear – it is precisely the views that offend the majority that free speech is meant to protect, and precisely in allowing offensive views to be brought into the public sphere that they can be delegitimised.

What is shocking, then, is how the narrative changed when the “offender” was Black, female and Muslim. The “freedom of speech” crusaders were nowhere to be seen when Abdel-Magied “insulted” the sacred cow of ANZAC Day. In a bizarre burst of patriotism, “offence” and “disrespect” suddenly became tag words for the very people who had derided these concepts simply months earlier.

52

When Abdel-Magied apologised for her comments merely hours later, they attacked her for backing down from what she truly believed in.

Admittedly, no one took Abdel-Magied to the Human Rights Commission. She was neither fined, nor did she get sacked from the Australian Broadcasting Service.

Noticeably absent, however, was the “delegitimisation process” that the right had highlighted in the case of Bolt. In the aftermath of Andrew Bolt’s debacle, Australians talked about welfare benefits, 18C, and whether multiculturalism was a trump card for all discussions about race. When it came to Abdel-Magied, the picture flipped – we saw a torrent of personal insults. Rather than discussing and debating whether ANZAC day could be used as an opportunity to explore Australia’s shocking refugee rights record, criticisms of Abdel-Magied focussed on the activist herself – her religion, ethnicity and even her views on the headscarf suddenly became relevant in the hysteria.

Importantly, those who did comment on freedom of expression blasted her for abusing the right – for making “silly” and “idiotic” comments against the soldiers who died for her ability to say what she did. On national television, conservative commentator Alan Jones reminded her that she should be grateful for the privileges she would not have been receiving had she been living in a Muslim country.

Of course, he is correct – no one was ever going to put Abdel-Magied’s life in danger over her comments. The point that the conservatives missed in the subsequent furore, however, was fixating over whether Abdel-Magied had the legislative right to say what she did.

To measure unity and integration, one needs to look past what is written in the strict word of the law. Of course, legislation is important – but what is more important is whether legislation is reflected and applied equally through the norms of a 53

society. Minority groups, such as the one Abdel-Magied represents, clearly face major hurdles when entering the political sphere, whether this be through activism or formal roles in Parliament. This occurs despite repeated attempts at affirmative policy designed to give equal opportunity to these members of our society. Unity must be understood through the lens of policy outcomes and social mores, not just the phrasing of policy itself.

“What is shocking, then, is how the narrative changed when the ‘offender’ was Black, female and Muslim.

The ‘freedom of speech’ crusaders were nowhere to be seen.”

Thus, if we are going to argue that “offence” is not a legitimate reason for curtailing freedom of expression, then we need to be able to properly discuss views that offend the majority as well, and not just deride the exasperation of minorities who are already fighting an uphill battle to have their voices heard.

Yasmin Abdel-Magied highlighted that when people of minority backgrounds exercise their freedom of speech, they risk a lot more than those who fit the cultural norm – their personal lives, as well as the potential delegitimisation of their views.

Whether Abdel-Magied’s comments were an affront to the national holiday is debatable. Perhaps she was carelessly insensitive and could have chosen a better time to share her thoughts. Perhaps, as the conservative right would love to think, she was being deliberately iconoclastic, rubbing her hands in delight as she thought of all the offence she might create.

Perhaps, however, her message was a reaffirmation of the ANZAC values themselves, reminding us of the shambolic

record of our refugee policy and the fact that human loss is universal. There is little doubt that Australia’s treatment of Muslims is questionable, and it does not take a big intellectual leap to notice how our society is failing to live up to the pluralism and integration that the ANZACs died for.

What is not debatable, however, is whether the treatment she received at the hands of the Australian right was commensurate to the contents of her post.

Abdel-Magied’s motives may have been dubious, but her comments, and the subsequent scapegoating, serve as a reminder of how freedom of speech has come to be monopolised in Australian society. It is the prerogative of the White and privileged, and anyone who insults their sacred cows is going to unfortunately have to pay the price.

Australia’s conservatives are right.

Freedom of speech is under attack. What they fail to recognise is that they are part of the problem.

54

The Lighthouse is the International Relations Society’s termly journal. All of the pieces included in this journal were written by University of Oxford students and edited and designed by student editors. The artwork included is a mixture of student, faculty and public domain art.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank our Editor-in-Chief, Katherine Pye, for troubleshooting every step of the way and making sure we met our deadlines, our Graphic Designer Robert Harrison for going above and beyond to transform the vision we had in our heads onto the page and making it so much better than we could have imagined, our Photographer Peter Hudston for the vibrancy and life his photos add to the text, our Sub-Editors for all their efforts to make each article the best it could be and of course our contributors for being the backbone of the journal. We’d also like to thank Alan Rusbridger, LMH Principal, for personally donating to The Lighthouse this term. The Lighthouse could not be what it is each term without these incredible people.

Trinity Term 2017, Issue 15 (Formerly “Sir”) editor-in-chief@oxirsoc.org This was printed by Anchorprint Group Ltd. on 120gsm UPM fine.

The fonts used are Didot (titles) and Seravek (body).

Photographs appearing on pages 5, 7, 15, 18, 41 and 53 are by Peter Hudston.

The Lighthouse accepts pitches for submissions at the beginning of every term between 0th and 2nd weeks. We recruit our editorial team near the end of every term, with applications for positions due at the end of 7th week. The best way to stay up to date with the publications is to subscribe to our mailing list via our website oxirsoc.com, or to “like” us on Facebook.

55

56