The UK's Male Rape Victims Are Still Being Ignored

Paul tried to scream when it happened, but couldn’t.

As the man on top of him rubbed his crotch on Paul’s back, he pinned his arms to the bed, and rendered him immobile. Breathing heavily in his ear, with the stench of cheap lager and cigarettes, the man told Paul to “relax”, and that he “only wanted to give him a special gift”.

Paul stops, and steps out to his balcony to regroup. He holds onto the rails, as he tries to control his shaking. He sheds tears into an old hankerchief, before coming back into the room. “I’m sorry, I’ve just shut [the memories] out for so long, it’s hard to remember everything”, he says.

 For the past few months, I’ve been meeting Paul in his London flat to talk about the sexual abuse he experienced as a teenager, and how a friend of his uncles’-  a man he trusted, even admired,- eventually became his rapist.

Cases like Paul’s are more common than you’d think. According to official figures, around 9,000 men and boys- 12 percent of survivors- are subject to rape or sexual abuse each year, although in contrast, just over 1,000 cases are actually reported. Most of the time, men who report their abuse do so years- even decades- after the act was committed, with many survivors citing fear, embarrassment and shame as the main reasons why they remain silent. 

Paul, 24, was raised in Scotland.  His father died when he was still a child. While he still lived with his mother, he spent most of his time with his uncle, who became a father figure for him. Paul’s uncle lived close to his school, so he’d usually go there before heading home. Sometimes, he even slept there.  “He took me to watch the Football, see movies, all the kinds of things a father would do, I guess”.

“I liked going to my Uncles’ place, mainly because he’d treat me like one of the lads. He used to let me stay up late, eat junk- y’know, all the things my mum wouldn’t. And when I was about fourteen, fifteen, he’d let me have the odd can of beer or whatever he was drinking at the time. I’d even be allowed to hang out with his mates- join in on poker nights and all that” he says.

It was when his uncle invited friends over that Paul first met Max, the man who became his abuser.

According to Paul, Max had first appeared to be a ‘friendly guy’ who was ‘easy to get on with’. He was part of his uncles’ five-a-side team a regular drinking buddy and at the time,  considered ‘almost family’ by his Uncle.

 “I remember times when Max would ask me to help him take things from his car, and slide me over a bit of chocolate or something- he’d often rub my back under my t-shirt a lot, or brush my leg every so often. I didn’t really think anything of it at first- he seemed like that with everyone” Paul says.

But as Max visited and even slept at his Uncles’ house more often, instances of forced intimacy became more frequent. Paul recalls a time when he was around 16, Max, who was looking after him while his Uncle was away, had asked him about girls, and why he had never had a girlfriend before.

“He said that I wasn’t sexually confident, and that I needed to know how to ‘treat a girl’ before I could get one. I was a bit uncomfortable, but he said it was just guy talk that every man should have”

“Then he took out some videos from my uncles’ drawer and put one in the VCR- I didn’t really know what it was about at first, but it turned out to be a porno- the first I had ever really watched. Max told me that I should watch it with him, because I needed to learn ‘how things worked’”.  

“As I was watching it, he was rubbing against me and undoing his trouser zipper. I just became uncomfortable and got up- told him I was tired and wanted to sleep, but really I just didn’t know what to do”.

But it was a few months later that Paul received the full extent of Max’s abuse.  He had been sleeping when his uncle and Max had come home from a night of drinking. While his Uncle went out like a light, Max had entered Paul’s room, climbed on top of him, and aggressively began to remove his clothes.  Despite all attempts to resist his advances Paul was crushed under Max’s bodyweight. He tells me, through teary that despite trying to fight back, to shout, he was unable to stop what happened next.

“It only lasted a few minutes I think. But it’s still the most terrifying.- It wasn’t just my body that was taken away by him, but also my self respect…for years I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, I was that ashamed” Paul hesitantly says.

Like many male survivors of sexual abuse, Paul didn’t tell anyone what happened that night, and spent years trying to forget what happened to him. He stopped visiting his uncles house, and avoided Max and his friends at all costs. But despite bottling up his emotions throughout school and college, he found himself becoming more introverted, less talkative, and gradually more erratic.  In the absence of available help, he turned to drink and hard drugs to try escape from his problems, but, according to Paul “all they did was make things worse”.

“It was only when I lashed out at my now ex-girlfriend, that I realized I couldn’t live like this any more- that was when I got out of Scotland, and told myself I’d get through this.”

Paul is now receiving help from a private therapist, who he started to see a few weeks before we first met. It took him nearly ten years to come to terms with what happened to him, and he tells me that for a long time he was in denial. 

“I didn’t know what to say- I mean, I knew about rape, but I didn’t actually think men could be raped. I didn’t think that men wanted to rape other men” he says. “I realise why so many women and men don’t want to talk about it- it’s not just the physical abuse, but the lasting mental torture….it’s soul destroying”.

His experience is not unlike other male victims of sexual abuse. According to Duncan Craig,  psychotherapist and founder of  Survivors Manchester, around 80 percent of male sexual abuse survivors report the incident years after it happened-mostly in their childhood, while a large number seeking help more than 20 years after the incident took place. 

“As a male, there is a myth that you should be able to protect yourself” Craig tells me. He adds that while the psychological impacts of rape and sexual abuse vary, in most cases such abuse has a huge impact on male survivor’s sense of masculinity, and that they are often afraid to speak out as it makes them feel “less of a man”. Duncan- himself having experienced sexual abuse at a young age- says that more activism and an “inclusive” language accounting for male sexual violation is needed to help men speak out;  “As a society, [we are] not very good in making the space needed for men to talk” he adds.

Although cases of male rape  have long been known, it was only fairly recently that the British government have made efforts to help victims of abuse. Last year, the government pledged  half a million pounds to organisations helping survivors- including those of historic child abuse, and promised that they would receive “unprecedented access to vital help”. Despite this, a number of social workers and academic researchers told me that despite the increase in funding,  little had been done to effectively tackle institutional failures that allow rape victims to be ignored.

Ali Javaid, a phD candidate at the University of York and an author of several papers about male sexual abuse, told me that despite greater awareness of the issues, many police forces in the UK didn’t have the training needed to deal with the emotional issues underlining male sexual violence, and that a “highly militarised police culture produces and reinforces a ‘gendered style’ of police work that perpetuates, arguably, masculine practice and values”.

Ali also told me that a broader understanding of rape and sexual violence was needed in order to help victims of rape. According to his research, the general understanding of  rape was one in which “females were [predominantly] viewed as victims; males, [predominantly] as offenders.  Such perceptions fostered a mentality that “male rape was not considered ‘real rape’, resulting  in male victims becoming “aberrant, relegated, and marginalised within specialist archive of news”.

“It is important to remember that male rape is not motivated by sexual gratification but, like female rape, by dominance, power and the enhancement of masculinity…. In societies still structured around male supremacy, the most predominant hegemonic masculine stereotype continues to support the notion that ‘real men’ control and dominate. Rape is one way of achieving this domination and control”.

“Things are better, now”  Paul told me during our final meeting.  

Though he has yet to tell his mother and his uncle about everything that happened to him, a event that he still “dreads to think about”,  he says support from his therapy group, and more importantly, the “unconditional love” given to him by his now long-term girlfriend, has made him view his abuse in a different light.

As I ask him how he feels about what happened to him, he sits up tall, and for the first time, smiles.

“I used to think I was weak…pathetic, because of what happened. That somehow, I deserved it. But now I’ve realized that I can’t think like that….I won’t let myself think like that.”

"I was told to pray until the devil left" : The UK's hidden exorcisms

“I was thrown into a cupboard, and told to pray on my knees until the devil left.  I remember it was completely dark, very cold, and very cramped.  I didn’t know what was going on, but I remember that the door was locked- I kept banging on the door to be let out, but no one listened. All I could hear was mum, telling me to keep praying. ”

Aisha, was 9 when she underwent a forced exorcism.  Taken to a flat in South London by her mum and uncle,  she believed it was just another one of her community’s bible meetings.  But when she entered the flat, she was immediately being snatched away from her mother by her then pastor- a man she then called ‘Papa’.   Papa told her that she had an evil spirit inside her, and that it needed to be removed before she spread ‘evil things’ to the rest of her community.

She was told to sit as fellow members of the congregation – ‘around 20 or so people’ formed a circle around her, chanting verses of the bible while Papa threw water at her. After, Aisha was locked in the cupboard ‘for most of the night’  while Papa led the congregation’s continued chanting. Although Aisha remembers little about what happened that night, she tells me that she was the experience was ‘terrifying’ and that she ‘cried continuously’ for her mother. When she was let out of the cupboard in the morning, Papa told her the tears were a ‘sign from God’ that the spirits left her’.

Now 20, Aisha,  who is currently a student and a secret athiest, told me how these types of rituals are not uncommon in her community. She was born and raised by her single mother in the City, surrounded by her community of Nigerian Pentecostal Christians.  And because she was conceived out of wedlock, she tells me that  both her and her mother were “looked at with suspicion” by neighbours, who  “believed we were impure, and that my mum was cursed”.  As a result, Aisha’s mum found solace in their Pentecostal church, which at the time operated from a rented community hall.

“To my family, Church  is still the most important thing in their lives” she says. “Most Christians in this country only go to Church on Sundays, or during big religious festivals. But my family, like most in Nigeria, still go about 4-5 days a week. Mostly for cultural reasons and to keep ties with the community. But they also really believe everything our pastors say- every word of it.”

According to Aisha, it was the unconditional acceptance of the pastors- often boisterous and charismatic,  that led her- and ‘potentially hundreds’ of children like her, to undergo horrifying rituals in the name of exorcism, or ‘deliverance’.

“My deliverance was much more gentle than others” she says, citing cases in which other children who had undergoing exorcisms had been forced to fast, were hit by their pastors and some were even forced to sacrifice animals.   “Deliverance is more toned down in the UK- probably because of the police” she tells me.

“But the more extreme deliverance takes place back in Africa. I have heard many stories of children as young as 5 or 6 being taken to Nigeria or Ghana on ‘holiday’ and  sent to camps where they are given deliverance. Some have been cut with razors, been forced to jump over fires, and even physically beaten by fully grown men. Things you would be sent to prison for in the UK are ignored in Africa, and anyone who speaks out against it is immediately branded as a witch, or cursed by the ‘white devil’ in the West.”

While Aisha’s ‘exorcism’ may have been psychologically damaging, other British children have been subject to more brutal practices. 

In 2000,  8 year old Victoria Climbie was found dead as a result of attacks inflicted by her aunt Marie Therese Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning.  Dying from hypothermia and with 128 injuries found on her body, including from cigarette butts and bike chains, a  Home Office pathologist went as far as to call it  ‘the worst case of child abuse it had ever seen’.  According to her aunt, she believed Victoria was possessed- a claim that was reaffirmed by her then pastor, Pascal Orome.

                                                     

And in one of the most recent cases of violent exorcisms in 2010, 15 year old Kristy Bamu was violently beaten by his sisters’ partner, Erik Bikubi. Bamu was reportedly hit with a weightlifting bar and parts of his flesh were torn off with pliers before he was drowned in a bathtub. The torture began as a result of Bikubi’s belief that he and his siblings were possessed by demons. 

While the government introduced the ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) policy following Climbes’ death- a strategy that aimed to safeguard children from abuse by linking schools, social services and the police- social workers, who wished to remain anonymous, told me that government cuts, particularly in training individuals to identify victims of abuse, had ‘reduced the ECM to nothing’.

The last official study of child abuse linked to beliefs in witchcraft and possession was carried out in 2006, which identified  around 74 cases since 2000 in which instances of abuse could be linked to religious belief.  The report also indicated that around ¾ of cases were recorded from within African Christian communities, with the remaining quarter dominated by those from south-asian backgrounds.  Around half of the children documented in the report were UK citizens.

 “It is commonly accepted that the prevalence of abuse linked to witchcraft and possession is difficult to measure, as many cases go unreported” says Feriha Tayfur, an independent human rights researcher. Feriha added that it was usually only the “most extreme cases” that were reported to the authorities,  meaning that vulnerable children- especially those with mental and physical disabilities, were more vulnerable to deliverance practices without the authorities knowing.

While the government insists that it has guidelines to deal with all forms of child abuse,  current legislation does not cover religious rituals following the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951.  According to Feriha, while the Human Rights Act provides some protection from religious acts being imposed on an individual, often this is not enough to protect the most vulnerable.

Other experts, including Dr. Richard Hoskins, a researcher in ritual crimes, suggest that children subject to exorcisms are actually being failed by those designed to protect them, notably the police and social services.

During the course of Hoskins’ work, in which he has advised  Londons’ metropolitan police and been an expert witness in over a hundred religious abuse cases, he says that the inadequacy of existing government policy, alongside the ‘tiptoeing around racial issues’ by the police has meant that a large number of children in the UK in danger of abuse continue to be ignored.

According to Hoskins,  while exorcisms in the UK are difficult to monitor, lacking resources and training to police, security officers and social workers has meant that children known to be in danger of abuse have been ignored, citing a case in which a British child was allowed to fly to Ghana to be exorcised, despite the police informing the UK border authorities beforehand.  

Other cases I heard of, mostly from social workers who did not want to be named, included teachers who refusing to report children showing signs of being abused, as well as religious community leaders themselves, who believed they ‘should not be involved in the affairs of other families’.

The sentiment is shared by the Nigerian human rights activist Leo Igwe. Like other anti-witchcraft activists , his work in exposing the impact of witchcraft accusations has led to a number of attacks by notorious evangelical groups, including the Liberty Gospel Church, an organisation whose preaching has ‘led to a massive upsurge in children stigmatised and abandoned by their families in West Africa’ according to an investigation led by Channel 4 in 2008.

‘Women are the most at risk of accusation’ he adds, suggesting that deep rooted suspicions of seduction and temptation are exploited by religious preachers to justify their actions.

‘They give power to these Pastors’ Leo says, who tells me that preachers can make thousands of pounds by ‘mining this sense of indebtedness’ to their congregations, especially by creating a cult-like following. “Exorcism is a ritual that puts people under pressure to give money, whether they have it or not” he adds. 

Dr. Hoskins also agrees, telling me that Pastors can gain notoriety in ‘broken down diaspora communities’ where they can replace traditional tribal elders through their ‘thoroughly manipulative preaching’.

Other sources I spoke to, including Adam, a youth worker who underwent an exorcism when he was 13, told me of families who had ‘literally gone bankrupt’ paying their pastor to carry out deliverance.  “No-one used to say nothing to pastor in case they were disrespectful” he tells me. 

“They just blamed it on the families. My mum said it was punishment from God that they were poor. ‘Auntie’ had been drinking or doing drugs when she was younger and now she was getting punishment from God”.

“It’s all the suspicion in our cultures that lets the pastors do what they like. They know they are untouchable, and that they’ll always have more power over the police, or schools or whoever else tries to challenge them.”

How prevalent exorcisms are in the UK remains a mystery to most, but what was clear during my time researching this article was how well under wraps it was, to the extent where even victims of the practice were hesitant to speak out.  Those who do are often berated, if not disowned by their communities, while others face far more serious threats. What is clear, however, is that the practice shows no signs of dying out any time soon. 

‘Britain right now is the enemy’: Interview with British ISIS fighter

“I look forward to death with a smile.”

These words come from a British militant in western Iraq who is fighting for the Islamic State (ISIS) under the nom de guerre Abu A’ntaar.

But one thing separates him from the majority of his comrades; Before his life as a jihadist, A’ntaar claims to have been a business analyst working in the City of London.

For the past month, we have been speaking exclusively to A’ntaar via an encrypted instant messenger popular amongst the social media savvy Western fighters in the region. A’ntaar’s penchant for propaganda made him no different than most western fighters ostentatiously trumpeting their messages via social media. But behind the standard ISIS rhetoric, he does provide glimpses into his daily life, what was expected of him as a fighter, and whether he would consider returning home in the future.

We did request a video or audio interview with A’ntaar. He refused after the ISIS media department and his higher ranking Emirs (regional leaders) nixed the idea outright.


A’ntaar is among approximately 500-1000 other Britons currently fighting in the region, according to the British governments’ official estimates. Most Britons enter through the Turkish border into Syria and Iraq, where border guards are willing to ‘turn a blind eye’ for a small fee. In June this year, British intelligence service MI5 said that tracking British jihadis waging war in Syria was now its ‘top priority’ following a recruitment video released by ISIS in which British fighters urged Muslims to come join the fight.

More recently, British foreign fighters made headlines after slickly produced videos were published online, showing the beheading of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. In both videos, a man dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ by the British media threatens Britain and the United States in what analysts believe is a distinctive London accent. The idea of relatively privileged American and European Muslims leaving home to fight and die under the ISIS flag in a foreign land has captivated the media and public alike. The question is always the same: what makes them do it?

Democracy, Palestine & tyranny

A’ntaar does not reveal too much about his personal life, cagily avoiding any revelatory comments which could have pointed towards his true identity. Answering to why he chose to join the Islamic State, he says he hated “being ruled by laws other than Allah’s” and that the territories currently controlled by ISIS are “the only place where the shari’a of Allah is applied fully.”

“I hate democracy and the self- indulgence of the rich….I hate inequality…I hate the corporations who are trying to destroy this world because of tyranny,” he tells us.

A'ntaar is derisive towards the notion of using the British democratic process to protest against injustices in the Muslim world. For him, peaceful protest is not an option. “I hate that Palestine was never freed for 70+ years whilst we ‘peacefully’ held placards on the street”. But now, according to A'ntaar's sacred belief, “IS are leading the way as how we should have acted from the beginning.”



“I am a walking device,” he told us.

As far as his experiences with combat, few details were forthcoming, apart from the fact that he was constantly armed, "even when in sleep.”

‘They’re not disposable’

Earlier this year, British born Abdul Waheed Majeed made headlines for apparently blowing himself up in an Aleppo Prison, allowing hundreds of detainees- many of whom were high ranking Al-Qaeda operatives, to flee. And while no Britons have been linked to further suicide bombings as of yet, the social media accounts of other suspected Britons such as ‘Usama-al-Britani’ indicate that more are willing to sacrifice their lives if ordered to do so.

The designation "suicide bomber," however, could in fact be a means of establishing the pecking order of fighters.

“Britons don’t tend to be used on frontlines as suicide bombers” Mark Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in Qatar told us.

“They’re not disposable. They are mainly being used to do menial tasks [as] most of them don’t speak Arabic,” he said.

Stephens adds that foreign fighters may also be used to provide intelligence and infrastructure to ISIS, which has been as adamant about logistical structures and providing public services as it has been about conducting military operations.

“If one is educated for example and has an engineering degree, then he is not being used as a suicide bomber. You need educated people to run your organization. ISIS isn’t just a terrorist group, it runs cities in the area it controls.”

As more Brits heading to Syria, politicians are currently discussing how to deal with the fighters and the risks they pose to their home countries. In June, Prime Minister David Cameron said that foreign fighters posed ‘the biggest threat’ to Britain’s’ national security, warning that ISIS militants could conduct terror operations on home soil.


abc.net

Other politicians are calling for jihadis to be offered amnesty like that offered in Denmark, or be subject to ‘deradicalization programs’. The British Home Office, however, has opted instead to take the most hard line approaches in all of Europe. It includes stripping suspected ISIS recruits of their passports, an all out travel ban, and freezing their assets and bank accounts if necessary.

“People seeking to travel to engage in terrorist activity in Syria or Iraq should be in no doubt we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security, including prosecuting those who break the law,” a Home Office spokesperson told us.

To A’ntaar, however, the warnings are meaningless. “I do not care for a passport of citizenship or living in the UK. I do not want it at all and the only way I’ll return to the UK is when they get into fight with us, and my leader sends me on a mission to cause destruction from within the enemy,” he says, adding that he would attack Britain only if commanded to do so.

“I want to fight for the khilafah (caliphate) and want to die protecting it so long as it is ruling by Allahs laws. Britain right now is the enemy but its not up to me when to strike them.
“It is up to our leaders how to decide when and how. But we are ready,” he warned.

A’ntaars' attitude is similar to that of other ISIS fighters, who, despite pleas from their parents and relatives, express no desire to return home.

“Most fighters don’t want to go back,” Stephens says.

“Family pressure doesn’t do anything to change that. Foreign fighters will never be sent back. The moment he comes back into the country, he [A’ntaar] will be spotted in a second.”

Stephens also tells us that even if there are fighters who want to return home, they would find problems in doing so; “It is difficult to get out of Syria, to get across the border, so it’s unlikely that foreign fighters would go back,” he says.


‘More ruthless than Al-Qaeda’

ISIS is so hardline that it was expelled by al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in February this year. Led by an Iraqi called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS was originally an al-Qaeda group in Iraq. Within just a few months, ISIS launched an aggressive expansion campaign, seized key territory, gained thousands of followers and spread fear and terror across Iraq and Syria, so that now experts argue that ISIS eclipsed al Qaeda and made it seem virtually irrelevant.

A’ntaar for his part believes that ISIS is now the global leader in Jihad and that “nothing, absolutely nothing can get rid of it.” He argues that ISIS is stronger than Al Qaeda, because it managed to achieve something the latter never could – establishing a 'caliphate'.

“The Islamic State is more advanced, more sufficient in self-finance and more ruthless on enemies than AQ,” he says. While praising the group formerly led by Osama bin Laden, he argues that the group have ‘run out of ideas’ without their leader.

While the skill in which ISIS disseminate their propaganda through videos and social networks is well documented, foreign fighters also assist in spreading it, especially to potential new recruits. Most of the English speaking fighters tend to be active on social media sites including Twitter and ask.fm, where they praise the ‘just actions’ taken by militants, whom they refer to as ‘mujahideen’.

Fighters, both men and women, praise ISIS, citing examples in which it has allegedly rebuilt bridges and schools, and stopped activities including drinking and gambling, that they see as ‘Haraam’ or impermissible.

A’ntaar assures us that he has support from local Iraqis and Syrians, saying that “They hate the Americans, and have long been afraid of the Shi’a government” under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He also rejects reports of forced conversions of Yazidis and other minorities, dismissing them as ‘lies’. According to A’ntaar, Yazidis converted out of “their own will," despite claims made by the United Nations and a number of human rights NGOs.

“It is unquestionably the case that English speakers have a great amount of propaganda potential,” says Tom Keatinge, an associate fellow at RUSI.

Keatinge emphasises how effective English speaking is to Islamist ideology, citing the example of radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by US drone strikes in 2011. By using familiar terminology and phrases, the English language "can be manipulated to make Jihad appear more appealing than it in reality is," Keatinge suggests.

This tendency was clear throughout our interview with A’ntaar.

In our attempts to garner insight into his actual life as an ISIS fighter, much of what he imparted concealed in the all too familiar veil of propaganda.

Indeed, the extent to which ISIS is obsessively on point regarding its media message may also be evident in the videos depicting the murder of western hostages, such as James Foley and most recently, David Haines, by suspected British ISIS militant ‘Jihadi John’.

al-arabiya.net

Stephens told us that despite claims that the individual killed the hostages, “Jihadi John was just put out for propaganda purposes, as a direct message to Obama”

“Islam breeds lions.....the West breeds rabbits”

As President Obama announces a new bombing campaign against ISIS fighters in Syria, A’ntaar seemed unfazed when asked whether it such action could eliminate the organization. “No problem,” he said. “They can kill 95 percent of us if they are capable but this movement will breed new leaders every time and our enemy will never be [as] relentless as us in pursuing our goals.”

A’ntaar provided no answer when asked how ISIS would go about fighting American-led forces in the event of a strike.

Although few details were forthcoming regarding the groups ability to counter aerial assaults, he implied the militants were undergoing training to manage air strikes.

Our conversation with A’antaar ended soon thereafter, following “orders” that he was no longer not allowed to talk to journalists. Whether he was taking orders from the IS media department or in fact an integral part of it is a matter of pure speculation.

One thing, however, remains certain. Authorized to speak to us or not, he did not miss a beat in communicating a well formulated message- a message, incidentally, which foreign fighters like him have proved indispensable in providing.

In one of the last messages A’antaar sent to us, he says: “Islam breeds lions who can never be defeated in the fields, while the West breeds rabbits.”

“We want American and west to come to Syria and fight us. We want to strike the jugular vein of the kuffar (infidel) and the jugular vien [sic] of the kuffar is America.”

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This was originally published at http://rt.com and has been modified.

Co Author Steffi Ott. You can follow her on Twitter @steffiott

Some Thoughts on Ukraine/Russia

A friend asked me recently to explain the situation happening in Russia/Ukraine. Having tried to write a 'summary' several times- struggling to do so in each instance, it's clear that the current situation is too complicated to neatly box up.

Moreover, as someone who doesn't speak Russian or Ukrainian (relying on translations, edits and other reporters to summarise information) there's always the danger of inaccuracies, cultural biases and unreliable sources.

So I'm going to try my best to summarise what's going on in Ukraine from a journalist's perspective, and hopefully link out some pieces with far more insight.

As a primer, I'd highly recommend Buzzfeed's 35-step guide to understanding the current crisis. It starts from the fall of the USSR- where Ukraine became an independent state. There's an interesting part in Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations in which he predicts conflict between Russia and the Ukraine to be low, because they were part of the same 'civilization' block. Huntington's thesis held a lot of clout in the 90's. So much so, that Ukraine's first president Leonid Kravchuk actually got rid of his nuclear weapons via Russia, and was considered Boris Yeltsin's most powerful ally in the Balkans. There's a second, important component to this too.

The Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994, was an agreement that guaranteed the independence of Ukraine in exchange for the destruction of the nuclear weapons (Ukraine had the third largest stockpile at the time). With the invasion of Crimea, the US and possibly EU member states are using the document as the foundation of any economic or military action in the future.

The first question is really a legal one; Was Putin right to send forces to Crimea?

Pro-Russian reports conversely argue that such reports are proof of American power games. In a press conference held last week, Putin told journalists that he did not want a war with Ukraine, and that any action in Crimea were designed to protect ethnic Russians (more than 80% ) from radicals in the rebel forces. He acknowledged that Yanukovych had lost his legitimacy- but he refused to recognise the interim government that's taken its place.

As Cambridge University professor Marc Weller acknowledges, Russia is allowed to have a limited military presence in Crimea under the friendship agreement, but any action- whether in development or escalation, has to be done in consultation with Ukraine (as referred to in the 1997 agreement).

 But as stated before, Putin doesn't recognise the interim government as legitimate. In his mind, radical minority groups ousted a democratically elected president and filled powerful posts with "crooks", who pose a threat to Ukranian Russians. Additionally under UN rules (Article 2(4)), until active military action takes place, the occupation doesn't constitute an armed attack (one which might necessitate the need for a military response). Chatham House's Ruma Mundal similarly lays out a grey area of international law- notably relating to authority. While acts of aggression certainly violate Article 2(4) and there isn't enough evidence to constitute a self-defence counterargument, from Putin's perspective he doesn't need to seek authority from Ukraine's interim parliament. Yanukovch might not have a future in Ukraine (Putin's words) but that doesn't remove his 'democratic legitimacy' when he writes a letter calling for Putin's help.

Final piece worth reading is Ashley Deeks' in The New Republic, which goes through the legal remits of self-defense and counter attacks in the event that Russia does declare war. 



Should Britain Intervene? And why won't it?

One word: Money.

One of the most remarkable things that's happened over the past few weeks in the silence of Foreign Secretary William Hague. Speaking in the Commons last week, he said that there were no plans to impose economic sanctions, and that attending the G8 summit in Sochi was still on the cards. Other cabinet ministers have kept quiet on the Russia/Crimea front too, stating only that 'it was a very complex situation with many factors' (though I suppose with Libya it was just a cakewalk, right?)

Much of this decision has to do with the way the country's been structured since the 1980's- a time when former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sang the banker's praises, revelled in the fruits of deregulation and unfettered foreign investment. It was a mentality that continued throughout the New Labour years- where London's luxury markets became similar to offshore tax havens. And throughout this period, London became more filled with management consultants, hedge fund managers and corporate lawyers, working in sectors linked to powerful oligarchs.

Which is why everyone knows Russian black money circulates the economy through London, but nothing is done about it. So despite the fact that targeted economic sanctions would be the best way to tame Putin, government mandarins have gone as far as to write up documents urging MPs not to close off the City.

Generally, the legal arguments are contentious- it's all about perspective: recognition of legitimate governance and what would constitute a breach of the Ukrainian constitution. It's worth noting too that Putin invoked the Right to Protect (R2P) principle too, drawing parallels with the US intervention in Kosovo to oust Milosoviec. In the game of diplomatic rhetoric, Putin's trying (and in my view, succeeding) at removing the West of any moral authority needed to stage a credible form of intervention.




Media Wars

As things change hour-to-hour, we've relied on the media to try make sense of what's going on.

The original media narrative in the West went a little something like this: Peaceful protests against Yanukoych's rejection of EU integration, led to physical, and now armed conflict. There are two sides; the 'Pro-EU' good guys, and the 'Pro-government (and therefore Putin)' bad guys. The latter have the evil Russia behind them, controlling the oil and natural gas supplies, while the good guys just have hope. It's tragic there's no US military presence, says ultimate good guy John Mccain.

So when Abby Martin and Liz Wahl, two Russia Today journalists, publicly resigned over Putin's actions in Ukraine, many took it as a sign of Putin's nearing defeat. Anchors from the UK and the US took the public resignations as a sign that Putin was losing his power- so much so that even the Kremlin-funded RT were turning against him.

But there is an over-arching theme to this; that the conflict in Ukraine is not just a revolt, or a military battle- but one fought over the internet and on television. 

The media war is summed up quite nicely by Salon , though particularly in its charity to the accuracy of Russian reportage. Indeed, it's noted that while Putin certainly doesn't see the interim government as a legitimate or recognisable body on the diplomatic stage, he does publicly propose fresh elections in Ukraine, and sets out the precondition that Washington doesn't align itself with Ukraine's interim. There's a really interesting narrative taking place too; Considering the Nuland tapes (in which the assistant US secretary of state says "F the EU") set out a desired roadmap  for Ukraine,  it seems as if the US are trying to use the Ukraine crisis- and a stand off with Russia, to assert a strong foreign policy at a time when there isn't much faith in the Obama administration.

Of course, the media significance didn't really come about until anchor rebellion.  RT wrote an interesting op-ed on these incidents, claiming that (1) perception of the conflict is culturally dependent and (2) that RT journalists have editorial independence and the right to their own opinions.

Whether that's true or not is up for debate (RT won't entertain the discussion, however) but it does show that news coverage is also verging into old cold-war style paradigms. Which is great for proprietors, though not necessarily the public.



Concluding Points

Which brings me back to where I started- noone really knows what's happening in Ukraine, which is probably why there's a lot less coverage now than a few weeks ago.

The Guardian's Simon Jenkins best sums up the current dilemma: The Western world has pronounced its moral indignation, but it's rife with double standards. Last years' Syria vote (remember, it was a vote on the principle of R2P) wasn't just about the Middle East, but the wider sea change of public attitudes to military action overseas. 

So with the military option no longer valid, diplomats are taking over the debate with empty slogans along the lines of "Obama must show he's strong, Putin cannot be allowed to continue and NATO must act". All of these terms are contradictory, and don't fit into any coherent foreign policy response.

In the meantime, Obama is hosting Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatsenyu in Washington (a move that is pretty much unprecedented), continued to threaten Russia with sanctions and slowdowns of natural gas production. Meanwhile, Russia continues to stock troops and artillery on the Crimean border, as the protectorate prepares for a referendum on joining Russia (something the US will refuse to acknowledge).

It's now expected that a mix of sanctions and over-reaching Russian ambition will make sure Putin kicks himself in the face, but while the move is certainly a gamble on the Kremlin's part, I wonder whether this prediction is more of a hope, than something that's necessarily calculated. 

My prediction is that the West will reluctantly let Putin take Crimea, while they build relationships with a post- revolution Ukraine. Europe's dependence on Russian money, oil and gas are too great for any significant sanctions to effectively work, which of course will also direct US foreign policy objectives too.  Meanwhile. unless the US starts exporting natural gas leverage will still be awarded to Russia- it's something that policy makers are urging, but considering the fastest that they can start distributing energy is in 2015, it might not be quick enough to stop Putin.

Nigel's refugee clawback shows he's just another politician

As the year ends, spare a thought for a group of Britons whose hopes and dreams have been crushed. A group who will continue to be ridiculed, ignored and oppressed, even by those who once promised them Jerusalem itself.

Of course, I'm talking about the poor members of UKIP, who upon hearing of their leader Nigel Farage claim that the UK should 'welcome Syrian refugees', came up in arms (at least on their Keyboards) to denounce the act of treachery.

“You're a shill, just like the rest of 'em” said one man on the party's official Facebook account. “Charity begins at home, let's start here first!” said another. In fact, since Farage made the statement last Sunday, the party's page has been filled with reactions similar to another rattled up member, who eloquently put it: “They can sort out their own shite”.

Admittedly, I was quite impressed by Farage's statement. Perhaps because I'm a liberal Britain hater by UKIP's standards, but the fact that he was able to justify the proposition under the United Nations 1951 declaration on Refugee status illustrated a certain maturity of the party- one that's hard time shaking off negative images of racism and under-informed policy.  

It also said something about Farage's character. Arguably the most charismatic man in modern British politics (with London mayor Boris Johnson a close second), Farage has always been known for his defiant speeches at the European parliament, an unrelenting stance to the European union, and generally achieving what most politicians can't- being rather good on TV. I half expected that the man likely to lead the 2014 elections would have the resilience to do what was morally right, even if a section of his party weren't too chipper about it.

But yesterday, Farage retracted his initial statement, stating that he actually meant Syrian Christians (otherwise known as 'the good ones'). Beyond the sheer offensiveness of the comment- and the inherent implication that religion is an accurate determinant of one's life, it's worth thinking about what this actually says about Farage himself.

Bear in mind that a significant part of the Farage 'brand' lies in marketing himself as an outsider- the 'honest broker' in a land of crooks- something that his supporters often lament in when they talk about 'spineless' politicians. Indeed, just type his name into Youtube, and you'll find plenty of videos attacking the 'LibLabCon' establishment, claiming that the party 'best represents the working class' through addressing its concerns around immigration. Essentially, the Farage brand has been constructed as the antithesis of mainstream politics, accommodating viewpoints that Liberals, Conservatives or Labour could never acceptably get away with.

Farage has been able to get away with this 'free pass' for a while, and it's allowed a great deal of inconsistency in the process. Prior to his statement to help Syrian refugees, he referred to the UK as a 'soft touch' for trickster asylum seekers, while the party's flagship policy, the 5 year immigration freeze, has generally gone unchallenged by the mainstream press.

Meanwhile, its campaigners and supporters seem to pay little attention to its policies outside of immigration and the EU; Indeed, it still confuses me that a party that calls for corporation tax cuts, meanwhile statements made by the party's former economics spokesman, a certain Godfrey Bloom, has been on the record claiming that the unemployed and public sector workers should be 'stripped of their voting rights'.

Perhaps the issue is that we don't really know what Farage stands for. Once a strength, his dream of UKIP becoming a formidable force in British politics is coming with consequences- notably, a greater demand for accountability. That might mean Farage will have to stop playing the political maverick, and act more like a politician.

Whether Farage believes his revised statement, is of course questionable. But what this obvious scaling back does show is that even without a Westminster seat, he knows that he requires a core foundation of votes to even stand a chance in the next election. And being a self-cultivated brand, he might find that defying the congregation is much more difficult.

*An interesting comment piece : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10542611/Does-Nigel-Farage-want-to-join-the-Conservatives.html

The 'gender segregation' debate has ignored Muslim women

It turns out that British Universities are further bowing to Shariah Law (at least according to some bloggers) by 'enabling' gender segregation. The issue comes in light of a recent report by UniversitiesUK (now retracted) suggesting that 'gender separation is not alien to our culture'.

There's been enough columns denouncing forced separation by gender; pretty much every national newspaper, magazine and digital news outlet have argued that such requests are akin to coercion, demean freedom and equality, and may even suggest that religious sensitivities have taken precedence in secular institutions.

Generally I agree with the sentiments; I personally don't believe segregation achieves what it is designed for, nor is it particularly great for the purposes of public intellectual inquiry. I also feel that a lot of Islamic societies across the country will bear the brunt of rash accusations; my own university's Islamic Society (ISOC) didn't do segregation in public debates, and neither did the others I attended as a guest.

But I do believe that Muslim women have been short-changed in this highly publicised debate- particularly when it came to media reporting. For while representatives of LSE's atheist & secular society, Student Rights and IERA were given air time- the opinions of ISOC attendees- particularly Muslim women, were given much less attention. And if we are to seriously have a debate or impose terms like 'patriarchy', 'misogyny' and 'medieval' , then it's probably not the best idea to shut out the people who have been portrayed as the victims in all of this.

I decided to speak to three Muslim women over the weekend. All, who wish to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, are students at London universities, where they play active roles in their Islamic societies.

During the interviews, what surprised me was how they viewed the separation by gender, an Islamic custom that is observed by pretty much all Mosques across the world. Soumaiya, a 20 year-old engineering student said to me : "I'm uncomfortable with the term 'segregation' because it implies force. None of us were forced to sit away from males, it was a choice that we made- one that we're actually more comfortable with."

Over the course of our correspondence, we talked further about Islam and feminism, where she went on to say: "This whole debate is a lot like the issues regarding the Hijab (headscarf) and the Niqab (veil). One the one hand you have a group of people arguing that it supresses women into acceptance and submission. On the other, a growing wave of feminist Muslims are using it to empower themselves, and to build gender identities on their own terms.

"To me this is the same thing. I don't agree that people should be forced to do anything, but if I feel more comfortable sitting alone, or with fellow women, then why should I be told it's wrong? Isn't it all a bit counter-intuitive?"

Halima agrees. A 19 year old Mathematics student and former treasurer of her Islamic society, she says: "A lot of the arguments flung around talk about how sitting separated reinforces patriarchy and male superiority, but no-one really asks what the females think. It's ironic really- they complain that girls in Islam are ignored and unrecognised, and then they completely ignore them when discussing gender rights!"

That's not to say that all Muslim women- or even men- find the current system of segregation to be perfect. Indeed, as young, liberally-educated Muslims go to UK universities, they often have a mindset which is at odds with old-school preachers and culturally dogmatic ways of thinking. Noor, a Chemistry student from my alma mater tells me: "Segregation the way that it's currently done might not work as intended, because the disparity between the Isoc and the outside world are polar opposites.

"How can you be in an environment where you have total separation in Islamic events, and then you're forced to mix and interact with the opposite gender outside? Sitting at the back of a room won't improve the way that anyone interacts with the opposite sex- in some cases it might make it even worse."

Noor also tells me that ISOCs do need to develop in order to address the key issues surrounding gender segregation suggesting that they need to create a space where "boundaries exist, because they are part of a wider principles that we believe in and are embedded within us and not because they are enforced by a sign that says "brothers left and sisters right".

This leaves the question of whether gender segregation is 'legitimate' in British universities. I'd argue that while I don't believe an external speaker should be able to dictate terms of a public event (and this would apply whether it's race, socio-economic disposition or political affiliation) and nor should people be forced into arrangements without their consent, there is also something to be said about respecting choices regardless of how distasteful we might find them. Such is the libertarian position of Legal theorist David Bernstein, who explains in his paper ["Sex Discrimination Laws Versus Civil Liberties”] that "guarding the freedom of choice for men and women is more important than preventing such sex segregation since methods of prevention can often cause more harm than good for both sexes."

To conclude- hastily, I do think that the debate surrounding gender segregation on British campuses, while important, has been poorly debated on. There has been far less discussion, particularly from female viewpoints, on the values of choice, liberty, religious identity and legitimate boundaries of self expression. Instead, we've heard far more misogynistic assumptions from Islamic groups who have been given a platform to speak on gender rights, and commentators that have fallen into the same trap of pushing forward a dogmatic and incorruptible strand of liberalism.

Even if campaigners ultimately succeed in preventing societies from holding events where segregation is permitted, I fear that it will, unfortunately, do little to advance the gender equality of female Muslim students.

How the police and senior management are trampling on student dissent

nus.org.uk

The news that Michael Chessum, president of the University of London Union (ULU) was arrested earlier this week under section 11 of the Public Order Act 1989 is the latest event in a series of efforts to quell dissent on UK university campuses. It further illustrates a worrying trend in the future of student politics as well as the fate of public universities themselves.

Under S.11, the police had every right to arrest Chessum on the grounds that he had failed to give prior notice of the demonstration, held to counter management's continuing plan of dismantling the largest students' union in Europe, opting instead to outsource services and dilute both accessibility and public accountability for its students.

Yet the claim rests on shaky grounds, for several reasons. First, as reported by the London Review of Books,  Chessum was arrested almost immediately after his meeting with a member of senior management, who had previously written to him advising: ‘review your personal and institutional responsibilities and liabilities in leading protesters into physical danger and unlawful action'. While the University of London claim they have nothing to do with the protest, complains from union staffers suggest that the correspondence might amount to a clear threat taken in this context.

There's a bigger issue at hand, however; an ongoing trend in which authorities have actively clamped down on student dissidence in campuses across the country- and have gotten away with it.

Consider that even after the 2010 student protests in London, the metropolitan police continue to taunt students with letters 'reminding' them not to engage in 'disruptive, anti-social behaviour as Farah-Al-Nahda reports.  The crackdown hasn't just been limited to mass protests either. Just a few months ago, another student at the University of London was arrested for a 'chalk protest' highlighting the University's aims at altering levels of pay to outsourced low-wage cleaners.

That isn't all, of course. On the same day that Chessum was arrested, secret footage published by The Guardian showed that the police were attempting to bribe students at Cambridge University into spying on activists on the campus. According to the tapes, the police weren't just searching for activists who may pose a risk to national security, but rather 'union-stuff', as "the things they discuss can have an impact on community issues."

While Chessum has now been released from Holborn police station, he, as have the rest of union members, has been banned from staging any more protests on any of the London campuses until further notice. Meanwhile, the University of London will continue the plans to disband ULU, only this time with little threat of resistance.

Finally- it's worth reading this piece on OpenDemocracy.net. It's an interesting article on the uses and abuses of security services in our universities, and the ways in which other forms of protests- including those against arms manufacturers, are also being trodden on.

What this says about how universities are changing is debatable, though the way I see it, arbitrary arrests, gagging orders and the increased erosion of transparency make it clear that public institutions are becoming more corporate, less accountable to their student bodies and disturbingly, more welcome on campuses.

Some thoughts on Journalism

It’s been a while since I last went on a school trip- especially one that didn’t involve asking middle-aged mums from Kent about parking in their dreary town centers.

As part of the NCTJ course (an accredited journalism training programme) that I’m taking at Lambeth College, I had the opportunity to attend the Society of Editor’s conference, an annual meeting of the industry’s top editorial staff, freedom of information campaigners and veteran journalists, to discuss the most pressing issues that currently faces journalists working in the print medium. The day consisted of panel debates relating to reforms in press regulations, the relationships between journalists and the police as well as the conduct of ‘responsible journalism’- and how to address the balance between reporting and national security.

There’s a collection of really good blogs (most by fellow Lambeth students) here

While I won’t go through each of the debates with a fine comb (the blogs do have more details regarding them anyway)  I thought it might be worth highlighting the key points from the conference, which may help those working in the industry, or others wanting to join it.

 ‘Journalism is changing’
A point that almost everyone knows in theory, but not so much in practice.

Journalism is going through a transition stage at the moment. While the UK still has a very healthy amount of newspapers and magazines in circulation, the medium of mass printing is dying; in other words, people are less likely to spend a large % of their daily income on newspapers.

As the Press Gazette reports here most national printed papers have seen a rapid decline in their readership in less than a decade- in part because of steep increases in price, but more because news is more accessible- and free- online.

Home Secretary Theresa May’s keynote address made this quite clear, stating that the biggest challenges facing the press were that of advertising revenues and monetizing content. At the same time, she said that the challenge of the local press came from larger institutions like the BBC, who could lift local content and broadcast it to a much wider audience. 

In this case, the ‘media’ face a number of problems at once;

(a) To reassert its relevance to local and national democracy.
(b) To build better brands, particularly on digital platforms
(c) To compete against bigger agencies and broadcasters with larger audiences
(d) To find the funding needed to continue journalistic practice.

Proposed regulations aren't ideal- but it might be better than the alternatives

 I’ve blogged previously on why the Royal Charter would dilute the roles and responsibilities of the press- something I still believe. But the conference did hold a terrific debate on how journalists might work under the new system.

The panel discussion- which featured  the Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti and Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke, highlighted the difficulty for British journalists in acquiring information. One example given related to the difficulty she had in getting information relating to MPs expenses- which the Telegraph eventually broke thanks to a whistleblower. Brooke said: “Information that should be in the public domain t is suppressed and it creates a sort of black market”

Chakrabarti said she had no desire for ‘absolute transparency’, acknowledging that secrecy was essential for a state to protect its national interests, but also argued that there was a need for oversight and public accountability, saying that in our current state, security services “wanted no secrecy for us, and no accountability for them.”

The question is, under a new regulatory model, how free are journalists to do investigative work?

As editor of the Press Gazette Dominic Ponsford argues, the Press Complaints Commission’s new incarnation, the Indepdendent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) may be the ‘best worst solution’ on the table. The stick behind the PCC’s replacement is coercion to the newspapers, which comes from harsh pay-outs by newspapers in libel cases. However, as many of the oversight bodies will only really change in name, and publishers will still oversee the conduct of journalism, there are some who argue that this is far more desirable than a Royal Charter.

That said, the Media Standards Trust aren’t too happy, as Gordon Ramsay, researcher at the LSE media project shows.

 Monetising media is still uncharted territory

Paywalls, re-branding, going digital etc. Lots of ideas on how to make journalism pay (important for budding reporters), no real agreements on how to do it. A panel debate featuring the Sun’s new editor David Dinsmore and Peter Barron, former editor of  BBC Newsnight, argued their methods of making journalism pay.

I won’t go into this as it’s quite long winded, but my personal opinion would be that paywalls are likely to become the default setting of most media outlets. The debate will then shift from one of ‘how to pay journalists’ to a more diverse one on the balance between monetizing content and easing access to information for the public.

The Royal Charter has killed the Fourth Estate

It is said that in 1787, the polemicist and prominent Whig Edmund Burke first made reference to the "illustrious nativity of the Fourth Estate" in a speech to the House of Commons. Though in context to our debates surrounding the place of journalism in British society, it is perhaps best to turn to Burke's contemporary Thomas Macaulay, who in reviewing Hallam's Constitutional History first made the case for the press as a system of accountability, stating: "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm."

Fast forward to 2013, and we have seen the most remarkable of transformations, as an institution whose modus operandi rests on independence becomes further compromised by the power of politics. As the Privy Council grants its royal charter on press regulation, accompanied by the Queen's seal of approval, the press will now have to face new obstacles when going about reporting.

The Sun's political columnist Trevor Kavanaugh has said of the new regulatory system: "If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig", illustrating quite voraciously the difference in narrative between politicians and newspaper journalists. The former describe the Royal Charter as the 'best possible outcome' in abiding by Lord Leveson's recommendations which followed the Leveson Inquiry. The latter see it as sneaking statute, designed to give the political class more influence over the press, as Toby Young blogs on the Telegraph.

Both claims are exaggerated, but there still exists a potent danger. Indeed, the new system of regulation remains voluntary, but the fangs of the new regulatory model lie in the detail- in particular, the methods in which media organisations would be coerced into signing up to the Charter. In particular, this relates to the Crime and Courts act 2013 , which stipulates different treatments of media outlets depending on an 'approved regulator'. The snippet can be found in section 42, but I've posted the relevant segment here:

(3)For the purposes of subsection (2), a body is “recognised” as a regulator of relevant publishers if it is so recognised by any body established by Royal Charter (whether established before or after the coming into force of this section) with the purpose of carrying on activities relating to the recognition of independent regulators of relevant publishers.

(4)“Relevant claim” means a civil claim made in respect of any of the following—
(a)libel;
(b)slander;
(c)breach of confidence;
(d)misuse of private information;
(e)malicious falsehood;
(f)harassment.

The press have also suggested the charter is coercive on the basis that those who do not wish to join, such as Private Eye magazine, risk higher legal costs and exemplary pay-outs to claimants in the event that they are taken to court.

At the same time, the creeping authority of the charter is embedded in more discreet ways. Consider section 17 of schedule 3 under the stipulations of the charter:

17. The Board should not have the power to prevent publication of any material, by anyone, at any time although (in its discretion) it should be able to offer a service of advice to editors of subscribing publications relating to code compliance.

And when we consider in recent days that a number of high profile politicians, including the Prime Minister in which he posed a thinly vieled threat to The Guardian over it's NSA surveillance reporting, there is definitely a legitimate fear that politicians- and their interested affiliates, will be able to steer journalism at their own will.

A first reading of the charter illustrates not only the diminishing of the 'fourth estate' in its present state, but also the re-definition of journalism itself. What started as a legitimate inquiry into phone hacking and unethical practice- as well as legitimate debates regarding the strength of the Editor's code has instead become a battleground in which journalism is defined by the most powerful in society. Whether the press play by these new rules, or abstain completely is something we'll see in the coming few months, but I fear if they that satirical cover of Private Eye may instead become a haunting reality.

ULU were right to ban officials from remembrance day ceremonies

stephen_gunby via flickr.com

There's one image that remains prevalent from the now 'infamous' student riots of 2011.  
Charlie Gilmour, a Cambridge history undergraduate was snapped swinging from the Cenotaph-an act deemed of such disrespect that he was given a jail sentence of 16 months. Yet the message that the photograph conveyed was not simply a student's disregard for 'the glorious dead', but rather the underlining irreverence that student unions supposedly harbour toward Britain's military history.
 
The news that University of London Union (ULU) senate have voted to ban any staff attending remembrance day in their 'official capacity' has brought this sentiment up once more. Already, members of the Twitterati have resurrected Mcarthyist claims of universities controlled by Marxists. Even London MP Stella Creasy has got involved in the issue, tweeting: “As a former student, this decision by ULU to ban officers from participating in Remembrance Sunday makes me ashamed.”

Firstly, its important to note that the tweet significantly misrepresents the actuality of the situation; Officers of the ULU are allowed to attend ceremonies as individuals, but not in their official roles. Certainly, this is far from a blanket ban, never mind an exertion of hostility toward the armed forces. With that in mind, we should really be focusing on actual issue- whether it was right for ULU to ban any official representation. 

By and large, I feel that ULU got it right. 

As one of the largest unions in the country representing over 120,000 students, ULU has a unique pressure to reflect the vicarious diversity of its organisation. With that remit comes responsibilities, especially in decisions that assume collective representation. For the most part, such actions are implemented when the welfare or rights of students are under direct threat, a principle that forms the framework of the controversial 'No Platform' policy, as well as other initiatives designed to represent minority groups such as LGBT networks. In such situations, unions like ULU are justified in taking stances, particularly as they are bound to them by constitutional mandates and democratic accountability.

The obligation of collective representation cannot be said about events like remembrance day, especially if we are to accept ULU's duty as a democratically elected body. After all, considering the diversity of opinion surrounding war, the armed forces and memorialising across the country, should ULU be taking a stance in ample disregard of important- albeit smaller- clusters of student opinion? And if this is a valid precedent, then would we similarly support ULU if it claimed to represent its entire student body on national issues relating to Royal ceremonies, or the death of former Prime Ministers?
 
Here lies the real dilemma: While it's all well and good for self-aggrandised 'patriots' tacitly telling students that they should be forced to participate, collective representation actually dilutes the value of commemoration itself. Whether one chooses to commemorate in an official ceremony, a secular gathering or to abstain, acknowledging history should be left as an individual enterprise, instead of a predetermined action. If ULU president Michael Chessum wants to commemorate this weekend by “fighting for peace and challenging the policies of governments” he has every right to do so, in the same way that others can attend a memorial service, observe a two minute silence or not do anything at all.

Why ULU's decision- which strikes me as refreshingly democratic, has come under such intense scrutiny is quite confusing. Far from all the sensationalism and rhetoric, the vote conveys enacts the principle that no union staff member has the right to represent London's entire student body on issues where there are clear divides of opinion across the spectrum. In that case we should see ULU's decision not as deliberate way to antagonise, but rather a positive step forward in allowing students to choose how they remember the nation's darkest moments.