It’s leading up to that time where people get excited about Christmas and start counting down the days. Your friends may ask you whether you’ve have started your Christmas shopping or if you’re leaving it to the last minute like a lot of people do.
A big aspect of Christmas shopping are the adverts you see on TV encouraging you to buy from their shop. The start of Christmas for some is marked by Halloween, and others is marked by the first Christmas adverts on TV. In the past few years, Christmas seems to be a competition of who can make the best Christmas advert, with its aim to make you envision Christmas exactly as you see it on screen, whether it be food, presents or decorations.
A number of outlets have released their advert for this year. Brands such as John Lewis, Marks & Spencers have been known to create exceptional adverts costing a lot of money. This year Iceland has been in the headlines for an interesting reason. Their £500,000 advert didn’t even make it to our TV screens after being deemed too political.
The advert, a cartoon of an orangutan in a child’s bedroom messing it up and the child in the cartoon, tells the story of a child trying to get the ape to go away but first she wants to find out why it was in her room. The advert then goes on to highlight the impact on palm oil on deforestation.
Clearcast, the body that is responsible for screening ads before they are broadcast to the public, said it was in breach of rules banning political advertising laid down by the 2003 Communications Act. Iceland posted the advert on YouTube and within 24 hours, it already gained 1.5m views
Earlier this year, Iceland became the first supermarket to pledge to remove palm oil from all its own-brand foods. The orangutan is being classified as critically endangered as habitat loss in countries such as Malaysia is contributing to to the production of palm oil.
Listen we all feel something needs done after watching that wee orangutan Iceland advert. Nobody cares about wee ginger rascals more than me.
The advert, that was made by Greenpeace who are an independent organisation campaigning to ensure a peaceful and sustainable world by investigating, exposes and confronts environmental abuse by governments and corporations around the world.
Iceland’s founder, Malcolm Walker said “we got the permission to use it and take off the Greenpeace logo and use it as the Iceland Christmas ad. It would have blown the John Lewis ad out of the window. It was so emotional. Not only do we have to think of the effects loosing animals and their natural habit but also the processing of it leads to rising gas emissions and climate change.”
Thank you for the overwhelming support for Rang-tan!
We’re proud to be sharing the story of rainforest destruction, and its devastating impact on the critically endangered orangutan.
The video might have been not as effective if they used a real human or ape but telling the story in the format of a cartoon touches our inner child. It affects us, because it grabs our attention and the attention of children. The idea being, that if a child can understand and sympathise with the organgutan, can’t we?
Why is wanting to save the rainforest and orangutans political? In what kind of perverted universe can that be?
Last Year, another controversial advert grabbed out attention. Debenhams released a Christmas advert where a white woman and black man fell in love on a train. This seemed to get people talking about it but was never banned. However, it is a reflection of today’s society and people have a right to fall in love with whoever they choose. Some people might say that we’re forcing this reality down their throat but wouldn’t say the same thing about the Iceland advert?
Dolline is a traveller, journalist and blogger who has palate to try new things. She is a very spontaneous person; you might find her skydiving over the Kenyan coast to kayaking in the Lake District. She can be an over thinker who thinks of every outcome but if she doesn’t she welcomes the change that wasn’t planned. However, she is a very simple person who is up for a good laugh or a book and enjoys living the moment. Dolline also writes for her small personal blog called ‘Swatches of Beauty’ and is currently a production journalist trainee at ITV Border.
The US Midterm Elections saw a record number of minorities voted into Congress. This includes members of the LGBT+ community, which many have dubbed a ‘Rainbow Wave’.
OMG there is a rainbow over the Capitol Building right now.
This was a historic event in US history, especially given the recent homophobic actions taken by Donald Trump, his administration and other members of the US government. Since Trump’s 2016 election, he has taken numerous anti-LGBT+ actions. He nominated Neil Gorsuch, who has made several rulings against LGBT+ rights, to replace infamously anti-LGBT+ Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Trump’s administration has also rescinded memos made by the Obama administration that provided protection to trans people, arguing that trans students are not protected under civil rights and enabling the federal government to claim that anti-trans discrimination is not illegal. Trump also attempted to reinstate the ban on trans people serving in the military in 2016, which the Obama administration planned to reverse in 2017.
The anti-LGBT+ legislation continued when Kansas Governor signed a bill into law that permitted adoption agencies to refuse foster care or adoption to same-sex couples, claiming religious exemption. This was shortly followed by a similar bill in Oklahoma allowing adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBT+ couples on the basis of religion. Additionally, in June, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
However, the 2018 midterm elections saw a small increase in LGBT+ representation across the board. Colorado’s Jared Polis became the first openly gay man to be elected as a US Governor. He became the second openly LGBT+ US Governor, joining Oregon’s Kate Brown who was re-elected on November 6th. Democratic LGBT+ Senator Tammy Baldwin was also re-elected, remaining the only openly LGBT+ politician in the US Senate.
Several LGBTQ candidates made history, including the first openly gay man to be elected governor; New Hampshire’s first gay congressman; and a Native American lesbian who became the first queer person to represent Kansas in Congress. #Midterms2018https://t.co/as1DR1WxMq
The US House of Representatives gained more out LGBT+ incumbents, with Kansas’ Sharice Davids, Minnesota’s Angie Craig and New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas. Craig’s win unseated Jason Lewis, the anti-LGBT+ previous seat holder, and Kentucky’s anti-LGBT+ Kim Davis was also not re-elected.
Representation also increased at the state level: Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker, two transgender women, were elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Susan Ruiz and Brandon Woolard also became the first LGBT+ members of Kansas state legislature, and Malcom Kenyatta became the first LGBT+ person of colour to be elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. In addition, Massachusetts voted against a bill that would repeal transgender rights.
The 2018 U.S. midterm election resulted in the Democrats taking overall control of the house, while the Republicans gained more seats in the Senate. This marks an important power shift for the Democrats in office, as well as for women, POCs, and members of the LGBT+ community. Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD said: “This election is shaping up to be truly historic for LGBTQ candidates and, coupled with the change in leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, shows a rejection of the hate-fueled politics of the Trump Administration that have heartlessly targeted LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, Muslims and all vulnerable populations.”
Charlotte Davis is an American who currently lives in London. She has recently graduated with an MA in the Reception of the Classical World. She currently also writes for an art history website and her interests are in art, art history, culture and politics.
Written by Afshan D’souza-Lodhi born in Dubai and bred in Manchester. She is a writer of plays and poetry.
Its November, and as well as it being Movember (a month to raise awareness of men’s health issues) it is apparently also Islamophobia Awareness Month (IAM). To be honest, until this year I didn’t even know it was a thing. But after researching a little I’ve seen that it’s not a new campaign. In fact, MEND (Muslim Engagement & Development), have been running this campaign for over 5 years. MEND (Muslim engagement and development) is a UK NGO. It focuses on media monitoring, advocacy in Westminster and improving the media/political literacy of British Muslims. The aim of the organisation is to tackle Islamophobia and to encourage political, civic and social engagement within British Muslim communities.
In 2011, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi famously said that prejudice towards Muslims had “passed the dinner table test” and become socially acceptable to express bigotry against Muslims. – a quote from the MEND website about the increase in islamophobia over the years.
I’m not going to do the whole ‘we don’t need month for something like this when it happens all year round’ argument, because I understand the importance of what a month of raising awareness does. I am however bored of the Muslim victim narrative. While I applaud MEND and the creators of the Islamophobia Awareness Month for raising awareness about Islamophobia, this campaign is not the way to end it. Reports, poems, conferences, talks and even tweets have helped to spread the word that society and particularly the mainstream media is biased against muslims. The various commissions show that islamophobia has existed for a long time, but to memorialise it in the form of an awareness month is to say that it will last forever.
Islamophobia
Islamophobia, while not necessarily a new thing, is not something that will occur forever. The Mirriam Webster definition of the word is “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against Islam or people who practice Islam.” Muslims, prior to the terrorist narrative were labelled as exotic. The East was seen (and in some places is still seen) to be exotic, as something to be desired. People from the East, were people the West saw as, cultured entities i.e. ‘we can learn something from them’. Multiculturalism (which David Cameron in his first speech as Prime Minister claimed had failed), saw migrants and ‘othered’ people as a means to an end. There was this idea that as a country, the UK could gain a lot – mainly music, clothes and food. And then 9/11 happened and the narrative surrounding Muslims switched from exotic to terrorist. Since then, there was a rise in attacks against Muslims or those assumed to be Muslim. It isn’t so much that the Muslims were never a target, just that the fear/discrimination associated with Muslims prior to 9/11 was more racially charged. It could be argued that Islamophobia is a form of racism, even though Islam is a religion not a race. In the same way that Jews are racialised, so now are Muslims.
Not everyone is aware that Islamophobia exists. A lot of it is subtle, from the way that the TV show Bodyguard portrayed muslims to Boris Johnson’s comments about the niqaab it can be difficult to single out instances where Islamophobia is taking place.
So why I am so bugged by Islamophobia Awareness Month?
Awareness Months
Awareness months are typically months dedicated to bringing diseases and illnesses to the forefront of our minds. Like Mental Health Awareness Month or, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, these months are typically about issues that have always occurred or will always occur. The idea of making people aware is that, even though these illnesses and diseases are inbedded into the very fabric of our beings, we want to remove the stigma attached to them and therefore stop them early.
In the way that mental health issues will always exist, and breast cancer will always exist (albeit caught sooner), Islamophobia won’t. I’m not saying that islamophobia isn’t real. Quite the opposite. I’m asking, like other awareness months, if IAM’s priority de-stigmitisation? Is it that MEND sees islamophobia as one of societies ills? If so what is the cure to it?
Whats interesting about awareness months, is that they are a corrective measure to the problem – focussed on the attitudes we have about those issues. With Islamophobia however, it isn’t so much people’s attitudes that need changing, rather the adjustments (and even lack of adjustments) in government policy (Brexit, state sanctioned violence in the form of deportations, detention centres and deaths in police custody) that allows for rampant hatred against Muslims to occur needs to be looked at. The hostile environment caused by the former Home Secretary (now Prime Minister) Theresa May actually polarised the communities and made it possible for Islamophobia to exist and be acceptable. The immigration vans, sanctioned by Theresa May, is just one instance where the public were being encouraged to look at people of colour (and Muslims) as ‘other’. A month dedicated to actually doing the work and addressing these policies rather than paying lip service to it would actually be welcome.
The Border Agency Immigration bus sanctioned by Theresa May was sent into densely populated BAME areas and encouraged people to ‘grass up’ their friends and neighbours.
Words Matter
We don’t have racism awareness month or homophobia awareness month. So why do we have Islamophobia Awareness Month. Instead what we do have, is Black History Month, to counter racism, and LGBT History Month to counter homophobia. To focus on the negative, in this case Islamophobia, is to give it more weight. Both Black History Month and LGBT History Month are about celebration of black and LGBT lives. They are saying look, black people have been around for a while, lets look and celebrate the contributions by black people in the UK and around the world. We could have has a slavery awareness month, or racism awareness month which would have focussed less on solutions and actions and would have focussed us on telling people and convincing them that racism and slavery exists. Surely our energies would be better focused on highlighting Muslim history and presence? Lets move the power away from the bigots and focus on the positive.
Muslims are allowed to exist outside the Islamophobia narrative, in the same way that black people can exist outside the slavery narrative. Memorialising it like this causes problems. It reinforces the victim narrative.
A still from the BBC show Bodyguard.
The Victim v Terrorist Narrative
Negative and victimhood narratives have continued in popular culture perpetuating stereotypes and leaving us with a false dichotomy – terrorist or victim.
We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves. — Marilyn Manson
Yes, I just quoted Marilyn Manson in an op-ed about Islamophobia but it phrases what I’ve been feeling, ever since I saw the tweets around Islamophobia Awareness Month, really well.
I get it, IAM is aiming to show that Muslims are more than per perpetrators and terrorists, but Muslims are also more than victims. This binary doesn’t have to exist. But Islamopobia Awareness Month just reinforces that binary.
This problem is illustrated well in the TV show Bodyguard. Let me just say that I had multiple problems with this show but most of all the representation of Muslims (particularly Muslim women pissed me off.
[SPOILER ALERT] The female Muslim character, went from being a submissive woman and victim (which she played really well) to being the real villain. It turns out that she is the one who created the bomb. Now, there is a moment whilst watching this that I felt truly proud of British TV. The woman claims she made the bombs to make money. This, as a motive, was a step forward in the way muslim villains are portrayed on TV and Film. And then the writers of the show had to ruin it by making the character a religious terrorist – it turn out she wasn’t just money hungry, she wanted money to fund terrorist activities. I switched off. The point is, that the obvious way in which we tackle Islamophobia is to make Muslims the victim.
We need to be more responsible especially with populism. It is these simple reductive narratives that have given the right wing agenda exactly what it needs.
Islamophobia Awareness Month isn’t empowering, its patronising and paternalistic and problematic.
There are organisations that do more than just Lip Service. Everyday Muslims looks to create a central archive of Muslim lives, arts, education and cultures from across the UK.
To find out ways you can stop Islamophobia check out the NUS website.
Afshan D’souza-Lodhi was born in Dubai and bred in Manchester. She is a writer of plays and poetry.
A no deal Brexit is exactly what it says it is – it simply means that the UK will withdraw from the European Union without reaching an agreement. Theresa May is currently looking into proposing a 2-year transition period, which would not take place if no agreement can be reached. Although a no-deal agreement does not prevent the UK from leaving the EU, it does mean that there will be no clarity on what takes place next.
May’s stance on a no-deal Brexit
According to research conducted by comresglobal.com, when people were asked the specific soft vs. hard Brexit question, the majority sided with soft. Before the UK General Election last year, Theresa May stated that she would deliberate over leaving the European Union without a deal as “no deal is better than a bad deal”, and that the UK must be ready to just “walk out”.
Theresa May told the BBC that MPs will have a choice between her proposed Chequers deal with the EU – or no deal at all – also admitting that a “no-deal agreement” would possibly cause “short-term disruption”.
As Christmas comes around some twitter users are making memes to make light of the situation Theresa May is having to deal with. Many having little faith that May will back anything other than a hard Brexit.
She went on to claim that a no-deal Brexit “wouldn’t be the end of the world” if the UK was unable to reach a satisfactory agreement – though she recognises that leaving without a deal “wouldn’t be a walk in the park”.
Why the no deal Brexit has failed?
However, according to the Independent: “Britain has left it too late to prepare its borders for a no-deal Brexit, which would be a gift for organised criminals and chaotic for traders, the UK’s spending watchdog warns Theresa May today… as planning was undermined by “political uncertainty and delays in negotiations”, the National Audit Office (NAO) has concluded.” Theresa May has been so focused on convincing everyone that a no-deal Brexit was a good idea, that it wasn’t “the end of the world”, that she forgot to put a plan in place for it, and now the time is up. Leaving us now in a “where do we go from here” state – a position the UK has become all too familiar with.
While leaving the EU is not the same as leaving a TV subscription service, we must give credit to the EU for not ‘putting the phone down on us’
What happens now?
Currently, May has told the majority of Conservative MPs that she will be exploring “every possible option” to break the stagnancy in Brexit negotiations – the Irish border issue she claims is still a “considering sticking point”. If this deadlock does not reach a resolution and the UK ends up sticking with a no deal a agreement by the time of the EU summit in mid-December, there are four possible options stated by the express.co.uk:
“Do nothing. We leave without a deal.”
“Delay departure, seeking an extension of Article 50”
“Put it to a vote, holding another public referendum”
“Try to have another last-ditch attempt at negotiating”
However, the most realistic option at this point in time would be to continue negotiations – mainly because it is the least worst option.
Pakistani woman, Asia Bibi was to be acquitted by the Pakistani supreme court after being convicted in 2010. This however signposts the attacks on Christians in Pakistan. Blasphemy laws are intense and insults on the reverenced prophet Muhammad are not taken lightly by the Pakistani government and by Muslims in Pakistan.
A march to abolish blasphemy laws
Asia Bibi whose real name is Aisia Noreen confessed to have made insulting remarks to the Prophet in June 2009 in a row with her neighbors after that, she was beaten up and arrested.
The Ruling
The ruling faced protests outside the court by supporters of blasphemy laws. Heavy police presence was also reported at the Supreme court in Islamabad, due to fear of violence breaking out. Serious protests against the verdict are also taking place in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawari and the Islamabad and Rawalpindi have also been blocked by hundreds of protesters.
Chief Justice Saqip Nisam who read out the ruling, stated that Asia Bibi could walk out of the jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore immediately if she was not wanted in connection to any other offence.
The background of Asia’s offence was that she was harvesting fruit with some other women in her neighborhood when an argument broke out. She was not allowed to touch a bucket because the other women said her faith (Christian) made her unclean. Prosecutors alleged that the women told Asia to convert to Islam after which she responded by making three insulting statements about the Prophet Muhammed.
Asia was later beaten in her home, where her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy, she was arrested after police investigation. Asia and her family fear for their safety and several countries have offered her and her family asylum. It is reported that the family might be leaving Pakistan.
The Blasphemy Laws In Pakistan
Laws in Pakistan about Blasphemy dates back to 1927, the law carries a potential death sentence for anyone who insults Islam, critics of the blasphemy laws argue that the law is used to prosecute faiths seen as minority and unfairly targets them.
This talk about Blasphemy has become an increasingly discussed subject in the media, but where does Pakistani Blasphemy laws come from? Laws concerning offences against a religion were laid out by the British who ruled India in 1860, the law was expanded in 1927 and Pakistan inherited these laws after it came into existence when India was partitioned in 1947.
Freedom For Asia
Asia’s freedom isn’t just a victory for free speech activists, but it shows the growth and ever changing nature of Pakistan. Pakistan was formed as a religious state, and many non-muslims were left in the country as they were unable to move prior to the partition of India. This meant that non-muslims became a minority in Pakistan leading to their persecution and rejection from society. The overturned death sentence of Asia Bibi shows amore tolerant side to Pakistan, one many Christians living in Pakistan have been praying for for a long time.
Zulaikha Abiri is a graduate of Media with Media Practices from Nottingham Trent University. Her interests include youth, women and children empowerment, especially in under developed and in developing countries
As it fast approaches, Remembrance day marks the specific moment that World War One ended, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. As such, a two-minute silence is held at that precise time every year, to remember the fallen of all wars.
In the past, a minority of Muslims have viewed any positive association with poppies as wrong. The logic is that poppies support soldiers who have killed countless Muslims across the world, particularly the Middle East. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the far-right also take issue with Muslims who wear or sell poppies. Their logic is that a poppy-selling Muslim are pretending and secretly want Islam to conquer the world through so-called ‘’religious wars’’ – the taqia trope (Arabic meaning to hide or disguise oneself – which has nothing to do with the teachings of Islam).
The problem with both perspectives is that they use the insecurities and fears of their respective audiences to hijack the Poppy Appeal for political gain – never for religious or ethical advancement.
This campaign (2014) caused a lot of uproar from both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
However, like many Muslim brothers and sisters in the UK, and as an Ahmadi Muslim, I have a very different perspective of the Poppy Appeal. One that stems from what I hold as a deep desire to please God. The sacred text that acts as my roadmap to life is the Holy Qur’an. Regarding helping others, it states ‘And in their wealth was a share for one who asked for help and for one who could not (51:20).’
Therefore, when I am asked to contribute towards helping soldiers who have been seriously injured or the families of the fallen, I do so because this is my religious obligation as a Muslim. I do this in the same way that I support disadvantaged children in Palestine, Syrian refugees in Jordan, the Rohingya, and Christians in various African countries.
This is never a moral dilemma for me because Islam tells me that the goodness in helping the needy is lost the second that the giver discriminates those assisted.
Even if a soldier has wronged another person by harming them or killing them, a Muslim is still required to help. For Muslims, there is no greater example and role model than the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him). During the heart of war – not when there exists the comfort of security and hindsight – we know that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) instructed that his followers should treat the wounds of and provide water to those who tried to kill them.
It’s clear to me as a Muslim that Islam, its holy book and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) want me to be a compassionate person who seeks to build bridges. It also wants me to be someone who speaks out with wisdom and balance against injustice in the world, regardless of the ‘who’ or the ‘where’.
It has to be kept in mind regarding soldiers that they are to help people in the time of their need. They would not hesitate to help Muslims and do help Muslims or people of other faiths. If one of us was affected by a calamity and the army was called in, such as when the Cumbria floods happened, we would take no issue with receiving help from the army and soldiers. So why would we be unwilling to help them in the time of their need? As a Muslim, this verse full of wisdom of the Holy Quran comes to mind: “Can the recompense of goodness be anything but goodness?
Therefore, this remembrance Sunday I will be selling poppies with hundreds of other young British Muslims to raise funds for those in need. And when the sobering time for remembrance comes, I will pray that Almighty Allah prevents us all from ever again entering into war.
As an Ahmadi Muslim, I leave you with a quote from the Promised Messiah (on him be peace) and the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, which I believe embodies the teachings of Islam with regards to serving others: “The principle to which we adhere is that we have kindness at heart for the whole of mankind. If anyone sees the house of a Hindu neighbour on fire and does not come forward to help extinguish the fire, most truly I declare that he does not belong to me. If anyone of my followers, having seen someone attempting to murder a Christian does not endeavour to save him, I most truly declare that he does not belong to us.”
Umar Zeshan Bhatti is currently studying Law and is interested in Human Rights. He is trying to challenge the negative perception of Muslims in the media and he is part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association. Follow him on Twitter @UmarZBhatti97
Last weekend saw what many believe was the most violent attack against Jewish Americans in American history. 46-year-old white supremacist, Robert Gregory Bowers, opened fire on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing eleven people and injuring six others.
This tragedy, if that is not too small a word for it, has foremost devastated those directly impacted and the wider Jewish community in Pittsburgh. However, it has also added even more fuel to the blistering fire that is modern American politics, all the more so with the midterm elections less than a week away. The socio-political situation in the United States has been put under a microscope once more. Many are pointing fingers at the president himself. Accusing him of, at best ignoring, and at worst fostering a racist culture that encouraged this anti-semitic act.
It is understandable that people have come to such conclusions given the innumerable accounts of Trump using racialised language to purport his own isolationist global view. He infamously once described the white supremacists involved in the deadly Charlottesville march as ‘very fine people’.
Most reporting on the Pittsburgh shooting has focused on the widely ignored culture of anti-semitism, and the many ways this tragedy relates back to the president’s own misdeeds. There are, however, further racial connotations within this incident that have gone largely unexplored. The official reaction to this tragedy, and the treatment of Bowers before and since, are almost as emblematic of modern day racism as Trump himself.
some tweeters are praising the efforts of people raising money for the victims
In this instance, once the police had stormed the synagogue and been met with the chaos wreaked inside, Bowers managed to shoot four officers before his eventual surrender and arrest. The key detail here is that Bowers made it to being arrested. It truly is astonishing that Bowers made it out of that synagogue alive given the prolific culture of gun violence in the United States.
American policemen in particular have garnered quite the reputation for themselves as rather ‘trigger happy’ over recent years – particularly when faced with unarmed African Americans and people of colour . Thinktank The Counted released a study in 2016 which identified black males as 15-34 times more likely to be shot by the police than other demographics . This, then, raises the question of whether Bower’s skin colour protected him from the full force of American officials. Despite the fact that he was found screaming ‘all Jews must die’, armed, and in a massacre of his own making.
In the aftermath of the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting, #FBI Pittsburgh has been made aware of potential scammers who are attempting to fraudulently solicit donations for the victims. You can report suspicious email solicitations or fraudulent websites to https://t.co/NJ3HW2Q9Wfpic.twitter.com/dAwmU2jWSL
Pittsburgh FBI is bringing to light the scams some people are running to make money from the victims of the shooting.
Additionally, something that has come to the fore since the breaking of this story is his prolific social media vendetta against Jewish Americans. Bowers had an active presence on the alt-right website Gab, where he publicly accused Jews of bringing about a ‘white genocide’. Furthermore, he pointedly accused the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society of assisting refugees who were ‘slaughtering’ Americans. If we were to place this social media activity in a different ethnic framework, specifically a Middle Eastern framework, would it not surprise you that the FBI weren’t monitoring him prior to this event? Yet, because this man was white, his racist rhetoric went seemingly unchecked and excused under the guise of ‘free speech and individual liberty’.
Essentially, Bowers got away with far more before and during this attack than an insurgent of a different race could have. Why, then, is Bowers different? Why did his overtly violent and abusive racist rhetoric go unmonitored? Why did it take a mass murder for the authorities to consider him a threat to society? It’s because he’s white. It’s because white privilege is so deeply entrenched in American society that he had to pick up all of his (legally owned) guns and shoot innocent people before he was questioned for his racist activities.
This makes the heartbreaking reality of this particular shooting all the more poignant. Not only has it exposed a form of racism that many hoped long dead, it also exposed the ugly, fatal extent of white privilege.
Ellie Tivey is a recent graduate in History and Politics from the University of Manchester. Originally from Bristol, Ellie moved to Manchester in 2015 and has no intention of leaving any time soon. She spent the final year of her degree as Editor of the university’s only historical publication, The Manchester Historian, and continues to present/produce weekly news videos for Manchester start up, Student Inspire Network. She hopes to embed her passion for politics and popular culture in all of her work.
Microplastics have started to show up on beaches and in other areas, however you wouldn’t expect to find plastic in humans.
Microplastics have been found in human waste. They are extremely small pieces of plastic debris in the environment resulting from the disposal and breakdown of consumer products and industrial waste. For the first time now, they’ve been found in the human system.
There is a constant urge for people to recycle, which we’re finally getting round to doing on a regular basis, with the one or two errors in-between. However, the desire to have our beaches cleaned up or stop using plastics may have been in vain up until now.
Austrian scientists monitored and tested stool samples from eight participants from different countries and the tests came back positive. No one is exempt from this. Nine different types of microplastic were discovered ranging in size from 50 – 500 micrometers.
The participants came from different part of the world – Finland, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the UK and Austria. They all kept diaries of the food for a week prior to having their stools tested.
Experts have urged caution given the scale of the study that it cannot be linked to the participants’ diet.
(source: dw.com)
Lead researcher Dr. Philipp Schwabl from the University of Vienna says “This is the first study of its kind and confirms what we have long suspected, that plastics ultimately reach the human gut”
Some previous studies have found microplastics seem to be present in fish, beer, bottled waster, soil and even in the air.
Their stools were tested for 11 kinds of microplastics, of which nine of them were found in each of them. Polypropylene (PP and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are the major components of plastic bottle and caps found in all of the participants.
It figures doesn’t it. We dump plastic in the sea, fish ingest it, we eat fish. Not a difficult scenario to work out really. WE ARE KILLING OURSELVES AND OUR OCEANS!
Schwabl continues to say “of particular concern is what this means to us, and especially with patients with diseases. While the highest plastic concentrations in animal studies have been found in the gut, the smallest microplastic particles are capable of entering the blood stream, lymphatic system and may even reach the liver.”
Too close for comfort? Are we all going to start help recycle properly and clean our beaches after this result.
Think of it as a consumer pyramid. If we’re not ingesting it directly we’re getting it from our food that had some consumption of plastic one way or another.
Plastic Straws are already been phased out in restaurants across the country
As we know there are plans to ban plastic straws, alongside stirrers and cotton buds. The government is hoping to introduce this ban between October next year and October 2020.
Can’t believe we’re STILL dealing w/ #StrawBan nonsense but it’s 2018, so of course we are. Saw electronic billboard north of New Haven that plastic straws are “sucking the life out of our oceans.” [Hint: they actually aren’t.] They DO help disabled people hydrate. #SuckItAbleism
It’s estimated that 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million plastic stirrers and 1.8 billion cotton wool buds are used each year.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said “our precious oceans and the wildlife within need urgent protection from the devastation throw-away plastic items can cause.”
“In England we are taking world leading action with our ban on microbead, and thanks to the public’s support have taken over 15 billion plastic bags out of circulation with our 5p charge.”
Dolline is a traveller, journalist and blogger who has palate to try new things. She is a very spontaneous person; you might find her skydiving over the Kenyan coast to kayaking in the Lake District. She can be an over thinker who thinks of every outcome but if she doesn’t she welcomes the change that wasn’t planned. However, she is a very simple person who is up for a good laugh or a book and enjoys living the moment. Dolline also writes for her small personal blog called ‘Swatches of Beauty’ and is currently a production journalist trainee at ITV Border.
The healthcare firm Healthcare Environment Services (HES) left tonnes of hospital waste at their disposal to pile up. The NHS waste allowed amputated limbs, infectious liquids, materials linked to cancer treatment and hazardous pharmaceutical waste to build up in huge stockpiles.
HES had several contracts with the NHS to dispose of the waste however since the breach of its contract, the contracts have been stripped away. The environmental agency had launched a criminal investigation over the waste.
Although the waste was stored securely it was not being processed and disposed in the timescales required.
Health minister Stephen Barclay said in a statement to parliament that the NHS Improvement (NHSI) concluded that HES “failed to demonstrate that they were operating within their contractual limits”.
Stephen Barclay (health minister)
Some of the sites that were affected include Normanton, West Yorkshire and a facility in the North Tyneside Industrial Estate. The Environment Agency has partially suspended the company’s permit at the Normanton site which prevents them from accepting any more waste. The other two sites are located in Nottingham and Newcastle. The Yorkshire site exceeded its limit by five times, reaching 350 tonnes.
Mr Barclay announced that new arrangements had been made with the outsourcing firm Mitie to “step in and replace this service” and said NHS services continued to operate as normal.
He also ensures that contingency plans are in place as a prevention for any disruption, he added “In this instance, the primary concern was that too much waste was being held in a number of waste storage and treatment sites by a contractor, Healthcare Environment Services. While the waste was stored securely, it was not being processed and disposed of within the correct regulatory timescales. At no point has there been an impact on public health or any delay to the ability of the NHS to carry out operations.”
The health minister became aware of the concerns in July, “In this instance, the primary concern was too much waste was being held in a number of waste storage and treatment sites by a contractor, Health Environment Services”.
NHS bosses dealing with the incident made it clear that material must be dealt with sensitively to mitigate health and environmental risks.
If Matt Hancock chaired a COBRA meeting on this, why didn’t he tell Parliament? Cobra is reserved for serious risks and emergencies, so why wasn’t Parliament told how bad the situation had got?
In a statement, HES claimed that the decision to terminate NHS contracts was excessive and counterproductive” and would make medical waste backlog worse.
Managing Director Garry Pettigrew said “There is a proven lack of incineration capacity within the UK, which is affecting all operators. The irony is that today’s decision means that other operators will be given relaxed dispensations to dispose of hazardous waste and that hospitals will also be forced to store waste on site, potentially risking public health.
He also added that if they had been granted dispensation the incident would have never arisen”
The company said body part only constituted less than 1% of the overall waste collected and was disposed of as a priority “We have a great team of people and we are dismayed their livelihoods are being put at risk”.
Dolline is a traveller, journalist and blogger who has palate to try new things. She is a very spontaneous person; you might find her skydiving over the Kenyan coast to kayaking on Lake Como. She can be an over thinker who thinks of every outcome but if she doesn’t she welcomes the change that wasn’t planned. However, she is a very simple person who is up for a good laugh or a book and enjoys living the moment. Dolline also writes for her small personal blog called ‘Swatches of Beauty’ and is currently a production journalist trainee at ITV Border.
In recent years the Republic of Ireland has been the centre stage of controversial referendums such as the divorce referendum in 1995, the same sex marriage referendum in May 2015 and this year (in May) we saw the abortion referendum. These referendums have given way to the amendment of the Irish constitution which has enabled the legislation of divorce, legislation of same sex marriage and the legislation of abortion. These referendums also underline the split between the Catholic Church and large numbers of the Irish Public, as homosexuality, divorce and abortion are taboos within the Catholic Church. Although the Pope visited Ireland in August, many Irish people seem to have little or no regard for the Catholic Church. This could be due to recent allegations of sexual allegations which have surfaced in the media over the past few years. Several priests have been accused of misusing their power by sexually assaulting members of their congregation. We’re reminded of a scandal which occurred at Madagelene laundries, which was a Catholic order in Cork in the 20th Century.
As Ireland continues to tear the walls of religious authority and principles, the nation has decided to have another referendum today, October 26th on whether blasphemy should be a punishable offence alongside the Presidential vote which takes place on the same day.
Blasphemy is the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things. Article 40.6.1 of the Irish constitution currently states that publishing or uttering anything blasphemous is a punishable offence under Irish law. Although the constitution does not have a definition for blasphemy, the Defamation Act 2009 does contain a legal definition of blasphemy. Under this law, there is no prison sentence for breaking this law, however the Government can impose a fine of up to €25,000 if found guilty of breaking this law. Academics critics such as, Dublin City University Professor Colum Kenny, argue that the blasphemy referendum might open doors for hate speech in Ireland. Professor Kenny also contends that the Government should been more focused on more serious issues such as voting issues Irish migrants encounter abroad and the issues surrounding Brexit which might affect Ireland.
IF a Yes vote passes, then blasphemy will no longer be regarded as a criminal offence, hence the publishing and utterance of blasphemous notions would no longer be viewed as unlawful. It would give the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament authority, to amend the law by removing blasphemy as a criminal offence. If a No vote passes, the constitution will remain unchanged. Therefore, meaning that the publishing or saying something blasphemous would continue to be a criminal offence in the Republic of Ireland. The referendum will be on October 26th with voting open from 7am to 10pm in the Republic of Ireland.
Is keeping blasphemy an offence infringing on freedom of speech? Or will legalising it open up the doors to more hate speech?
Enoch Akinlade is a writer who has a profound interest in British, American and Canadian politics, and other topics such as health, social inequalities, crime and sport. Furthermore, he is also deeply interested in topics such as the criminal justice system in the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada. He is also highly interested in the Prison industrial complex in America.
Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green is one of less than hundred African American women who have a PhD in Physics in the Unites States of America. Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green is currently a Professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, USA. She has been recently lauded by BET and other platforms for her endeavours to cure this perilous disease, which is the second leading cause of death in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, in the United States, about 1,620 people were expected to die of cancer each day in 2015 which roughly equates to about 590,000 people a year.
Over the past decade since completing her undergraduate degree at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green has been working tirelessly to end the epidemic of cancer. With up to half a million people being expected to die from cancer each year in the United States, this constant work by Dr Green is evermore important. She experienced first-hand the horrors of cancer. Her late Aunt Ora Lee Smith, who raised her, was diagnosed with cancer and vehemently refused to go through the process of chemotherapy and radiation due her unwillingness to experience the side effects of cancer, this encouraged Dr Green to find a solution to such an epidemic.
Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green
She was further spurred on to find a remedy after seeing her late uncle who also suffered the same gruelling fate of cancer, even though he decided to go through the process of cancer treatment such as radiation which had devastating side effects on him, such as loss of hair, excessive loss of weight and skin problems. After seeing the pain her Aunt and Uncle went through because of cancer, this led Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green to try to pursue a remedy to curing cancer with no side effects during her doctorate degree at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Due to her innate passion to quench this malady she received funding from the National Science foundation, while doing her doctoral degree in Physics, which helped her carry out her research. During her research, she developed a laser activated nanoparticles which she used on mice with tumours. This involves instilling the nanoparticles into a laser and targeting the tumour as if it’s an enemy. Because of the laser nanoparticles that Dr Green used on the mice, the tumours decreased by 40% within ten minutes and the tumour was totally eradicated within ten to fifteen days.
The question that persists in the minds of the public, is could Dr Green experiment work in humans? Dr Green believes that such experiment could possibly cure cancer in humans, however a major stumbling block of trying such experiment on humans is the requirement of going through several clinical trials accredited by the U.S food and drug administration which costs up to $30million.
She recently received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairsfor her extraordinary efforts to fight cancer, which covers up to five years of research, which facilitates her to continue her enquiry to try to solve this epidemic. The clinical trials are indispensable to get such medication approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration, she therefore set up the Ora Lee Smith foundation a non-profit in honour of her late aunt to raise the $30 million which covers the funds to have clinical trials on humans to stop the mortality rates of cancer. The purpose of the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation is to translate Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green ground-breaking treatment from the laboratory into hospitals.
To support Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green vision of ending the cancer epidemic you can donate through the Orla Lee Smith Foundation website www.physics2cancer.org
Enoch Akinlade is a writer who has a profound interest inBritish, American and Canadian politics, and other topics such as health,social inequalities,crimeand sport. Furthermore, he is also deeply interested in topics such as the criminal justice system in the UnitedStates, Britain, Australiaand Canada. He is also highly interested in the Prisonindustrial complexin America.
Much of the current buzz in US politics has been around
imminent midterm elections. As the name suggests, these are elections that take
place half-way through a presidential term, giving Americans something more to
do than simply celebrate or lament Donald Trump’s two-year anniversary in power.
Yet the midterms, along with having many other crucial effects on the American
political scene, will strongly influence how the president’s next two years
progress, as well as perhaps whether he wins another four after that. There is
a lot on the line this November.
At the midterms, many key positions will be contested. Democrats, Republicans and independents will battle to become state governors, as well as representatives and senators in Congress. Because the US president is not a member of Congress (unlike in the UK where the prime minister has to also be an MP), presidential and congressional elections can be held separately. While all positions have a 4-year term, elections to them are staggered, with some held in the same year as the presidential election and others – the midterms – held two years later. At these midterms, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, along with 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be voted on. It is, of course, the people in these positions who will vote on the legislation put before the country in the coming years. This is not even to mention the 39 governorships up for grabs, which will decide the futures of the individual states in question, and may provide huge boosts to the political careers of the victorious candidates.
Donald Trump will be watching these votes closely for a
number of reasons. While each electoral battleground has its own key issues and
demographics affecting the outcome of the midterms, such votes are invariably
also understood as an unofficial poll on a sitting president’s popularity. The
electorate can only process so much political information, and will naturally
look to a party’s most prominent figure as a guide to whether that party will
do them good or not. Trump is of course the most-high profile republican
politician, so if voters think he is doing poorly in office, they will be far
more likely to punish his party at the voting booth. Big Republican losses will
surely spell trouble for the already volatile Trump administration.
449 hours until the midterms. Use every hour to get registered voters to pledge that they WILL VOTE on Nov. 6. Look for a phone bank to join. Make plans to help elderly neighbors get to and from the polls. Organize car pools. Saying ordinary folks are helpless is BS.
Trump will also have to work with whatever Congress is
returned by the election. He may have enjoyed a Republican majority in both the
House and the Senate, but his job may be much harder if one or both houses are
won by the Democrats. In such a case, Trump may find his ability to pass laws
greatly hindered and will have to either water down or completely abandon some
of his more controversial legislation.
And of course, there is the elephant in the Oval Office: the
Russia investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team have been
investigating any collusion Trump or his campaign team may have had with
Russians aiming to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Whether or
not Mueller finds anything to directly link Trump to the interference remains
to be seen, but if anything damning is discovered, the path to the president’s
impeachment is far clearer if the Democrats are dominant in Congress. The House
needs to pass a simple majority vote to bring a case of impeachment against the
president before it is heard by the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is
required for the president to be removed from office. It is consequently
unlikely that Trump will be impeached even with two democratic houses, but it
would certainly make initiating the proceedings against him easier. As with
Bill Clinton’s presidency, even an unsuccessful impeachment hearing could come
to define the rest of Trump’s term and his ultimate legacy as president.
45 to 50 percent of eligible voters are projected to vote in the 2018 midterms — the highest turnout for a midterm since the mid-1960s. https://t.co/KyBQZFhjW7
It is very easy, though, to get ahead of ourselves. As it
stands the Democrats stand a slim chance of taking both houses of Congress.
Although Trump and his party are not supremely popular in the country, and may
very well lose the House to their Democratic rivals, the Senate may prove a
very different proposition. Although a large number of the chamber’s seats are
up for re-election, most are already held by Democrats, giving them little
opportunity to win much ground. Democrats therefore have to make significant
gains in traditionally Republican states while themselves holding off
Republican attacks in states they hold, many of which backed Trump in the 2016
election. This is not to say that the midterms will necessarily be positive for
Trump, but it is unlikely to spell the end of his administration’s influence.
The phrase “right message but wrong messenger” always comes to mind when I come across Azealia Banks social media ramblings. Recently the singer engaged in a heated twitter feud with singer Lana Del Rey after criticising Del Rey’s comments regarding Kanye Wests recent 13 amendment controversy.
Banks accused Del Rey and others of being inconsistent with their political outrage and called out Del Rey’s relationship with rapper Asap Rocky who in 2013 was charged with misdemeanour and assault after slapping a female fan.
While some may agree with Azealia’s opinion on the uneasiness of seeing white celebrities use the West as a “vapid attempt to seem politically aware”, it is now very difficult to take her outbursts seriously.
What she says is often correct but what is most unnerving, is the motive behind these social outbursts and the hypocrisy. Her remarks do not come from a genuine place. She is not a spokesperson for Black women’s plights – rather she is an impostor and honestly, I applaud her.
I applaud her for being able to use a very sensitive issue to blind people into supporting her and creating an image of herself as a champion for Black female rights.
For some time I had been a supporter of Banks, she is undeniably talented and I honestly do believe most mainstream female rappers are inferior to her. I welcomed her highly opinionated and sharp tongued commentary on the music industry as it was a breath of fresh air from the faux friendship and “happy go lucky” vibe frequently seen in the industry.
However my support for Banks only began to wavier once I began to see a pattern in her tantrums and her contradictions. Whenever a female rap artist begins to get some clout, Azealia seemed to pop up out of nowhere to insert herself where she is not needed and provide harsh criticism.
There is however, obvious misogynoir in the industry and colorism that cannot be ignored, but Banks’ genuineness must be questioned.
She preaches Black sisterhood yet has made a career of attacking her fellow Black female peers. Her critique of the media’s portrayal of dark skinned women though laudable is often laughable considering her past hurtful remarks about dark skinned female. One just has to remember the Skai Jackson situation to see the discrepancy in her statements, She calls for the end of the degradation of Black women bodies yet tells a 14yr old to buy some “hips” and a “butt”.
She calls dark skinned women “tar babies” and tells them to “pick cotton” yet apparently she is an advocate for the end to colorism ?
I’ve seen so many try to coddle her actions and proclaim her as the voice of Black women rights. She is not a spokesperson for our rights, instead she is the voice of hypocrisy.
The confirmation
hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh showed how the polarising atmosphere in modern
universities, marred by a doctrine of self-censorship, no-go zones and safe
spaces can, and has, spread to wider society and American Congress,
perniciously threatening American jurisprudence, security and its future as a
bastion of the free world.
We witnessed first-hand how these constitutional due processes vanish when accusations of misogyny or sexual harassment arise. They have simmered under the surface in Institutions of Higher Education for decades, with the Senate in deciding whether to #ConfirmKavanaugh or #CancelKavanaugh succumbing to such foibles. In a highly publicised display of the erosion of a millennium of judicial due process that every civilisation worth its salt had upheld since the dawn of time.
American Horror Story
America first
witnessed this when false rape charges were lodged against Duke University
lacrosse players in 2006. They were, to quote, victims of a “tragic rush to accuse”,
with no regard to actual evidence before making the accused identities public,
most notably the stripper’s partner present throughout calling her tale a “crock
of s**t”. The chief prosecutor was
disbarred, but not after giving dozens of interviews issuing his opinion on the
matter.
Rolling Stone’s Smear Article Against Virginia Frat House Retraction and Damages Suit // Rolling Stone
What these two
stories have in common that is so troubling is the protection of the victim’s
privacy and rights, while parading around the patent guilt of the accused
without first addressing the facts or allowing the courts to decide.
It is not a matter of not taking the claim of sexual abuse with the severity it deserves, as each case warrants those concerned to prick their ears and address the allegation to ascertain who, what, where and when so that those found guilty can be punished according to the rule of law by incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation and restoration.
A Case of He Said She Said
Americans may disagree on the relative credibility’s of Judge Kavanaugh or his accuser, Dr Christine Blasey Ford. But what was more astounding was witnessing the asymmetry that is rife on campuses dictate the hearings.
Dr Ford’s veracity hinged on the empathy of an audience, and her perceived plausibility. It required little by way of witnesses, physical evidence or corroborating testimonies, nor a clear storyline from the accuser.
HE Said, SHE said, the woes of imbalanced gender empowerment // The Weekly Standard
Kavanaugh was
deemed guilty from the outset – he had to prove his innocence, rather than the
other way around.
The position of “Reverse Onus” against the defendant has now become a universal right demanded by the feminist movement in cases of rape. In no way does this excuse the severity of rape, nor the gravity we should bestow upon those women who do come forward. What is a problem, however, is the erosion of western judicial process: ‘innocent until proven guilty.
Such rules have been laid down by the greatest English judges, who have been among the brightest of mankind. Indeed, this rule is not peculiar to the common English law; there never was a system of laws in the world in which this rule did not prevail. Ancient Greece, Babylonia, and Rome preserved throughout European history as a maxim ‘that it is better the guilty should escape punishment, than the innocent suffer. Satius esse nocentem absolvi quam insentem damnari.’
Enter John Adams
John Adams is one such brilliant mind who offered a most prescient and sagacious explanation for this principle:
Adams was a preeminent Founding Father of the United States, served as first Vice President and as second President of the United States, having excelled as a lawyer and diplomat, gaining prestige and recognition as leader of American independence from Great Britain. A man of outstanding calibre and integrity, having campaigned for the abolition of slavery, whose advocacy lay the groundwork for the abolition movement a decade later. His 18-year effort in Congress did away with the ‘gag rule’ that automatically nullified anti-slavery legislation. A man who, for all his moral scruples and nobility, could not bring himself to risk crucifying an innocent on the altar of moral righteousness.
“there exists the capacity for spiteful, powerful victims to ‘construct’ truths based on their own self-interests.”
We uphold liberty and property as fundamental western values.
But, if we negate the respect for self-defence with anonymity until found
guilty, and fail to offer a fair hearing to balance and counterpoise, society
itself is of very little value – because the fruits of our labours could be
torn from the hand like they were the tree. And therefore, this principle of ‘innocent
until proven guilty’ and ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ must be strictly
attended to. It had been better to have acquitted, than a wrong ruling and that a
precedent should be established.
Justice Threatened, Security in Peril
The very notion of justice is already now compromised by the
legal requirement, or at least universal practice, of protecting the name and
identity of the accuser while simultaneously publicising the name and details
of the accused and having their name dragged through the mud, even after the
accused is acquitted.
Judge Kavanaugh had to prove his innocence, rather than the
accusers prove his guilt. This is a reflection of one cherished stance in
universities: the postmodern idea of relativist truth.
On campus, all can present equally valid narratives. What
privileges one story over another is not necessarily any semblance to reality,
at least as established by evidence and facts. Instead, there exists the
capacity for spiteful, powerful victims to ‘construct’ truths based on their
own self-interests.
Those individuals who would have been victims of historical
biases are then under no obligation to play by what they consider to be rigged
rules of facts, evidence or testimony.
This perverse dynamic explains why Senator Cory Booker maintained that Dr Ford told ‘her truth’. Without mincing words, evidence was not so relevant – a recollected story of events from 36 years ago would inherently carry as much weight as Kavanaugh’s rebuttal, if not more given the different genders, and by extension their asymmetrical access to power.
On campuses, race and gender have
determined who we are and what we can and cannot vocalise for some time now.
The writing off of old white men as prejudiced bastions of patriarchal
oppression does little to redress imbalances, nor does it treat everyone with
value ‘as an end in and of themselves, rather than a means to an end’ as Immanuel
Kant proposed.
To accurately gauge the veracity of the
claims would have been a messy process of cross-examining times and places of
witness testimonies, taxing reprinted teenage memories nearly four decades
prior. Motives would have been raised and questioned as under due process of
constitutional norms.
The fact we are human has value, and
to revert to discrediting the old guard and removing their agency, albeit hard
fought, is inconsistent stereotypical hypocrisy. Blanket race- and age-based discrimination
on an ad hoc basis left Kavanaugh guilty for once being a privileged white prep
school kid of 17; while Senator Booker, by virtue of not being old and white,
was a credible examiner. The progressive politics of Senator Richard
Blumenthal, aged 72 and white, did not lead to his credibility being thrown
into question.
The trouble with this postmodern
culture lies in its inconsistencies. A misplaced anger and frustration that is
presiding emotion over consideration for reason and fact.
Any claim of rape should be treated with
a severity commensurate with the violation of an individual deserving of
respect for their liberty and property. The trouble emerges with a Senate
adopting the modern university’s doctrine of self-censorship, no-go zones and safe
spaces that allow for the odd individual to abuse the protections afforded them
through weaponization of the law.
Doctor Ford’s privacy entitled her medical status to be understandably respected and off-limits, and she was excused from the normally stringent cross-examination. She was never really asked why her narratives concerning the number of witnesses and their genders were not compatible, nor why all she could fathom toward Judge Kavanaugh was his presence, as opposed to predatory participation. Her accounts of the location and time of the alleged assault were either inconsistent or non-existent.
While there is a capacity to block out such a stressful period in her life, for the process of law and order to be upheld in society, it needs to be resurrected if such a pressing matter for ‘national security’. Or else we descend into the collapse of security as we know it – when John Adams’ prophetic words that ‘whether I do good or evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection’.
Judge, Jury and Executioner
By contrast, Kavanaugh was grilled on everything from his high-school yearbook to a fabricated accusation that he once committed sexual assault on a docked boat in Newport, Rhode Island: character assassination of the first-degree. While these revelations from his younger years are not flattering, and some perhaps make him quite unsuitable for the role as Supreme Court Judge were it not for decades of fundamental transformation of character.
“rape culture on campus is not for debate”
Collectivised swarming and drowning
out those with different views to shame and intimidate them is part and parcel
of the modern university. The campus street theatre is rearing its ugly head in
the real world.
A break in the hearings saw female protestors corner Senator Jeff Flake, Republican Arizona, in an elevator, screaming in his face – breaking down in his intention to #confirmKavanaugh. Psychodrama is effective, or else they wouldn’t do it. Why else would the saying ‘throwing all your toys out the pram’ be quite as mainstream?
How Campus Creed Became Norm
Campuses,
for all the fear mongering of liberal left snowflakes nestled in their safe-space
ivory towers, out-of-touch with reality, there was little concern that their
creed would become the norm. What is frightening is their dogma is now
influencing media, voting patterns and holding the constitutional backbone of
American liberty to ransom.
The
trouble with this culture is their flagrant disrespect for anyone outside their
belief structures. For them it matters little if innocent people are smeared if
they are on the ‘wrong’ side of politics, or white cis-males that disagree. Facts,
schmacts when it is the narrative that counts. What matters more is the story
felt right than the truth is sought.
When
serious matters arise, to rule out discussion – ‘rape culture on campus is not
for debate’ – relies upon race and gender to weigh viewpoint veracity. The technique
deployed here is to base a theory on multiple reports. Then, when each report
is falsified, the go-to response is ‘well, this one might not be true, but…’
until you have a conviction with no basis at all. It is like playing a game of
Ker-Plunk and expecting, when the last straw is removed, that the marbles still
won’t fall.
These ‘woke’ individuals, who bark slogans about misogyny, roundly accuse everyone of racism or rail against Islamophobic backlashes, think it their duty because they are our intellectual and virtuous betters. It is with good reason that has been tried and tested throughout the ages that the accuser is saddled with the burden of proof, even though rates of false accusations in America lie 2-6% and 4% in the UK for sexual assault. The problem is that innocent civilians will feel helpless to the lack of protection afforded them when someone of an historically disadvantaged gender or race accuses them out of spite or vengeance, so that it didn’t matter whether they had broken the law. And, before they can get the chance to respond, the lie has already made it halfway around the world before the truth can bat an eye.
Thomas Sowell once refrained, “it is bad enough that so many people believe things without any evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else’s opinion.”
The
law exists to preserve the functioning of security in society. Where the
innocent no longer feel secure their liberty and private property is respected,
nor proffered reasonable chance at self-defence without having their reputation
galled before their eyes; a pervading helplessness can take seed in their minds,
and with such impuissance can bleed dissolution into chaos.
The
very fabric of western civilisation is at stake, but if the cost of upholding
it is too great for some, they may find themselves privy to a pining nostalgia
of those better days.
