Mind's Eye 2016

MIND’S EYE 2016

The dark

VEIL over

the fashion industry

Is

MODERN

Technology

30 years

damaging our

after

CHERNOBYL

brains?

The hidden message in

SHAKESPEARE’S Will

The

In

DANGERS of

HEALTHY Eating

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

1

‘Light & Dark’ Michael Hoffman 2

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Contents 17

5

28 92

28 | All in the Mind

73 | Rude Language

Editor Lara Whitmore interviews Baroness Susan Greenfield

Seb Klavinski-Whiting celebrates a plural pronoun that thinks it’s singular

33 | Think Again

76 | No Problem?

Alice Whaley says education needs to wise up and accommodate modern gender identities

Bess Hale asks how much of a binge there really is in binge-drinking

38 | Love is in the Air

Rose Meddings says there is little we can do but watch being watched

Where romance is concerned, Eliza Batten and Cecily Guild prefer the face to the screen

82 | In the Name of God

41 | Life after Death Sigrid Rausing visits Chernobyl after its thirty years of haunting our memory

41 5 | A Painted Veil Maia Herling claims Fashion is not as trivial as it seems

10 | An F for Feminism Eleanor Alexander says everywhere gender equality is still in the balance

14 | Image or Sound Ben Helme laments the music industry being more about image than sound

17 | Going Clean?

79 | Eye Spy

50 | An Easy Target George Nairac wonders why it is still okay to mock Gypsies

55 | Bad Grammar George Palmer gives us a lesson in modern education: bring back the grammar school

Raeffe Gibson suggests faith might be about experience as much as revelation

87 | Chill Out George Meddings examines the offspring of ice and slime and finds it’s us

92 | Are EU Ready?

Mark Bäcker asks are you in or out?

96 | Real Magic A short story by Amber de Ruyt

59| You are all Mime Tim Fairbairn wonders why, when we all espouse individualism, we are still not individuals

63 | Where there’s a Will

Elizabeth Guild wonders if really healthy living is bad for you

Lottie Johnson wonders if the great man’s will shows he had a way to the heart of Hathaway

21 | Malaysia Boleh?

68 | Scraping the Barrel

Alex Briggs surveys the painfully slow liberation of his home country

Max Olzowski points the finger at failed gun law in the States

25 | Who Do You Think You Are?

70 | Auto Pilot

Jennifer Mbu says cultural appropriation is just racism in disguise

Rory Boyd thinks Stephen Hawking may be right when he claims Artificial Intelligence is a bit of a car crash

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

3

Editorial This year, in Mind’s Eye, fashion and the music industry are once more under the spotlight. And, of course, prejudice and discrimination get a good kicking: there is a withering attack on cultural appropriation, a long-overdue expression of wonder that it is still okay to mock Gypsies, and Feminism is told it has a long way to go before the Victorian female stereotype is finally consigned to history.

Technology in all its forms is once more examined with forensic fear: online dating is found to be a limp substitute for the real thing, computers and smartphones are ticked off for affecting the way we think and interact, and we are warned that both spying on everyone, competitors as well as outright enemies, with micro- and tele- this that and the other, and driving at high speeds without your hands on the wheel or your feet on the pedals, may not be wise.

Health is also given an outing, so we are told to take celebrity plant diets with a pinch of salt, and surprisingly discover that binge-drinking youth may not be drinking so much after all. The year 2016 is measured and found full: it is, after all, 400 years since Shakespeare died, and 30 years since a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl shocked the world. There are also meditations on how to house poly-sexual identity, the illusion of individuality, the gradual Westernisation of Malaysia, the joy of grammar schools and the ascendancy of the third-person plural pronoun, the continued lunacy of the gun-toting States and even the beginnings of life itself.

As if this is not enough, one bright spark tells us why voting to leave Europe would be really, really silly. Who knows? Perhaps the people who voted LEAVE will read our little story about magic, change their horrid ways, and we’ll all wake up and it will be just a bad dream.

Lara Whitmore Editor (Special thanks to our advertisers, who donated to a charity of their choice)

4

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

THE YEAR 2016 IS MEASURED AND FOUND FULL: IT IS, AFTER ALL, 400 YEARS SINCE SHAKESPEARE DIED, AND 30 YEARS SINCE A NUCLEAR REACTOR AT CHERNOBYL SHOCKED THE WORLD

A

PaintedVeil Mind’s Eye | June 2016

5

ASPIRATIONAL? MODELS SUCH AS GIGI HADID ARE KNOWN FOR PROMOTING A HEALTHIER BODY IMAGE

MAIA HERLING BLASTS THE FASHION INDUSTRY FOR TURNING AN ART FORM INTO AN EVIL ENTERPRISE It is no secret that the fashion industry is obsessed with appearance. After all, it is a multi-million dollar business that revolves around putting rags on our bodies to make us feel beautiful. Clothes are a way to express ourselves without having to speak. People have dedicated their lives to the cause, many extremely passionate about their craft. Fashion is a lively and colourful art form that we see and judge constantly, often without even realising what we are doing.

people I know would be shocked to think they ever supported an industry in which they do not believe. But by wearing anything on our bodies we represent a trend and are making a statement, even if it is one far short of involving a catwalk appearance.

Taking that into account, we can’t tar the whole population of Earth with the same brush, and say that everyone is superficial, because that simply isn’t true.

So who has made the fashion industry Like many others I know, The Devil in into such an exclusive, intimidating Prada is one of my all-time favourite zone that people distance themselves films. Think of the scene in Meryl Streep’s by deeming it a simply trivial matter? office when she tells Anne Hathaway that, despite her thinking she’s exempt The models play a huge part in the from the fashion industry by wearing stigma. My generation is drip-fed, via only cast-offs, she can never not play social media, an unattainable idea of a part. This applies to us all. Plenty of female perfection. Kendall, Cara and 6

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Gigi are household names within my peer group, and the role models of many I know. They are far too often characterised as dumb, only known for their looks and relatively funny personalities, which can help them soar to success.

“

THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS RIGHTLY CONDEMNED BECAUSE OF SWEATSHOP LABOUR. IN 2008, THE BBC’S PANORAMA SHOWED 11-YEAR-OLDS IN INDIA BEING PAID 60P A DAY TO MAKE T-SHIRTS IN AN UNSAFE WORKING ENVIRONMENT

In some ways this can be thought of as our fault. We are the ones who are used to gleaning information with a few taps of a button. We want to know about these seemingly inhuman creatures, and become obsessed. Very few of their millions of Instagram and Twitter followers know such models personally.

Instead we see their names associated with world-famous brands, and see our peers starving in emulation. I cannot see how this is healthy for teenagers and have to agree that this is one of the downsides of fashion.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE RANA PLAZA FACTORY IN DHAKA IN APRIL 2013 RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF MORE THAN 1,100 PEOPLE

“

MY GENERATION IS DRIPFED, VIA SOCIAL MEDIA, AN UNATTAINABLE IDEA OF FEMALE PERFECTION

A fatal drawback of this industry is the number of young people who suffer from eating disorders. In the UK alone, 725,000 people are affected by an eating disorder of some kind. This includes anorexia, bulimia and bingeeating. Anorexia alone kills 20% of its sufferers. I believe, and I’m sure many others agree, that the constant social media pressure, which stems from the fashion industry, is a massive cause of these illnesses. However, it is unfair to condemn an industry because some people take the images it creates as a pattern to follow, any more than one would condemn Formula One because someone drives down the High Street like Lewis Hamilton.

In a worthy attempt to reverse some of the damage, France, Spain, Italy and Israel have all passed laws that only allow models over a certain weight to work. Especially in the case of France, a nation obsessed with appearance, this is a big step forward. Models such as Gigi Hadid are also known for promoting a healthier body image, by being able to have successful modelling careers without being stick-thin.

And the fashion industry is rightly condemned because of sweatshop labour. I’m sure many can recall the scandal for Primark when, in 2008, the

BBC’s Panorama showed 11-year-olds in India being paid 60p a day to make t-shirts in an unsafe working environment. How another human life, let alone one of a child, can be put at risk to produce our clothes I don’t understand. Those children should have been receiving an education, not stuck in a dangerous warehouse with a ridiculously small wage. This is an example of the garment industry exploiting foreign poverty and gaps in foreign laws, just to fulfil the price expectations of customers. And this aspect of the industry deserves the scandal it has provoked.

It is not enough to call the fashion industry superficial. It is an art form that affects the lives of every person on the planet, so much so that great sorrows blight its many joys. Eating disorders arise because girls take it too seriously and sweatshops thrive because there is a market for looking good amongst those who cannot afford catwalk prices. Fashion may be concerned only with appearances, but beneath the surface lurk many dangers. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

7

8

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

BEAUTIFUL CLOTHES BUT DIRTY WORK - WORKERS SEW JEANS IN A DHARAVI SLUM FACTORY, INDIA Mind’s Eye | June 2016

9

An

f

for

Feminism?

10

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

ELEANOR ALEXANDER ASKS WHY WE STILL JUMP TO THE SAME OLD CONCLUSIONS ABOUT WOMEN’S ROLE IN SOCIETY

DR WHO? My mum likes to tell people a story, which goes like this: A boy and his father are in a car crash. The father dies but the boy is rushed to hospital and goes into surgery. The surgeon looks down and cries, ‘My son!’ After my mum finishes the story, her audience, of whatever sex, race or age, is always confused. Of course, the surgeon is the boy’s mother. But when I tell the same story to my peers and change the characters in the story to a boy and his mother, they always understand at once that the surgeon is the father.

This story shows that all of us are capable of sexism, whether or not on purpose.

My question – An F for Feminism? – asks how far we have really come in the last 100 years with women’s equality. Does Feminism around the world deserve an A for Advanced, or an F for Fail?

In her 2014 United Nations speech, actress Emma Watson said, ‘I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men but, sadly, there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to see these rights.

No country in the world can yet say it has achieved true gender equality.’ And she is right. Even though countries like England are more economically developed and lead the way in women’s rights, we do indeed have a long way to go. For example, in my English class at school we have spoken a lot about Feminism but whilst I, naively, had assumed everybody of my generation was a feminist, about twenty percent of the boys in my class maintain that women do not deserve equal rights.

This could, of course, just be typical fifteen-year-olds seeking attention

but it did make me wonder how many people in our society are genuinely feminists, or are remotely aware of the facts about females in the modern world. For example, the sexist boys in my class suggested women are not capable of leading a country, when there are currently twenty-two female presidents or prime ministers in power around the world, not least of whom, Angela Merkle, has been Chancellor of Germany for ten years.

I first came across my ideological heroine, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, when she wrote an article for Vogue, and Beyoncé quoted her in a song entitled ‘Flawless’. Adichie is a shining example of what a modern feminist should be – not an angry woman who hates all men (my chief reason for despising the chick flick 10 Things Mind’s Eye | June 2016

11

I Hate About You) but a person who believes in equal rights for women. I admire her for being recognised by Vogue as a woman who creatively does not conform. She makes her own clothes and is a successful novelist, but she does not feel she has to make a choice between being a feminist and being feminine.

I worry that, if I have a daughter, one day she will be confined by gender stereotypes and will not feel able to explore career paths like Engineering or Banking. A female friend of mine wants to do Engineering at university but her mother’s friends have told her it would not be ‘appropriate’ and she will feel ‘excluded’ by her peers because they will all be male. So, despite me telling her to go for it, she has lost confidence in herself as a potential engineer. And it is truly heart-breaking to listen in person to someone experiencing sexism, even if her pessimistic advisors are only trying to help.

“

In her famous TED talk about the position of girls in the 21st Century, Adichie said, ‘We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We tell girls they can have ambition but not too much. They should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise they threaten men. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage.’

And too often these days I hear there are no women at the top of any profession, and see that paradoxically top chefs are men when cooking is supposed to be woman’s work. Globally we are still teaching girls they should not dream big and, once they have children, they will not have time for a career. Every year, 15 million girls are married when they are still children, and are thereby deprived of an education or any career opportunities just because they do not have a penis. They are forced into arranged marriages and are unable to do anything with their lives because they are beneath their husbands. In fact, as we all know, women are capable of getting to the top of any profession if given a chance.

12

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE IS A SHINING EXAMPLE OF A MODERN FEMINIST – NOT AN ANGRY WOMAN WHO HATES ALL MEN BUT A PERSON WHO BELIEVES IN EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN

When I was eleven my dad took my sister and me to a film called ‘Wadjda’ that portrays a girl who lives in Saudi Arabia and dreams of owning a bicycle so she can race her friend, who is a boy. But she is unable to buy a bicycle because a girl on a bicycle is frowned upon in her culture. Half way through the film, her father marries a second woman. I still remember my shock when I realised that in some cultures men can have more than one wife. I knew about Jacob’s twelve wives and twelve sons from the Bible, but I was

somehow conditioned to believe that a man and woman fall in love and get married and procreate, and that the father goes out to work and the woman brings up the children. This was how my family turned out, and all the families I had read about in books.

I never had exposure to more than one wife and, at the other end of the spectrum, I knew nothing about stayat-home dads either. The only time such a rare creature is accepted, even today, is when he is half of a gay couple with a baby, because a stay-at-home

heterosexual dad is still seen as weak and subservient to his wife. Even if the woman has the better job and financially it is a wise move for the household if she works, society still tends to disapprove. In my typical middle-class village in Kent, the stereotype went so far that we went to ‘mother and toddler group’ when I was little, never a ‘parent and toddler group’ – and that was during this century. Because women had the vote in my country and my dad treated my mum as equal, for a long time I thought I would never experience sexism.

My generation is better than past generations, of course, but it does not matter if you live in Saudi Arabia or America: all women still have to deal with sexism.

Perhaps if you had asked me two years ago I would have said Feminism deserves an A, but now I have a different view. In my experience not as many people believe in women’s rights as we might think. Even 100 years after Emmeline Pankhurst toured the States to muster support for the war effort and to encourage American suffragettes, achieving real gender equality is still going to be a slow process. So I would give feminism an F because not as many people as one would hope are calling themselves feminists and standing up for women, no matter who or where they are. We’ll know that we have succeeded, of course, only once Feminism as a concept is out of date and we talk about downtrodden women in the same breath as slaves. So, let’s raise a glass to 2216. ¢

EMMELINE PANKHURST TOURED THE STATES TO MUSTER SUPPORT FOR THE WAR EFFORT

WADJDA DREAMS OF BUYING A BICYCLE Mind’s Eye | June 2016

13

IMAGE

or

SOUND? 14

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

PALOMA FAITH HAD TO LIE ABOUT HER AGE TO SECURE A RECORD CONTRACT

BEN HELME WONDERS IF THE MUSIC INDSTRY PLACES MORE EMPHASIS ON IMAGE OR VOICE? Worth over 35 billion pounds a year, the global music industry is one of the most profitable and popular in the world. Although it is reasonable to assume musical talent will secure a successful career in music, this is rarely the case. Take singing, for example, where image nowadays is more important than voice.

The first proof of this is, you guessed it, the success of The Voice. The fact that there is a high-rating television programme whose unique selling point is being about voice rather than image, and forces its judges to base their decisions purely on the candidates’ musical ability, shows the extent to which the music industry usually focuses on image.

The prejudice is not just based on physical appearance. Many singers have experienced a decrease in the popularity in their music due to a change in other elements of their public image. One notable example is Chely Wright. A famous country singer, Wright said that after she came out as a lesbian in May 2010 her sales dropped by half. And she knew this would happen: ‘In coming out I had a feeling that it would diminish my wage earning, and that feeling was correct.’

Jennifer Knapp, one of the top artists in Christian music, experienced a similar drop in popularity. Since coming out as gay in 2010, the Grammy nominee’s music is no longer featured on Christian radio, and Christian bookshops have taken the decision not to display her

new album. Just by being honest about their sexuality, Wright and Knapp saw their popularity plummet.

Some singers have made drastic changes to their image in pursuit of fame, no doubt under pressure to impress and shock. Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera both changed their public images, once they were already famous, to boost their popularity. Cyrus deliberately divorced herself from the youth audience of the Disney Channel by cutting her hair drastically short and, at the MTV awards in 2013, grinding on a foam finger while gesturing lewdly with her microphone. And there are others who had to change their images to become famous in the first place, such as Lana Del Rey. Performing under Mind’s Eye | June 2016

15

her birth name, Lizzie Grant, she sang in New York bars, eventually gaining an album deal, but the album in question was unsuccessful. When her YouTube account caught the attention of talent scouts, she reinvented herself as ‘Lana Del Rey’, the despairing figure who sings about love and loss.

Paloma Faith, trying to break into the music industry, lied about her age in order to secure a record deal, saying she was 23 rather than 27. After her birth certificate was produced, Faith said, ‘If I’d said I was 27 I wouldn’t have got signed. One hundred per cent.’ It is obvious that image is essential in the music industry when four of today’s most popular singers had to change their public image, and even to lie, just to get their voices heard. Although some of these singers (such as Lana Del Rey) benefited from these image changes, it is wrong that you could be the best singer in the world but not have any success.

“

IF I’D SAID I WAS 27 I WOULDN’T HAVE GOT SIGNED

Today’s technology is to blame. 40 years ago the only relevance of a singer (other than the occasional appearance in a magazine) was her or his music, but today we are fed a constant stream of information about musicians that is not about their singing, but their persona, appearance and personal life, with tabloids and websites and social media flaunting their most intimate details.

So singers now have to concentrate on their image, and thereby feed people’s lurid fascination.

We need to celebrate talent in the music industry, and make the music industry about music. We must not let the media convince us to value what we see more than what we hear. ¢ 16

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

LIZZIE GRANT REINVENTED HERSELF AS LANA DEL REY

Going

Clean?

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

17

PICTURE OF PERFECTION: ELLA WOODWARD ADVOCATES A CLEAN, PLANT-BASED DIET

ELIZABETH GUILD ASKS IF WE CAN REALLY EAT OUR WAY TO THE PERFECT LIFESTYLE ‘Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t class as food.’ Ella Woodward, 23, can forever hold that statement against her name. It’s ninth on the list of ‘Mae Deli Philosophies’, the Ten Commandments for all those who aspire to look and live like Ella. She’s gorgeous, stick-thin, has a spaniel, a fiancé and 400,000 followers on Instagram.

After developing Postural Tachycardia Syndrome in 2011, she made it her mission to self-heal by changing her diet.

Two years later, she started up her blog (deliciouslyella.com) where she publishes her recipes, her ‘story’, and advocates her plant-based way of life. Since then, she’s written two cookbooks, the first of which was the fastest-selling recipe book ever to hit Amazon. Not a bad life.

But there’s a catch. Ella eats a plant-based diet, which was part of the whole self-healing thing. On top of that, refined sugar is strictly forbidden. It’s a pretentious description of being vegan, except it’s worse. Choosing to follow this regime means succumbing to meals classed as raw, clean and almost everything-free.

18

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

The closest you’ll come to a brownie is sweet potatoes acting as a sugar substitute mixed with Nutri-bulleted dates in a poor attempt to recreate that irresistibly mouth-watering, chocolate goo. You can guess how they taste. Ella doesn’t just cope with living this life of extreme self-control; she seems to thrive on it. She’s even managed to convince thousands that they too can live a life of Dairy Milk deprivation, as long as there’s a batch of glazed chilli and beetroot energy bars in the oven. With a combination of smiley snapchat selfies (‘Have a beautiful Monday, everyone!’), Instagram posts of sweaty mid-yoga-session-headstands (‘Feeling so empowered right now!’) and unlimited recipes for simple, wholesome salads (‘Flax seeds make anything heavenly!’), Ella has, to quote The Times, ‘changed the way a generation eats’. For a generation for which obesity is a serious issue, at first glance this woman seems like a gift from God. Her slogan of ‘Love your life, love your food, love yourself…’ could, indeed, be the solution to all our problems.

The trouble is that something about cutting major food groups from a diet makes me, along with the British Dietetic Association, slightly uneasy.

It’s not entirely clear why avoiding gluten and dairy, and ‘eating clean’, keeps people healthy. Is this new ‘pursuit of wellness’ obsession actually worth taking seriously? Could it just be a phase, a fashionable fad that will sooner or later become outdated and boring? Could it even be creating more problems than it is solving? Orthorexia is a medical condition in which the sufferer systematically avoids specific foods that they believe to be harmful.

Orthorexia can kill, via malnutrition.

And we are being brainwashed more and more into thinking that if we severely restrict what we put on our plates we can ‘cleanse’ ourselves and be ‘pure’. As with any obsession, being fixated with healthy eating isn’t actually very healthy. Our society is far vainer than we may want to admit, and that’s what forces me to suggest that the real incentive could be the ‘eat like me, look like me’ aspect. After all, every successful food blogger has two main characteristics: she is both young and photogenic. Ella and several healthy chefs who have quickly jumped on her bandwagon to promote ‘clean eating’ are exploiting a nation’s insecurity. And the very term ‘clean eating’ is offensive since what we eat has little to do with our cleanliness, or our moral fibre. A diet that is ‘clean’ just seems smug and elitist, and is just another way to make us feel bad about ourselves.

“

A DIET THAT IS ‘CLEAN’ JUST SEEMS SMUG AND ELITIST, AND IS JUST ANOTHER WAY TO MAKE US FEEL BAD ABOUT OURSELVES

MMMMM... BLENDED DATES AND SWEET POTATOES. TASTES JUST LIKE CHOCOLATE...

Nowadays, though, Ella’s reminders to have a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner seem unstoppable. Apps like Snapchat ensure that the vulnerable teenage girls who use it most are continually subject to images of what they should look like, and how they should eat.

Very few of these twenty-something wellness gurus have any nutritional qualifications.

As scathing as it sounds, quite a lot of the advice they give is just not worth hearing. ‘These people are injecting an unwelcome degree of paranoia into society, without any scientific backing,’ says Ian Marber, a nutrition expert and author of The Food Doctor.

Here are just a few examples of the cringe-worthy claims made by Ella and her fellow fanatics: 1) Milk actually causes calcium loss in our bones. When we drink milk, calcium is drawn from our bones in order to rebalance the acidity it generates, causing a severe calcium deficit. (Ella Woodward) 2) Gluten breaks down the microvilli in your small intestine, eventually letting particles of your food leach into your bloodstream. (The Hemsley Sisters)

ORTHOREXIA, A CONDITION WHERE THE SUFFERER AVOIDS CERTAIN FOODS, CAN KILL VIA MALNUTRITION

3) Wheat is like sandpaper for the gut.

(Madeline Shaw)

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

19

These points are probably new and reasonably surprising, but don’t worry; you’re not alone – they’re also new to nutritionists. Just so we can get things straight: 1) There is such a condition as calciumalkali syndrome, but it’s brought on more probably by excessive intake of calcium supplements than by too many milkshakes.

2) You’ll only need to worry about your snacks leaching if you have been diagnosed with coeliac disease, something that affects only 1 in 100 people in the UK. 3) Fibre is like oil for the gut and can be found in bran cereals, whole grain pastas and brown rice, all of which also contain gluten.

So there.

The health industry is worth billions of dollars a year and naturally attracts, just like religion, its fair share of charlatans.

Sadly their marketing skills are infinitely more acute than their nutritional knowledge, and they prey rapaciously on the ignorant and the vulnerable, of whom there are millions.

The funny thing about Ella, apart from the silly diet she recommends but surely does not really follow, is that her great-grandmother was probably right most of the time, so the best thing to do with the Ellas of this world is to take their culinary advice with a very large pinch of salt. ¢

THE PERFECT LIFE OR CRINGEWORTHY MARKETING?

DEATH BY MILKSHAKE? CALCIUM ALKALI SYNDROME IS LIKELY TO BE CAUSED BY TOO MANY CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS, NOT MILK 20

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Malaysia

Boleh?

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

21

ALEX DAUD BRIGGS WONDERS IF MALAYSIA REALLY CAN BECOME A DEVELOPED COUNTRY UNDER MALAYSIA’S CONSTITUTION, ALL MALAYS ARE FORCED TO BE MUSLIM

“

IN 2015 MALAYSIANS OF ALL RACES FLOODED THE STREETS, DRESSED IN YELLOW, TO ASK FOR FAIR ELECTIONS

Malaysia Boleh (literally ‘Malaysia can do it’) has for years been a popular cry for Malaysian patriots to claim that their country can become developed and united. It’s still said a lot these days but now it has a more cynical edge. Since the country’s independence in 1957, Malaysia has been governed by the same party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), and because of this has been going through a sort of identity crisis.

Despite ruling a multicultural country consisting primarily of three different groups (a majority of Malays and minorities of Chinese and Indians), the government tries to keep the Malays separate from the others, through religion, racial privilege and misinformed education, to keep the 22

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

majority loyal to the UMNO. This provoked protests in 2015, when Malaysians of all races flooded the streets dressed in yellow to ask for fair elections, and for the resignation of the Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, who was responsible for one of the largest scandals in Malaysia’s history but has been able to retain power.

The scandal started in June 2015 concerning ‘1 Malaysia Development Berhad’ (1MDB), a sovereign wealth fund that was already eleven billion Malaysian Ringgit in debt and was missing six billion that was supposedly paid to one of its subsidiaries. This scandal went from bad to worse when The Wall Street Journal reported that 700 million dollars were transferred from 1MDB into the Prime Minister’s

bank account. The Malaysian public was furious. While there is an investigation being conducted in Switzerland and Singapore, and many people are calling for his head, Najib has more or less got away scot-free, because the Malaysian anti-corruption ministry has claimed that the money in Najib’s account was a ‘generous donation’ from a rich family in the Middle East, whose identity they refuse to disclose. Even if this is the case, it is still a weak reason to clear the prime minister since it leaves too many unanswered questions. Who is this Middle Eastern donator? Why would they give such a large amount to Najib?

And, finally, we still don’t know where the missing 1MDB money went.

The truth is that the UMNO has shaped Malaysian society and politics to suit

itself. Despite such accusations of heinous corruption, many of the Malays still support the UMNO and Najib largely because of rigged elections and the brainwashing of Malays through the use of Islam and false national pride. The election system looks like a democracy but actually serves a oneparty state. During elections, the UMNO is part of a coalition called ‘Barisan National’ that features smaller parties to which the UMNO gives certain privileges but ultimately controls, like competing brands of soap powder all owned by Unilever. The two largest opposing parties form a coalition called ‘Pakatan Harapan’ (Coalition of Hope) but the problem is these parties mainly consist of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), mostly made up of liberal Malaysians, and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), made up of Islamic fundamentalists. The two parties have completely opposite ideologies and this stops them from getting votes, because neither of the parties’ voters want the other to gain power. Although the liberals may want to vote DAP, they do not want PAS to gain power so they vote for Barisan because, at the very least, they’ve been in charge since the country’s independence so there will be no drastic change, and this conservatism keeps UMNO in power.

But to get into power the UMNO still needs votes, and to get these they indoctrinate the conservative Malays.

Malaysia is known as a moderate Islamic country but, like many Islamic countries, despite the moderation, laws are put in place to keep control of Islamic citizens and keep them loyal to the government. Under Malaysia’s constitution, all Malays are forced to be Muslim. Officially converting from Islam is just about impossible, which means that Malays can be arrested under Sharia law, just like in 2013 when a woman was arrested for filming herself washing her dog. The government also maintains ‘Bumiputera’, a system that allows Malays privileges over other races, so it is easier for them to get jobs and places at university. While the UMNO defends this policy as helping to raise Malay pride and morale when their standard of living is lower than

DESPITE THEIR PRIVILEGES, MALAYSIANS SEEM TO BE EVEN MORE RESTRICTED THAN THE ‘SECOND CLASS’ MINORITIES the wealthier and more educated Chinese, the system alienates minority races, who feel that they are being treated as second-class citizens. But the privileges keep the Malays loyal to the UMNO. Despite this corruption, there are quite a few liberal parts of Malaysia. City populations are relatively open-minded and many oppose government laws.

And areas that mix Chinese, Indians and Malays embrace their multi-cultural identity. Some now-famous Malaysian food, for example, such as the delicious and ubiquitous flatbread, roti canai, was influenced by Indian and Chinese culture.

Sharia law is not really enforced in these cities and Malays can buy alcohol and pork, and gamble. There are even some gay bars and nightclubs. Many liberal Malaysians have seen, on television and on holiday, what developed countries are like and wish that Malaysia could be equally ‘advanced’. (It certainly doesn’t help that the extremely rich Singapore is right next-door.)

But in the Eastern peninsular states Islam is more strictly enforced. People can be arrested if they’re caught drinking or eating pork, and it has recently become mandatory for children to learn Arabic at school, despite it not even being a Mind’s Eye | June 2016

23

regional language and nowhere near as useful globally as English or Mandarin. The UMNO’s tight grip on some areas is expressed in the vandalism of churches and temples that the vandals say ‘have no place in a Muslim country’. This control extends into the Malaysian media. Malaysia is one of the most censored countries on the planet, many movies being banned for sex or violence, or for anything remotely un-Islamic. Indeed such Islamic indoctrination means a recent poll found the main quality Malaysian Muslims look for in a Prime Minister is being able to keep Malaysia as an Islamic state. So, despite their privileges, the Malays seem to be even more restricted than the ‘second class’ minorities, many of them willingly ignorant of the country’s problems.

“

DESPITE THE ISLAMIZATION AT HOME, MALAYSIA REMAINS MULTICULTURAL AND ITS PEOPLE LARGELY LIVE TOGETHER IN PEACE, OFTEN UNIFIED BY FOOD AND SPORT

Malaysia Boleh? Can Malaysia become a developed country? Well, we are a long way away but there are some signs of

24

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

DESPITE ACCUSATIONS OF CORRUPTION, MANY MALAYS STILL SUPPORT THE UMNO AND NAJIB LARGELY BECAUSE OF RIGGED ELECTIONS AND THE BRAINWASHING THROUGH THE USE ISLAM AND FALSE NATIONAL PRIDE

hope. After all, the recent financial scandal did spark a protest that lasted three days, in which Malaysians round the world gathered at rallies, the largest by 250,000 protesters in Kuala Lumpur.

So Malaysian people of all races are prepared to unite against injustice.

And despite the Islamization at home, Malaysia remains multicultural and its people largely live together in peace, often unified by food and sport,

although the latter may work only because there is a public holiday and Baskin-Robbins discounts if the national team wins. There are even large events to celebrate Malaysia’s diverse culture, such as the yearly George Town Festival in Penang, and recent Malaysian films that are more inclusive, such as the football drama ‘Ola Bola’, widely praised for its portrayal of national unity. So can Malaysia do it? Not now. But one day. ¢

WHO DO YOU THINK

YOU ARE?

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

25

JENNIFER MBU SAYS CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IS RACISM IN DISGUISE

“

AN OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF WHITE FEMALE TEACHERS LACK EXPERIENCE OF DEALING WITH BLACK BOYS, LEADING TO NEGLECT BY THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Cultural appropriation is the term we use when a dominant culture endorses a minority, often oppressed, culture by recruiting it through appearance or language, disregarding its origins elsewhere and thereby disrespecting its members. Imagine a white man who has no understanding of Rastafarianism wearing dreadlocks to look cool. Such a man also does not understand that by hijacking the look he is more demeaning than celebrating the culture he claims to support.

The issue is starting to become more acknowledged by the media, now that white, Western culture is so widely appropriating black culture and Americans so readily exploit the culture of Native Americans.

26

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Although the acceptance of other cultures is valuable, through cultural appropriation some cultures have recently become more valued than their creators. Take black women, for example. White people under 21 glamourise big lips, big butts and getting cornrows after their holiday to the Caribbean, but a black person does not see this look as naturally beautiful, but primitive and thuggish. This misunderstanding of image manifests itself in other ways. Some black hairstyles, for example – even a natural afro – are banned in several schools in America. And the US army have only just allowed a two-strand twist hairstyle but nothing else for black women, which shows a severe lack of understanding about the basic nature

of black people’s hair. Historically, black women have even been caged up and put in museums so a white audience can goggle at their natural features.

Saartjie Baartman was a woman literally exhibited as a freak in London and Paris in the early 1800s because of her large buttocks. Her appearance was alien to Westerners at the time, who had only just begun to come across black people in Britain as slaves, and so they acted accordingly by placing her in a cage and forcing her to perform. It is clear that the heart of cultural appropriation is more racism than respect.

Many people today believe, because there is no more slavery or legal and visible segregation, that racism is dead and that black people are simply

looking for a new reason to moan. But racism today is still an issue, although only black people can see it. It’s the white people, for the most part, who prefer to believe it is a thing of the past.

Subliminal racism starts at a young age, the treatment of young black American boys being the most telling.

Black boys are more likely to be put in special education than anyone else. At this point, people begin to assume that another rebellious, uneducated black boy is being nurtured, but they never look further to ask why this occurs.

Studies show that an overwhelming number of white female teaching staff lack essential first-hand experience of dealing with black boys, leading to their neglect by the education system.

And statistically black boys face harsher punishments in schools than anyone else, and a black man is more likely to get a longer sentence for the same crime a white man committed. When I entered prep school, both teachers and students made culturally stereotypical comments, expecting me to be good at sport and able to sing and dance. No one expected me to have any academic ability.

A black girl in the West will always find it hard not to feel her self-worth diminish from a young age, so it’s difficult to credit those who turn someone else’s cultural image into their own fashion, when you aren’t appreciated but discriminated against for espousing it in the first place. ¢

“

SAARTJIE BAARTMAN WAS A WOMAN LITERALLY EXHIBITED AS A FREAK IN LONDON AND PARIS IN THE EARLY 1800S

NOT COOL: EMULATING ANOTHER CULTURE JUST TO LOOK COOL IS DEMEANING Mind’s Eye | June 2016

27

ALL

IN THE

MIND 28

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

LARA WHITMORE DISCUSSES THE SIDE-EFFECTS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY WITH BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD In previous interviews you’ve described your younger self as a ‘maverick’. Could you explain why you thought this, and whether being one helped you in later life?

The maverick I think was first because my father was Jewish and although that may not sound so marvellous in the multi-cultural society we live in now, I was born in 1950 so at that time it was far less usual to have people who weren’t Anglo-Saxon. So there was partly that, and I didn’t understand what half-Jewish meant. But I knew I was different when I realised that not everyone was half-Jewish like I was, a bit like when you realise that not everyone is English. I suppose that was the first thing. And then it was because I came from a fairly modest background when I went to Godolphin, a very good school in London, which opened up my eyes to lots of different lifestyles, such as lots of foreign holidays and things, which my parents certainly couldn’t afford. So I suppose I was slightly different then. And then the third thing was that I hated Science at school and I loved Classics, so when I did Science I was a bit of a maverick because I didn’t have the background others had. So, for those three reasons I think I learnt from an early stage how wonderful it was to be an individual and just be yourself rather than be in any kind of tribe or group.

And do you think that has helped you succeed in your career, being a woman in what I would guess is still a male-dominated culture?

Yes, absolutely. Certainly, I think, it’s given me a confidence to stand up to people and up to things – as you’ll learn when you go through life: not everyone loves you, not everyone agrees with you, and if they were to you’d be a pretty bland person, I think.

Inevitably, you have to meet people who rightly or wrongly don’t go along with what you’re saying and that’s fine, but you have to learn how to cope with

that and accept that, and if people get hostile you have to learn it’s often because they feel threatened, rather than having a genuine problem with you. You have to try and understand why they’re being like that and not get upset by it, whereas I think nowadays your generation, because of all the trolling of Facebook and so on, that perhaps you haven’t been so well equipped to cope with criticism and difficulties like that, and I think that one of the biggest things we can do for the children of the next generation is help them cope with life’s difficulties and that will include not everyone loving you or agreeing with you.

“

WE TAKE THE CYBER WORLD FOR GRANTED, THINK IT’S THE NORM, WHEN REALLY IT’S ONLY THIS CENTURY THAT THE CULTURE HAS BEEN SO PERVASIVE

And your parents encouraged that, didn’t they?

Totally, and the school, Godolphin, was one of those wonderful schools that let you do as much as you could – any combination of A Levels – and Oxford placed a great deal of emphasis on being an individual, with the one-onone tutorial sessions, so I feel fortunate in having, at every stage of my life, a benign, supportive environment where people have encouraged individuality and being yourself.

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

29

understand it in a way that no one else does. So I think they’re the issues that we have to be wary of; it’s not that it will damage the brain, but it’s not going to bring out the best in people or their true potential, and they might not feel as fulfilled as someone from my generation who was able to have the time to be able to live in the inner world and have a firewall protecting your identity, which in turn gives you the confidence to combat the things that life throws at you.

So how do you map, say, the effect of video games on the brain?

I think you might be missing out on a lot of life; it’s not so much damaging, but you’re missing out on important things, like having a real conversation with someone, like having an imagination that takes you somewhere wonderful when you read a book; its not so much that it will damage you in the sense that smoking will damage you. I think people who spend a lot of time in the cyber world are missing out.

is essential and how the mobile phone kills conversations, and even the sight of one kills conversation. Second, with video games there’s nothing left for your imagination at all and I think the wonderful thing about reading is that, even when you have books read aloud to you as a little child, that you have an inner world, and if it’s a wellwritten book you can exclude the outside world entirely, and I think that’s one of the most amazing things that we develop as humans, but we only develop it if we have the opportunity to have stories read to us and then to read books ourselves, so we have that long attention span.

My idea is, which I have broken down into video games’ effect on your attention span and so on and addiction, and you can break it down into social networking and empathy and identity and search engines and how we differentiate from information and knowledge, that if you don’t rehearse face-to-face conversation then you’re not going to be very good at it, nor will you be very good at empathy. Sherry Turkle’s book, which is receiving a lot of attention, is about how conversation

Finally, I think the most damning of all is how people regard search engines, as though knowing or learning a fact or knowing where to cut and paste a fact is actually understanding, and there’s a big difference between information and knowledge, and for me that’s the sad and crucial issue, when people just diet on facts and spew them out back to each other, without actually incorporating them into a greater framework of personal context, where it’ll have a meaning and you’ll

Could you please summarise your thesis of Mind Change and why you think modern technology is damaging?

30

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Well, you can look at certain things.

Obviously there’s no simple gameprocessing centre or anything, but you can certainly see brain changes in scans, like the release of dopamine or a change in microstructure abnormalities. Bear in mind, though, that this work has only been going for the last five or ten years because Facebook’s only been with us since 2004, so although we seem to take the cyber world for granted, and seem to think it’s the norm, really it’s only of this century, and quite well into this century that the culture has been so pervasive.

Are there really strong links between video games and aggression, reduced attention span and addiction?

Certainly, but I think we have to distinguish between violence and aggression, so while one can look at violence you also have to look at a certain adversarial attitude that sadly you often find nowadays.

Some people must call you oldfashioned, or a technophobe. What do you say to them?

Surprisingly, on my website, which is where people can contact me, 99% of messages are positive, and I think ‘oldfashioned’ is a very easy thing to say, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing; there are lots of good things about being old-fashioned, you know, because every technology and every era has its advantages and disadvantages, and so I don’t see why that would be a bad

thing or a good thing. If it means that one is being critical and evaluating things as they come along then bring it on, and I hope one would be like that, rather than just rolling over and being excited by anything new that comes along just for the sake of it. In a sense it’s rather sad because people think they have to comply with something to give a certain impression rather than because they truly believe it.

The same people might say that, since you’re not on Facebook, what do you know?

Yes, but there are lots of things one doesn’t know firsthand that one can still comment on, like bungee jumping, for instance; you may have views on that, but you may not have done it. Moreover, even if I was on Facebook, and I suddenly realised how fantastic it was, and I really enjoyed being on Facebook, that wouldn’t change one iota any of the papers cited in my book Mind Change. So the fact that one person might find something or think something or experience something doesn’t change the facts, which is why one does science, because that’s what gives the actual hard evidence over a large population. My own experience is of no value whatsoever compared to the papers that have been published.

What about people who say that these developments are essential to modern life if we are to achieve today’s goals?

In your own field, for example, you must use many stateof-the-art tools?

Of course. I’m not saying we should all live like the Amish, and abandon technology – of course not – but it has to be used as a means to an end and not an end in itself. And my concern is not that we are using this powerful technology for

endless wonderful reasons, but more about when it becomes for people a lifestyle of itself.

On which side of the nature/nurture debate are you since, although you’re a neuroscientist, you’ve had a nurturing upbringing that you largely credit for your success?

Well, I think nowadays people accept that the two are linked and can’t really be separated. Certainly when it comes to mental function and abilities, for example, if I had exactly the same genes but had been subjected to the same upbringing as those poor Romanian orphanage children we saw in the Nineties, then obviously I wouldn’t be the person I am.

Obviously genes are important, but they are necessary and not sufficient. That is to say, if you have a faulty gene then of course you’ll have an impediment. But that doesn’t mean to say that everything is tied to the genes; the gene will express up to 30,000 different proteins in turn, which works in the context of the messy hierarchy of the brain so that any link between a gene and human behaviour is indirect.

Thank you.

Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster and member of the House of Lords.

Specialising in the physiology of the brain, Susan researches the impact of 21st century technologies on the mind, how the brain generates consciousness and novel approaches to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Susan has written a range of non-specialist books on issues relating to the mind and brain for the general reader. She appears regularly on radio and television and frequently gives talks to the public and private sector. ¢ READING BOOKS ENCOURAGES THE IMAGINATION AND HELPS US TO DEVELOP A LONGER ATTENTION SPAN

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

31

KENT’S FAVOURITE DEPARTMENT STORE

Image courtesy of Eileen Fisher 2016

FASHION,BEAUTY MEN’S & HOME

32

St. Georges Street, Canterbury, Kent. CT1 2TB Tel: 01227 766866 www. fenwick.co.uk/canterbury

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Think

AGAIN Mind’s Eye | June 2016

33

BOY OR GIRL? ALICE WHALEY THINKS WE NEED MORE EDUCATION TO CHANGE PERCEPTIONS OF GENDER

IN MAY 2015 ANDREJA PEJIC, PHOTOGRAPHED

BY PATRICK DEMARCHELIER, WAS THE FIRST TRANSGERNDER MODEL TO GRACE THE COVER OF ‘VOGUE’ What with same-sex marriage, ‘Call me Caitlyn’ and ‘The Danish Girl’, the past year seems a worldwide success for the LGBT community. Yet, in spite of the sexual revolution taking the Internet by storm, I haven’t noticed a change in real life. Whilst I’m sure that pupils and teachers alike welcome people of all orientations and pronouns, it’s time that sexuality was actively acknowledged within schools.

Same-sex marriage was already legal in the UK when I had my last sex-ed lesson, but even then there was little coverage of homosexuality, and certainly no exploration of transgenderism because these matters had not yet come to light with the force they have now. Around this time, a friend of mine came out as transgender. Whilst the school was kind and open-minded in its approach, and 34

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

accommodating to a certain extent, there was a lack of understanding of his feelings. He was immediately allowed to start wearing boys’ uniform, he moved into a mixed house and did a mixed sport. But his teachers weren’t allowed to refer to him by his male name or ‘he’ because he needed both parents’ permission to be able to change his name on the school registry system. His father did not accept his transgender feelings, so he wasn’t able to change his name during his time at the school.

Here there seems to be a fundamental ignorance of the problems involved with coming out as transgender.

Unfortunately, it’s all too common for at least one parent not to be accepting of their child’s feelings, so the request for both parents’ permission seems too much to ask when the emotional comfort of the child is at stake. He says

it was as if his school ‘acknowledged that I didn’t want to be seen, wrongly, as a girl, but wouldn’t accept that I was male’. At my friend’s next school he was called by his male name, as well as being allowed to use boys’ bathrooms and changing rooms. Essentially, he was treated like any other boy, and this is how transgender people should be treated across the country.

Steps are clearly being taken to bring schools into the present day.

Brighton College has been praised for leading the way with its new gender-free uniform policy, and Ofsted now includes attitudes towards homophobia in its inspections. In 2015 the National Union of Teachers agreed that ‘a future government must tackle the embedded homophobia, biphobia and transphobia that exists

in schools and create a positive climate of understanding about sexuality and gender fit for the 21st Century.’ My worry is that staff teaching pupils about LGBT matters may not be sufficiently equipped to do so. At my school we are lucky that the PSHE teachers are hand-picked for being the most openminded and progressive in the school.

But this is no government policy. Even if schools are legally required to preach acceptance and understanding, there is still no guarantee that teachers across the country agree with this change in culture or have sufficient knowledge of the wide spectrum of genders and sexualities. It is crucial that teachers have a thorough understanding so that they can answer the questions posed by a class of forward-thinking, curious teenagers to help them support their peers. But, then again, how can one possibly be equipped to answer such questions without first-hand experience? Schools need to be places where queer teachers feel comfortable enough to be open about their sexualities so that they can provide counsel to lost pupils looking for an adult who understands.

In spite of my school’s best efforts, I feel as if the acceptance now taught in PSHE isn’t evident around the place. This needs to change. A truly welcoming environment is essential at our age because studies show that 48% of queer American college students discover their sexuality in high school.

Even if the school rules officially ban ‘abusive comments about gender or sexuality’, the school community as a whole doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of homosexual relationships.

Girls and boys are not allowed into each other’s rooms until their final year, at which point the door must be propped open. There are no such restrictions on people of the same gender. With nearly half of young Britons identifying as something other than completely heterosexual, these differences seem somewhat outdated if the school wishes to maintain that ‘sexual relationships are forbidden in any circumstances’. Of course, people aren’t having sex every time they go into a friend’s room, and it would be

“

IT IS CRUCIAL THAT TEACHERS HAVE A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING SO THEY CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS POSED

BY A CLASS OF FORWARDTHINKING, CURIOUS TEENAGERS

ridiculous to keep everyone separate all the time for fear of sexual relations. But it’s rules like these that demonstrate the wide denial of homosexual relationships within schools.

Reform is not only important for equality, but also to save the feelings of pupils. As the current rules stand, an undisclosed gay couple could easily be having sex, or even living together in the same room. This is completely inappropriate in a school environment, and yet there is nothing to prevent it. Although there is no risk of pregnancy, there are other problems that schools must protect against where sexual relations are concerned.

I can only imagine the emotional turmoil following a break-up at such close quarters, not to mention how divisions and awkwardness will affect other pupils. The feelings of these heterosexual housemates must also be considered when rooming gay pupils, because in the same way that girls aren’t allowed to see boys change,

the same should presumably go for gay pupils, and yet they mustn’t be segregated either.

It seems that there is still much to be done in terms of the acknowledgement and support of the LGBT community within schools across the country.

From a local perspective, I would like to see the development of an LGBT Society where queer pupils and those who support the rights movement can discuss the challenges they face and, soon, the breakthroughs of the community. With this raised awareness and openness, the taboo would dissolve and the pastoral care team would become better informed about the issues. Their knowledge would be passed on to the rest of the school and eliminate the ignorance that can lead to prejudice. Of course, things will gradually improve over the years, but why wait to start the movement towards a more open and happier school environment? ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

35

36

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

LGBT Pride march in London Mind’s Eye | June 2016

37

Love in

is

the air

38

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

IS ONLINE DATING REALLY A BED OF ROSES OR LEADING US UP THE GARDEN PATH?

ELIZA BATTEN AND CECILY GUILD REVEAL THE DARK SIDE OF ONLINE DATING One in five successful relationships in 2016 are thanks to online dating. With 26 million daily matches on Tinder and Match.com taking credit for 517,000 relationships and one million babies in 2015, is this new dating game an exciting prospect or a recipe for disaster? Is our generation destined for life-long relationships with algorithm-calculated soul mates, or are we heading towards social incompetence from lack of interaction while we hide behind our screens?

Gone are the days of the mysterious man; Facebook stalks and Instagram scrolls are the exclusive and intrusive way of bypassing first-date small talk.

With 16,000 swipes and 300 matches per second, there’s no denying that Tinder has successfully infiltrated the market.

The dating game has evolved from the faff of survey after survey, and has revolutionised dating, the game we all want to be playing. Simplifying and speeding up the sometimes life-long quest of finding true love has captured the young generation’s attention and swept it away. Now back to the question: 900,000 people pay £19.99 a month for Tinder

Plus, offering ‘Unswipe’, the privilege of a second chance, unswiping a previous act of carelessness, and ‘Passport’, which allows you to access more exotic postcodes worldwide. That is almost a million cybernauts getting poorer and lonelier…

Insecure and image-obsessed online daters hide behind a smokescreen of skewed personal information, with 81% of people admitting to having lied about their height, age or figure. How do people expect to find a future partner if they cannot even be honest about their birthday? With users quite literally judging the book by its cover, the young generation’s self-confidence is at an all-time low: 40% of men don’t feel confident meeting a woman for the first time.

Snapchat is another sad example of an app moulded to meet the desires of our narcissistic society. 100 million daily users snap themselves, clothed or otherwise, with an accompanying 10-word message. A plethora of photo filters accompany empty, disjointed conversation; it is unsurprisingly one of the most popular methods of communication for our UK teens.

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

39

The creation of a new and terrible shorthand text speak has translated to poor exam results, with only 3.1% of British teens achieving an A* at English GCSE. This deterioration of our language is a tragedy.

In a recent Horizon documentary entitled ‘How to Find Love Online’, scientists tested the various algorithms employed by dating sites such as Lovestruck.co.uk and match.com, and came to the conclusion that, whilst these tools are effective in finding someone compatible in terms of simple age, sex and shared interests, the crux as to whether a relationship succeeds, the spark, is something only found through personal contact. Selling yourself in 200 words is a challenge; describing yourself as a human being within such a confined text box is impossible. It is almost impossible not to subconsciously lie here, so dating sites are prone to torturous dates, and the terrible aftermath of asking, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Human contact remains the only way to establish a prosperous pairing. Merely living in the same postcode and fancying each other’s selfies is not enough for a lifelong marriage.

This documentary thoughtfully set up dates for volunteers with fellow singletons who fitted similar algorithms, but the fact remains that online dating cannot replace the butterflies experienced with human interaction. The fairytale of opposites attracting is impossible online, for example. Long-term results prove it; online daters are 28 per cent more likely to split from their partners within the first year. And there is a greediness involved with online dating; it is itself like an online menu of people waiting to be chosen or discarded, and so the user’s relative power is perhaps more attractive than the prospect of actually meeting with a person or finding love.

It’s a power game, and the site ‘Elite Singles’ plays on this. By classifying yourself as affluent and sufficiently educated, you enable yourself to swipe through hundreds of people who are fortunate enough to share your ‘elite’ status.

40

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

ONLINE DATING CANNOT REPLACE THE BUTTERFLIES EXPERIENCED WITH HUMAN INTERACTION - THE FAIRYTALE OF OPPOSITES ATTRACTING IS IMPOSSIBLE ONLINE

Yet the dating industry is worth over £150 million, and 80% of people know someone who has found love online – so it’s not all bad news. People are finding love, one way or another, and with over 1400 dating sites there’s huge variety: whether it’s ‘Gluten Free Singles’ or ‘Positive Singles’ (people with an STI…), there are specialist sites to accommodate such requests. One in ten singletons worldwide uses online dating and it is unlikely that this is just the flavour of the month, yet this new reliance on technology to do our matchmaking for us is misguided. The whole enjoyment of the dating process should be meeting and enjoying the company of different people until you find one you like enough to start a relationship; we outsource our love lives to algorithms and spreadsheets to no good end. Moreover, this is technology’s answer to the problem it has itself created. Marketing everywhere uses couple and family advertising to tell us that being single is a miserable wasteland, the escape from which is mandatory. Travel adverts, Hollywood film billboards and financial services use images of happy couples to promote a happier life with their product. This points to the futility of the media and technology concerning love; instead, we need to look past technology’s barriers concerning dating and get out there! ¢

Life

after

death Mind’s Eye | June 2016

41

SIGRID RAUSING TAKES US ON A GHOST-WALK THROUGH THE DEAD ZONES OF CHERNOBYL THIRTY YEARS ON warning signs. Swifts and swallows are diving in the wind; black mosquitoes bite us. An old Alsatian lounges about.

Had it not been so toxic it might have been mildly idyllic.

We travel from Kiev in a bus, and wait for a long time by the border of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone. Travel documents and permissions are checked and re-checked; we drift, tired, between the memorials and the

April 26, 1986, is the date of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, as it is known in Ukraine. It was the result of an experimental procedure intended to test switching sequences of the electrical supplies of the turbines.

The experiment began in the early hours of the morning, and soon went catastrophically wrong. Build-up of steam caused two massive explosions.

By 6.30am all but one of the forty or so fire-fighters who were called in had absorbed enough radiation to

die within weeks from acute radiation sickness. The people in the town of Pripyat were evacuated the following day to villages in the Kiev region. The evacuation was intended to last for three days; it soon became clear that it was permanent, and that the area will be uninhabitable for the foreseeable (and unforeseeable) future.

Eventually the authorities let us through, and we continue on a wide road, improbably smooth. Occasionally we see abandoned houses by the side of the road. The forest imperceptibly seems to creep nearer. Finally we reach our destination – the Chernobyl Hotel, a shoddy temporary structure built by Swedes.

THE CENTRAL SQUARE OF ABANDONED PRIPYAT IN CHERNOBYL EXCLUSION ZONE, ONCE A TOWN OF SOME 53,000 PEOPLE

“

THE PEOPLE IN PRIPYAT WERE EVACUATED...

INTENDED TO LAST FOR THREE DAYS; IT SOON BECAME CLEAR THAT IT WAS PERMANENT

42

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

As we get closer to the centre of the zone, we are told to roll down our sleeves. We see a przewalski’s wild horse, a curious zebra-like creature, released a few years ago. Fifteen of these rare horses were shot by machine gun from a helicopter recently, someone says, left where they fell, half the herd decimated.

The little village where we stay is mainly deserted, but there are still some workers living here, and some old people. A man stands under a cherry tree, picking cherries, and putting them in his mouth. Does he know he mustn’t eat them? The next day I begin to feel reasonably confident, and sit down on the grass. A little old woman with long red hair, gold tooth glinting in her mouth, comes up to me and gestures at the grass, and at me, and tells me not to sit there. She leads me back to the hostel, which is enclosed by a fence. I understand her to say that the grass outside is still contaminated, and that the topsoil inside the fence has been removed.

We look around the village, at the rusty balconies, the district heating pipes on the ground, the empty houses. We ask, again and again, how many people died, but the truth is that no one knows. Soviet statistics are secret, and

“

WE ASK, AGAIN AND AGAIN, HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED, BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT NO ONE KNOWS

“

PRIPYAT MUST HAVE BEEN A PLEASANT PLACE TO LIVE - IT STILL HAS A PRESENCE

the post-Soviet world is too chaotic to collect reliable statistics. Measuring variations in the cancer rates is difficult in an environment as poor (and as alcoholic) as the former Soviet Union.

The next day we go into the dirtiest zone. Huge rusty pylons, useless now,

radiate out from the centre. We see the sarcophagus, the concrete shell that was hastily built to enclose the toxic reactor. Near the reactor we stop to see the catfish in the cooling ponds – heavy slow-moving creatures surrounded by smaller fish. Our guides tear off chunks of bread and throw them in the water; soon we all do. The catfish open their mild wide mouths, but they don’t swallow much. Maybe they can only feed on softer stuff, disintegrating material that sinks to the bottom.

We go into Pripyat, too. This was once a little town of some 53,000 people, most of them connected with Chernobyl in one way or another. It must have been a pleasant place to live. It still has a presence, a grand provincial Soviet sweep, modernist blocks of flats, a permanent fairground with a Ferris wheel, now rusty and sad, a football stadium. Young trees are growing through the cracks in the concrete of the central square. The fountain is dry; it’s quiet. These are like Roman ruins, and would be more eerie still were it not for the fact that there are so many abandoned towns and villages in the former Soviet Union, a land still depopulated since the war, a population Mind’s Eye | June 2016

43

HOSPITALS, GYMS AND SCHOOLS ONCE FILLED WITH LIFE NOW LIE EMPTY AND CRUMBLING

still steadily declining, weakened by decades of vodka and smoking, and the aftermath of hunger, the war, the purges, the gulag.

We wander through Pripyat. I have an old slipped disk, and my back aches mercilessly. Every step hurts; a tingle in my nerve reaches my foot. I can only move slowly, and wonder if I should have come, with my slipped disk, to this toxic land, to this trip that was always going to be arduous.

In the evening we drink more wine, then we drink vodka, and beer, and whisky. In the heat of the moment some of us – non-smokers all, of course – smoke Ukrainian cigarettes, ‘Glamour’, thin and feminised, lighting them on the electric stove in the hotel.

The next day we leave for the Belarussia zone. Before leaving we have to pay. I go with our guide to see what ‘paying’ might be like. Our new driver – we now have a Belarussian bus – has taken a liking to me. He smiles languidly, his hand lingering on mine as he helps me on board. I sit alone in the bus with Natasha, our guide, who speaks to me seriously about her slipped disk, and mine. As we wait to pay she calls her

44

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

spine specialist in Odessa, twice, to consult him about my case. She asks me questions I can’t answer, questions I realise I should have asked my own consultant and didn’t, and looks at me gently and with concern. I know that look so well. I know what she is thinking.

She is thinking of the odd passivity of westerners, so privileged, and yet so weak. I smile weakly and drift with her upstairs to the office where she has to pay.

The office block is almost empty, deserted, but there are two women left, and one small office is open. They look at our forms, talk on the telephone, look at me, talk some more. Minutes later they tell me, through Natasha, that I have to leave, for ‘security’ reasons.

It takes an hour, at least, to pay. The swallows dip and dive. The cracked concrete outside is re-colonised by grass. The two drivers tinker with the engine. I walk a little, look at the empty block of flats across the road, the cracked glass, and the older house next to it, beautiful once, probably part of a vast pre-revolutionary estate, now part of the dead zone of Chernobyl. ¢

AN EVACUATED MAN LEANS ON THE FENCE IN FRONT OF RIVER IN HIS HOMETOWN OF PRIPYAT - EVERY YEAR ON 9TH MAY EVACUATED PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO VISIT THEIR FORMER HOMES

Sigrid Rausing is a philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher. She is the founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and owner of Granta magazine and Granta Books.

MEASURING VARIATIONS IN THE CANCER RATES IS DIFFICULT IN AN ENVIRONMENT AS POOR AS THE FORMER SOVIET UNION Mind’s Eye | June 2016

45

46

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Abandoned school room, Pripyat Mind’s Eye | June 2016

47

Thirty years on, a clock still hangs on the wall of a Gym in abandoned Pripyat 48

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

One of a kind…

Inspired by the exceptional 16ct Tanzanite, we designed and traditionally hand crafted this Oval Tanzanite & Pear Shaped Diamond Cluster Pendant in Platinum.

The King’s Mile, 53 Palace Street, Canterbury 01227 788200 jewellery-maker.co.uk Advertisement fee sent to support Survivors of Chernobyl

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

49

An Easy

Target

50

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“JUST DON’T ASK WHO HAS TO HELP HER IN THE BATHROOM...”

WITH RACIAL ABUSE NO LONGER TOLERATED IN OUR SOCIETY, GEORGE NAIRAC ASKS WHY IT IS STILL ACCEPTABLE TO FLING MUD AT THE GYPSY CULTURE In a football match between Liverpool and Manchester United in 2011 Luis Suarez called Patrice Evra a ‘negro’ (Spanish for ‘black’). Suarez received an eight-game ban, and was fined £40,000.

In a rugby match between England and Wales in 2016 Joe Marler, England’s tighthead prop, called Samson Lee a ‘gypsy boy’. He received a two-game ban, and a £20,000 fine.

Although the discrepancy in fine can be explained by footballers’ higher wages, should not the match ban have been equal for each player? Both men were playing at an elite level and both matches were televised internationally.

So one would expect Suarez and Marler to be made an example of in equal measure. Perhaps Rugby’s governing body being more lenient than the FA can explain this inequality. Possibly.

But the greatest contrast between the two incidents lies in the public reaction, and the treatment of Marler’s case exposed an uncomfortable truth.

Whereas Suarez was widely condemned as a monstrous (and later ‘flesh-eating’) racist, Joe Marler had merely been ‘foolish’. Moreover, Marler’s team-mate, James Haskell, dismissed the incident as ‘banter’, a view that was shared by his coach. But when Liverpool’s manager, Kenny Dalglish, defended Suarez’s character, it was a PR disaster.

When I thought about writing this article, I expected to be disappointed by finding someone else had already written it, but the press has barely raised an eyebrow, not even a left one, at Marler’s behaviour. The Telegraph seemed more irritated by his lack of professionalism, and the inconvenience

faced by England’s selectors. Quite rightly, insulting someone because of his skin colour is seen as racist, and therefore unacceptable. But why are we so comfortable dismissing an incident of ethnic abuse as ‘boys being boys’, as long as the victim is a ‘gypsy boy’?

Maybe we don’t like gypsies, travellers, Romani people, pikeys etc, and can’t see a need to admit that it’s a problem.

The evidence is clear enough. Nine out of ten Gypsy and Traveller children have suffered racial abuse and two-thirds of children from Traveller groups have also been bullied or physically attacked.

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is a hugely popular TV show, in which Gypsy and Traveller brides are ridiculed for their ostentatious tastes (somehow I don’t see ‘My Big Fat Pakistani/Black Wedding being as much of a success). Andrew Mind’s Eye | June 2016

51

“

DUE TO THEIR SEEMINGLY MERCURIAL NATURE, WE STRUGGLE WHEN REFERRING TO ‘GYPSIES’ - SOME TRAVEL; SOME DON’T; SOME ARE ROMANI; SOME AREN’T; SOME CAUSE DAMAGE TO PROPERTY; AND THEN AGAIN SOME DON’T

MacKay, a former Tory MP, went as far as saying that Gypsies who live on public land ‘are scum – I use that word advisedly – because people who do what these people have done do not deserve the same human rights as my own decent constituents going about their everyday lives.’ His comments were made in 2002; he received negligible criticism, and kept his job until the ‘Right Honourable’ member stood down in 2010. Faced with this undeniable evidence, how do we explain that such prejudice is still so widespread?

Perhaps discrimination against gypsies and travellers has been allowed to continue into the 21st Century due to a lack of guilt and public attention. Whereas the slave trade, colonialism and the Holocaust sit in the forefront of our memory, any inhumanity committed against Gypsies is forgotten. Moreover, due to the spread of radical Islam, Muslim-Western relations are in such a crisis that frantic efforts are being made to confront prejudice. If anything, our cultural memory of ‘Gypsies’ is lightened by the once-exotic appeal of Gypsy culture to Western artists and musicians, such as Ravel. So, with no significant scars of guilt, antiRomani prejudice is something of an open wound, which 52

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

has been ignored and allowed to fester. Therefore, the prejudice is, in many people, an ingrained, passive distrust, rather than an active hatred. Of course, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani were murdered by the Nazis, but, perhaps understandably, this has been overshadowed by the horror of 6 million Jews being systematically exterminated.

GYPSIES HAVE ALWAYS HELD A MYSTERIOUS APPEAL FOR ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS

Many non-Nazi supporters held deep prejudice against Travellers, which involves a more uncomfortable reason for continued discrimination. Whereas other ethnic minorities suffer due to their physical appearance, beliefs, or cultural traditions, opposition to Travellers can be explained by their very name: on the whole, they travel.

Whereas a Jewish family can live next door and have no impact on their neighbours, there is a general perception that Travellers live outside the law and society. A few years ago, a BBC documentary showed Romanian Gypsies stealing electricity, and their children targeting ATM users in Madrid. Many tourists, myself included, have been enraged by being offered rosemary 50 times a day when visiting a European city.

Andrew MacKay’s comments came after a group of Travellers had vandalised a local car park. Thus welldocumented criminality allows welleducated people, who would never hold an irrational prejudice, to hate Gypsies for being a genuine threat to a well-ordered society. Of course, many Gypsies and Travellers pay their taxes, hold regular jobs, or, ironically, live at fixed addresses. The Romanian Gypsies from the documentary were actually caught up in gangs, forced to survive on the margins, while the leaders lived in luxury at home in Romania.

They were victims of economic circumstance, Gypsies or not. Indeed, the Travellers who vandalised the car park in MacKay’s constituency have little in common with the Romanian immigrants living on the outskirts of Madrid, and yet they are still classed together by general consensus.

JOE MARLER, ENGLAND’S TIGHTHEAD PROP, CALLED SAMSON LEE A ‘GYPSY BOY’

This reveals the fundamental problem of this particular prejudice: due to their seemingly mercurial nature, we struggle to know to whom we are referring when we talk about ‘Gypsies’ or ‘Travellers’. Some travel; some don’t; some are Romani; some aren’t; some cause damage to private and public property; and then again some don’t. Seemingly, one of their few shared characteristics is their selfidentification as Travellers, or Gypsies.

So the existence of a loose identity without a state, in terms of geography, politics or even religion, allows all perceived Travellers to be painted into one boundlessly menacing impression, meaning that popular opinion can easily blame the false ‘whole’ for any offence. Moreover, the loose identity of Gypsies and Travellers makes the job of their defenders all the more challenging. Whereas other minorities have benefited from popular movements against prejudice, Gypsies and Travellers have not. Despite the existence of support groups, the nomadic, insular, and often marginalised nature of this community, as well as its relatively small size, make it difficult to mobilize a popular campaign for greater awareness. And due to the Traveller and Gypsy communities’ strained relationship with state authority, greater efforts to understand Gypsies and Travellers is a low priority for the government.

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

53

Ultimately, in order to confront prejudice against Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, we must make more of an effort to understand this complex community, and identify just who we are actually talking about. It is impossible to defend someone without knowing who the defendant really is.

If the target of prejudice can be more easily identified, the source can be exposed as sheer xenophobia in some cases, or a reasonable objection to a few genuine criminals in others.

“

WE MUST MAKE MORE OF AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THIS COMPLEX COMMUNITY, AND IDENTIFY JUST WHO WE ARE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT

At the moment, we are suffering from a ‘them and us’ mentality, when we aren’t actually quite sure who the mysterious ‘they’ are. All this does is encourage, in an ancient culture worthy of our respect, greater insularity and even less respect for the establishment. ¢

THE ANNUAL APPLEBY HORSE FAIR ATTRACTS 10 - 15,000 ENGLISH, WELSH, SCOTTISH AND IRISH TRAVELLERS WHO GATHER TO BUY AND SELL HORSES, MEET WITH FRIENDS AND RELATIONS, AND CELEBRATE THEIR CULTURE 54

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Bad grammar

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

55

RECENTLY THE RETURN OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS HAS BEEN HOTLY DEBATED

GEORGE PALMER WONDERS IF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL IS THE ONLY HOPE FOR BRITAIN’S EDUCATION SYSTEM Britain’s education system has been in decline for years, but it is the growing divide between the maintained and private sectors that is most worrying.

For the 7% of young people lucky (or rich) enough to go to private schools, the future is bright. These happy few will leave with a string of top grades and a rounded education that will set them up for university and for life. But the future for those who attend state schools is still full of fears, and success is achieved despite, not because of, the education they have received. The massive difference between the state and independent school experience is notable even in sport and drama.

56

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

During the London 2012 Olympics this 7% of the population carried off 37% of the medals. And we all know how many of today’s board-treading Oscar winners went to Eton. Why has this alarming gap emerged and how can it be closed?

The Butler Education Act of 1944 sought to iron out inequalities in the system but this experiment of seventy years has failed, and market forces have done their worst. The teaching may not be much better in the private sector but the facilities and class sizes are, and comprehensives and academies are still failing in comparison. It is time to look back, undo the past and redress

the balance. And to do this one must redeem the only type of state-run school that can match (and indeed trump) private schools academically, and that is the Grammar School.

The grammar school has a long and illustrious history that prides itself on academic success. In medieval times it had the primary function of teaching Latin and was therefore often tied to cathedrals, but over time its curriculum broadened and it became the selective tier of a tripartite system of state-funded secondary education from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s, using the eleven-plus examination to choose the most able 25 percent of the

“

SUPPORTERS RIGHTLY CONTEST THAT GRAMMAR SCHOOLS PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS FROM LOWINCOME FAMILIES TO GAIN A HIGH STANDARD OF EDUCATION

school population. The system worked, and the long roll of grateful grammar school alumni is legendary. But under Harold Wilson the tripartite system was largely abolished in England and Wales between 1965 and 1976. Most maintained grammar schools were amalgamated with a number of other local schools to form neighbourhood comprehensive schools, and many of them simply closed. Sadly, only a handful of grammar schools now remain. In recent years, the return of grammar schools has been hotly debated but the Labour Party is firmly against the reintroduction of selective education and it is unlikely the Conservatives will be backing their reinstitution any time soon. (Funnily enough UKIP is the only major party in favour.)

“

IN MEDIEVAL TIMES GRAMMAR SCHOOLS HAD THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF TEACHING LATIN

Academic results, published in the Telegraph on Friday 22nd January, are really depressing and demonstrate a growing divide between selective and non-selective schools. In Kent, there is

a string of grammar schools producing fabulous results, whereas grammarfree East Sussex is falling way behind.

Naturally grammar schools provoke fierce debate. Their opponents say they nurture inequality and class bias, and that modern grammar schools are middle class, citing the small number of pupils who take advantage of free school meals. But supporters rightly contest that grammar schools provide an opportunity for students from lowincome families to gain a high standard of education and so escape poverty. It is no mere coincidence that Oxbridge intake from state schools has decreased since grammar schools were largely abolished. And rather than causing social division, grammar schools actually break down class divides and offer bright working class students a chance to become socially mobilised and achieve the best for themselves.

How can that be unfair?

The grammar school ethos is conducive to learning. It would be wrong to insult the fantastic teaching of the state sector but concerns are growing that bright, Mind’s Eye | June 2016

57

industrious students in comprehensive schools are bullied and marginalised.

The grammar school, by insulating the more able, provides a safer and more productive learning environment, so much so that The National Grammar Schools Association suggests that ‘the ethos of a grammar school could foster a culture of higher attainment.’

If the Tripartite system were to be reintroduced, it would of course need substantial reform and modernisation.

Relative gender intake was an issue last time, and the 11+ isn’t really the best way of measuring cognitive aptitude, but selective education nurtures a more intellectual breed of student and opens opportunities for the brightest in our country to gain the education they deserve.

Now is the time to make selective education available to all so that achievement is no longer determined by class or wealth, but by intellect. ¢

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STATE AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL EXPERIENCE IS NOTABLE IN SPORT AND DRAMA - DURING THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS 7% OF THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL POPULATION CARRIED OFF 37% OF THE MEDALS 58

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

MANY OF TODAY’S BOARD-TREADING OSCAR WINNERS RECEIVED AN INDEPENDENT EDUCATION

You

are

all

Mime Mind’s Eye | June 2016

59

IS THE DESIRE TO EXPRESS OURSELVES KILLING INDIVIDUALITY? ASKS TIM FAIRBAIRN

“

IS THE DESIRE FOR INDIVIDUALITY, THE PROSPECT OF A WORLD WITH VOICE AND OPPORTUNITY, DRIVING REFUGEES ACROSS EUROPE?

Over the past year or two we (in the West) have at times been exposed to some of the shocking global crises that we rarely experience first-hand in the safety of our cocoons of selfdissatisfaction. What seems to be at the heart of these issues is a recurring contrast of worlds. One such case is the enduring migrant crisis. Indeed, for many of the helpless victims in the unimaginable situation of fleeing conflict, physical safety is the utmost motivating factor. But as refugee turns to migrant in their uncertain journeys across the relative safety of Europe, what is it that so strongly motivates them, and in other instances causes such a divide between the first and third worlds? For a long time, it has been considered prosperity or perhaps political liberty. And at the heart of 60

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

all of this, it seems, is the prospect of individuality. But the more we hear in the news about the juxtaposition of worlds, the more it seems to me paradoxical how in our largely liberal world, where everyone has both voice and opportunity, individuality is increasingly drowned out.

I often find it depressing to get bogged down in self-dissatisfied criticism against our relatively fortunate society here. But such a fundamental misconception, even myth, of ‘individuality’ I believe warrants a brief moan.

Throughout history, individuality has marked out certain people and their achievements and has been influential in changing and shaping history at

many levels. Even among the most ordinary of people, such as the postReformation miller profiled by Carlo Ginzburg in his book The Cheese and the Worms, individuality always seemed to flourish. This microhistory (a method which tends to focus on an isolated person or community in minute detail to draw a wider conclusion) demonstrates how one man’s religious ideas – perhaps influenced by and interacting with the increasing world of thought and print – had the ability to be so independent, original and, most of all, fearless of being judged. They say the past is a foreign country, and I’m beginning to feel they have a point.

What has changed to make our society so generic, conforming, and with so little scope for individuality? In truth,

the modern and globalised world that has emerged, since the Italian miller’s distinctive individuality got him into trouble with the Catholic authorities 500 years ago, has brought incalculable benefits: most fundamentally, deciding how to live rather than how to survive.

But what’s troubling about this modern world, especially for a young person looking ahead to their life and career, is the extent of stereotyping and commodification of how we live. It’s now our career, our education and how much money we earn (or, indeed, were born with) that become our defining features: identity has become socioeconomic instead of personal. Other than a handful of exceptions, that isn’t individuality. Perhaps this is a generalisation, and nothing’s changed since the remnants of clear-cut feudalist social strata. But I think anyone has to concede that we seem much more obsessed with social mobility and arbitrary labelling than in the more simplistic societies of the past. I believe we’ve lost the much more personal focus of ages past – hence the scope for a truly personal philosophy of the 16th Century Italian miller.

Of course, the modern world has seen a rise of personality and opinion, all disseminated by social media. But to misconstrue this as individuality is certainly mistaken, for the fundamental reason that we’re ever more aware of our audience and, unfortunately, shaped by it. Social media, for instance,

“

THE MODERN WORLD HAS SEEN A RISE OF PERSONALITY AND OPINION, ALL DISSEMINATED BY SOCIAL MEDIA

is not simply somewhere where our voice is drowned out by a thousand and one others, but where we selfconsciously subscribe to fashionable or trending ‘views’ regardless of individuality or rationality. As a result, it is a hive of predominantly left-wing, often senseless or radical opinion. This

INDIVIUALITY FLOURISHES IN CARLO GINZBURG’S BOOK ‘THE CHEESE AND THE WORMS’, WHICH EXAMINES THE BELIEFS OF MENOCCHIO, A 16TH CENTURY MILLER

is of course in part due to the high concentration of young users who, even before the internet, have been famed for their disillusioned, left-wing outlook, but we’ve got to a stage where our individual mind-set or opinions are governed by trends. When is it ever fashionable to join a Facebook event for a UKIP rally or to share a link praising ‘sensible’ Tory fiscal policy, for example?

Never – at least in our age of scrutiny online. This is probably something to be grateful for, depending on our own opinions – if those still exist. But it’s a worrying trend.

The attempts to ‘no-platform’ figures like Germaine Greer and Donald Trump are a particularly dangerous case in point, however unjustified their views.

Simply because someone goes against the grain of overwhelming popular opinion in their efforts at individuality, if we’re too afraid to hear these people out, who’s left to criticise and expose the flaws in their views?

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

61

INDIVIDUALITY IS INCREASINGLY DROWNED OUT IN OUR LARGELY LIBERAL WORLD, WHERE EVERYONE HAS A VOICE

I’d like to hope that individuality is undiminished in the most cutting-edge and artistic figures in society, but even here it seems more and more difficult.

The quest for originality has already led to more and more controversial and even esoteric movements: from music’s Stravinsky and Schoenberg to John Cage, for example, and wider literary and artistic trends through Modernism and Dadaism. We seem to be hitting a dead end where the only way is backwards, and much less individual. All we can do is hope for more breakthroughs to come – and, who knows, perhaps from someone like you and me.

The illusion of angst-free prosperity and individuality that is so attractive to the migrants in their desperation and is so often juxtaposed against the huge suffering and backwardness in the world is undeniably powerful. But it is just that: an illusion. Of course, greater problems exist (both here and abroad), many of which hindering those that can’t look beyond socio-economic hardship or misfortune towards the hope of individuality. But never has there been more of a need for a wakeup call. Get rid of this overblown selfconsciousness, and just maybe we will salvage some remaining scraps of individuality. ¢

“

I’D LIKE TO HOPE THAT INDIVIDUALITY IS UNDIMINISHED IN THE MOST CUTTING-EDGE AND ARTISTIC FIGURES IN SOCIETY

62

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Where

a

there’s

Will Mind’s Eye | June 2016

63

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF A NATIONAL TREASURE

ON THE 400th ANNIVERSARY OF SHAKESPEARE’S DEATH LOTTIE JOHNSON DISPELS THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING HIS ‘SECOND BEST BED’ This year marks the 400th anniversary of playwright William Shakespeare’s death on 23rd April 1616. Although the exact cause remains a mystery, he began to make a will in January 1616, which suggests he was aware of his imminent demise. When his will was finally signed on 25th March, in the presence of his attorney, Francis Collins of Warwick, the shaky handwriting of his signature movingly anticipates the quietus, at the age of only 52, of a national treasure.

Of all the property accounted for in the will, and he left no stone unturned, the bequest that has caused the most controversy over the years is the only item that he specifically leaves to his wife, Anne Hathaway. She is mentioned just once, seemingly as an afterthought, when Shakespeare writes, ‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed’.

This seemingly insignificant, even insulting, token is often explained by the apparent unhappiness of Shakespeare’s marriage. Separated during the early years of their marriage while Shakespeare pursued his career in London, the broad gaps between the births of their children depict a marriage that was at least complicated. Shakespeare did not include Hathaway in the first draft of his will, and the perhaps sarcastic 64

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

acknowledgment of giving her the ‘second best bed’ could be a literal final nail in the coffin of a neglectful union.

But modern interpretations of this bequest portray Shakespeare’s intentions in a more positive light. During the 16th and 17th Centuries, the ‘best bed’ was often reserved for guests, so it is possible that the so-called ‘second-best bed’ was actually the bed William and Anne shared when they were together at their house in Stratford. In a poem entitled ‘Anne Hathaway’, and written in the widow’s voice, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy explores the possibility of the ‘second-best bed’ being an emotional world where the love between husband and wife was most widely explored and deeply cherished. She makes Anne say:

In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love – I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that next best bed.

In this moving monologue Duffy challenges the common view that Anne must have been an irritating obstacle in Shakespeare’s quest to find a muse.

Duffy argues that Hathaway herself was capable of providing inspiration for some of his greatest writing. Shakespeare is remembered in the imagination of Hathaway, implying that she was the only woman who ever truly knew him. This interpretation of Shakespeare’s parting gift to his wife may be sentimental, but in leaving Hathaway the ‘second best bed’ he was probably making sure only she received their most intimate possession.

“

SHAKESPEARE BEGAN TO MAKE A WILL IN JANUARY 1616, WHICH SUGGESTS HE WAS AWARE OF HIS IMMINENT DEMISE

For some Shakespearean scholars this romantic view seems dubious, but it is commonly acknowledged that Shakespeare would have been unable to leave his wife with nothing, even if this was what he wished to do. At the time the will was drawn up, English Common Law stated that a widow was entitled to one third of her husband’s estate, and the use of the matrimonial house for life. The absence of Hathaway in Shakespeare’s will might simply have been because he realised she would be provided for anyway, and she duly went on to live in their house, ‘New Place’, until her death in 1623. Since it is likely that Shakespeare knew his wife would be looked after, the giving of his ‘second best bed’ would probably have been seen as neither uncommon nor reproachful but rather an intimate last gesture after thirty years of marriage.

“

Shakespeare’s other main heirs in his will were his daughter, Susanna, and her husband, Dr. John Hall, to whom he left all his remaining goods after his debts had been settled. This may have been thanks to the doctor and sonin-law for overseeing the poet’s treatment in the final days of his life. To his second daughter, Judith, he left £100 as a marriage portion, and a further £150 on which her future husband would have no claim. Along with the right to continue living in the Shakespeare family house, £30 was also left to his sister, Joan Hart. His sword and other small items were left to his friends and, finally, as was custom at the time, he left £10 to the poor of Stratford.

Shakespeare’s will gives a fascinating insight into what he thought of his friends and family, for all of whom he provided, and shows the personal value he placed on his most intimate possessions. It also reveals that, by the end of his life, Shakespeare was a surprisingly wealthy man given his relatively lowly profession.

But as far as the most controversial item in the will is concerned, we will always hope that, when he accounted for his ‘second best bed’, it was more for love than money. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

65

66

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

‘I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that next best bed.’

Anne Hathaway’s Cottage Stratford-Upon-Avon

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

67

Scraping the

Barrel

MAX OLZOWSKI WARNS US THAT GUN VIOLENCE MAKES THE STREETS OF AMERICA MORE DEADLY THAN A WAR ZONE The American Gun Control Act of 1968 was designed to regulate interstate gun commerce and prevent death, but it has failed. Americans are still twenty times more likely to die from gun violence than citizens of other countries. Such lunacy is an incurable disease in the DNA of the Constitution.

Some facts. Since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012 there have been sixtyfour school shootings in America. There were 13,286 deaths in 2015. Since the Gun Control Act was made law there have been over 1.4 million deaths in the United States. To put that into context, there have been 1.2 million deaths of American soldiers in every war the country has ever fought combined.

68

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

The US police force is armed, but so are the citizens they are trained to protect, and the streets of America are, as a result, like war zones. Homeland Security is about protecting home from abroad, but in America the greatest danger is actually at home. The police shoot innocent African Americans on a regular basis, and now have a reputation for being corrupt and racist.

The Rodney King trial accordingly sparked riots in every state. In 2013 two policemen shot Andy Lopez, 13, because they thought he was going to use what turned out to be a replica AK-47 to commit murder. After shouting at him to drop the weapon they opened fire. So the notion MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), which

is derived from nuclear war, can be applied to such neighbourhoods awash with guns. People buy guns to protect themselves from other people with guns, and the police are armed to protect both themselves and other owners of guns from each other. But if the general public did not own guns, the police would not need guns either.

There are many ways America could clean up its act. Several companies now produce substitutes for firearms that are non-lethal. Pepper spray and Tasers have been around for a fairly long time but they have never operated at the same range or with the same power as an ordinary handgun, and it would be stupid to bring pepper spray to a

gunfight. But there is a company called SALT that makes a non-lethal gun firing small projectiles at a range of 150 feet that explode with pepper spray on impact. Deploying these as a substitute for guns would lower the mortality rate massively.

SALT markets itself as being ‘the first gun that does not have to take a life to protect a life.’

It is not only activists and rioters who want all guns made illegal. Barack Obama is making it harder for American citizens to acquire firearms. When an American citizen wants to buy a gun nowadays they are asked a lot of questions that include, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’ and ‘Have you ever been convicted of a misdemeanour crime of domestic violence?’ The questions are far-ranging and it is easy for police to investigate the veracity of the information provided.

The store then calls the FBI, which runs a background check on the person through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, also known as NICS. Obama has made these background checks far more thorough. In accordance with the nation’s feelings, he says he has had enough of mass murders and school shootings.

“

“

SALT MAKES A NONLETHAL GUN FIRING SMALL PROJECTILES THAT EXPLODE WITH PEPPER SPRAY - ‘THE FIRST GUN THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE A LIFE TO PROTECT A LIFE’

PEOPLE BUY GUNS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM OTHER PEOPLE WITH GUNS, AND THE POLICE ARE ARMED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND OTHER OWNERS OF GUNS FROM EACH OTHER

The main obstacle to a pepper gun gaining ground is the right to bear firearms, which is so ingrained in American culture the omnipresence of guns is an accepted fact.

Perhaps gun ownership is considered a precious, basic right for Americans more than it is for citizens of other developed countries because of America’s violent history, with its War of Independence, its Civil War and its roots in a very wild West. American politicians face such a strong firearms alliance through gun enthusiast associations that supply and fund political candidates, for example the National Rifle Association (NRA), that Gun Control is heavily controlled. The United States is one of only two countries worldwide (Mexico the other) to uphold the right to bear arms in its constitution.

There are already so many millions of guns in America that, as it stands, even if one could alter American gun laws, they would merely tighten restrictions on honest people. The desperate, angry potential mass murderers will not regard detailed legislative amendments as a threat at all to their gun-toting plans. As the Economist once said: ‘It’s perverse to make armed self-defence harder for good people who follow the rules.’

13-YEAR-OLD ANDY LOPEZ WAS SHOT DEAD BY POLICE WHO MISTOOK THE AIRSOFT GUN HE WAS CARRYING FOR AN AK-47

The gun-shy Obama has his critics, but the checks he has implemented are the first steps of what promises to be a long and difficult journey. But America must now walk the walk.

There are too many innocent lives at stake. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

69

AUTO

Pilot

70

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

RORY BOYD ASKS IF SELF-DRIVING CARS REALLY ARE A VIABLE OPTION FOR THE FUTURE

“

STEPHEN HAWKING WARNS: ‘THE DEVELOPMENT OF FULL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COULD SPELL THE END OF THE HUMAN RACE’

ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? The car company Tesla recently developed a cruise control system that enables the driver to take his or her hands off of the steering wheel for long periods of time. Human input in one of their cars is still required when changing lanes, by giving a vocal command, but otherwise the car is mostly autonomous. The Tesla system software is also being constantly updated, improving the cruise control so the car comes ever closer to complete automotion.

In the words of Peter Shaw, CEO of Thatcham’s, ‘As technology develops and drivers become more confident they will start to use it in conditions for which it has not been designed.’

And so the government and judiciary are concerned that one day people will use self-driving cars in more and

more unsuitable situations until there is a serious accident. And this will cause many legal difficulties because of insurance. When a self-driving car crashes who is to blame – the car owner, the software company, or the manufacturer?

This question becomes more important as driver input is reduced over time.

There is even a new Google prototype in which both the wheel and pedals have been removed altogether. A collision between a Google self-driving car and a bus on 4th March 2016 hit the headlines because UK law currently states that in the event of a crash the responsible party is the driver. This means that, unless the legislation governing transport on roads is updated, within the near future there is a chance of having a prang and facing

legal action when it was not your fault.

And another problem is hacking, whereby someone manages to take control of someone else’s vehicle with some clever computer skills. Hacking is a major issue because these days everything is stored online, and we all know that our privacy is no longer private: photos leak constantly from celebrities’ phones and it is open season on social media accounts. But hacking produces a much more serious threat: the government is alert to the possibility of terror groups causing havoc by driving cars full of high explosives into the centre of major cities, with massive loss of life and major damage to infrastructure. So recent legislation has been put in place that demands all self-driving cars must feature a data-recording device and protection from hacking using firewalls.

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

71

Added to this forced error by hacking is unforced error such as malfunction, which could have fatal consequences at high speeds. Motion sensors and any part of the hardware can fail, risking a major pile-up that causes not only loss of life but major congestion.

MALFUNCTIONS COULD HAVE FATAL CONSEQUENCES AT HIGH SPEEDS

One day developers will produce a driverless car over which its passengers have no control whatsoever, a vision that might invoke a prediction made by Stephen Hawking: ‘The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.’

Self-driving cars are becoming more intelligent all the time and they are definitely artificial. ¢

LOOK SMART: THE TESLA MODEL S 72

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Rude

Language

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

73

IN DECEMBER 2015 THE WASHINGTON POST SPARKED A FLURRY GRAMMATICAL INDIGNATION WHEN IT ACCEPTED THE USE OF THE SO-CALLED ‘SINGULAR THEY’

SEB KLAVINSKI-WHITING EXPLAINS WHY PRONOUNS AREN’T AS BORING AS THEY SOUND In late December last year, the Washington Post chose to make a small but symbolic change to its style guide, accepting the use of so-called ‘singular they’, which the guide had previously avoided. ‘Singular they’ is the use of the pronoun ‘they’ as a generic gender-neutral pronoun, something which you probably already use without knowing – for example, saying, ‘If you consider a good writer, they always choose their words carefully’, using ‘they’ and ‘their’ even though you really mean only one writer in the singular.

Perhaps surprisingly this amendment to the paper’s style guide did not appear without controversy. One commenter, reacting online to an article explaining the paper’s change, stated in a flurry of grammatical indignation, “The singular ‘they’ is far from a no-brainer. It creates more opportunity for confusion.” Confusing or not, ‘singular they’ is used routinely in everyday language, to such an extent that many have called into question whether it can really be considered poor style any longer.

This seemingly insignificant usage of ‘they’ underpins the debate between the two factions of linguistic thought, prescriptivism and descriptivism.

74

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Prescriptivists hold the view that there are certain forms of language that are inherently more or less correct than others.

These are often the kind of people who claim that ‘dangling prepositions’ are flat out wrong, and that the decline of the English subjunctive ought to be a cause for concern. By contrast, descriptivists claim that correct language should simply be what people actually use, and since people use ‘singular they’ in the everyday vernacular, it makes no sense to tell them it’s wrong to do so. It would be extremely difficult and anachronistic to revert to using ‘one’ and ‘one’s’ again.

With most debates on grammar of this kind, this is where it ends. But with ‘singular they’, the other issue at play with its usage should be noted. Whilst last year marked the year that the American Dialect Society chose ‘singular they’ as its word of the year, 2015 was also the year in which Caitlyn Jenner came out as transgender, and thus deemed it ‘the year of transgender’. In short, 2015 was a landmark year for the recognition of transgender individuals and those people who identify outside of the traditional gender binary. In accordance with this growing acceptance, there has been increasing desire for the possibility of a gender-neutral pronoun – something otherwise absent in English.

“

Traditionally, the advice was to reword the sentence to avoid the problem or, failing that, ‘he’ was suggested as an alternative, with the common gender meaning implied. Early prescriptivist grammars are a common source for this perceived wisdom, with The King’s English, published in 1908, advising that ‘he, his, him, may generally be allowed to stand for the common gender’, whilst, somewhat sternly, “‘singular they’ should never be resorted to”. Yet in today’s world, after various waves of feminism have advanced women’s rights to their present state, the idea that the male pronoun should simply be the default seems unpalatable. In fact, a 1990 study in the journal Sex Roles concluded that the use of ‘he’, and even ‘he/ she’, evoked overwhelmingly (and perhaps unsurprisingly) a male bias among the perceptions of study participants, which in the long run could plausibly strengthen gender stereotypes.

“

SINCE PEOPLE USE ‘SINGULAR THEY’ IN THE EVERYDAY VERNACULAR, IT MAKES NO SENSE TO TELL THEM IT’S WRONG

THE KING’S ENGLISH, PUBLISHED IN 1908, ADVISED THAT ‘HE, HIS, HIM, MAY GENERALLY BE ALLOWED TO STAND FOR THE COMMON GENDER

EVERYONE MUST PRESENT THEIR HORSE AT THE STARTING LINE JANE AUSTEN LOVED A GOOD ‘SINGULAR THEY’

Owing to these problems, various home-spun pronouns have been coined over time. An early alternative was proposed in 1884 by the American attorney Charles Converse in the form of ‘thon’ – a portmanteau of ‘that one’. Other coinages over the years include ‘xe’, ‘ze’ and ‘hir’, though none have really ever gained widespread traction beyond their own proponents. Friends and family of transgender or agender individuals have mainly recently endorsed them, to clarify the transition and to circumvent society’s too-strict gender inventions (since while everyone can identify with a sex, genders are widely believed to be social expectations of the way people should behave in accordance with their sex, and therefore should not exist). These attempts, while laudable, seem naively optimistic; it’s hard to imagine anyone really ever incorporating these alternative pronouns into their vocabulary.

Viewed in this light, ‘singular they’ really does seem like the most practical alternative, and in fact the construction has quite the historical precedent.

Emerging in the 14th Century, the construction can be found in use by writers throughout the history of the language, ranging from Chaucer through to Shakespeare and Jane Austen (occurring 109 times across her works, no less).

So perhaps it’s time then to accept that ‘singular they’ isn’t really a mistake at all – that’s certainly where the current zeitgeist is heading. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

75

No

Problem?

76

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

OUR BINGE-DRINKING CULTURE, FOR WHICH WE HAVE A GLOBAL REPUTATION, IS PORTRAYED AS A NEW AND SERIOUS PROBLEM, BUT IS IT REALLY NEW?

BESS HALE ASKS WHETHER BRITAIN’S YOUTH REALLY DOES HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM? A teenager passed out on the pavement or vomiting in a gutter outside a nightclub is hardly an unfamiliar image in Britain. Under-25’s out for a ‘good time’ plague urban areas on Friday nights while the older generation stays at home muttering and tutting about ‘the youth of today’. Our bingedrinking culture, for which we have a global reputation, is portrayed as a new and serious problem, but is it really new and is it serious?

There was a time when water carried disease so beer, due to its production requiring the water to be boiled, and because the alcohol it contained is antiseptic, was actually safer to drink.

In the 17th Century England passed ‘An Act for the Encouraging of the Distillation of Brandy and Spirits from Corn’ and by 1733 London alone was producing 11 million gallons of gin per

year, all supported by a government that needed to do something with all the surplus grain. So it is hardly surprising that, in the following two decades, alcoholism became a serious problem, especially on the streets of London (as depicted in Hogarth’s famous engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane), to the extent that the government had to make a U-turn and ban gin production in the Gin Act of 1751. Despite a resulting fall in the country’s alcohol consumption, drinking had clearly found its way into the culture and remains today. So our current problem is hardly new and, if Hogarth’s famous depiction is anything to go by, not nearly as serious as in the past.

Research from 2013 suggests we don’t need to be too worried. Over 20 per cent of adults said they were

teetotal and the percentage of teetotal 16-24-year-olds had risen by more than 40 per cent since 2005. This seems to indicate that the younger population are, in fact, more alcohol-conscious than their parents were at their age and, even now, the middle-aged and oversixties appear to be drinking more than the young. This can be partly attributed to the rising price of alcohol in recent years, since the older generations tend to have more disposable income than the average student and so can afford to drink more. So why does it still seem as if youth bingeing on alcohol has never been worse?

Perhaps it is due to the media. We are much more exposed to the binge culture through our TV, tablet and phone screens than we were before, so maybe it appears as a bigger problem that it actually is. It seems as if the news Mind’s Eye | June 2016

77

IS ‘RELAXING AT HOME WITH A NICE BOTTLE OF WINE’ JUST A CLASSY VERSION OF BINGE-DRINKING?

features drunken youths brawling outside pubs most days. And in typically British fashion we have become hyper-sensitive to the image young holidaymakers create when they flood the party hotspots of Europe, such as the cheap hotels and bars in Malaga, Zante and Ibiza, each summer. Easier and cheaper transport has made drunken boys scuffling in the street and half-naked girls falling out of foreign clubs a frequent sight. This doesn’t entirely explain why the problem is focused on the young, though; you would think the media might pick up on the ‘Boomers’ drinking more than the ‘Millennials’. Perhaps the problem is more the so-called ‘bingeing culture’ than the drinking itself.

Binge drinking has been defined in so many different ways over the years that no one really knows whether what they drink is considered too much any more. In the last ten years alone, binge drinking has been defined as ‘more than 11 units on one occasion’, ‘more than 5 drinks in a row’, and ‘more than 8/6 units on at least one occasion in the week for men/women’. Already this is confusing, and this is before you consider that the definition of ‘one unit’ of alcohol is a complete mystery to most people. Depending on the size of the glass and the percentage of alcohol, one glass of wine can be anywhere from 1.5 to 3 units, and with such an obscure definition people are bound to get it wrong sometimes.

We must conclude, then, it is the attitude that goes with over-drinking that has created the ‘binge culture’. While older people drink copious amounts at dinner parties in their own homes, young people go out to drink in public at night, making loud noise in the streets while sensible people are trying to sleep. So the behavioural difference between age groups is not just how much they drink but how much they disturb others while they are drinking. The ‘binge culture’ is not about drinking – a lot of people drink – but it’s about the way young people drink.

And this is the behaviour that we must drag out of the gutter. ¢ 78

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN WATER CARRIED DISEASE SO WEAK BEER WAS ACTUALLY SAFER TO DRINK

Eye

SPY Mind’s Eye | June 2016

79

SPY NOVELIST JOHN LE CARRÉ WORKED FOR THE SECURITY SERVICE AND THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE DURING THE 1950s AND THE 1960s

ROSE MEDDINGS QUESTIONS THE MORALITY OF SPYING IN OUR TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED WORLD The covert activity of spying, even in this age of transparency, is even now so concealed from public scrutiny that people around the world are still left with an unrealistic image of glamorous James Bond characters, or John Le Carré’s sensible, superficially unremarkable George Smiley. However, although the nature of espionage prevents us from knowing anything about its operations, spying needs to be at all times interrogated.

It is still necessary to plant living spies within secretive enemy and criminal organizations to understand fully how they work, and uncover plots. Today, for example, we still infiltrate militant Muslim groups just as we used to plant agents inside Irish extremist associations. And on a lesser scale, journalists go undercover to root out abuse of the general public. But modern 80

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

scientific advances mean spying has largely moved away from infiltrating the enemy with agents on the ground, and is characterized by smart technology. The facts are the opposite of what the new Q claims when he tells Bond about technological cutbacks in Skyfall: ‘We don’t go in for that sort of thing nowadays.’ We do. Although there are still government-employed figures in embassies seeking to establish relationships with global local citizens who can be bribed, or even threatened, to obtain information, most modern spying is now performed electronically.

For example, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an English intelligence organization that helps to keep our country safe from foreign and domestic threats by listening with space-age longrange multi-million-pound devices,

and in the US there is the equally well equipped CIA and Pentagon. Also, China has at least two battalions in its army devoted to eavesdropping. All of these organizations deploy electronic surveillance, scanning for key words or phrases used in millions of emails and phone calls every day, to gain knowledge about foreign powers and even, something which is increasingly a major concern, their own citizens.

The problem is perhaps no longer the act of spying – we cannot stop it happening – but its purpose. How can it be wrong to use satellites to spy on terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, who intend to attack the Western World with bombs and commit the cold-blooded murder of innocent citizens? But how can spying be right when it is not used for national safety but to infiltrate competitor businesses

for commercial gain? It is common knowledge that in a state of war both sides engage in espionage, as we saw in World War I, World War II, during the 1960 U2 incident in the Cold War, and in the more recent fallout between Ukraine and Russia. This is arguably acceptable, since war legitimizes many forms of extreme behaviour. But what is tolerable during times of peace?

Sometimes it is hard to know where to draw the line.

There are many grey areas in which it is difficult to determine whether spying is acceptable. For example, is it right to invade the privacy of a person ‘just in case’ – to back a hunch or a gut instinct?

And what about spying for political gain – we recall President Nixon and Watergate – or when the media cite the public interest and then do a Milly Dowler? As spying technology improves there are going to be more and more of such complicated cases.

Sadly we will have to become more accustomed to being spied upon by our own governments, and we will have to get used to them deciding what is acceptable and what is not.

While the number of terror threats rise, with a reported increase by almost fivefold in the number of terrorism fatalities in recent years, authorities are taking more and more precautions in the best interests of national security.

Consider what Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the CIA, who is now facing espionage charges, showed us when he leaked details about the extensive US surveillance, both of its own citizens and also others around the world. Chilling stuff. With increasingly more advanced electronic surveillance through listening in to emails, mobile phones and GPS, drones developed by the US military, and a potential future of implanted personal subcutaneous chips, it is clear that spying will continue to invade our privacy and become a part of our everyday lives.

But while we have to accept that the cost of liberty is a loss of privacy, we must not stop asking, ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ ‘Who will guard the guards?’ ¢

EDWARD SNOWDEN, A FORMER CONTRACTOR FOR THE CIA, IS FACING ESPIONAGE CHARGES AFTER HE LEAKED DETAILS ABOUT EXTENSIVE US SURVEILLANCE Mind’s Eye | June 2016

81

He In

82

THE name of

god for She?

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

ST PAUL WAS SHOCKED BY THE LIBERAL SOCIETY OF GREECE

RAEFFE GIBSON DISCUSSES THE EMPIRICISM OF CHRISTIANITY AND HOW MAN’S EXPERIENCE HAS INFLUENCED THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE For me, people take Christianity for granted. Whilst it is understandable how centuries of exposure to tedious church services, brutal religious wars and self-righteous, in-your-face preachers have desensitised many in the West to their previously infallible religion, I believe the key issue facing Christianity is that we don’t understand where it comes from. We may be able to list the many divine achievements of Jesus Christ and his predecessors, but, if we were asked, for example, where it teaches that homosexuality is a sin, and where that belief comes from, the chances are we just wouldn’t know.

Christianity has become so focused on its own parables and beliefs that it has forgotten their origins and, more importantly, the very men and women who forged these beliefs with their own

revelation and reason. By this, I mean not only apostles and early church leaders, but also their descendants, ranging from Pope John Paul II and Francis, to key Reformation leaders such as Martin Luther. For me, there is more to these people’s personal beliefs than just their own faith and apparent divine revelation. Like any person, their beliefs were shaped by their own experiences and background, these influences playing a key role in the theological points they made, which in turn shaped history. Christianity is more than just stories and teachings, but also the product of real people’s experiences and beliefs, and how these formed the largest religion in history.

A critical figure in the founding of Christianity as a fully-fledged religion is St Paul, best known for spreading

the message of Christ’s sacrifice to the ‘Gentiles’, or simply the Greek and Roman world. St Paul in his letters to various Roman and Greek churches outlines Christian belief and spearheaded the movement from a spiritual branch of Judaism into an independent faith. However, St Paul is also known controversially for his views on equality, wherein he denounces homosexuality, cross-dressers and even the ordination of women, claiming that, in Corinthians 1, ‘nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revellers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.’ Many have a sanitised view of his opinions, believing that this is actually the result of a revelation to Paul and that he is speaking with God’s authority and Mind’s Eye | June 2016

83

therefore has perfectly unquestionable grounds for this accusation. What people forget is that Paul was a Jew and had a severe case of culture shock when he arrived in Greece. Paul’s original name, for example, was Saul, after one of the first Jewish kings, and he originally persecuted and killed the Christians, whom he would later profess to embrace, as part of his role as a religious enforcer. Whilst it is difficult to dispute whether he did have a revelation on the road of Damascus which radically changed his views, and God really did have a quest for him, what we can say with confidence is that he is an Orthodox Jew, of strong belief coming from a ritualistic society, very much in tune with purging impurities within their society, such as tax collectors and prostitutes.

We can only imagine Saul’s reaction when he came to Greece and encountered a system rife with what Jews despised. Greeks were open about their sexuality, tutors slept with their own students as part of the educative process, and prostitution, even homosexual prostitution, was seen in the same way as any other trade, be it carpentry or metal working. In short, Greek society was rather tolerant, and the society Paul was used to was not.

When Paul writes his epistles to various churches, and slams the activities of homosexuals and women, it is likely done to try and preserve his own beliefs that were drummed into him as a Jew living in a theocratic society which he now feels are under threat when he is surrounded by contrary belief.

Therefore, these beliefs, which still trouble the Catholic and Anglican churches to this day, are more likely to be the result of a clash of civilizations between the philosophical Greeks and the ritualistic Jews, rather than the result of divine revelation as many people presume. The fact that Paul expresses human qualities, and can make mistakes, also gives the possibility that not everything he said was God’s word, such as, in his first letter to the Corinthians, he can’t remember whom he baptised in the name of what and desperately tries to remember in 84

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

GERMAN REFORMIST MARTIN LUTHER NAILED CHRISTIANITY his letter to the Corinthians, stating, ‘Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?’ All this suggests that Paul’s teachings were as close to being a projection of his beliefs and upbringing as they were to being divine.

Fide as he called it, were a result of a personal revelation from God, his other important teachings, such as the ability to have a personal relationship with God without priests, are likely, similar to Paul, to be a result of his German, middle-class background.

However, it is not only the Bible’s roots that have led to some of Christianity’s most important teachings. Over the course of the religion’s history, various theologians have amended its teachings either to fit in with the modern world, or because they felt that the original sources had been misread and translated to fit the interests of others. A key thinker in this area was the German reformist, Martin Luther. Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses, essentially 95 issues that Luther had with the Catholic Church, to the Wittenberg castle door as well as his stand at Worms (‘Here I stand; I can do no other.’) is immortalised in history and helped cause the breakup of the Catholic religious monopoly over Western Europe. Although Luther would claim that his ground-breaking ideas that salvation could only be achieved through faith alone, or Sola

Sola Fide, which was that faith rather than good deeds paved an individual’s path to Heaven, could come from two important aspects of Luther’s life. First, he came from a mining background.

His father, Hans Luther, was a product of the new social mobility sweeping around Europe as a result of labour shortages from the Black Death. After moving from his destitute birthplace, Hans managed to make a prosperous living mining and smelting copper – in effect a middle-class occupation.

From an early age, Luther learned that a man could make his own way and didn’t need others to tell him how to live his life, or rather what actions to take, which coincidently works well with the individualistic theme of having a personal relationship with God, using your own faith to earn your own way into heaven. This, coupled

IN 2015 THE FIRST WOMAN ANGLICAN BISHOP, LIBBY LANE, WAS ORDAINED IN YORK CATHEDRAL, SPARKING PRAISE AND CONTROVERSY

with growing German hatred for Catholic clergymen, who were felt to be taking German money and sending it to bloated cardinals, suggest Sola Fide could be the product of Luther’s upbringing.

The second event that might have hatched this viewpoint was his own turbulent experiences trying to understand God. Luther worried his fellow monks at the University of Wittenberg for his commitment to the purification rituals of the Church, fasting himself half to death in an effort to reconcile himself with God and his many, if heavily exaggerated, personal sins. To put his mind at ease, his mentor, Johann von Staupitz, put him to work teaching pupils theology, in the hope that this would put his mind at rest. It is through Luther’s exploration of recently found Greek versions of the New Testament that he encounters Paul’s letter to the Romans, wherein Paul claims that ‘a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.’ Through this, Luther believed that he was saved, that faith in God is what can liberate not only the masses from their ignorance and sin, but also his own desperate self. Therefore, Sola Fide could be the product of Luther’s own experiences and torment rather than just that of a late night study period gone metaphysical.

However, Luther had more than just his ground-breaking views from his own experiences. In fact, many of his more controversial views, such as his hatred for the lower classes, come from his more bitter memories. Whilst the Bible, which

he upheld among all things, preaches kindness and respect towards the poor, Luther was a strong believer in the status quo, professing that kings and princes had the ultimate authority on Earth, and that it was the peasants’ duty to serve them till they died. When the cataclysmic Peasants’ War of 1524 erupted, with the bottom rung of society fighting for better rights and pay, Luther was accused of not doing enough to help them. After being berated by peasants on his return to Wittenberg in 1525, he wrote the charmingly named pamphlet, ‘Against the Murderous Hordes of Thieving Peasants’, the depravity of which shocked even the lords responsible for the Peasants’ brutal quelling. For example, Luther states that if someone should die whilst killing a troublesome peasant, that was ‘good for him’, and that eternal paradise waited for anyone that committed the deed. Luther’s history of contradicting his supposedly infallible source material also allowed him to reject any Biblical quote that disagreed with his Sola Fide brain child, increasing the chance that his anti-peasant policies were far more the result of his middle-class upbringing than revolutionary Biblical scholarship.

Whilst Christianity’s most notable developments have taken part in the days of knights and kings, the 20th and 21st Centuries haven’t been without their important religious changes. For example, just more than a year ago, the first woman Anglican bishop, Libby Lane, was ordained in York Cathedral, sparking praise and controversy. However, the Catholic Church, administering over one billion followers, still has a role to play in world affairs and its own developments.

Perhaps the most notable of leaders are the last three Popes, the Polish John Paul II, the German Benedict XVI and the Argentinian, Pope Francis.

Despite the Catholic Church retaining its reputation as a stagnant, stringent organisation, rapid changes, likely to be connected to each Pope’s upbringing, have made sure that the Church has reenergised over the decades of war and peace, in particular the rise and fall of the anti-left segment of the Papacy.

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

85

At the beginning of Pope John Paul II’s reign as Pope, the Catholic Church mobilised its forces. Whereas Catholicism’s misgivings and influence against the growth of Communism had been everything but explicit, John Paul II saw a large politicisation of the Catholic Church, with the Papacy having priests around Europe rebelling and being arrested for refusing to forsake their beliefs for their communist overlords. John Paul II saw the alleged funding, via the Papal bank, of the Polish liberation movement, known as Solidarity. Gorbachev himself would comment that ‘the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II.’ This level of resistance is seen to have played a pivotal role in the fall of Communism in a defiantly Catholic Eastern Europe.

However, whilst the Papacy’s disregard for Communism may be seen as obvious, considering Communism’s aggressive atheism, it is worth considering the sudden change in the Church’s attitude to that of its pre-World War II years.

Its sudden change in tone may, in fact, come from the background of its leader, a Polish priest who had lived under both the oppression of the Nazi and Communist regimes. Karol Wojtyła, as he was originally called, knew what the oppression of polar politics could do. After the Krakow University was permanently closed, with Polish men being forced to do manual labour for their oppressors with the young Pope having to hide for almost a year inside his uncle’s basement to avoid deportation by the Gestapo, Wojtyla knew what oppression felt like. When the Red Army marched into Krakow, and their ‘liberators’ began to control what Wojtyla as a priest was allowed to teach and learn, the future Pope could see that the evil of Fascism was not much different to the inhumanity of the Stalinist era, unlike his superiors at the time.

How this affected the young man is hard to assess, but it is highly possibly that his role in criticising and demolishing communism, in not only Europe but in the growing political groups of Latin America who sought to couple 86

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

THE RED ARMY MARCHED INTO KRAKOW, AND THEIR ‘LIBERATORS’ BEGAN TO CONTROL WHAT KAROL WOJTYLA AS A PRIEST WAS ALLOWED TO TEACH AND LEARN

the material liberation of Communism with the spirituality and legitimacy of the Catholic Church, came from his bitter young memories. Despite the best intentions of these groups and the priests who even fought and joined the cabinets of revolutionary governments, John Paul, along with his German successor, Cardinal Ratzinger, had little sympathy for those who would try to bring about the extreme politics that had traumatised their youth.

Whilst this could have been just out of fear of atheism, the fact that both these Church leaders had experienced the scars of Nazism and the societal tremors brought on by the aggression of Communism can’t just have done nothing when we scrutinise their fierce resolve against the methodological Marxists of the Church. However, Pope Francis, an Argentinian from the slums of Bueno Aires, could be showing a far more different approach. Already, he has turned his gaze away from the activities of the remaining communist nations and instead has criticised the ‘idolotary of money’, which he views as the worst

problem facing the world today as well as helping to bridge the decades-old gap between the Communist Cuba and the Capitalist United States. Whether this could have been influenced by growing up in a nation with the 14th highest wealth inequality in the world, and being exposed to the political and religious leaders of the time, such as Oscar Romero, whom he has already beatified, remains to be seen.

So, whilst I don’t deny that many of these religious leaders had or have good intentions and honestly believed what they were doing was in the name of God, and most likely had strong convictions to preach what they did, I believe it is critical to remember that these men, both living and dead, are human beings. Just like any human being, these people were shaped by the world they grew up in, and their views and teachings are just as likely to be moulded by those life experiences as an epiphany that only the spiritual can truly experience. ¢

CHILL Out Mind’s Eye | June 2016

87

GEORGE MEDDINGS INFORMS US THAT LIVING THROUGH AN ICE AGE ISN’T SO BAD

“

NOWHERE ON EARTH IS THE CONTRAST BETWEEN TODAY’S VARIETY AND SIMPLICITY MORE OBVIOUS THAN SHARK BAY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

For billions of years the Earth was coated in primordial slime. The only Earthlings were sacks of goo. Unicellular, barely able to grow, reproduce or even interact, they were as simple as life gets. Yet look around you. Everywhere these days there is complex life, such as reptiles with scales and birds with feathers and you and me. But what made life on Earth get from slime world to prime world in just 542 million years, considering that life on Earth had barely changed in 3.5 billion?

The answer may seem simple – evolution: after all, 542 million years is an unimaginably long time, but it’s barely significant in the context of Earth’s 4.567 billion years of life.

Nowhere on Earth is the contrast between today’s variety and the world’s 88

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

simplicity more obvious than Shark Bay, Western Australia. Just off the coast and amongst the corals you find sea turtles, sea snakes, a vast array of fish species and, predictably, sharks, not to mention birds circling overhead or kangaroos bouncing on the sand. Yet nowhere on Earth is time-travel easier than in this inconspicuous bay. At one end you are transported back to the preCambrian era (the time before complex life, stretching through parts of the Archean and most of the Proterozoic eon) where, in Hamelin Pool, slime has collected in mats, stretching out to the sea in a black, foul-smelling sludge. Nowadays this landscape looks alien, yet for 3.5 billion years the mats were ubiquitous, coating the sea floor, inching up the beach, huddling round geysers, all soaking up the heat from

a young sun. In most places on Earth they have now been outstripped by complex life, except in such places as Antarctica’s valleys or Hamelin Pool, where the salinity levels are twice that of most seas. Yet when one cell learnt to divide in two, this all changed. At that moment, a world of possibility opened up for Earth’s life. Suddenly cells could interact and specialize. But what triggered this? And why did it take so long to come about?

Slime ruled for 3.5 billion years, close to 80% of the Earth’s life. 542 million years ago The Cambrian Explosion signalled the end of slime’s reign and the start of the diversification of earth’s organisms. One theory for this explosion is that of Snowball Earth, when our planet supposedly froze over

completely. When someone types the words ‘ice age’ into Google the first thing that comes up is Blue Sky Studio’s film involving a mammoth and a sloth.

Scroll a bit further down and you will learn that we are actually in an ice age.

Please do not panic: within ice ages there are more temperate interglacial periods, in which we have now been living for 12,500 years, known as the Holocene. During an ice age, there is an expansion of polar and continental ice sheets, and alpine glaciers. During the last ice age, at its peak 26,500 years ago (a blink of an eye in Earth terms), the ice sheets had extended as far south as North America and Northern Asia, putting the mighty catastrophe that was Snowball Earth on a whole new level.

First, predictably, came the ice, which ventured out of its home at the Poles and gradually covered the Earth’s surface over a couple of thousand years. The slime waited at the equator without the eyes to see the encroaching ice, nor the capacity to fear and flee.

The land temporarily resisted, but then succumbed, as had the ocean.

The resulting dazzling white surfaces reflected the sunlight back into space, keeping the Earth cool. Eventually the Earth froze over completely, from Poles to Equator, and finished off all but a tiny bit of the slime, which may have found safety by hot springs or nooks in the ice where the sun’s rays could reach, but for the rest it was annihilation.

“

THE EARTH FROZE OVER COMPLETELY; A TINY BIT OF THE SLIME MAY HAVE FOUND SAFETY IN HOT SPRINGS; FOR THE REST IT WAS ANNIHILATION

Why isn’t the Earth still a snowball today, as the process is self-perpetuating – more ice means less warmth trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere, and less warmth in the Earth’s atmosphere means more ice.

Well, the Earth was eventually saved from its almost-lifeless snowball state by volcanoes, both underwater and above ground. When these spewed out carbon dioxide, our old friend The

DON’T PANIC! WE ARE NOT IN A DISNEY ICE AGE, JUST IN A TEMPERATE INTERGLACIAL ICE AGE... WITHIN AN ICE AGE!

Greenhouse Effect not only saved the Earth but turned the snowball into a furnace, full of acid rain, torrential downpours, fizzing seas and, of course, soaring temperatures. The Earth transitioned between these two extremes a couple of times before it relaxed again. And then, amongst the rubble, a single cell divided into two.

This theory, although well supported by vast amounts of geological evidence, was at first not well received. We were always taught the Earth is a planet of moderation where things happen slowly. Every now and then a calamity does happen – an asteroid may collide with Earth and wipe out a species – but these events are few and far between, especially with a planet as old as ours.

Yet the snowball theory has a darker side. The sudden change it depicts is unsettling to say the least.

A theory of extreme lurches in climate, from ice to fire, throws the geological textbook into the flames. And who’s to say it won’t happen again? After all, an interglacial period is only supposed to last around 12,000 years. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

89

“

AND THEN, AMONGST THE RUBBLE, A SINGLE CELL DIVIDED INTO TWO

90

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

91

Are

EU Ready?

92

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

“

IT IS EASY FOR OUR GENERATION TO FORGET THE DEVASTATION CAUSED BY WORLD WAR II

MARK BÄCKER SAYS UK VOTERS NEED TO THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF A DECISION THAT WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES On 23rd June the UK will hold a referendum to decide whether or not to remain a member of the European Union. The outcome of that decision will change all of our lives. As an AngloGerman who formerly lived in Brussels and who has listened to both sides of the argument, I do not want to suggest how anyone should vote, but I do think it is crucial that people understand the issues and base their decision on facts rather than emotion.

What has the EU done for me?

Let’s start with peace and prosperity.

It is easy for our generation to forget the devastation caused by World War II. But when I look through my family photograph albums and talk to my remaining grandparents, who were growing up as children on opposing

sides in that war, it brings it home to me. Both of them attribute much of the peace that Europe has enjoyed since 1945 to the European Union. It is also important to highlight the role that Europe has played in welcoming the new democracies across central Europe.

However, as William Hague has pointed out, this job is not yet complete.

£62 - £78 billion a year. The EU now represents the world’s largest economy with a GDP per head of Euro 25,000 for its 500 million inhabitants. The European single market is the largest single market in the world. The EU is by far the UK’s biggest trading partner and the UK economy benefits from being part of a single market.

If the countries of the Western Balkans are shut out of European Institutions, their divisions will create one crisis after another on our own continent of political turmoil, economic failure and uncontrolled migration. As Barack Obama said, ‘The EU makes the world safer.’ My grandparents also remind me of how much richer we have all become since the days of rationing. It has been estimated that the net benefit of EU membership to the UK is around

And jobs. Around 50% of all UK exports go to the Internal Market. Any products exported to the EU have to conform to all EU standards and if we were to trade as a ‘third country’ trading partner our exports would be subject to EU import tariffs. For example, the rate of tariff levied on cars imported into the EU is 12.4%. Faced with that kind of cost, it is difficult to see how the UK motor manufacturing industry – whose biggest export market is the EU – would Mind’s Eye | June 2016

93

“

COMPANIES LIKE FORD, HONDA AND NISSAN, WHO EMPLOY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, WOULD HAVE TO RECONSIDER THEIR COMMITMENT TO THE UK

be able to compete with the likes of Mercedes or Volkswagen. It would also mean that companies like Ford, Honda and Nissan, who have heavily invested in the UK and who employ thousands of people, would have to reconsider their commitment to the UK. This is why the Chairmen of Airbus, Unilever and the Confederation of British Industry have all spoken out in the strongest terms against leaving the EU.

global or a regional response. Climate Change is an example of an issue that ignores national borders. It means that solutions need to be found at a transnational level. Co-operating and co-ordinating with other Member States offers an opportunity to work together to achieve goals that would otherwise not be achieved. If the UK were to leave the EU it would have far less influence on these issues.

A stronger voice in international trade negotiations. The EU, the world’s largest market, is currently negotiating with the USA, the world’s second largest market, to form a North Atlantic free trade zone (TTIP agreements).

This will be the biggest and most ambitious trade deal that the world has ever known: 900 million people; 30% of global trade flows; 2 billion Euros per day. With 50% of UK trade with the EU and 20% of UK trade with the USA, it would mean 70% of UK exports covered by this deal. Would it really be in the UK’s best interests to stand aside and let others shape this deal for them?

Many do not think so. Indeed, US officials have already responded to the possibility of the UK exiting by saying that they want the UK to continue to have a strong voice at the table.

So it’s all wonderful then, is it? No it definitely is not. UK citizens are not alone in highlighting the many problems with the EU. They may be

A stronger voice on global and regional issues. Many of the problems the world is currently facing require a 94

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

surprised to hear that many Germans (and other Europeans) agree with them that there are many things that need to improve. The question to ask is whether having identified problems you should walk away, or whether you should stay and work on solutions.

It is expensive, overly bureaucratic and spends too much on administrative costs. The EU’s administrative expenses (£6.22 billion) account for 5% of the total EU budget and salaries account for about half that amount. This could and should be trimmed – especially since many of the member states are having to cut their own budgets in this age of austerity. But we should keep this in proportion: the UK spends around £11-12 billion per year on administration and employs around 450,000 civil servants compared with the EU’s 55,000.

It needs to work on accountability. Too many people across Europe do not really understand how the EU works.

They have heard of the Commission and the Council. They may – or may not – have voted in the European elections and they may or may not be aware of the identity of their Member of the European Parliament. As William Hague said recently, ‘It is not possible to be accountable and anonymous at the same time.’

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE REST OF THE EU IF THE UK DOES VOTE TO LEAVE?

WITH 50% OF UK TRADE WITH THE EU AND 20% OF UK TRADE WITH THE USA, 70% OF UK EXPORTS WOULD BE COVERED BY THE TTIP DEAL Freedom of Movement. One of the founding principles of the EU is also in trouble. The right of European citizens to move freely within the EU’s internal borders is, I believe, largely beneficial. It is certainly hugely beneficial for those among us who are considering living and working in one of the 27 other EU member states at some point in our lives. However, an unintended consequence of this has been workers coming from countries with a low level of social support to countries with a higher level of social support. This problem has been greater in the UK because, in 2004, the UK government, along with just two other European countries, chose not to impose transitional restrictions on workers from the new Member States and instead opened the UK labour market. Obviously it is not fair to the UK taxpayer for people to get money out of

the system if they have not paid into it. This is something the current UK government is looking to change, and is part of the reform package.

And the Migrant Crisis? There is undoubtedly a migrant crisis in Europe at the moment. More than a million people arrived in 2015 and arrival rates are increasing in 2016. This will not stop until the crisis in Syria stops. It is a challenge for all European governments. But it is being exploited by the anti EU lobby in a cynical way to stoke up fears about immigration to the UK, when these less fortunate people are not EU citizens and they have no right to come to the UK. The UK is not part of Schengen and therefore still maintains control of its own borders. So, as far as non EU immigration is concerned, there will be very little impact on the current levels affecting the UK. So this is to a large extent a red herring.

A Final Word. We live in a rapidly changing world. We cannot turn the clock back to the days before 1973. Globalisation of trade and people is here to stay. UK voters need to ask themselves whether the UK will have more influence on world events as a leading player in a big European bloc or if it will be better off on its own outside that club. The German part of me asks what will happen to the rest of the EU if the UK does vote to leave. Will others follow suit? Will the EU disintegrate and what will that mean for the stability of Europe? Whichever decision is taken will have a momentous impact.

THE UK IS NOT PART OF SCHENGEN AND THEREFORE STILL MAINTAINS CONTROL OF ITS OWN BORDERS

I would like to acknowledge the input from the office of Richard Ashworth MEP for South East England. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own. ¢ Mind’s Eye | June 2016

95

Real Magic When man was a child, he was told of magic. He was told of pumpkins turning into carriages, men made out of straw and white rabbits wearing waistcoats. Whether he read about it in a book, saw it on a screen or was told of it round a campfire late at night, man always felt the same rush of excitement and joy at the thought of a world where anything was possible and the laws of physics and logic could be altered without question.

However, as he grew older, man was told by his friends and foes alike that all the stories he had been told, and all the magical things and places he had grown to love, were in fact just that. Stories. And even if they had no legitimate proof, which of course they never did, man wouldn’t contradict his peers for fear of standing out from the crowd or being left behind.

So, as it is human nature to do, he handled the situation the way he had been taught, the only way he knew how from past experience. He never bothered to search for proof that it had all been a lie, but simply began to influence other people just like him to stop believing with their hearts, and just start believing what was right in front of them.

It is said that when this happens, when we lose consciousness of magic, a few muscles in the face begin to tighten, and we lose the ability to truly and wholeheartedly smile.

These rumours continued to spread like a disease, completely out of man’s grasp and control, to the very point where he even forgot that it mattered at all. So he continued to drag his feet through life, unaware of what he had lost and unseeing of everything that took more than a pair of eyes and a brain to see.

But one day something happened.

Something that could not have been timed or calculated by any law of science created by mankind.

Some might even call it a miracle.

A few very specific, very important muscles in man’s face slowly began to loosen. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but there are a few different versions that have been told through the ages and across the seven seas. The brave people of the Far East say he battled a dragon over a pair of silver shoes, while the considerably shyer folk of the West claim he encountered a wicked witch along a yellow brick road. Some say he met his true love, or that he discovered his dream job. Or maybe he just opened a great book or sat down in a theatre.

Whichever way, something happened that changed everything. That day man smiled a real smile, the type of smile only ever seen on the face of a child when he first jumps off a bed, thinks happy thoughts and tries to fly. That day he rediscovered magic, and he learnt that it is all around us every day. All it takes is one moment, that one incomprehensible moment when your heart seems to leap out of your chest and you just want to run and dance and sing and never stop grinning from ear to ear.

A few decades after that day, man was sitting down with his children. He told them this tale and assured them that even if you can’t find the rabbit hole down to Wonderland, or the flying house to Oz, there is magic in the world, everywhere you look. You just have to stop looking with your eyes and start looking with your heart. But remember: it’s never too late to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or the pixies at the bottom of your garden, because you never know.

Amber De Ruyt

96

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

97

98

Mind’s Eye | June 2016

Mind’s Eye layout by Cobweb Creative Ltd www.cobwebcreative.org Mind’s Eye | June 2016

99

100 Mind’s Eye | June 2016