Issue 7 by Incite

EDITOR’S NOTE

Democracy In Crisis D

emocracy is a fragile thing. Over 200 years ago at the time of the French Revolution, to the struggles felt today by protesters in the Middle East, people across the world have fought for democracy. People have fought to have a voice, to be heard, and to hold those above them accountable for their actions. It is these qualities that form a bloc of stability, security and good quality of life. Those of us who currently live in a democratic country can count ourselves very fortunate indeed. Or in fact, are we? Democracy is currently under threat. Not just from frequent terrorist attacks committed by groups such as Daesh. Not just from the increasingly aggressive and provocative behaviour of Russia in Ukraine and Syria. Not even from the birth of a viable, alternative model provided by a rising China. The real threat that is facing democracy, is within itself. Democracy derives from the Greek ‘demokratia’, meaning ‘rule of the commoners’. From its early forms in 17th and 18th century revolutionary Europe, to the widely practiced form of representative democracy, to direct democracy that is more frequently used today via the use of referenda. Direct democracy is also know as ‘pure’ democracy, which must imply that it’s the ultimate form and realisation of true democratic ideals? Unfortunately, this argument in favour of direct democracy could not be further from the truth. One only needs to look at the catastrophic effects the result of the EU

referendum has had on the UK. 4 months on and the Government are still far from an agreed negotiating position. The pound is performing terribly and the outlook for the economy is negative. People on both sides are incredibly unhappy and the population is just as divided as it was at the time of the result. One might wonder whether there was actually a winner in all this? Weren’t referendums supposed to settle these issues decisively? Regardless of your political views (and indeed the views of myself and this journal), one must pity the Prime Minister for the insurmountable hurdles she faces in extricating the United Kingdom from the European Union in a way that does not tear apart this country, let alone one that is acceptable to the population. However it is not just the referendum that challenges our way of democracy. Many once looked upon the United States as a shining example to the rest of the world. One of the world’s first true democracies where men and women are born equal. It is what lifted the United States to its current position as the dominant world hegemon, and encouraged so many European immigrants to move there and seek a better life in the 19th century. Now fast forward to 2016, in this most recent presidential election. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two most disliked presidential candidates in history. The former is viewed distrustfully as a crook, and the latter as an erratic and dangerous demagogue. Trump has systematically attacked and undermined the democratic institutions and pillars of American democracy, including now

ludicrously refusing to state whether he will accept the election result as fair. This sets an unbelievably dangerous precedent. If a significant part of the population refuses to accept the process as fair, how can the process continue credibly? And even if they do accept the result, how can so many people in the country reconcile themselves with a President they view as a criminal? The President will face a crisis of confidence from their very first day in office. But more importantly, the flaws of our democratic systems will be laid bare. Where do we go from here? I can’t profess to have the answer for you in this issue of Incite, but we shall certainly discuss it. The residents of Guildford were recently given a chance to ‘exercise their democratic will’ in a referendum for a Directly Elected Mayor. But Connor James O’Hara looks into why this referendum was about everything but having a Directly Elected Mayor. Our interview is with author Will Spurr, with whom we discuss the fallout from (yet another) referendum on the historic peace deal agreed between the FARC and Colombian government. In the opinion section, our writers also touch upon the fallout from the Brexit vote and what impact it has had on the UK, plus what the American public (and world) will be missing once President Obama’s terms expires and his successor takes charge. I hope you enjoy reading. And may God help us all. Joshua Martin Editor INCITE | ISSUE 7

CONTENTS

Contents INCITE | ISSUE 7 2

Editor’s Note

3 Contents NEWS 5

Students’ Union News

In The News

Recommended Articles

FEATURES 10

Guildford rejects a directly elected mayor, but will that stop the conversa tion? Connor O’Hara

Finding peace in the time of cholera Joshua Martin

OPINION 18

Obama: A Legacy of Unfulfilled Expectations Felice Southwell

British Neoliberalism: An Obituary Ricardo Mendes

The Refugee Crisis: True Humanitarian ‘Breaking Point’ Lucy Barnes

How Do We Fix Iraq? Nabil Rastani

‘Front of House Testing’: Encouraging or Discouraging? Nicole Bonner

The Socialist Implosion in Spain Javier Martín Merchán

Should Japan Allow Its Military To Fight In Foreign Wars? Alex Lever

Lithuanian Elections 2016: Who is Corrupt and Who is Innocent? Joanna Slavinskaitė

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Find us at: Facebook: Incite incitejournal.com issuu.com/incitejournal ussu.politics@surrey.ac.uk Editor Joshua Martin Deputy Editor Jake Roberts Head of Marketing Patrick Swain Political Editor Laura Bichisao News Editor Hermoine Cross Editorial Team Aditi Pangrekar Felice Southwell Kundan Sawlani Incite is an online and printed journal published by the University of Surrey Politics Society. The views expressed in this journal are the opinions of the journal or the respective individual, and do not represent the views of the society, the Students’ Union, or the University. Front Cover Photo Credit: gardenroom.org.uk

Join us. If you’re a student and you’re interested in writing about politics, we want to hear from you. Incite is the monthly political journal run and published by the Surrey Politics Society to help foster the political scene on campus, getting people engaged in and writing about politics. No issue or opinion is off-topic, and there’s no word count either. Whatever you’re passionate about politically, we want to give you a voice. Interested? Check out our Facebook page, send your article submissions to ussu.politics@surrey.ac.uk, or view previous issues at incitejournal.com. Want to get even more involved and join our editorial team? Email us at the above email and we’ll answer any questions you might have. 4

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NEWS | STUDENTS’ UNION NEWS

STUDENTS’ UNION NEWS

Could Surrey be leaving the NUS? U

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Photo: NUS UK

nder a white paper the government introduced last year, the National Student Survey (NSS) will be used alongside employment stats and other data (all as part of the Teaching Excellence Framework, or TEF) to judge universities. Those that score highly through the TEF will then be allowed to raise their tuition fees. In response to this the NUS, at their last national conference back in April, proposed to boycott the NSS. As planned, the NUS has now begun its scheduled boycott of the NSS. Whilst those in favour argue that the boycott will scupper the government’s plans and prevent the rise of tuition fees and other undesirable proposals, the effects on the student experience as a whole will be negative. First and foremost the NUS is a lobby group for students, whose job is to supposedly lobby the government on our behalf. This entails a degree of working with the government and constructive negotiations. Secondly, the NSS provides student unions valuable insight into what their student body’s views are and what they would like to see improved. With this information no longer available, an important source of feedback for SU’s across the country will be removed and negatively impact student experiences. The increasing marketization and creeping neoliberal agenda within higher education is certainly a problem. However the NUS’s solution to solving this problem is akin to taking an axe to someone’s head in order to cut their hair. According to a source at our Students’ Union, at meetings between the NUS and government representatives, NUS

President Malia Bouattia (pictured above) refuses to even negotiate with Tories. Is this really the best way to lobby the government? Is this the best we as students can hope for? Malia may think she is showing a statement of intent and exhibiting strength, but she is making herself and the NUS look like a joke. Munya Mudarikiri, our previous VP Voice, was able to have meetings with Jo Johnson (the Government Minister for Universities) and other important people within the Higher Education Sector through his NUS connections. If we can no longer use these to good effect, is there even a point to us being part of the NUS? Funny that should be mentioned. Something that is currently being explored is a ‘South East Network’. Similar to the NUS, this would be an association with universities in the South-East region

such as Surrey, Sussex, Southampton etc. This would bring it’s own benefits, as in addition to geography we share similar problems with rent prices and living costs. As Alex-Mackenzie Smith described in our feature interview with her last issue: “Ultimately, if we take off with this South East Network, it will be so much more worthwhile, less money, and more effective than being part of the NUS”. Whether current talks will prove fruitful we don’t know. However if it could provide us with another avenue to national representation and the ability to effectively lobby the government, it might very well be worth jumping ship from our current arrangement. Watch this space.

NEWS | IN THE NEWS

In The News

Some of the big news stories of the past month - with an Incite twist.

Photo: Oli Kerschen OK Photography / Mouvement Ecologique

No Ceta The Table n the 21st of October trade talks broke down after seven years of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta), between Canada and the European Union (protest pictured above). Canada’s international trade minister, Chrystia Freeland, slated the EU after the talks failed and expressed the EU was “incapable” of being able to finalise the deal. This deal was designed to allow Canada to gain access to the single market. This unavoidably shoots the leave campaign’s argument over Brexit in the foot. From day one, the UK has been told that negotiations will happen to enable us to remain in the single market. Does this not entirely undermine this? Canada, a country hailed as perfection, put on a pedestal as an example for the rest of the world, has been unable to negotiate its way into the single market. What hope does the UK have when it already has many EU countries lining up to tell it where to go?

Referendum(b) To add to the insult, the Telegraph produced a video and article on 100

reasons in 100 seconds why Brexit was a good thing. The musical backdrop was a choral version of “Jerusalem”, a short poem by William Blake. As a song hailed as a proto-national anthem, this was the first indication that this video would be insufferable - which proved to be the correct assumption. Here are a few of our favourite reasons: More Indian Doctors – The hypocrisy! We want control back of our borders and less immigration but, by the way, we also want more immigration from India and just their doctors? Cheap tennis balls - This is something that has a hugely detrimental effect on the UK for a very long time. It is such a pleasure to see that the UK can now buy cheap tennis balls. End working time directive – Another success. We can not only work ridiculously long hours, but also have no protections against that practice. The UK is so lucky. Straight bananas, crooked cucumbers – Another gleaming success. I bet the UK is so vastly excited to finally be able to buy crooked cucumbers. New hangover cures – say what?

Cheaper food – Although this may be the case, Tesco last week announced that it had a disagreement with Unilever, after Unilever wanted them to increase prices due to the drop of the pound after Brexit. Though the dispute was settled, does this not indicate what perhaps might be in times to come? The New ‘Special Relationship’ There were also plenty of other examples which reached new levels of ridiculous, but this rant, lamentably, must come to a close. For now, we turn our attention to the US, where the absurdity of this article was recently echoed when one of the main faces advocating Brexit went and shared a podium with Donald Trump (pictured overleaf). Effectively, Nigel Farage has grouped the leave camp in a category with one of the most abhorrent candidates the US has ever seen. Understandably Clinton is not the finest choice either - her attempts have been limping - but of the two she is by far the most desirable candidate. For Clinton’s competition is the man that, it transpires, has had eleven women (and counting) come out saying INCITE | ISSUE 7

Photo: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images

that he was sexually inappropriate to them. Adding to a vast heap of prior controversies, this bombshell has revolved around a tape obtained and released by The Washington Post earlier this month, recording a conversation held between Donald Trump and Billy Bush in 2005. On the tape, Trump brags about groping and trying to have sex with women and makes other repulsive comments using lewd language. He is heard saying “when you’re a star they let you do it, you can do anything… grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” wrongly assuming that his status and fame would give him the right to have sex with whom he pleases, regardless of their consent. Given Trump’s history with sexist remarks, these comments should not come as a surprise, but they may have been the final straw for many voters; Trump’s comments not only perpetuate rape culture, they define its premises. Rape culture is sustained by the belief that women are the property of men and normalises male sexual violence; this is why many women are often blamed for sexual crimes committed against them. Subsequent to the release of the INCITE | ISSUE 7

The Tip of the Iceberg: Just one of Trump’s numerous casually sexist remarks. // Image: Twitter.com

tape, eleven women have come forward with their first-hand encounters with Trump’s sexual aggression. The Trump campaign has denied all allegations and maintain that all these women are involved in a smear campaign against Trump. However, Trump himself has provided enough evidence to substantiate these women’s claims. From his blatant disregard towards women, calling them ‘beautiful pieces of ass’, implying that all women are gold diggers, joking about incest with his own daughter, to

ridiculing the likes of Rosie O’ Donnell, Angelina Jolie and Heidi Klum for their physical appearances, is it really that difficult to believe that he is guilty of such crimes? Perhaps the greater issue is the doubt with which society receives such accusations, despite the overwhelming evidence in their favour.

NEWS | RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Recommended Articles The best articles from the past month - in one place.

The Way Ahead

Photo: White House/ Pete Souza

America’s president writes about four crucial areas of unfinished business in economic policy that his successor will have to tackle: “Wherever I go these days, at home or abroad, people ask me the same question: what is happening in the American political system? How has a country that has benefited—perhaps more than any other—from immigration, trade and technological innovation suddenly developed a strain of anti-immigrant, anti-innovation protectionism? Why have some on the far left and even more on the far right embraced a crude populism that promises a return to a past that is not possible to restore—and that, for most Americans, never existed at all?” - Barack Obama, The Economist

Pentagon promises overwhelming response to North Korea nuclear launch

Photo: EPA

“The US says it “strongly condemns” North Korea’s latest missile test, and promised an “overwhelming” military response if the country was to successfully launch a nuclear weapon. The test of a powerful midrange missile on Thursday morning was Pyongyang’s second failed launch in a week and the fifth time the country has tested missiles in the past two months. Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said: “We strongly condemn last night’s attempt, which even in failing, violated several UN Security Council resolutions.” - Harry Cockburn, The Independent

A post-Brexit spike in homophobic hate crime? It’s a part of ‘taking back control’

Photo: HUCK Magazine

“The Brexit coalition is most strongly correlated not with economic class or income, but with another kind of ‘left behind’: the political authoritarian. The British Election Study, a survey of 24,000 voters, found that by far the strongest predictor of pro-Brexit politics were attitudes in favour of rebarbative measures of punishment, like whipping criminals or the return of the death penalty. The Hang ’em Flog ‘em brigade are back – and this time they mean Brexit.” - James Butler, HUCK Magazine

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EU considering sanctions against Russia over Aleppo bombing Photo: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

“The language of the EU’s biggest three countries is echoed in a draft summit communique that is significantly stronger than earlier versions. “The EU is considering all options, including further restrictive measures targeting individuals and entities supporting the regime, should the current atrocities continue,” it said. EU sources do not expect a decision on Thursday night, but want to ensure the threat is on the table. If sanctions were agreed, diplomats would draw up a list of Russian names and organisations that would be subject to travel bans and asset freezes.” - Jennifer Rankin, The Guardian

Donald Trump unwilling to accept election result

Photo: Reuters

“Donald Trump sensationally refused last night to commit to whether or not he would accept the result of the presidential election, threatening the American democratic process.In the third and final presidential television debate, Mr Trump and his rival Hillary Clinton squared off in Las Vegas. However, it was not the “Fight Night” that had been predicted beforehand. The debate was the most measured discussion of policy yet on issues such as abortion and gun control.The main headline of the night, however, was the moment when the Republican nominee was asked by moderator Chris Wallace if he would accept the election result.” - Barney Henderson, The Telegraph

MPs have unanimously voted to strip Sir Philip Green of his Knighthood

Photo: Reuters

“The House of Commons has unanimously backed a move to strip Sir Philip Green of his Knighthood. During an impassioned debate, MP after MP stood to slam the former owner of BHS and lament the hardship suffered by its former employees. Sir Philip was branded a “billionaire spiv” by one member who claimed Sir Philip had shamed capitalism by selling BHS for £1, with a £571 million pension scheme deficit. Another compared the businessman to Napoleon, while a third said the House had no option but to back tearing away his Knighthood.” - Joe Watts, The Independent

Photo: Flickr/ Alexander Edward

The Cost of Being a Model Minority: Neoliberalism and the British Sikh Family “With housing benefit claims at only 1%, the British Sikh community appear to exemplify the neoliberal dream of market efficiency, and are held up as a shining example of an immigrant community that have ‘paid their way’. However, as with most studies citing economic success, little is reported on the negative consequences of a community working itself into poor health – something all-too encouraged by free market capitalism.” Symrun Chatha, Novara Media INCITE | ISSUE 7

FEATURE | TITLE

FEATURE

Guildford rejects a directly elected mayor, but will that stop the conversation?

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Earlier this month, Guildford held a referendum on having a Directly Elected Mayor. Connor Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hara examines the rise of the group behind it and asks if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re here to stay. Image: Urban Design Directory

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FEATURE | GUILDFORD MAYORAL REFERENDUM

Image: Alistair Wilson

he rather sedate borough of Guildford is the last place on earth you would expect to see some form of political coup. Yet the future of Guildford Borough Council has been threatened in recent months by a campaign calling for the installation of a Directly Elected Mayor (DEM) of Guildford. The group behind the petition that brought about the Guildford Mayoral Referendum refers to itself as “the Real Voice”. They claim that Guildford Borough Council has struggled with the administration of Guildford town and the surrounding area for many years. The Conservative-led council is strangled by bureaucracy and powerful local protest groups such as Guildford Greenbelt, and thus has no hope of bringing about the change that Guildford needs. Their campaign was based around the visceral cry for democracy, for change and for greater control. In fact, Stephen Mansbridge, one of the leaders of the campaign, had even at one stage told residents that they need to choose a DEM to replace the current council leader system in order to “take back control”. Sound familiar? We’ve recently seen a national demonstration that the promise of real change can stir voters. The Real Voice hoped to tap into that on a local level. Of course, the campaign gained little traction and the vote was a resounding success for the No campaign, securing 20,639 votes to the Real Voice’s 4,948. They can rightly take heart from the fact that the turnout here was higher than in the national Police & Crime Commissioner elections, but that won’t change the result; a warm reminder for the “out of touch political elite” that they can indeed campaign for the status quo and actually win. The origins of this unparalleled exercise in local democracy exemplify why the Real Voice failed. Its campaign has been the subject of much derision because of the chequered past of its leaders. In 2015, Stephen Mansbridge was leader of the Conservative-led Guildford Borough Council. One of his councillors, Monika Juneja, was about to stand trial at the Old Bailey, charged with longterm fraud (including pretending to be a barrister). At around a similar time to her council resignation, she had begun to

collect signatures for a petition calling for a change in the way Guildford Borough Council was run. Juneja was found guilty at the Old Bailey, but continued to campaign for a change in the structure of Guildford Borough Council. Meanwhile, Stephen Mansbridge continued as leader. Following Juneja’s conviction and a first failed attempt to submit the petition, it came to light that Mansbridge had lobbied the University of Surrey Students’ Union to gain support for the idea. He was subsequently quoted in the national satirical magazine Private Eye as having “mayoral ambitions.” He denied this but the controversy never really went away and Mansbridge paid the price as he stood down in October 2015. They both continued to garner support for their campaign over the next year and a half, before they were finally successful (on the fifth attempt) at submitting their petition. In May 2016, a year after Juneja was forced to stand down from the council, she became head of the DEM campaign that came to be known as the Real Voice. At the forefront of the campaign were Stephen Mansbridge and herself, leading a crusade against the failed decision making, snail-like pace and weak leadership they accused the council of demonstrating. The public felt their credentials remained questionable, their motivation even more so. Mansbridge and Juneja believed they were riding a wave of protest that would topple the

“[The Real Voice] claim that Guildford Borough Council has struggled with the administration of Guildford town and the surrounding area for many years, strangled by bureaucracy and powerful local protest groups” hierarchy of Guildford Borough Council and change Guildford for the better. Collecting the 5,000 signatures required to force a referendum (the Real Voice claims it was more like 8,000) is no small feat and can give the appearance that their campaign was growing traction and a genuine crowd of supporters. However, in reality those 5,000 signatures represent only 5% of the electorate in a given area. The Real Voice even admitted that these signatures were not even offering support for an elected mayor, simply for the idea of putting it to a vote. That being said, they did manage to collect roughly the same number of votes from the 25% of eligible residents who did cast their ballot. The hostility facing the Real Voice was demonstrated, quite forcefully, at the referendum debate held at the University of Surrey prior to the vote (pictured). The venue was the main lecture theatre in Rik INCITE | ISSUE 7

“we were going against three major political parties, who have a machine in place so we’re actually quite happy with the result we’ve got... it takes time to build a movement.” - Monika Juneja

Juneja (left) & Mansbridge (right) watch the defeat of their elected mayor campaign. Image: getsurrey.co.uk

Medlik. Despite the room’s size, no more than 60 people attended; admittedly, as a mix of students, older residents and working people, they represented a fair cross section of the electorate of Guildford. The debate, chaired by André Langlois of the Surrey Advertiser, pitched Stephen Mansbridge and Monika Juneja against Councillor Matt Furniss and Councillor Tony Rooth. If the Real Voice campaigners had arrived at the debate keen to build support and convince those who were not sold on the DEM principle, they were to leave the university campus that evening very disappointed. From the outset, the Yes campaign faced questions on trust and honesty; Mansbridge and Juneja valiantly attempted to deflect blows, to insist that they were merely there to campaign for a change in structure and that it wasn’t about them or their past. The audience disagreed, with the debate that followed becoming rather fractious. One student I spoke to following the debate said that the audience were “slagging people off a bit too much…just tell me about the mayor.” One of the louder voices of protest within the room was Councillor Susan Parker, chair of the Guildford Greenbelt Group. Speaking to me after the debate, it was clear she was not convinced by Mansbridge or Juneja, stating “there was something of a naked power grab by the proponents of the change for the Mayor system.” She went on to say “they INCITE | ISSUE 7

were running the council and they’re not running the council now; they would like to do it again.”The general wariness of the Real Voice’s motivation crippled their performance throughout the debate. Indeed, one member of the audience asked Stephen Mansbridge if he had considered standing. Onlookers met his response of “I haven’t considered it,” with general disdain. They also faced continued questioning over the involvement of Guildford Borough Council’s bogeyman, Michel Harper. Mr Harper will be most well known to most of us as the owner of the Casino nightclub. He is most well known to the council as a large and frustrating fly in their ointment who has long been in favour of a change of structure. His involvement in the campaign remains unclear, although it is certain that he did provide some support to the initial push to collect petition signatures. Throughout the campaign the Real Voice faced continued pressure from the public, from the media and from a well organised opponent. Speaking to me after the results had been announced, Monika Juneja admitted that they were fighting a losing battle from day one. In an interview for Stag Radio, she said “we were going against three major political parties, who have a machine in place so we’re actually quite happy with the result we’ve got,” adding that it “takes time to build a movement.”

I asked her what she thought the future was for the Real Voice campaign. “I think the Real Voice will carry on. There are a lot of things that are wrong with the current system. We are not going to shy away from that,” she responded, offering a sense that the Real Voice will be here to stay. The strange nature of local politics in Guildford is certainly a thorn in the side of the council in their effort to push the town onwards into the 21st century. The Conservative majority faces strong opposition from the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the growing grassroots presence of the Guildford Greenbelt Group. Now, they can add the Real Voice to their developing list of adversaries. Despite public suspicion around its leadership, the Real Voice has an opportunity to build a real movement. With no allegiances and no party affiliation, their political fire is stoked only by resentment and frustration at Guildford Borough Council. This year has already given one clear example that nothing mobilises support like dissatisfaction; tap into that and the Real Voice could be shouting for the forgotten people of Guildford for a long time to come. Connor O’Hara is a final year Maths student at the University of Surrey. He is also the Station Manager of Stag Radio and a blogger for advancepolitics.co.uk.

FEATURE

Finding peace at a time of cholera In our feature interview for this issue, Joshua Martin interviews author Will Spurr to gather his thoughts and insight on the Colombian peace process, the result of the referendum on said agreement, and where Colombia can possibly go from here.

Image: Giada Ruisi

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FEATURE | COLOMBIAN PEACE PROCESS

Image: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images

iva Colombia, they cried. The streets of Bogotá were awash with people jubilant and chanting. To them, justice had been served. Even in their high spirits, they themselves could not have envisaged it turning out like this. At the same time there were those shedding tears. Shell-shocked at what was happening, and confused about what this meant for the future. Their future. Despite the contrasting emotions, neither group of people could quite believe the turn of events they had just witnessed. The date was the 3rd of October, the day after Colombian voters went to the polls. Only a week after a historic peace deal had been signed between the Colombian Government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, pictured below), a referendum was held on the ratification of the final agreement. Against all the odds and previous predictions, by a wafer-thin majority of 60,000 votes, 50.2% to 49.8% voted against the agreed deal. How did this happen? To find out I interviewed Will Spurr (pictured left), an undergraduate at the University of Warwick. Whilst a British guy from Essex with a middling proficiency in Spanish would not normally be viewed as a go-to for Latin American affairs, Will had spent the last summer travelling around Colombia to research the peace process and conduct interviews with various journalists and political actors. The end result: he has just published a book about the peace process

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on Amazon. The conflict between Colombia and the FARC is famous for it’s longevity. Beginning in 1964, the country has been engaged in a civil war for over 50 years. However, Colombia’s violent past goes much further than its civil war with the FARC, all the way back to its origins as a country. To understand the current politics of the referendum, we have to understand Colombia’s past of cyclical violence. A Portrait of Colombia “I would say it’s a hangover from the colonial era”. Will talks me through the history of Colombia, starting from its origins as the colony of ‘New Granada’ controlled by Spain. The hierarchy then consisted of “white Europeans who were the governors, and to start with they were presiding over a large native Indian workforce.” Although he is describing the social divisions from over 200 years ago, these divisions still persist today and can go a little way in helping us to understand the referendum result. After independence was won through a series of rebellions in the early 1800s, a series of conflicts and civil wars were waged between the then two dominant political forces: the Liberals and Conservatives. This cycle of violence would continue largely uninterrupted until a man called Jorge Eliécer Gaitán stepped onto the scene. He is described to me as a “left, liberal

populist” who spent his life fighting for causes such as “combatting the oligarchy […] arguing for redistribution”. Disliked by Conservatives and viewed with suspicion by Liberal party elites, he nevertheless was extremely popular and favoured as a future presidential favourite until his assassination in 1948. This sparked ‘La Violencia’, a ten-year period of intense fighting and civil war that would serve as the precursor to the on-going conflict involving the FARC. So is this what the FARC are concerned with? Not exactly. Will calls them “bonafide Leninists” and whilst they may carry on many of the concerns of Gaitán, they are largely a peasant movement concerned with protecting the rights of agrarian workers. This has brought them into conflict not just with the government, but also many landowners and paramilitary groups. No doubt people within these groups will have been dancing for joy at the No result. From reading the book and listening to Will speak, it’s clear that he has sympathies for the FARC and their stated goals. “They haven’t had much choice [but] to fight in the way they have fought up until recently”. Will stresses the difference between the aims and the means of the FARC and acknowledges the heinous acts they have committed such as kidnapping. However, it is worth pointing out that during this entire conflict, the government or paramilitary groups have committed approximately 80% of human rights abuses. So then what would he consider the FARC as? I ask Will if he considers them a terrorist group. He retorts “No. With the FARC you’ll find they’ve been labelled whatever the US is against. They were commies in the 60s, they were narcos in the 70s and 80s, and they were terrorists after 9/11.” As he describes in his book, the all too ‘visible hand’ of the United States is ever present in the domestic affairs of Colombia. Nowhere is the role of the US more apparent than in the illegal drug trade, one of the key areas listed under the Colombian peace deal. The war on drugs waged by the United States has seen 1.6 billion dollars a year pumped into Colombia to eliminate drugs with little to show in return. Cocaine is still traded through an incredibly large and

FEATURE | COLOMBIAN PEACE PROCESS

Image: Giada Ruisi

illicit criminal network, causing damage to the countryside. In reference to this choice of policy, Will refers to American academic Charles Bergquist when he says ‘you would have to believe American legislators are systematically irrational or stupid.’ I shall allow you, the reader, to comment on that. But moving back to the FARC: if not a terrorist group, then what are they? In many of the predominantly rural areas that the FARC control, the government has little jurisdiction and locals pay taxes to the guerrillas instead. When I put it to him that the FARC are therefore more like a mafia, he disagrees and argues “they’re like an unelected government. They don’t make money, so you couldn’t really call them a mafia. You could call them Narcos, but this journalist, Garry Leech, says ‘If they’re narcos, they’re really shit narcos because none of them are getting rich’”. In addition to the conflicts waged between Conservative and Liberals, FARC and Government, it is also with many narco-traffickers that Colombia has had a long-standing problem with. This was at it’s most acute in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Colombia was a country best known for Pablo Escobar and Cocaine, and its second city Medellín was famous for being the murder capital of the world. Thankfully, this is not so evident in Colombia today. Francis Fukuyama remarked years ago that the turnaround of Medellín from this into a mostly ordinary and stable city that you can walk the streets of is half a miracle. Whilst Will was interviewing a journalist in a café in Bogotá, she remarked: “if it wasn’t for the security guard at the front of this café, you could believe that this wasn’t a country in civil war. You could be somewhere in Europe.” However whilst Colombia is a country that doesn’t appear to be at civil war, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s safe. Will explains to me that most cities in Colombia are split in 2: you have the poor barrios which contain many refugees, and the wealthy suburbs with a European/ American architectural style. Yet rather than a clear divide between the two, both parts seem to stack on top of each other. Whilst staying in Bogotá and Medellín he described being able to “look out of my apartment and say to my friends: This

barrios here? Don’t go. These streets here? Don’t go. This part here? That’s fine” A Portrait of the Referendum President Juan Manuel Santos certainly has done little to fix these problems outside of the peace deal – Will remarks that “He’s been quite a bad president in terms of day-to-day management”. But the peace deal itself covers many areas that can go some way to fixing these divides in Colombian society. Agrarian reforms, justice for those found guilty or who admit to crimes, political participation and rehabilitation into society, drug trafficking reforms and more. So why did so many Colombians vote no? Firstly and perhaps most importantly, Will explains to me that “You have to remember that the Colombian people have been fed this propaganda since the FARC was founded that guerrillas are totally bad, government good, paramilitaries don’t exist. So as a result, to say we must destroy the guerrillas is a really popular message”. However every message requires a charismatic figure to hammer the point home. The “no” campaign had that in former President Álvaro Uribe. Whilst Will seems to vacillate between disappointment and respect when we discuss the current president, his views on Uribe are more unanimous. “[He] is pretty much by every account a war criminal.

His record was pretty disgusting.” He explains that the reason Uribe opposed the deal was not because he didn’t believe in it, but for his own selfish gain in wishing to avoid being investigated for his previous actions. And yet Uribe’s huge popularity in comparison to President Santos carried the no campaign and this message forward. There were also other factors that played their part in the referendum. Geography was one. Will points to regions such as Antioquia in central Colombia, which have been largely untouched to the conflict, as being responsible for the no victory. Antioquia voted comfortably in favour of a no vote, in contrast to more rural and coastal regions that have been affected like Chocó, which voted heavily in favour of yes. Unlike the EU referendum in the UK, “The only real indicator for whether someone would be for/against it would be if they were from an area that had been really effected by the war or not”. Last was turnout. Will recounts a line from a friend who said ‘Colombia didn’t vote no; it just didn’t vote’. A 37% turnout is pitifully poor for such a huge democratic event. Whilst electoral fraud is a big problem in Colombia, this can mainly be attributed to other factors. The arrival of Hurricane Matthew onto the Atlantic coast had a hugely negative impact on turnout on regions in that area. Considering many of the coastal areas affected were heavily in favour of INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image: Reuters

believes that a deal, only slightly different to the current one, will be ‘botched’ through in the near future. And that this deal will be signed off with the explicit approval of Uribe (which is sure to involve changes to the transitional justice proposals). And what of the other man involved in all of this, President Santos? Will he run again in the next presidential election in 2018? “There’s no point in him running again. He is incredibly unpopular” he replies. Instead Will tells me that what is likely to happen is that the current VicePresident Germán Vargas Lleras will take over. What this means for a future peace deal we can’t really tell, as Vargas hasn’t said anything on the issue. This involved him staying out of the referendum campaign “Theresa May style”. We conclude by remarking once again on the futility of this conflict. “Most people will have had their entire lives at war, and young people don’t really have a side to be on. They’re not invested in the fight”. Indeed, almost everyone in Colombia will have lived through this conflict. If only those around 70+ remember their country without this violence, surely the population must be tired of this conflict and want a solution. Perhaps Colombia can finally move on and end the cycle of violence? “Hopefully something will have to give… But I’ve decided to never make predictions again!”

yes, this could have swung the result, as Will reminds me “the difference between the yes and the no camp was 60,000 votes. And so those 60,000 votes would have easily been there.” The other problem related to turnout is simple. For many people living in rural villages, going to your local polling station is a day’s walk. Will recounts a story from the editor of a magazine who told him: “This is the one day off I have this week. Why am I gonna spend 2 hours getting to the polling station, 3 hours in the queue, and then spend 2 hours getting back. That’s a day gone.” The problem wasn’t just limited to rural dwellers. Where did this editor live? Medellín. INCITE | ISSUE 7

A Portrait of the Future So where does Colombia go from here? Will points out the difficulty in offering certainty amidst so much uncertainty, but does say for his starting point: “I see it as peace has been postponed. These reforms still need to happen.”. In some cases, they have already begun. The FARC have begun de-mobilising, handing over their arms and turning themselves into UN camps and local villages. The FARC no longer have the appetite to go to war with the government, let alone with the population whom voted against them. Indeed, little is likely to change in the government’s negotiating position. Will

‘Ending 60 Years of Solitude: A Portrait of A Peace Deal’, pictured left, is now available to buy on Amazon in Paperback, or on Kindle. A big thank you to William Spurr for his time, and special thanks and credit to Giada Ruisi for her photography during this interview.

OPINION | OBAMA’S LEGACY

OPINION Obama: A Legacy of Unfulfilled Expectations Despite the depressing state of the current presidential election it is important not to romanticise the Obama years, Felice Southwell writes.

et’s talk about America. I don’t mean the crazed, brainwashed and scarily nationalistic America in the press right now, amid a flurry of empty promises, emotional pleas and misjudged facts. Let’s talk about the America that has evolved outside of the election. When Clinton and Trump first announced their candidacy in the spring of 2015, who could have known what world we’d be living in? In April 2015, same-sex marriage was still illegal. Caitlyn Jenner was known as Bruce. The US and Cuba hadn’t established diplomatic links. The US was a very different place. The pace of change every day in our global society is so exponential, it’s almost dizzying. Before the election, however, there was an era of hope. It was called the Obamadays. His legacy will be one of many confusing and, frankly, contradictory moments. He wanted to “fundamentally change how Washington works” by ridding the system of the partisan gridlock that has plagued so many well-meaning Presidents before him. Unfortunately, Congress and the Administration were

so divided, they may as well have been sitting in a maths class. The balance of Congress at the end of his second term put the Republicans at their largest majority since 1931, a bit of a sore point for Obama and his party. His legacy will not always be full of contradictions though. Some things are certain, like the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. That happened. Obamacare happened, albeit a watered down version to appease members of Congress. Osama Bin Laden is no longer alive, he made that happen – no Congress involved in that one. He indefinitely prevented the deportation of illegal immigrant children who had been brought to the country by

“Unfortunately, Congress and the Administration were so divided, they may as well have been sitting in a maths class.”

their parents. A lot has happened in his 8 years of office, much of which can be viewed as both positive and negative for the moral state of American and therefore global, society. Legacy can be simply defined as what is left by a predecessor. As sickening as it is, there will be a newcomer in January, swearing an oath of allegiance and praying that they don’t mess up the words like Obama did, whether we want them or not. Obama equals safe. Obama is what we know. Our generation were probably watching David Tennant as Doctor Who and not really focusing on the state of American politics in 2008, so this election presents us with a change. It could be a really big one or it could be a really big one. Glass ceilings will shatter or walls will be built. Either way, infrastructure will be affected. The next President will inherit an America that was very different to the one Obama was inaugurated into and so will be the first challenges they face in office. They won’t have to deal with a fiscal crisis before they’ve even started (unless some INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image: YURI GRIPAS/Reuters

rogue bankers decide to put a spanner in the works) but they will have to deal with the disappointed voters who didn’t get their way in this most contentious of elections. But do the circumstances a President inherits make a difference to their time in office? Some may argue that Obama’s legacy will not revolve around his policies at all, but his persuasion and his ability to charm the American population with his mesmerising rhetoric and brilliant connection to ordinary people. As teenagers during his administration we have seen all the memes surrounding him (the mic drop at his last correspondents’ dinner, the ‘album cover’ photoshoot INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image:Wikimedia Commons/ Gabbec

“This election presents us with a change. It could be a really big one or it could be a really big one. Glass ceilings will shatter or walls will be built.”

and Michelle’s carpool karaoke to name but a few) showing just how well we will remember Obama as Barack. In truth, it doesn’t matter what Obama achieved. All those policies, for good or evil, will be forgotten in time, just like the way the media moves on from issues we still face such as the refugee crisis, poverty and the gender pay gap. When you think of President Bill Clinton, you think of Monica Lewinsky. When you think of President Richard Nixon, you think of Watergate. Presidents are remembered for their personal mark on the world, not what they achieved or did not achieve. Perhaps, rather cruelly, Obama will be remembered for being the first black President. That, in itself – despite everything else the man has done for the world - is something to be proud of, and something Obama would be proud of too. His acceptance speech in 2008 (pictured right) proves that Obama will be remembered as the man who changed history and defined freedom forever: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all

things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” Felice Southwell is a first year Politics student at the University of Surey, and a member of the Incite committee.

OPINION | BRITISH NEOLIBERALISM

British Neoliberalism: An Obituary Under Theresa May, British politics is experiencing a worryingly illiberal paradigm shift, argues Ricardo Mendes.

s president of Surrey University’s Conservative Society I don’t often agree with John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not too long ago I finally made an exception. Earlier this month, John McDonnell proudly declared in a New Statesman column that the left had “defeated free market ideology”, arguing that the adoption of economically interventionist policy by Theresa May’s administration (such as energy price caps, employee representation on company boards and the scrapping of the budget surplus target) meant that the neoliberal consensus that has largely governed this country since Thatcher has apparently come to an end.

“The neoliberal consensus that has largely governed this country since Thatcher has apparently come to an end.”

My agreement with McDonnell isn’t so much one of a shared hurrah but a sombre understanding that the sort of ideas, worldview and policy he despises are actually ones that I rather like and celebrate - one thing is for sure though, that they’ve become harder to find represented on the British party political scene. What exactly is neoliberalism though? And why is its disappearance such a cause for concern (or celebration?) It refers primarily to the 20th century resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with economic liberalism. Coming out in strength with the failure of post-war Keynesian stagflation in the 1970s and boosted again by the collapse of Soviet style state-socialism in the 1980s, it came to many politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as a necessary third way. Policies include extensive economic liberalization measures such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private

sector in the economy. While since Thatcher we’ve had four more prime ministers, they’ve all (with perhaps the middling exception of Brown once he landed in number 10) accepted and promoted the idea of a low tax, low regulation free market economy and an albeit timid socially liberal embrace. At its peak this form of centrist liberal politics had its zenith in 2007 where at some point Cameron, Clegg and Blair all led the major parties grounded in this centrist neoliberal consensus. It all began to crumble slowly as New Labour started its orderly deconstruction under Brown, comfortable left positioning under Miliband and full shift away from any semblance of the liberal centre under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn (much to the disdain of the largely more liberal and centrist ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party). Come the aftermath of the 2015 general election and the Liberal Democrats also, it seems, have been seized by factions to the left of noughties neoliberalism. Under its social-democratic wing, led by Tim Farron, it had torn into shreds the INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image: Flickr user ‘acb’

“Orange Book” project of moving the Liberal Democrats to the centre-right on economic issues. So where has social and economic liberalism been surviving? Perhaps the Tories? David Cameron’s modernisation of the Conservative party involved moving his party to the centre on social issues while maintaining a broadly Thatcherite view of economics; passing same-sex marriage, for instance, was seen by Cameron as one of his proudest achievements. And yet before my eyes, with the tolling bell of his resignation came the final nail in the coffin for neoliberal centrism - the Conservative Party Conference of 2016. Theresa May addressed the party faithful at her first conference since becoming prime minister (pictured overleaf). In it we’ve seen a marked tack to the right unseen for a long time. What dominated the headlines was primarily her appeal to anti-immigration sentiment. There was the proposal to force companies to reveal the scale of their overseas workforce, the proposal to INCITE | ISSUE 7

force companies to hire from a local ‘pool’ of labour before looking overseas and cutting net migration (especially from the EU) hinting therefore at a ‘hard Brexit’. While in days gone by, Gordon Brown’s calling for “British jobs for British workers” in 2010 was laughed off as a populist jibe, now such populism was to become official government policy to the extent that even UKIP had to call out Amber Rudd for saying that she went “too far”. But what concerns me more is how, in economic terms, May had seemed to abandon Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman in favour of Ed Miliband, whose market interventionism earned him an anti-business reputation. She went on about bosses who do not look after their staff, companies that do not pay enough tax and utility firms that rip off consumers (even hinting at the sort of meddling in energy markets that won Mr Miliband particular barbs). Her government, she said, would identify the industries that are of “strategic value to our economy” and boost them “through policies on trade, tax, infrastructure, skills, training, and

“What concerns me is how, in economic terms, May seemed to abandon Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman in favour of Ed Miliband” research and development.” At one point she even questioned the independent Bank of England’s low interest rates. To someone from the neoliberal centre this should be particularly shocking. These are not last minute populist electoral pledges, nor pressures from an organised and effective opposition, and they have come from a party with their best opinionpoll performance for decades, ledy by a new, supposedly compromise unity candidate. But looking at Theresa May’s discourse, her premiership represents nothing but a complete paradigm shift of the centre ground from liberalism to social-conservative statism. For example, her affirmation of

OPINION | BRITISH NEOLIBERALISM

Image: Rui Vieira/ AP

nationalist identitarianism and her attack on a rootless ‘international elite’ was extremely revealing of a rightwing populist worldview. For the Prime Minister, people who think of themselves as citizens of the world are actually citizens of nowhere and have no understanding of what citizenship is. This contrasts with virtuous nationalists who value members of their own community more than other people. Importantly, cosmopolitanism was framed as the preserve of globetrotting international elites whose interests align with one another and diverge from those of ‘ordinary’ people. In strategic terms, May’s alignment with this perspective is relatively savvy. Such sentiments are not uncommon, and are a major part of the backlash against globalisation, yet politicians ought to stand up for what’s right and not what’s popular. What appears to me is that the curtain has been revealed and the innerworkings of what was Theresa May’s relatively elusive ideology has come to view, and that’s abandoning Cameronism so far as to make the parliamentary Conservatives one of the most illiberal parties in Westminster. Theresa May perhaps could be seen as embracing a pre-Thatcherite conception of the state and society. Her declaration that the government could be a force for good involved dismissing the labels of the “socialist left and the libertarian right”, reminding people “it’s time to remember the good that government can do” and “where many see government as a problem, I want to show it can be part of the solution.”. This is the key to the shift from Cameron’s twist on Thatcher “there is such a thing as society; it’s just not the same thing as the state”. Blair, Cameron and Clegg all put market solutions first before state solutions, recognised the importance of markets and were willing (albeit some more than others) to defend the contributions of both free markets and free peoples. May would like to present her views as pragmatic, but we should remind ourselves why we achieved the neoliberal consensus in the first place - out of pragmatism in the face of the failure of high state intervention in the economy and society at large. Policy should first and foremost be grounded in evidence,

“Looking at Theresa May’s discourse, her premiership represents nothing but a complete paradigm shift of the centre ground from liberalism to socialconservative statism.” not ideology, but it appears evidence seems to have a neoliberal bias. Take one of May’s proposed policies, employee representation on company boards, which is better described as union representation. Here, the evidence is that giving unions this sort of power can turn boards toxic, as happened to Volkswagen, and these rules have reduced the value of German firms by 26%. Other academic evidence suggests that board representation is just about the only bad way of giving workers more say in how their firms are run.Nor is there any evidence that clamping down on EU immigration will help British workers, but we will have to borrow more if immigration falls because they pay in more than they cost.

differences and join forces. In order to do that, I think we need to realise how much the state tells us what to do in our private and economic lives. Taxes are part of that but some, like sugar and corporation taxes, are much more meddlesome and harmful than others, like land value tax or some income taxes. There’s plenty in people like Rawls for right-liberals to like, and plenty in Hayek and Friedman for left-liberals. The key point of agreement between us is that the state and society in general should let people live their lives as they want. Which I think leads us to working beyond party lines and not be blinded by party platforms we feel uncomfortable with. Small ‘l’ liberals in all parties ought to find a means to compromise. We may argue over how much markets can give people resources to live good lives, but we agree that each individual should decide what a good life is for them. And, to me, that feels like a much more important thing to fight for. Ricardo Mendes is a second year Politics student at the University of Surrey and President of the University of Surrey Conservative Society.

So have liberals essentially vanished? Well anti-liberals have a head-start, now controlling both major parties and all the smaller parties too. But liberals, left and right, are down but not out and I expect we will eventually put aside our INCITE | ISSUE 7

OPINION | REFUGEE CRISIS

The Refugee Crisis: True Humanitarian ‘Breaking Point’ Lucy Barnes argues for a more compassionate response to the refugee crisis by dispelling three of the myths around it.

he Syrian refugee crisis has been dubbed the largest era of forced migration since World War Two. With the first uprising in 2011 and escalation now into 2016, a brutal civil war has led to 13.5 million people, half of whom are children, being displaced from their homes to seek humanitarian care. This has led thousands to flee for their lives in a desperate bid to find safety, but sadly many countries have not met them with open arms but instead reluctance and rejection. This is the case for many countries who have broken their promises towards these refugees, but I shall be using the UK as a case study to elaborate on the common excuses used, and why these simply do not suffice as justifications for losing our humanity. Whilst I do not attempt to discredit the work that has been done so far with regards to the refugees we’ve helped, it has mostly been more talk and no action. I have summarised the main three arguments against permitting more refugees into our country, those being: 1) “we’re too full” (delightfully put by Nigel Farage), 2) we cannot fund them living here, and 3) they are a security threat to the UK. I can’t possibly cover everything in this, but I hope it goes some way to inspire you to understand that we have a collective responsibility as human beings

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to reach out and help these people who are fleeing such a vicious civil war. Firstly, it has been said that “we’re too full” to possibly allow more refugees onto our land. Many believe we do not physically have the land to accommodate many more, and others argue that we shouldn’t do so. Here, whilst I understand that the population of the UK is excessive and now exceeds 64 million, it is manifestly inaccurate to assume we are “too full” to accommodate more people to save them from a dire crisis. Instead of attributing blame for the housing crisis to immigrants, which is the usual Daily Mail-type assumption, we should actually look at the facts of land usage in the UK. To demonstrate that we do indeed have the land but we would rather prefer to utilise it for purposes other than refugee housing, I shall use the case study of

“13.5 million people, half of whom are children, [have been] displaced from their homes to seek humanitarian care.”

the English golf courses. In a research study conducted in 2014, it was actually reported that 2% of our land is taken up by golf courses. This equates to around 2000 golf courses, most of which take up between 105 – 110 acres of land each. Whilst this study may be slightly outdated in a 2016 era, it is not implausible to believe that the data still applies to a modern context. You only have to drive around Surrey for 10 minutes to see how many golf courses there are! I’m not arguing here that we should replace all 2000 golf courses with refugee housing, as I’m aware that golf is a sport that brings money into the economy, nor am I arguing that this is the sole reason why we’re wasting land. What I am arguing however is that we are hardly full, and that more can almost definitely be done. Why has this not been suggested before then? Oh how the elites love golf… especially Mr Nigel Farage, who even appeared on an advert for the sport for the Ryder Cup. Secondly, it has also been submitted that refugees are a huge and unprecedented financial burden on the economy and heightening our deficit. Those who accept that we might have some room tend to then point to the fact

OPINION | REFUGEE CRISIS

Image: AFP/Getty

that we cannot afford to accommodate housing on such land. Here, we should not be looking at how much money we have but how this money is spent, and how much we are actually willing to spend to help other human beings. After all, David Cameron made a promise to rehome at least 20,000 by 2020, and we have so far taken 8000 whilst being close to 2017 and dangerously close to blocking them out from the Calais wall. Not to note that this wall itself will cost £1.9 million… which begs the question of why we’d rather spend money on closing those who need us out rather than taking them in. This is not to argue that the money that has been spent so far on the refugees is unappreciated, but for me I just see it as a small financial burden to pay for a larger moral humanitarian award. Money is paper… humans are breathing individuals just like you and I, who at a base level deserve security. Furthermore, it is not the immigrants who pose the main threat to the economy. Many argue that the biggest drain on the economy is actually social welfare, which is absorbed by immigrants. The evidence points to the contrary, however. As the

Oxford Migration Observatory observes, 74% of migrants who came to the UK in the last 5 years were actually in the private rented sector. Whilst the Daily Mail headlines read “Revealed: How HALF of all social housing in England goes to people born abroad”, the actual figure is 9%, meaning around 91% of new social tenancies are taken up by UK-born citizens. Who is more of a drain on the economy for social welfare if I may ask? Additionally, who is the largest tax contributor worldwide? Apple. Apple pays £4.6 billion in taxes worldwide, and who founded Apple? Steve Jobs. If you didn’t already know, Steve Jobs’ father was actually a Syrian migrant. As Banksy pointed out in a thought-provoking painting, if America didn’t let this man in, you may not be sat reading this right now on your iPhone/Macbook. Here is a clear demonstration of kindness and charity economically paying off, and to a great degree. How do we know that one of the refugees we let in may not be the next contributor to curing cancer? Steve Jobs may be one man, but as shown, one man can create huge innovations that contribute immensely to the economy.

“This wall will cost £1.9 million… which begs the question of why we’d rather spend money on closing those who need us out rather than taking them in. “ We have the money to help, we as a country just choose to spend it elsewhere. These refugees are not looking for mansions, they are looking for basic safety so they are not brutally slaughtered back at their home. Why is this too much to ask for? They don’t want to be in the UK, they have to be. After all, “no one leaves home unless home is in the mouth of a shark”, to quote Warsan Shire. Finally, there is a line of argumentation, which is at its prime in a post-9/11 era, related to the fear that refugees will be a security threat to the country. This argument is often invoked where the last two are rebutted by evidence, because the Brexit puppeteers and the mainstream INCITE | ISSUE 7

Illustration by Yuliia Mykhailova

media love to play into people’s biggest fears. These fears largely circulate around refugees being linked to terrorism. Here, I will not seek to analyse the ridiculous skittles analogy made by Donald Trump Jr which is both offensive and manifestly inaccurate, but I will state that the fact he posted this highlights the fears within people that refugees could be terrorists. Whilst I understand that fears after the attacks in Paris and Brussels have sparked fear into the hearts of people, we have allowed this fear to penetrate so far that compassion has drowned in it. Here I argue that not only are fears of terrorism emanating from refugees exaggerated, they are actually irrational. You only have to look towards what the biggest killers in Britain are to understand this. Suicide and car accidents are ranked among the top, not terrorism. If you are going to be afraid of death, then you shouldn’t go outside at all because it is statistically more likely that a car could come around the corner. Yet we don’t seem to halt our morality in fear of this. Do we disallow cars from driving because one or two may hit us? Absolutely not. Additionally, according to an American study pioneered by the CDC, around 11,737 Americans are shot annually in violent crimes causing terror. However, the persons who are pulling the trigger are American. 16 on average are killed by immigrant ‘terrorists’. This INCITE | ISSUE 7

means it would have to be a skittle bowl the size of a house to have even one contaminated. I’m not saying terrorism is not to be feared at all because I do empathise… but what I am saying is that we shouldn’t erode our compassion for the refugees in fear of it. So far in Syria, 13.5 million innocent people and children are either dead or have been forced to leave due to a brutal war that we are also not innocent in. Why is it that we can sympathise for the 130 lives taken by the Paris attack, but we can’t sympathise with the lives lost daily in Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan/Somalia? If you struggle with this sympathy, please go and volunteer at your local Red Cross, because I assure you that you’ll finally shed a tear for those not so close to home who are suffering too. There’s no denial that 9/11 and the recent attacks were a huge tragedy, but the refugee crisis is too. We need to reach out to help these people who are also in pain to recover. With regards to ISIS, whilst this topic warrants an entirely separate article, it is worthy of note that their terrorism is psychological warfare, after all “it is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim”, to quote Alice Miller. We are fighting fire with fire and the people who are suffering are the innocents. They should at least be entitled to safety as the most basic human right that we should be able to provide. I shall quote key activist Joichi Ito here in that “if we destroy human rights and the rule of law in the response to terrorism, then they have won”. We are degrading base humanity by preventing these people from safety. Why does the will of so many in the UK want to build walls instead of bridges? Terrorism is scary… I get it. However, what is the Oxford definition of terrorism? “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” Why then, if it aligns with the definition, can we not call our own country’s actions that of terrorism? (Admittedly war crimes were afforded to Blair, which was a moral achievement.) We can’t do this because we cannot sympathise with those who do not agree with our laws or our world view. At a base level though, we are all human beings who all deserve the same human rights globally. The refugees deserve

“These refugees are not looking for mansions, they are looking for basic safety so they are not brutally slaughtered back at their home.” safety, love and care… even if you don’t think they deserve the same rights as the British for whatever reason you may have. “If you only have love for your own race, then you only leave space to discriminate, and to discriminate only generates hate, and when you hate then you’re bound to get irate.” This lyric doesn’t need a citation, just constant repetition. I know it’s hard because we’re the younger generation and we’re waiting on the world to change, but we can make some small steps by not ignoring the very fact that empathy should govern us, not fear. Volunteer at your local Red Cross and reach out your hand to those who really need it right now. Don’t contribute to the humanitarian ‘breaking point’ by breaking your own morality. Lucy Barnes is a third-year Law student at the University of Surrey, currently studying abroad at the University of Turku in Finland.

OPINION | IRAQ

How Do We Fix Iraq? Nabil Rastani outlines some solutions to the ongoing political crisis and violence in Iraq.

oon enough the Iraqi forces, with significant support from US airpower and regional backers will finally eliminate ISIS from its stronghold of Mosul in the north of the nation. Once this happens, there is a massive dilemma of what to do in order stabilise Iraq and eventually make it a prosperous and successful nation. Firstly, ISIS must be fully defeated and the war in Syria must end. The Syrian Civil War has caused a huge layer of spillover into the vast Iraqi border which has allowed groups such as ISIS to flourish. The history of Iraq and Syria are both inexorably intertwined, both emerging from the era of colonialism in the 1920s and both following a similar ideological route until the fall of Saddam in 2003. So it is logical that the fate of Iraq is fixed with that of Syria.

religious and ethnic), justice, rationalism, pluralism and women’s rights - such a long term vision would certainly help tackle these major issues but it would take time and effort. In the short term the overall political structure of Iraq needs to be reformed (or rather rebuilt). At the moment, the Iraqi system is heavily skewed towards the Shia Arab who are in the pocket of the Iranians, as a result Kurds and Sunnis are neglected, leading to greater levels tensions between these groups. So what is crucial is for a national unity government to be formed which is crucially anti-sectarian and representative

Image: GlobalSecurity.org

Deal with the sectarian nature of politics… The biggest issue in Iraq is the sectarian nature of the state; lacking a national identity, it is instead built upon deeply sectarian and tribalist roots. Iraq is divided among three key lines: in the south (where the majority of the population lives) the population is largely Shia Arabs, in the West (ISIS’s heartlands) are largely inhabited by Sunni Arabs and the north contains a sizeable Kurdish population (illustrated right). Such a divided society invariably means that there is a level of conflicting opinions and divisiveness. People often harken back

to a rosy vision of the 1970s Saddam era where such sectarianism did not define Iraq, claiming that a return to this vision is best, and although such issues were not so central to political discourses this is simply because religion did not play as central role in Middle Eastern politics, where the political figures were enamoured with nationalistic sentiment rather than religion. Besides, Saddam’s Sunni-Arab regime maintained its own sectarian tint which concentrated heavily upon ethnicity, for example he massacred thousands of non-Arab Kurds in the 1970s and 1980s, and tortured and killed many Shia’s whose backgrounds were Iranian rather than Arab. Even before this, the pro-British Hashemite monarchy of Iraq was emphatically anti-Shia and Kurd. Thus Iraq has always been defined by sectarianism. Firstly, in order to combat intolerance at a societal level, it is imperative for the government to commission and redraw a new form of education that promotes tolerance (both

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Image: teachwar.wordpress.com

Iraqi female students in 1963-4, when women’s rights were relatively high on the agenda of the Iraqi government - something no longer the case. / Image: thewomaniwasblog.blogspot.co.uk

of the population. A new consolatory form of governance needs to be established, it may be similar to what was developed in Lebanon following their bitter civil war in the 1990s- ‘Confessionalism’ in which groups are given representation based on their religious background but such a system is bound to create political gridlock and social issues. Instead, what is necessary is for non-sectarian groups and unions to be formed with a rewritten constitution that clearly states that sectarian motivated parties are not allowed to enter parliament (similar to Kemalist era Turkey) that way it will have less of a way of developing. Although it may initially be unpopular the benefits would soon out way the negatives and the greater level of social harmony would promote stability. Protect minorities and promote women’s rights: In order to promote greater levels of tolerance and cooperation a political carrot must be developed to ensure the inclusion of Sunni Arabs and Kurdish populations, the simple answer is serious devolution from Baghdad towards these periphery areas. Historically, despotisms and tyrannies have flourished when states are highly centralised as dictators can control everything from a single point (i.e. the capital) so decentralisation would not only undermine any would be Maliki’s from gaining power but also provide greater representation towards these periphery areas and ensure a INCITE | ISSUE 7

greater engagement with grass-roots organisations which might entrench a civil society within Iraq. Religious rights must also be fully tolerated, religious groups such as the Baha’i’s and Christians remain persecuted in Iraq- this must stop, and all religious people must have the right to worship freely. Additionally, women’s rights must obviously be enshrined and women must be emancipated. What is surprising is back in the 1960s and 1970s women’s rights were high on the agenda of the government, in which women’s education, social standing and women in the work force were placed high on the agenda. However, with Saddam’s Islamising ‘Faith Campaign’ in the 1990s, Iraqi women’s rights declined with the introduction of Sharia within the Iraqi judiciary. Now is a golden opportunity to re-introduce many of the progressive values which can provide women with equal rights. This will not only ensure greater social cohesion for obvious reasons, but also increase economic output as women will help drive the economy. It’s the economy stupid! And finally a prosperous and fair economy which reduces poverty is key. Like many other Middle Eastern nations, Iraq has much potential for economic greatest- the fifth largest oil reserves and huge amounts of gas and mineral reserves. Iraq is primed to build up a large secondary economy. Although oil prices are low, this will give Iraq the perfect

“What is crucial is for a national unity government to be formed which is crucially anti-sectarian and representative of the population.” opportunity to diversify its economy by promoting manufacturing and service sectors, investment from regional players like Saudi, Turkey and Iran (as well as the US) would surely help spur the economy onwards. In addition to a manufacturing and primary sector based economy, Iraq has very fertile lands located between the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. With investment and infrastructural projects, new irrigation systems could be developed that could make the land even more fertile and excellent for agriculture, by growing cash crops (which are in high demand across the globe). In order to attract FDI and see real development both in various sectors and infrastructural projects, Iraq not only needs to stabilise, but promote anti-corruption laws and the rule law both within the public and private sectors. Iraq: a land between two rivers: Although Iraq is a land which has been ruled by despots since its creation, it is a nation of untapped potential, if only those key areas of tolerance, pluralism, social justice and stability are developed, then it has a perfect opportunity to free itself from its shackles and soar to its full potential. Nabil Rastani is a third year International Politics student at the University of Surrey, currently on placement at Future Foreign Policy UK.

OPINION | FRONT OF HOUSE TESTING

‘Front of House Testing’: Encouraging or Discouraging? Letting people test their illegal drugs doesn’t encourage drug use, argues Nicole Bonner - it makes it safer.

his summer, the Secret Garden Party was the first UK festival to promote a voluntary drug testing unit on site for festival goers. This idea was founded by a drug informative charity, The Loop, which actively campaigns and promotes the testing of illegal drugs, or what they name as ‘front of house testing’ at clubs and festivals. This ’front of house testing’ gave festival goers an opportunity to test the drugs which they intend to take and make an informed decision on whether they would continue to do so. This drug testing works by individuals submitting drugs on a legal, confidential basis to drug testing specialists to receive full information of what the drug consists of, and whether the drug is what it actually claims to be. In addition to providing the testing, the campaign believes it will provide more information about taking drugs, and make it clear that side effects of taking the drug will not be the same for everyone. A lot of critics are calling such a campaign a dangerous act of encouragement of drug consumption, as it still allows the drugs to be consumed after the testing takes place, effectively legitimising and commercialising the usage of illegal drugs. However, I personally think this is a service which all individuals should have access to, particularly in environments wherein

drug usage is likely to take place and which organisers should actively seek to promote. This is based on the fact that despite high class drugs being outlawed, drugs will inevitably always be consumed in the culture which we live. Just like the debate on prostitution, making it legal will have more safety advantages for all those involved. The promotion of such drug testing is particularly significant in light of the debates within the media this summer regarding drug usage within club culture. In particular, the closure of Fabric, a famous dance club in the east end of London (pictured right), has sparked a huge debate over the reason for its closure. It was allegedly closed due to the recent death of an individual, as a result of purchased and consumed illegal drugs on site. The local council have speculated that the closure is the first step to solving the capital’s drug problem within club culture. Yet, as campaigners against the closure have stated, people will just go elsewhere, and thus push the usage of drugs to more undercover sites where medical first aid would not be available as it had been in Fabric. Overall, I believe this service to be a positive thing, showing how society can respond and adapt to the usage of drugs, which has seen an increase over

“Just like the debate on prostitution, making it legal will have more safety advantages for all those involved. “ the years. It seems that the UK has fallen behind when dealing with drug usage, as this service is currently being used in Austria and other European countries. The only problem is whether people will actually utilise this service, and will not be discouraged by figures of authority. It seems that the provision of the service at the Secret Garden Party proved to be a success, with high numbers of people testing their drugs. Thus, in order to continue to be successful it should seek to remain confidential. Although critics would argue that ‘front of house testing’ is essentially a form of quality control of the illegal drug market, my argument is that since people will experiment with drugs anyway, why not give people an opportunity to make an informed decision with ‘front of house testing’? Nicole Bonner is a second year Politics and Sociology student at the University of Surrey. INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image: Getty

Image: VICE

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OPINION | SPANISH SOCIALISTS

The Socialist Implosion in Spain Spain’s traditional centre-left party is undergoing an existential crisis. Why? Javier Martín Merchán details.

f you, dear reader, go through the article I wrote for Incite last month, and if you are paying attention to what is happening in Spanish politics, you might even think that I wrote about a completely different country. In effect, the third elections in a year were just a matter of time a month ago and now they are about to be avoided. What has caused such a significant change in Spanish politics in just a few weeks? There are many possible different answers to this question, but only one answer which becomes, in turn, an extraordinary issue by itself: the crisis and implosion of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Let me emphasize and call your attention to the extraordinary character of such an event. The crisis the Socialist Party is experiencing is not only a very unusual occurrence in Spanish (party) politics, but also a remarkable one that marks a milestone and will be studied at Spanish schools in some years to come. The poor electoral results achieved by the socialists in the Basque Country and Galicia, along with their results in the last general election, their worst ever, have led the PSOE to what can be

considered as the biggest crisis of its history. On Wednesday 28th September, seventeen members of the Socialist Executive submitted their resignation in order to force the party to hold an extraordinary Congress and chase Pedro Sánchez, their General Secretary, out of the party leadership. After a tense Federal Committee which lasted more than sixteen hours, Pedro Sánchez (pictured right) was forced to resign as General Secretary and a management company led by the socialist Javier Fernández took power as the new entity ruling the party. Astonishingly or not, crisis has been a word directly linked to the history of the oldest Spanish party. The PSOE experienced significant plights within the party before the Spanish Civil War, in 1935, and during the transition period after Franco’s dictatorship, in 1979. If the latter crisis was perceived as a threat because of the type of transition that was flourishing in Spain, the current internal mess may be understood as an evident manifestation of the crisis of the political order born in that transition. Hence, in addition to being two analogous

moments, it could be fathomed that they are the beginning and end, respectively, of the same cycle. In fact, both moments have shared a protagonist: the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González, in his incipient splendour at the beginning, and in his apparent twilight today. It was the loved-by-all-socialist González who somehow started feeding the idea of forcing Mr. Sánchez out as Secretary General in order to prevent him from attempting to do a left-wing deal for a new socialist government with Podemos and regional nationalist parties. The split of an important organisation alongside the breakdown of not only political bonds, but also old friendships, fraternal links and shared hopes, leaves a legacy of bitterness propitious for transforming who once was a good friend into the most hated enemy. These are the dynamics of the socialist implosion since this summer. Then, after sharp arguments motivated by the General Election results, the socialist Federal Committee could only agree to the purely verbal confirmation of the “NO” to the abstention that would allow for INCITE | ISSUE 7

Image: BALLESTEROS / EFE

Rajoy’s investiture. Nevertheless that was not an immovable “no”. Indeed, it was susceptible to modification if the refusal resulted in third elections, which in turn, was foreseeable given the arithmetic impossibility of forming a government if Ciudadanos and Podemos maintained their mutual exclusion. Mr. Sánchez could then have made the seemingly most suitable decision after the Federal Committee: work to form that government and once demonstrated its impossibility, opt for the only alternative if he wanted to avoid the third elections which is abstention. At that point a sensible discourse could have emerged on the possibility of allowing the adversary to govern in a parliamentary democracy while leading a strong opposition that could have driven a reform programme in the Parliament. For the first time the governing party (the Spanish equivalent of the Conservatives, the Popular Party) would have such a limited amount of seats that it could not govern alone, forcing the Popular Party to permanently negotiate its bills. However Mr. Sánchez decided to sit INCITE | ISSUE 7

on his hands waiting for the Conservative candidate, Mr. Rajoy, to come up against the hardest barrier that can be conceived in politics: that no means no. In politics, no is never no, except when the person who is repeating it wants to end up in a dead-end street. Indeed in politics, the most intelligent no is the one that can be used to start a negotiation. Yet, Mr. Sánchez either acted in an unwise way or did directly not want to negotiate anything. He sank into a profound silence and never negotiated his position. Spain was thus preparing for the worst of the

“Some socialist members have finally listened to reason and have decided to think about Spain and its national interest, rather than about personal, partisan and shortterm concerns.”

alternatives, the third elections in a year, and the Socialist Party could not blame anyone else for such an achievement. Here it is where, heading towards this fateful ending, a number of the members of the socialist Executive decided to resign in order to cause their own Secretary General’s resignation. In other words, it seems that some socialist members have finally listened to reason and have decided to think about Spain and its national interest rather than about personal, partisan and shortterm concerns. The socialist crisis has paradoxically emerged thanks to those Spanish socialists that still believe in real socialism and are concerned about Spain itself, thanks to those who strive to put the best of socialism at the service of the nation. These socialists have simultaneously understood that doing the best for socialism does not mean becoming isolated and being willing to govern only when they can do it alone. In such a complex situation, these members of the PSOE have understood that a deal with Ciudadanos (and, eventually, a deal —not necessary support— with

OPINION | SPANISH SOCIALISTS the Popular Party) was necessary to remove Spain from its political stalemate. Mr. Sánchez, in contrast, who has been accused of being “an unscrupulous fool who has not hesitated to destroy the party”, always refused to do so, even though he seemed not to have any different strategy. So far, it is true that a coalition between the Conservatives and Socialists was not needed in Spanish politics in that there already existed a post-constitutional pact among the various political forces resulting from the transition. However, this pact seems to have been broken due to completely new forces and issues that challenge the current regime, namely Podemos and a Catalonian desire of independence. This new era in Spanish politics needed a new response based on a new agreement between the new political forces playing a role in politics. However, Mr. Sánchez has not been able to notice the new political era of Spanish politics that has arisen and, therefore, has given an old response which has costed him his position. In this way, the PSOE embodies a number of crises that undoubtedly influence its future as political party. It embodies the crisis of social democracy: how to fill current democracies with social and egalitarian content in the context of globalization. Would this approach be better achieved searching for deals with the centre-right (CiudadanosPP) or with the radical left (Podemos)? The PSOE embodies a relevant crisis due to the current circumstances: the rise of Podemos, a party belonging to the left-wing spectrum which supposes a discursive sorpasso. The party embodies a crisis of identity: it is clear neither what the PSOE is today nor which principles it stands for. Is it a transforming party with the will of changing the country? Is it a left-wing party attempting to maintain the

“[The PSOE] embodies the crisis of social democracy: how to fill current democracies with social and egalitarian content in the context of globalization.” 32

Current manager of the PSOE, Javier Fernandez. // Image: José Luis Cereijido

The results of the 2016 general election in Spain, the immediate cause of the political deadlock. Image: BBC

current monarchical and constitutional regime in Spain? The significant political and social polarization within the aforementioned left-wing spectrum complicates this issue even more. Finally, the PSOE embodies a crisis of representation, leadership, strategy, internal democracy, and survival as mediator party in the current regime. Socialist support has sharply dropped since 2011, when the party lost 4.3 million of votes. In 2015 and 2016, it lost 2.5 more millions of votes. The incredible split within the Socialist Party might be the prelude of a descent towards absolute alienation and insignificance. The Spanish Socialist Party, as we knew it until today, seems to have died. It will now decide whether it wants to relaunch a Socialist Party that occupies the centre-left area which it has traditionally occupied or set a completely new political scenario up in a country where transversal political forces

seem to have no future. In any case power does not accept vacuums in politics, and what a political force cannot cover will be covered by another one. With the PSOE destroying itself, we will see whether it is a new PSOE or a completely different political force that occupies the space the already extinct, old PSOE has left. Javier Martín Merchán studies International Relations at Universidad Pontificia Comillas. He studied Politics at the University of Surrey in the 2015/16 academic year.

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OPINION | JAPANESE MILITARY

Image: Bloomberg

Should Japan Allow Its Military To Fight In Foreign Wars? Alex Lever examines the cases for and against Japan’s military having more offensive capabilities.

he Japanese military was dominant in Asia from the 1920s to the 1940s until post-World War Two. An important part of the American occupation of Japan (1945-1952) was that the Japanese constitution was amended with Article 9 in 1946. Article 9 renounces war and prohibits Japan from maintaining a military for warfare. However, Japan has been allowed to technically maintain a military for self-defence purposes, the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (SDF) (pictured above). This leads us to today. The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe is pushing for a constitutional amendment to Article 9 to expand the role of the SDF. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) proposed a constitutional redraft in February 2016

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that “specifies that Japan possesses the right to self-defense and stipulates that an organization will be set up for selfdefense,” which would amend the current provision: “Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” This shows that Abe may have plans of expanding the role of the SDF into a legitimate military force with the ability to fight abroad. In July 2016, following the LDP victory in the upper house in Japan’s bicameral parliament with 56 of 121 seats, an exit poll conducted by Asahi showed that 49% of voters supported constitutional revision whereas 44% opposed. This raises the question, should Japan allow its military to fight in foreign wars? On the one hand, Japan should have

a military capable of fighting abroad. Prior to the 1946 constitutional change Japan had a strong military, the Japanese Imperial Army, which had been capable of: expanding Japanese regional power with a war in China, challenging British colonialism in Singapore, maintaining a presence in Korea and fighting the Allies

“In July 2016, an exit poll conducted by Asahi showed that 49% of voters supported constitutional revision whereas 44% opposed.” 33

OPINION | JAPANESE MILITARY

Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe (centre-right) aboard a destroyer during a Maritime SDF fleet review last year. // Image: KYODO

in Burma, and the USA in the Pacific Theatre. What could a modern Japanese military do? It could provide a check on an increasingly territorial China which would be important, especially following the Senkaku Islands debate. In addition, if violence ever broke out in Korea then Japan could assist South Korea and the USA. Japan could shoot down ballistic missiles from North Korea, protecting other Asian countries and US naval vessels. The Japanese military could also participate in international exercises involving troops and domestic activities like minesweeping. From a defensive realist view, Japan could strengthen its own power because it would have a military to defend itself whilst checking other South Asian nations. Another realist interpretation is that if China are arguably the hegemon in Asia, a balance of power would be provided by a strengthened Japan and its allies. In addition, a wider role for the Japanese military would allow for US

“Why should Japan abandon the arrangement that has meant it does not participate in wars? Particularly if they are wars fought based on American interests.” 34

forces to manage other Asian hotspots and decrease the Japanese dependence on the US Navy. This means that the US could have a stronger ally in South Asia. The Pentagon budget would be less strained as its efforts in helping protect Japan would decrease and American taxpayers may be appeased as a result. On the other hand, why should Japan abandon the arrangement that has meant it does not participate in wars? This is particularly important if they are wars fought based on American interests. The current constitutional arrangement has meant Japan has not actively participated in a war for over 70 years. Within this period, Japan has been able to experience an increase in economic prosperity. According to Peter Frost, Japan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 9.2% between 1956 and 1973, and, even after the world recession caused by the rise in oil prices in the 1970s, still grew by an average 4.1% up through 1989. This illustrates the economic benefits of no warfare. The social benefits were that Japan became more prosperous: incomes increased, the gap between rich and poor reduced, crime decreased, literacy increased and divorce rates lowered. Since then Japan has experienced economic stagnation and currently Shinzo Abe has implemented economic measures to combat this. Nevertheless, the benefits of having a low defense expenditure and not financing a military that could fight

abroad can be seen. Thus, from a liberal perspective, Japan’s focus on cooperation with the US and other nations has led to stability which enabled Japan to strengthen its economy prior to the 1990s. In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to allow the SDF to be reformed into a Japanese military through constitutional change in order to adapt for possible changes in the security environment in Southeast Asia. Japan could still maintain its peace and stability by not engaging actively in foreign conflicts but would have a military to call upon if the homeland was ever threatened. A possible consequence is what realists call the security dilemma, but that has arguably already occurred in Southeast Asia because of the growth in the Chinese military and the nuclear capabilities of North Korea. Another consequence is that those in Japan against the constitutional reform could reach a compromise with Japanese nationalists if the SDF were expanded but adopted a self-defensive policy. However, security through a Japanese military with the capability of fighting abroad could arguably maintain peace and act as a contingency plan for Japan if war ever occurred in Southeast Asia. Alex Lever is a second year International Politics student at the University of Surrey, and the Politics Society’s Social Secretary. INCITE | ISSUE 7

OPINION | LITHUANIAN ELECTIONS

Lithuanian Elections 2016: Who Is Corrupt And Who Is Innocent? Ahead of parliamentary elections, Joanna Slavinskaitė sheds light on the sheer scale of corruption in Lithuanian politics.

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Image: DELFI/ M. Ažušilio

here is less than one month left until Lithuanian citizens vote for, in their opinion, the best candidates to represent them in the Lithuanian Parliament. Although this time should be peaceful and promising, as Members of Parliament (MPs) are trying to assist as many citizens as possible in order to win their sympathy votes, it seems that this month the election has turned into political-scandals-andcorruption-bombs glory time! From 19 political parties that are candidates, at least 3 are involved or have been involved in corruption scandals in the last five years. The biggest irony can be found in the fact that after 2014, the European Commission found that Lithuania is the most corrupt country in the whole of Europe (29% of people questioned were asked to ‘donate’ a bribe at least once per year). Parliament introduced stricter corruption legislation which allowed state-owned enterprises to monitor every citizen‘s income (including debts, loans and gifts) and their amount of money spent per month, but seemingly neglected to abide by this law themselves. Today all Lithuanian citizens, especially public officials, have to declare gifts received from relatives, friends or employers if they combine to make a total of €2,500 per annum. According to MPs, this is the best way to fight “shadow” or “corruption” money. However as mentioned before: they are not fighting corruption amongst themselves. A recent criminal case involving the Liberal

political party member, Eligijus Masiulis, revealed a bribe reaching over €160k which disregards all the anti-corruption and tax declaration norms. Even though this MP attempted to evade charges by saying that money was only a gift from a friend, he did not declare this “gift” and therefore broke the law. As if this is not enough of a scandal, most MPs utilised this corruption case to mock other political parties and their members. Politicians have decided to manipulate voters by declaring that they would never accept a bribe and that they are instead doing something good for their constituencies. MPs have also identified new legislation targeted at corruption, in order to satisfy the expectations of external bodies. All in all, there is no way to stop politicians from saying what they want

and criticising who they want. It can only be hoped that the remaining time before the election will go calmly and peacefully, although we know from looking at other countries previous experiences that MPs will attempt anything in order to be elected/re-elected to Parliament. There is only one hope, in the hands of voters, that corrupted politicians will never come back to Parliament to guide the country. Joanna Slavinskaitė is a third year International Politics student at the University of Surrey. (Editor’s note: This piece was written before the Lithuanian parliamentary elections of 9th October 2016 were held, despite being published after.)