Finding the line

“It is our joint responsibility to challenge traditions that say young girls can be married off as child brides. I don’t blame my parents; I blame the culture they are tied to.” Individuals from cultures whose practices are deemed unethical, and who despite this stand in opposition to these practices, seem to come to a similar conclusion as Mr Reid. They do not believe these harmful practices to be a part of their culture; generationally, they accept that this is part of the culture of their ancestors but they themselves do not feel the need to carry them forward in order to retain their cultural identity. They still feel very much to be a part of the culture at large, just an evolved form of the culture which does not require infringing Human Rights to remain upheld. “It is our joint responsibility to challenge traditions that say young girls can be married off as child brides” says South- Sudanese singer, activist and child marriage survivor, Mercy Akuot. “I don’t blame my parents; I blame the culture they are tied to.” She stands in opposition to the parts of her culture which subjugate, abuse and victimise women. She acknowledges that it is the socialisation, or indoctrination, into these practices which has pushed her parents into abusing her Human Rights. Without such socialisation, through the evolution of her culture and the extraction of these harmful practices, those infringements would not have taken place.

Similarly, Waris Dirie quotes in her book titled Desert Flower: “Because I criticize the practice of FGM some people think I don’t appreciate my culture. But they are so wrong. I thank God every day that I am from Africa, and I am very proud to be Somali.” Victims of these practices themselves explain the distinction between embedded elements of the culture which warrant retention and the inhumane and futile traditions which hinder the development of societies and generations. “The time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind.”

Cultures across the globe are radically different and must be accommodated for in the deliberation of international law. This is unquestionable. We have come to the conclusion, however, that they are not defined by certain problematic practices embedded within them and can undoubtedly evolve to uphold the rights of their people, whilst retaining their fundamental and defining beliefs and traditions.

a humanitarian crisis in china

Annabel Greenbury Lower Sixth, Gloucester

ALTHOUGH CHINA OFTEN DOMINATES THE WORLD NEWS BY GOING HEAD-TOHEAD WITH THE US OR UK, WHAT HAS BEEN PUT ON THE BACKBENCH IN MANY MEDIA OUTLETS AND HAS NOT RECEIVED THE SAME ATTENTION, IS ITS INTERNAL HUMANITARIAN CRISIS – THE MUSLIM

PRISON CAMPS.

WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CAMPS?

China has reportedly secretly built hundreds of highsecurity prison camps to hold Muslim minorities, in the Xinjiang region. China has refuted the claim that they are prison camps, instead they are supposedly ‘reeducation camps’, and the Chinese government has described the camps as ‘training centres’ to help deter extremists; they have insisted there are no human rights abuses.

The camps have been identified by survivor accounts, project tracking internment centres, and satellite images. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was able to obtain satellite images in September 2020, showing almost 400 camps in the Xinjiang region, and some of their specific coordinates. The images showed huge compounds surrounded by guard posts and layers of barbed wire on either side of a high wall. As well as this, an investigation found that an estimated 260 camps have been built since 2019, with at least one in almost every county of Xinjiang.

The governor of Xinjiang, Shohrat Zakir, in October 2018, delivered a ‘justification’ for the camps; he described the inmates as ‘students’ in Xinjiang’s ‘vocational education training program’. According to Zakir, camp inmates live in air-conditioned dorms under ‘humane’ conditions, where they acquired job skills to become tailors, e-commerce traders, hairdressers and more. However, China has not allowed journalists, human rights groups or diplomats to access the camps. Most information about the camps, and a wider government campaign against Muslim minorities in the region, has come from survivors and satellite images. Former prisoners who have been able to escape and have taken refuge abroad are now telling their stories of their experiences inside, that the camps are being used to curb the country’s Muslim population. It is the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II – there is suggestion that China is carrying out a policy of cultural and ethnic genocide against the Uighurs.

Many Muslims have been confined and detained for activities such as, abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes; having too many children; refusing to let officials take a DNA sample; or giving deceased relatives a traditional Muslim burial instead of cremation. The UN has stated that more than one million ethnic Uighurs have been detained and are being held in these camps, since 2017. Amnesty International found Muslims were being starved, beaten, electrocuted, and shackled to chairs for hours on end. There have been reports from more than 50 former detainees that have exposed the cruelty of the camps towards Muslim minorities. Descriptions of being held in horrendous, brutal conditions with many blindfolded and handcuffed, have been shared by former detainees and there are examples of the types of torture and abuse that the Muslims in the camps have been subjected to – two former detainees have said they were forced to wear heavy shackles, one for an entire year. Others told stories of being shocked with electric batons or pepper sprayed, and many had to sleep two to a bed or take turns sleeping in shifts because of the over-crowding.

The detainees are forced to remain silent for hours and are then indoctrinated with forced brainwashing sessions about the Communist Party and are bullied into rejecting Islam and their own languages, being forced to speak only Chinese. These practices of restricting religious and cultural beliefs and forced sterilisation of women have amounted to cultural genocide.

There has been footage showing large groups of detainees kneeling in rows and being surrounded by guards as they wait to be loaded onto a train going to these camps, wearing blindfolds, with their hands bound and their heads shaven. However, China responded, stating that it showed officials carrying out ‘normal’ tasks. Drone footage that emerged in one of the camps, that China defended as ‘normal’ practice.

WOMEN

Muslim women in these camps are being subjected to rape, sterilisation and forced abortion and former prisoners have described how younger women were taken from their cells by guards in the night. There are other accounts of women being forced to smear ground chilli peppers onto their genitals before showering or being forced to implant intrauterine devices – devices inserted into the uterus to stop pregnancy.

This sexual violence being used against female Muslims has become a weapon for China against its Muslim population; they are essentially sterilising women to stop them from reproducing – limiting and reducing the Muslim population, provoking the question of whether this is a genocide. Whether or not this question can be fully answered, it is still clear to see the truly abusive and despicable practices that are being

used in these camps against Muslims, highlighting dangerous similarities between these camps and the concentration camps of World War II.

One survivor – Ruqiye Perhat – spent four years in prison after the 2009 Urumqi riots, triggering her arrest in Xinjiang. She said that any woman aged under 35 in the camp was raped and sexually abused. She, herself, was forced to abort her baby without any anaesthetic, and was repeatedly raped by the camp guards, resulting in two pregnancies, which were both aborted while she was in prison. Critics had made parallels between what is occurring to Muslim women in these camps, with the dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.

HOW HAVE FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS REACTED?

CHILDREN

China has also been accused of keeping thousands of Muslim children away from their Muslim parents and attempting to indoctrinate them in camps, posing as schools or orphanages. From the UK, Dominic Raab has stated that “whatever the legal label, it is clear that gross, egregious human rights abuses are going on. It is deeply, deeply troubling and the reports on the human aspect of this – from forced sterilisation to the education camps – are reminiscent of something we have not seen for a very long time. We want a positive relationship with China, but we can’t see behaviour like that and not call it out.”

In 2016, US Congress passed the Global Magnit Sky Human Rights and Accountability Act, which allows the US government to sanction foreign government officials involved in human rights abuses.

This Act enabled the US to join with the UK, Canada, and the EU in March 2021, to announce sanctions against a number of Chinese officials for ‘serious human 16 rights abuses’ against Uighur Muslims, the officials were named as Wang Junzheng, and Chen Mingguo. The sanctions came just after the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken and the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan had a tense meeting with senior Chinese officials. Blinken condemned China saying it “continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang” and that the US would stand with their allies to call for an end to China’s crimes and justice for the victims, he also warned that the US will step up against China on issues if necessary.

President Joe Biden, who has spoken to the Chinese President Xi Jinping in February 2021, promised he would join with allies to mount a harsher pushback; the US has condemned China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Will world leaders decide to step in once and for all to end these abhorrent practices, and violations of human rights?

Reflections on the growth of nationalism in 21st century politics

Ollie Smith - Lower Sixth, North

My own experiences growing up in a period of transition – between Brexit Britain and post-Brexit Britain have certainly shaped how I view national identity, racism, political divisions and such like. However, the bubbling undercurrent within British politics that Dominic Cummings, leader of the Leave campaign, tried to tap into in 2016, is sometimes seen as a modern phenomenon.

Nationalism, in its very definition can trace its origins to the very dawn of nations in themselves. It is hard to conceptualise that our tribal affiliations with our countries did have a genesis as it were. There was a point of conception – albeit a complex one, but a point, nonetheless. The Mappa Mundi, one of the earliest pieces of evidence we have of a map that divides us through boundaries, is unrecognisable to us as a modern map as it rather shows a spiritual journey. Jerusalem lies at the centre; religious iconography adorning the sides, and mythical beings, races, kings, and tales of magical empires also subtracting from any geographical value. Therefore, national communities in the medieval period, were not at all based on geographical means, but religious ones.

Benedict Anderson’s defining book, Imagined Communites, is by far the most complete work on nationalism. He asserts that before the modern period of European

History – for this example, I will take a Eurocentric view – communities in a national sense were abstract based on the idea that what united people was a mutual recognition through religion or vernacular language. Latin, for example, the state language of the great dynasties of the 1200s, was seen as a sacred language and the key to understanding religious texts and achieving salvation. As a result, an imagined community was born out of the mutual recognition that there was an elitism within language and thus a defined community who guarded it. States in themselves were not nations, although those defining political theorists such as Rosseau and Hobbes talk about the state as if it were an entity in itself. Instead, the real defining communities were religious and linguistic; just as the Mappa Mundi displays how national identity was not even in the religious psyche. The complex process of nationalisation and the resultant partisan divides that we see today, only really gained significant traction with the emergence of print capitalism in the 1600s, as Benedict Anderson explores in great detail. Though this is not the point of this investigation, the condensed chronology is that the reformation and the popularisation of vernacular religious texts, rather than state Latin versions, meant that religious communities broke down in the ancient form, and were gradually replaced by more imagined communities that could be united by ideas, rather than by language itself. The relevance of this to a Brexit Britain, and an ugly 21st century political sphere, is that we are seeing an anger in the uniting of nations, rather than a unity – either through ideas, language, religion, or borders.

George Orwell, a man who wrote about his nation better than anyone, typically deconstructed how nationalism is a disease of the mind, in his book Notes on Nationalism. What is salient, is how at the time of writing – the 1940s – nationalism was seen as the attempt to prop up ideas or nations in blatant disregard of the atrocities they have caused. He titles this obsession. Neo-tories, for example, may have defended imperial exploits in Africa and India for fear of Britain’s influence dwindling after World War II, however, they will condemn the very same principle for the nations of Japan that simply seek to place themselves onto the military world stage.

After emerging from a period of isolationism with the ancient Shogunate, the Meiji Oligarchy reformed Japanese foreign policy, and is a key example of how this form of nationalism is transferrable from nation to nation. It is not a primarily British institution, but as Orwell would argue, the same seed of nationalism is sowed in the minds of all.

Just by highlighting the breadth of nationalism and how it originated, we can understand that the product of Brexit Britain, events such as the murder of Jo Cox by a member of Britain First, are not just instances of nationalism gone rogue, but instead a trend being followed that was catalysed by the growth of nations as individuals. Through this, it is important to understand that an investigation into the actual origins of nationalism is far too complex, but at least the principles that I have highlighted go some way to rebuke the growing idea that nationalism is a modern concept and is simply a ‘them vs us’ rhetoric. In fact, history is the key to understanding its growth.

Response to Sarah Everard, s murder Shria Crossan – Lower Sixth, Haslewood

The tragic case of Sarah Everard was something that truly shocked so many of us. Sarah was making her way home from her friend’s house when she went missing on 3 March 2021. She disappeared in the evening whilst walking through Clapham Common – a place commonly used by families and dog walkers - and was later found dead in Kent. What was most concerning about this case was that her murderer, Wayne Couzen, was a Metropolitan Police officer who also pleaded guilty to raping her before her death. These are the sorts of men that vulnerable women are expected to place their trust in, and yet so many people still see no problem?

Sarah was described by her family as, ‘kind and thoughtful, caring and dependable’ and were understandably distraught by what had happened. However, Sarah’s family were not the only people deeply affected by the incident. Women across the UK felt a huge level of unease and fear in the aftermath as many felt the people responsible for keeping them safe could no longer be trusted. Simple things like walking alone at night or taking public transport which are normalities for men are a huge cause of concern for women. Large crowds gathered – predominantly women – in the following days to show support for Sarah’s family and protests took place to show that this was not just ‘women being dramatic’ but the cold hard reality of what life is like for women. After the incident took place, it immediately dominated social media, which highlighted a survey from UN Women stating that 97% of women aged 18-24 across the UK have faced some kind of sexual harassment in their lifetime and only 4% reported the incident. What was most disappointing about the statistic was the general response from men. Despite so many men being supportive and spreading awareness there was an overwhelming number who immediately claimed that it was ‘not all men’ completely choosing to ignore the real focus of the movement. Although it is most definitely not all men who behave in such a way, the fact of the matter is that it is almost all women who have been a victim of such behaviour and that is where the problem lies.

The immediate reaction to be defensive instead of seeking to solve the problem highlights how overlooked this issue is and the focus is once again put on men instead of trying to better the circumstances for women. To exacerbate matters an online trend started circulating on platforms like Tik Tok, claiming 24 April 2021 to be ‘National Rape Day’ and that rape should be legalised on that particular day, highlighting the little remorse these sorts of men have and that this issue is still not being taken seriously, explaining why so many women don’t feel comfortable coming forward. Alongside this, Boris Johnson trivialised rape convictions referring to them as ‘jabber’. If this is the mindset of our own Prime Minister what hope do we have in tackling the systemic misogyny that is so deep rooted in our society.

Should the death penalty be fully abolished in the US? Oli Latham and Izzy Kuhle – Lower Sixth, East and South

SHOULDN’T BE ABOLISHED.

Capital punishment for many years has engaged considerable debate about whether it should be used, and its morality. People who argue that the death penalty should be used today argue this case under three headings, those being: moral, utilitarian and practical. Despite arguments which state that the death penalty is wrong based on reasoning such as using it means that we are no better than the murderers themselves, people who argue moral debates would state that murderers have forfeited their own life and that the death penalty is a just way of retribution. Lastly, the death penalty can act as a deterrent to other people which therefore could reduce crime – this is surely a just reason in itself to not abolish the death penalty.

Furthermore, people who argue in favour of the death penalty could use the fact that only very few people are actually executed, and only for the worst crimes such as murder and rape. The process takes years and years, and so if finally convicted and given the sentence, these people are deserving of a punishment as cruel as their crime. Some people would believe that they are not entitled to the chance of retribution, they deserve a punishment equal to the act they committed. I would argue the point that, whilst the death penalty may seem wrong and pointless, how can anyone argue to save the life of a murderer.

Surely that argument in itself is flawed and wrong? These people who commit such abhorrent crimes are surely deserving of such a punishment as the death penalty? It is just and equal to their crimes. I would lastly add that whilst it is just to argue that the death penalty should not be abolished in countries such as America for offences like murder and rape, countries such as Iran, Singapore and Malaysia impose a mandatory death sentence for crimes of possessing relatively small amounts of illegal drugs. For these offences, the death sentence does not follow the idea of ‘an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’, as their crimes did not involve murder, and this means it is not so just. Singapore as a country has the highest execution rate of any country per capita and three quarters of these executions were due to drug offences. In this case, it could be argued that the death penalty is inequitable; however as a whole I feel there is no real argument to defend convicted murderers and rapists from the same treatment that their victims would have faced; that being death, therefore the death penalty should not be abolished in the US as it is a just and equal punishment that fits the crime that has been committed.

SHOULD BE ABOLISHED.

Only 54 countries still actively use the death

penalty. While most modern western cultures have rejected the death penalty as an abhorrent and primal method of punishment, 28 out of 50 states in America still use it. Many people who support the death penalty are of the contention that those who commit murder should in turn be killed to serve justice. However, this is not how justice works in practicality; the crime someone commits is not done to them but rather, they receive a sentence in return for their crime. Therefore, to argue that murderers deserve the death penalty because it is serving justice, doesn’t align with the system of justice that is utilised in the US.

Others might argue that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to stop people committing crime. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the death penalty is any more effective at reducing crime rates than long prison sentences, in fact it can be argued that life in prison is more of a punishment that the death penalty as it requires the criminal to reflect on their crime for the rest of their life. The US does suffer from a high rate of re-incarceration as the average re-conviction rate is 43%. However, while some may see this as an argument in support of the death penalty, that is unrealistic and clearly not the real issue. The problem stems from the prison system itself and the evident lack of rehabilitation that occurs in prisons. If anything, for some who commit minor crimes, rather than receiving the necessary rehabilitation they often end up in a worse position than before they committed their crime. Therefore, to try and fix this problem it makes sense to completely re-envisage the way that prisons are run which would include abolishing the death penalty which clearly does not deter people from recommitting further crimes.

Norway represents a perfect example of what prison has the capability to be like. The prisoners are properly reformed, and the reincarceration rate is one of the lowest in the world at only 20%. Therefore, rather than keeping the crude and outdated death penalty which is in line with the US’s outdated and failing prison system, it is time for reform on a national scale which should include abolishing the death penalty.