Day: 10 February 2013

There are few things as likely to bore the average student to death as a good and thorough chat about politics. In the months running up to the general election, the Guardian walked up and down Oxford road interviewing people about their feelings on the upcoming election. The average student response fell roughly into three brackets. The first was ‘What’s an election?’; the second one was ‘I hate Tories’, while the others thought the Guardian were trying to sell them the Socialist Worker, and moved swiftly on.

In such an environment, it’s utterly unsurprising that the subsequent election proved to be of little interest to students, who were often far too busy trying to clear Liberal Democrat leaflets off their doorstep to get to the polling stations. Nevertheless, thousands of students did turn out in the counter-intuitive hope that voting would somehow stop the barrage. And when the Students Union was packed full on election night, one might be excused for thinking that the tide had turned.

But alas, the yells of joyous yellow jubilation soon abated as soon as people realised that the Lib Dems, oh horror, were politicians too. The ‘Community Champions’ of election night had turned into blue-tinged terror spawns, proffering tuition fees and taxes on booze and fags. The hopes of thousands were dashed within twelve months, and the party previously cheered to the rafters now permanently plunged in the polls, not to rise back since.

Whom then would students turn to for political inspiration? The Labour party briefly reared its head in the media, but it was just some nerdy guy strutting around in front of the camera while having his hand shaken by overweight union bosses. The sun was shining, essays and lab reports were due, no-one cared, the world moved on. A couple of Lib Dems jumped off the fence and joined Ed’s army, however there was no genuine enthusiasm there.

So hang on, what’s the point here? It’s true; the concept of political apathy is nothing new. Neither is the limited nature of a student mindset, which emphasises (oddly enough) having a good time as being more important than knowing what Caroline Flint thinks about an integrated transport policy. But what in fact does more than anything else to deter people from a more active interest is the polished and squeaky clean characters that Westminster creates for itself.

Take David Cameron, take Nick Clegg, take any of the party leaders you don’t particularly like. Do you like them because of the person they are? Do you think they’re someone you’d go out of your way to kick if you met them on the street and they were just a normal person? Most people will say – probably not. Most successful politicians of the modern era are bland, in reasonably good shape, and avoid saying things that might get them trouble. The media spotlight, even if it doesn’t reflect popular interest, has effectively neutered any personality they might have ever had.

The reason why the Labour party decided to choose the two least interesting people in the world to contest their leadership positions is not down to some error in parenting by Mr and Mrs Miliband, but down to a perverse natural selection which promotes the inoffensive centre-ground and weeds out the Dennis Skinners and Ken Clarkes of our generation. The technology age (which somehow does not yet extend to America) means that the result of a British party leader ‘pulling a Romney’ would be disastrous for his party. No wonder we’re bored.

There are obviously benefits to this situation. Having an established centre ground is great, it means you can tackle the big issues in real detail and come up with the best policies without random nutters pushing for crazy things like scrapping the welfare state or executing bankers. It also makes things great for minorities because parties will eventually get around to actually wanting to appeal to the maximum number of voters in order to distinguish themselves. This means being nice to as many people as possible, which is probably a good maxim for government to live by.

On the flipside, it does sort of mean that everyone eventually comes round to trying to say the same stuff in a slightly different way. And it means you get lots of shiny faces on TV screens. It means more David Cameron, more Nick Clegg and more Ed Miliband. It means that politicians follow their voters rather than trying to lead them. And most importantly, it means that there is very little motivation to get involved in politics. When you can’t really change anything, why would you want to be in a position of power? Media constraints on the executive are good and well, but this generation hasn’t really had its own ‘great debate’ yet, and we’re a little bit bored. Why care about Cameron, when we could spend a Saturday night watching the X-factor and giving a toast to inequality?

The Nobel Prize for Peace is an award of the highest prestige, counting among its laureate Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi. For the 2013 award, after her nomination by the Norwegian government for her efforts to promote girls education, Malala Yousafzai, at only fifteen years old, stands to be by far its youngest ever winner. In the UK, we are perhaps more accustomed to hearing fifteen year old’s complaining about school, or possibly hoping it has been cancelled due to the snow. This fifteen year old girl has been nominated for her attempts to improve access to education – this certainly belittles anything I was doing at fifteen!

Malala Yousafzai is a girl who wanted to become a doctor but, at the age of eleven, was denied an education. Writing in an anonymous blog for the BBC in 2009, she reveals how the Taliban issued a decree stating that there will be no more education for girls. Her articulate and down to earth style of writing gave a real insight into the difficulty she faced growing up in her region, and she gained global recognition for speaking out against her oppressors. At just eleven years old, Malala was becoming a global symbol for the fight for universal education. In a 2009 documentary for the New York Times, Malala’s heartfelt words about the desperate situation in her region of Swat, Northern Pakistan, effectively brought to the public’s attention with how much we take for granted in the West, and how difficult life can be for those elsewhere. In one instance, we are told how a teacher at her school failed to show up. Malala’s father revealed that this is because the Taliban had left the beheaded corpse of someone who spoke out against them on show on one of the roads leading to the school. For this region of Pakistan, these fear-mongering tactics, which we may associate with times long gone in our part of the world, appear to be commonplace. The indifference the leaders of the Taliban have with regard to taking life, along with the humiliating public beatings its members give out for acts you would deem as meaningless and undeserving of punishment (such as being out of the house without your husband) is truly shocking. One struggles to comprehend exactly how a situation of such severity has come about.

What is very clear, however, is the determined belief Malala has in her own sense of purpose, how she remains so dignified in the face of events the emotional effects of which we cannot even begin to imagine, while all the time speaking of her right to education in terms which only few can disagree with. But what is perhaps most endearing about her is her unfaltering optimism that she will get her education. Despite the fact she frequently hears on the Taliban’s daily radio message that girls will not be allowed to go to school, she then turns to the camera saying how she has changed her wish to become a doctor, as she now wants to become a politician, because of the challenges the Pakistani society faces. Upon winning the 2011 National Youth Peace Prize in Pakistan she called upon politicians to recognise the unhappiness there is for girls who, like her dream of having more of a life than being confined to the home. Her willingness to speak out for her rights make it easy to understand why comparisons to the likes of Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto have been made.

Unfortunately, the similarities to Gandhi and Bhutto do not end there as Malala was, at the age of fifteen, the target of an assassination attempt. It goes without saying that her beliefs run contrary to those of the Taliban, and, perhaps seeing her as a threat to their way of life, a member of the Taliban boarded her school bus and shot her in the head. It was a miracle that Malala survived. The huge outpouring of support for her in Pakistan marked what many hope will be remembered as the major turning point in the fight against the Taliban, as the moment they could no longer conceivably claim to be working for Islam, and the start of their decline from power.

It is therefore difficult to think of an individual more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Malala; she stands ready to lead not only her nation but the entire global community towards a world where all children have access to education. She fights for a world free from religious extremists who, afraid of losing their grip on power resort to public executions, humiliating tortures, and terrorist attacks. The strength of public opinion is such that history has and always will be on the side of those who seek progress, strive for fairness, and refuse to bow down to oppression. In attempting to assassinate Malala, the Taliban have made it clearer than ever before to which side of history they belong; Malala, on the other hand, will continue to be recognised long after their inevitable demise.

A balancing act has been going on throughout the Coalition’s time in power. How best to appeasing the general public’s marked hostility towards immigration, without losing the benefits immigration brings to the UK? The government’s current strategy has gotten this balancing act badly wrong, by including international students in immigration figures. These numbers are easy to legislate to reduce, and so are an easy way to make it look as though net immigration is going down. But this gets rid of the exact kind of immigrants (soon to be well educated, and with money to spend) that the country desperately needs to help us out of economic turmoil.  Now, the chairmen of five parliamentary committees have written to David Cameron urging him to reconsider his current policy.

This is yet another example of how this country’s immigration policy continues to inflict damage upon itself to such a degree as to border on self-mutilation. The government’s current policy is designed to stop ‘them there foreigners’ coming over here, enriching our culture and fuelling our economy. By including overseas students in their net migration goals (which the coalition pledges to reduce) the government is placing an unnecessary restriction on the number of foreign students that can come to the UK.

Education remains one of Britain’s leading industries, with a glowing international reputation, a source of numerous jobs across all sections of society and a generator of both the vital skills needed to run an industrialised country and strong international economic ties. These restrictions, coupled with the current economic climate, ultimately serves to deter potential students from coming to the UK. This has an overall negative effect on the British economy and university system. The effects of this deterrence are plainly evident. Over the past year, the numbers of overseas students coming to the UK has sharply declined.

The home office has defended the current rules, as part of an attempt to stamp out ‘bogus students’ and prevent abuse of the immigration system. But this is just the same story that we have been told a thousand times before. Amongst the huddled and destitute masses fleeing persecution and violence, there may be a few that just want to come along for the easy jobs. Among the thousands of hard working men and women who leave their families and friends behind in order to travel half way across the world to work an awful job, for awful pay, with awful hours, there are a few who just want to leech of our bountiful and generous welfare state. Among the thousands of foreign nationals coming to study in our world class universities, there could be a few that are sneaking in uninvited.

The Government’s current policy is effectively saying that we need to guard against these pretend students, by whatever means necessary. We of course don’t want to alienate the legitimate migrants, oh no. But if a few refugees are sent back to warzones or a few boatloads of migrants sink in the ocean, then that is just the price that we have to pay.

The fear of a few potential free riders in the system drives our governments to enact increasingly restrictive and damaging measures. More often than not, all that these restrictions do is increase the number of people who can be classed as illegal, thus driving up the demand for further restrictions. As more channels of entry come under scrutiny, it drives illegal migrants to use other means of entry. This leads to more widespread surveillance and restriction in these areas. This is of course to say nothing of the phenomenal cost of maintaining such scrutiny.

Why should we, as students, care about this relatively tiny aspect of a much larger problem? Well there are a number of reasons I can think of off the top of my head. Firstly, diversity on campus. Part of the reason we go to university is to have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Secondly, you might want to consider the role that international students play in funding our universities, especially when you consider the negative effects the cuts have made to native enrolment rates. Such funds are sorely needed in these trying times. For example, just imagine what university life would be like without such vital public goods as the Learning Commons (But seriously, jokes aside, our universities could not survive without this money.)

And finally, there are economic factors to consider. As mentioned, the universities play a significant role in the national economy, and a healthy rate of student migration is vital for maintaining the international ties that help to fuel innovation and the integration of the global economy in such a manner as benefits us all. David Cameron got it wrong, let’s all hope he listens.

Ukraine is a country that doesn’t crop up too often in our daily conversations or in the British media. Hence, its political affairs aren’t widely known in the UK. Therefore, the man I have selected as my political hero may be a little less familiar than some of the previous entries in this column. This is someone who would go on to become President of Ukraine, introducing pro-western democracy to a nation that had not had a happy history – Viktor Yushchenko.

Born in 1954 to school-teacher parents, he was brought up in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (the official name of Ukraine when it was a part of the Soviet Union). After graduating from university with a finance degree, he gained employment in the banking sector, working for the Soviet Union’s state bank, where he quickly climbed the ranks and gained a top deputy-director position. When the Soviet Union collapsed, in the early 1990s, Ukraine was hit hard. Its economy plummeted into a massive recession, leading to a soaring inflation rate that peaked at over 10,000%. By this time, Yushchenko was the head of the Ukrainian National Bank, and he decided to initiate a new currency in the failing country – the Hryvnia. From here, things got better, and inflation dropped to a mere 10% in just a few years.

In 1999, he was made Prime Minister of Ukraine by then-President Leonid Kuchma. While in office, Yushchenko brought about remarkable changes to Ukraine’s government; he successfully wiped millions of dollars off the national debt and built a great level of trust between the government and the people. However, the President and his inner circle disapproved of Yushchenko’s openness about the government, which was reportedly widely corrupt, and in 2001, ousted Yushchenko from his job. Over the next two years, he remained politically active and formed the ‘Our Ukraine’ party, which was dedicated to introducing a democratic government to Ukraine, and in 2004, decided to run for President. Current President Kuchma, who had been accused of murder and severe corruption, did not support this, and launched a campaign against him. This was a major blow for Yushchenko, and things went from bad to worse for this politician, who was now extremely popular with the people. In September 2004, weeks before the election was due to take place, Yushchenko was poisoned with the deadly poison dioxin, supposedly during a dinner with government officials who were opposed to him. Although this assassination attempt left him gravely ill, with temporary facial paralysis, he heroically pressed on with his presidential campaign. The election took place, and the winner was announced as the candidate supported by the current Ukrainian government and their Russian allies – Viktor Yanukovych (note – this is a separate person to Yushchenko!). However, the election was rigged, with evidence showing irregularities in the voting system. This included one case in which coachloads of people, who were opposed to Yushchenko’s democracy campaign, had reportedly been allowed to vote more than once. This sparked massive protests in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, in a movement known as the Orange Revolution, so called because of the official colour of Yushchenko’s ‘Our Ukraine’ party. Eventually, a re-election was demanded by the state supreme court, and this ended with a landslide win for Yushchenko, who became the first freely elected President in Ukraine’s history.

Like so many other world leaders, his pre-election popularity did not last, such to an extent that his party only gained 5.5% of the votes in the next Presidential elections in 2010. But the reason I see him as a political hero is because he achieved something that so many thought was impossible – he achieved his goal of making a democratic Ukraine; a nation that retains fairly strong diplomatic relations with the West to this day.