The founders of the LIP believe that the political climate of the day raises a number of concerns that students are well placed to address in an independent publication produced for them, by them. The rise in the prominence of the Far Right both in Britain and across the European continent, the upsurge in anti-Arab, Islamophobic and anti-Jewish attacks related to internal and external political affairs, and the apparent crisis over those seeking asylum in Britain demands a proactive response from the student community.

If prejudice is born of ignorance, the LIP will counteract such ignorance with intelligent news, reviews and analysis of what it means to live in an increasingly ‘globalised’ world. By showcasing articles from those studying and living in Britain and abroad, we will both reflect and promote the diversity of our student communities and the wider global society.

Students have historically been at the forefront of fighting for social justice, insisting that society treat all its citizens with equality and fairness. The LIP aims to support and re-energise an emerging generation of student activists, particularly encouraging contributions from minority ethnic students.

The articles featured in this preview provide a select sample of the material we will attract as part of the wider project. The LIP is now seeking contributors, collaborators, advertisers and supporters for the February launch issue. If you would like to become part of the team, or discuss any details of the project, please contact: editor@theLIP.org.

In the War Against Terrorism, which the US began after September 11, 2001, the targets were supposed to be Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaida group and the Taliban who harboured them. The only objective on this list that has been achieved to date is the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Osama has not been captured and most of the al-Qaida members escaped. The US made strenuous efforts to find a link between Iraq and al-Qaida – meetings between Iraqi intelligence officers and a possible al-Qaida operative were said to have taken place in Prague – but no firm evidence ever emerged of such a link. And yet, Iraq has now become the target for the War On Terrorism, and a variety of new factors have been added to the equation. For example, Saddam Hussein is a tyrant. He owns weapons of mass destruction already and will be able to have a nuclear capacity in less than two years. He supports terrorist movements. He has defied the will of the international community. He is a threat to the region and to the world.

If this is so, then we must ask our second question: why now? All these allegations could have been made in 1998 when the weapons inspectors left Iraq. And yet nothing was done over the last four years. Iraq has now offered to have the inspectors return. The US is not interested. The American military build up in Turkey and the Gulf continues. Under pressure from his allies, President Bush is paying lip service to international legitimacy by asking for Security Council authorisation. However, this is being done with the utmost cynicism while the military build up continues, and the resolution to be placed before the UN is expected to be so restrictive as to make it impossible for the Iraqis to accept. When they refuse – as is likely – the US will make out that all diplomatic avenues have been tried. The real US agenda is that a war against Iraq is necessary. But why?

There are several theories currently in circulation. The most popular is that it is Arab oil that motivates the US. Saudi Arabia appears increasingly unstable, and so what could be better than to control Iraqi oil and enable a pro-American government to rule Iraq, thus ensuring that US interests are always served. Then, there is the personal vendetta theory – that George Bush junior wishes to avenge his father and at the same time teach all Arabs a lesson: never to dare defy the American will or they will meet the same fate. Finally, there is the Israeli theory – that it is in Israel’s interests to see a weak and subjugated Arab world and that by permanently disabling Iraq from any future leadership role, Israeli hegemony will be assured. Or the motive may be a mixture of all these.

No one knows the truth for sure. But one thing seems clear: in the game of international politics, the West sees Arabs as pawns. Arab leaders can be killed or replaced, their people can be bombed, and their dictators can be supported so long as it serves Western interests. For this war, when it takes place, will be waged in Arab lands and will kill Arab people, without concern for the consequences. If chaos replaces the Iraqi regime, then that’s too bad. The US is certainly not worried by that. Nor it seems is the British Prime Minister. How have the Arabs come to this terrible state? Are they doomed forever to be pawns and victims? And if not, what should they do to change it? It is these questions above all that we should be trying to answer now.

Dr Ghada Karmi is Vice Chair of the Centre for the Advancement of Arab – British Understanding

Feeling somewhat disillusioned with the political ideologies currently prevalent in the West, I decided that now would be as good a time as any to travel further a field for a glimpse of political alternatives. Two months ago I arrived in Vietnam, one of the four last strongholds of communism, along with North Korea, China, and Cuba.

Needless to say, Vietnam’s situation is also alluring to anyone wondering about the affects that fighting a lengthy war with America might have on a developing nation. Have the Vietnamese continued to resist the values of the nation that led so many gratuitous bombing raids against them – or have they been swept away like so many others on a wave of Coca-Cola flavoured imperialism?

In the capital, socialism initially appears to be still in full swing – heavily armed statues of glorified workers still adorn the pathways of Lenin Park and a Lenin-style Ho Chi Minh still sits with a glazed expression in a heavily guarded glass box.

For a decade the Vietnamese people (though specifically those from the North) fought courageously at the cost of over 5 million lives for the right to be socialist, and needless to say many seem proud of their victory.

However, in 1986 the Communist Party was forced to open up its borders in response not to outside pressures, but to its own bankruptcy. Consequently, the communist values that have dominated the nation for the past decades began to subside. The changes permitted by the Party focused on greater personal freedom, more openness towards the West and – perhaps most significantly – the transition to a market economy.

Perhaps because free trade was forbidden under Communist rule until 1986, the Vietnamese cities seem to have embraced capitalism and corporate culture with a surprising zeal. On arrival in the capital I began work teaching at a commercial language centre in the heart of the city. The school is privatised and there are neither state scholarships nor statues of glorified workers here. Instead of quotes from Karl Marx adorning the walls, there are abstract and baffling nuggets of corporate wisdom such as ‘quality is tenacity of purpose’, alongside framed adverts for the hi-tech multi-nationals that sponsor the centre.

The centre recently put on a staged production of a popular fairy tale that was one of the first to be turned into a film by Disney. Rather than asking for parental assistance with the provision of costumes, they decided they wanted the show to be as impressive as money would permit, and turned straight to the corporation for sponsorship.

Property is clearly no longer theft in Hanoi, and the first two rows of the audience were the exclusive reserve of the business representatives without whom such a lavish production would not have been feasible. Immediately after the curtains came down on the final act, speeches were made in cordial thanks to the honoured commercial guests.

The influence of the powerful corporations is not only felt in the centre’s extra-curricular activities. In a detail that seems to surpass any of the predictions made for the West in Naomi Klein’s No Logo, one of the school’s classes is paid for by a leading Asian brewery, and carries the company’s name.

The language centre is flourishing and its success is no doubt providing those who can foot the bill with skills crucial to the country’s development. For those who cannot, around whom socialism is supposed to revolve, it is offering very little. America may have had its values defeated in Vietnam when it used more heavy-handed tactics during the 60s and 70s, but perhaps they will have the last laugh as Vietnam begins to move quickly and of its own accord towards an elitist era of free trade and capitalism.

Where and what is America on the one year anniversary of September 11? Some people claim that the country has changed forever. Others argue that things are still the same: nationalism in America is nothing new, nor is the way the American government has chosen to use it. Think back to the war in Vietnam: terrorism has replaced communism as our public enemy number one. Communism, they said, represented a threat to our national security and freedom. Sound familiar? But what really happened in Vietnam? When it was all over, statistics revealed that a disproportionate number of working class and people of colour died in an effort to protect the interests of the American government and its corporate sponsors.

This time however, the attack took place on our own soil and we have the pictures to prove it. It’s tragic that 3,000 people died, some of whom were working class and had nothing to do with the corporate and political interests of the two main targets. This time we didn’t need anyone to tell us why we were threatened, we just needed someone to blame. But the real issue goes beyond the ‘threat’ that terrorists from Afghanistan pose to America. Besides the need to maintain a line of control in the Middle East to protect our oil interests, as time goes on, it becomes more apparent that the real war on terrorism is a tool to manipulate the American public. Susan Sontag, a novelist and social commentator immediately identified this current in the American media. In the New Yorker issue dedicated to the events of September 11, she wrote, ‘The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.’ It’s no coincidence that George Bush’s approval rating sky-rocketed after September 11. The American public immediately forgot about the controversy surrounding the election results and threw their unquestioning support behind the president. Nobody challenged George when he declared war in Afghanistan and began to re-establish control of the Middle East. In Israel the threat of ‘terrorism,’ reinforced by America’s backing, now allows the Israeli military to commit war crimes outlawed by international treaties in the name of national security.

Within our own borders, people of Middle Eastern descent replaced African-Americans as the most persecuted people of colour. Immediately after the attacks several people who appeared to be Muslims were shot and killed by vigilantes. A few weeks later, a pilot for a major airline refused to leave the terminal until a group of people of Middle Eastern descent got off the airplane.

The list goes on. The Immigration and Naturalization Service detained and continues to detain hundreds of people who they suspect are involved in terrorist activities, holding them without charges and denying them access to council, all based on secret information that was withheld from the accused. According to an article written in the Detroit Free Press, Peter Kirsanow, a member of the US Civil Rights Commission even went so far as to suggest that the American public might demand Internment Camps for Arab Americans if Arab terrorists struck again in the United States. ‘[If there is another attack], and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about Civil Rights,’ Peter said.

And now, one year later, George has partially won his battle with Congress to create a department of Homeland Security, which along with legislation like the USA PATRIOT Act, pose a serious threat to the civil liberties of all Americans. With midterm elections and control of the Senate on the line, it’s no surprise to see the media helping the Bush administration recreate a nebula of evil in Iraq. The war must go on. Be it in Eurasia, Afghanistan, East Asia or Iraq.

Given the previous PR boost which war has provided, Dubya and Tony must be puzzled to find such large levels of public opposition to their proposals to invade Iraq and depose President Saddam Hussain. One plausible answer to this quandary is that people perceive a lack of moral consistency in the policies that the two leaders seem determined to pursue.

While the US proudly claims the moral high ground in the face-off with Saddam, hundreds of Middle Eastern and South Asian men rot without charge in US jails; thousands lie dead in Afghanistan as a result of the courage – at 20,000 feet – of the trigger happy US armed forces; and Iraqi civilians are offered a ‘regime change’ at considerable expense to themselves. Meanwhile the people of Israel and the Occupied Territories are allowed to live under the shadow of the UN-Resolution-Breaker-In-Chief, Ariel Sharon.

Here in Britain, however, there is another issue of moral hypocrisy tarnishing Labour’s foreign policy image. It is connected less with the perceived complexities of geopolitics and more with a classic black-and-white political football which has been pushed to the top of the agenda recently: asylum.

If the ‘War On Terror’ pretends to be of liberal origin, asylum policy in Britain rarely even makes such claims. This is why two British organisations have received such contrasting reactions from the Government.

The claims of Migration Watch UK – that Britain can expect around 10 million new immigrants in the next five years – were worriedly dismissed by the Home Office (it turns out there aren’t nearly as many foreigners coming as we had feared). An alternative approach would have been to question the central supposition of Migration Watch UK’s research: that ‘immigration on such a scale is contrary to the interests of all sections of our community.’ Accepting racist assumptions on asylum is standard New Labour practice.

Contrast this nervous response to the one which met the decision of the National Lottery’s funding body to award £336,000 to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. ‘Organisations that engage in political activities are not eligible for lottery funding. This principle must be upheld,’ said a joint statement by the Home Secretary David Blunkett and the Culture Minister Tessa Jowell. On this occasion, of course, the ‘political activities’ concern opposition to the Government’s policies on deportations, including the notable case of the Ahmadi family – ruled to have been illegally deported by the British Government.

The Ahmadis are from Afghanistan, that safe haven where a heavy presence of US (and until recently British) troops is considered necessary and where the President, Hamad Karzai, has had four attempts on his life since coming to power.

Another group who have been victimised by the government’s pursuit of a ‘tough-on-asylum’ stance are the Iraqi Kurds – the very group whose persecution at the hands of Saddam is supposed to drive us to support the War. The crackdown started in February 2001, less than a year before the ‘War On Terror’ broke out. 78% of asylum claims were refused in this month, up from 14% six months earlier. Do not the citizens of ‘the world’s worst regime’ (according to Tony) have a valid claim for asylum status? Clearly Saddam – compared to Hitler by Donald Rumsfeld – is only a brutally oppressive leader when it suits Britain.

Labour’s insistence on the kind of politics with which Migration Watch UK associate themselves undermines any claim concerning the supposed morality of their war aims, particularly when the victims of this approach are the very people whom aggression in the Middle East is supposed to help: the Iraqi Kurds and Afghans.

I received a record by a man described in the press release as ‘the thinking man’s Eminem’. He has a beard in his press photograph. Sage Francis’s debut album ‘Personal Journals’ is much like hearing the conclusions reached at the end of a diary. There isn’t much in terms of cohesion – thematically there are heart wrenching appeals to self-mutilating sisters, right through to the alienation felt by a white man with a love for hip hop but no interest in rock. The record is a wonderful testament to how the opinions of an intelligent, articulate man delivered with no little panache does great art make (generic emo bands: takenote and give up). Live, the man has a dial up to your soul. In a small venue in central London, I have never felt so singled out and communicated to. Sage performs as a slam poet and with various underground hip-hop collectives. So renowned is he that he regularly plays to large audiences even without having released a record.

The issuers of ‘Personal Journals’ are a collective and record label known as Anticon. Alias (one of the DJ’s on the Sage album) has recently released his debut, as have Themselves (featuring the aforementioned Dose One). These records are remarkable for the innovative use of traditional samples, with a knowing glance towards the Tigerbeat6 IDM crew and the sharp rhymes of refreshingly pretension-free poets. Dälek moves to extremes on his second record. There is a track featuring 11 minutes of piercing white noise with impassioned rapping over the top. Ouch.

In a genre that even in its mainstream form has continuously mutated since its inception, it is exciting to find a scene in which all that is great with hip hop is exploited without resorting to the testosterone-fuelled posturing of clichéd violence. The hip hop, it don’t stop.

Thursday 19 September 2002

Tel Aviv. Laying around the house, seemingly forgetting the world outside. We sit around, drink coffee, tea, eating sunflower seeds from Afula (in the North). We watch National Geographic specials on the Jordan River, or the Maccabi Tel Aviv versus Manchester ‘futbol’ game. A friend visiting a neighbour knocks on the door to use the phone. She noticed our relative calm and nonchalantly informs us of the bus bombing on Allenby Street. She makes a couple of calls to ensure the safety of her husband, brother, son, mother. The radio gets turned on; the TV channel changed to the news – images of chaos, shock, desperation, ambulances, soldiers, blood… nervous voices from the site of the bombing. The phone starts ringing – to see if everyone is OK, to say that they are OK. Others are calling about the wedding, ‘What will we do if it rains?’ ‘What time do we have to arrive for photos?’ Within the half-hour, life returns to normal. My imagination takes me to the reality of the nightmares in the West Bank cities, villages and refugee camps and the normalised nature of curfew. It was bad before the bombing in a time of ‘relative peace’ (for Israelis) – what will happen next? I get frustrated in my head and can’t believe there isn’t more outrage from Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The wedding was festive and beautiful. Everyone and everything was perfect. I am still feeling a bit thrown about where I am. Such amazing contrasts of life, so very near to each other. I struggled with keeping quiet about my whereabouts and intentions of my time here. I was told, ‘They say when you are in Rome, do like the Romans—so, you are now in Israel, you say only good things about Israel…’

Nobody really seemed to want to know much about what I am doing, how people are living, or that most of the people I meet with are just like them! Many people wrote me off as crazy (‘You sleep in the homes of the Arabs? Your friends, they are also Arab?’), but others acknowledged that ‘they’ (‘The Arabs’) want to live in peace, to go to work, to go to school, to leave their home… just to live. My experiences of Israeli and Palestinian pain and the relative perceptions of truth are making me more aware of the polarisation of the people, which is part of the orchestrated structure of this conflict. Keeping people separate and isolated from one another helps to build two clearly identified ‘sides’.

I have my own side, which is non-violence. I am speaking and acting on what I believe is truth – non-violence is the form that it takes. Violence is my enemy. I am not on either of the two recognised ‘sides’. There is violence from Palestine and from Israel. Neither have clean hands. The structure under which this violence is occurring is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and people. The occupation is the socially accepted framework (in Israel) that creates the conditions under which the violence is being spawned and recycled. This is a theory that took me time to become accustomed to, and seeing it in practice, it is difficult to fathom anything different.

So tomorrow I leave Tel Aviv and I have yet to decide where to go. My friends Tracie and Jennifer left here on Thursday, Michelle will be leaving in a few days. I hope to connect with some of the Israeli groups, although most of the internationals are in Ramallah. A few others are scattered in Qalqilya, Nablus, and Tulkarem, knowing that while media attention is focused on one place, there is silent permission to forge attacks elsewhere. I am hanging in there. It all seems pretty normal when you’re in the middle of it.

Imagine three guys sitting around a table during freshers’ week (that shouldn’t be too hard). During their opening chit-chats, it becomes apparent that they have different faiths. One is Christian, another is a Jew… the third declares he is an atheist. During their discussions, the following beliefs emerge:

The Christian believes that Jesus Christ was the Son of God; The Jew believes that God exists, but Jesus was not His son; and the atheist believes that there are no gods.

These are three mutually exclusive viewpoints. They cannot be held simultaneously. No one knows who of the three is right, but we can be certain that at least two of them are wrong. Two of the eager students are embarking on a university career, their entire belief system based on falsehood. Is it not doublethink to respect all faiths and religions, when we know that the great majority of them (including, probably, our own) must be completely wrong?

The problem with this stance, trivially correct though it may be, is that it focuses on the central tenets of a particular belief. This does not advance our understanding, nor does it help us when we realise we have to live next door to these people. We must recognise that everyone has to put blind, illogical faith in something. Even the atheist has to bridge a gap of logic if he is to assert that no gods exist. These beliefs have the same status in logical argument as the parents who shout, “Because I said so!” at their children.

What is open to discussion, however, is how those tenets effect the way people lead their lives. For example, to Christians, the most important thing about Jesus Christ is that he died and was resurrected for the sins of humanity. For non-Christians (i.e. most people), the most relevant thing about that particular faith is the love and forgiveness Jesus is said to have preached… and that their Christian neighbours try to follow his example.

There is a challenge therefore, which extends to any group of people and not just the religions used in the example above. The challenge is to show the rest of the world how they approach life, how they treat fellow humans, based upon whatever traditions and tenets they subscribe to. (This is a particular challenge for atheists, who have to explain how they live without recourse to an ancient text). Explaining your moral system to others is interesting, rational, and most importantly it allows us to form a consensus with other cultures, on what exactly those morals shall be. Mutual respect all around the table.

Simon Schama suggests how we should conduct our political discourse:

‘Put another way, the fight is between power based on revelation (and thus not open to argument), and power based on persuasion, and thus conditional on argument; militant theocracy against the tolerant Enlightenment.’ [Guardian, 11/9/ 02]

Competing groups may follow their own traditions and code as they interact with others, but at no point must they use their own articles of faith as a reason for political action. “We have the right to do this, because it is God’s will” is an irrational argument and will not wash in polite debate. Sadly, many politicians on the international scene use this sort of rhetoric, over and over again. We know who they are and we should ask them to stop, because then we might be able to have a proper conversation.

This puzzling inscription found graffitied on a crumbling church wall provides the title for Joellëe Tuerlinckx’s new installation and a loaded introduction to the international contemporary art exhibition Documenta XI. Calling into question the inter-dependent systems of religion, culture and history, the inscription does more than to revel in the flux of post-modern fragmentation; but rather de-stabilises the very foundations on which Western structures of thought have colonised and prospered. If religion, culture and history have been reduced to ‘nothing’, then how does the individual construct and affirm an understanding of their own identity? This crisis in the role of the individual in a world determined by the aftermath of colonisation and the impact of globalisation forms the central tenet for Documenta XI.

Documenta is a contemporary visual art exhibition held every five years in the German town of Kassel. Since its inception in 1955, it has grown to become arguably the world’s most important exhibition of contemporary art, commenting on and often setting future cultural agendas in visual arts practice. First conceived by artists Arnold Bode and Werner Haftmann, Documenta is rooted in a spirit of German post-war idealism. With an original intention of re-introducing a culturally isolated Germany to the most recent developments in international contemporary art, Documenta has become a platform for exploring the notion of art as global culture.

Early in its development, the artistic direction of Documenta was influenced by German artist Joseph Beuys, whose practice fused together shamanic systems of thought with a radical political agenda. Joseph’s synthesis of Western rationalism with Eastern spiritualism set the tone for an exhibition format that would mutually respect ideas of inclusivity and difference. His influence on the political and cultural agenda of Documenta was to challenge the Euro-centric bias in the visual arts, exposing the reality that when we speak of ‘high culture’ or the ‘fine arts’ it is actually a tradition restricted to a European cultural experience about which we refer. How to effect an exhibition ‘platform’ that supports cultural representation on a global scale has since been the pre-occupation of many artists, curators and art producers alike.

This year the challenge has been fittingly taken up with the appointment of the first non-European, black artistic director; Okwui Enwezor. Okwui’s Documenta XI questions how contemporary art, as a ‘material reflection’ on the world, confronts the spectres of ‘unceasing cultural, social and political frictions, transitions, transformations, fissures and global institutional consolidations.’ In the face of such global conflict, Okwui’s outlook is strikingly utopian, firmly believing in the purpose of art today as ‘knowledge production’, informing the shape and dynamics of the post-colonial world. Eschewing aesthetic debate in favour of global politics, Okwui’s ‘multi-cultural Documenta’ is one in which the role of the artist as social commentator, anthropologist and politico-agitator takes centre stage.

If Okwui’s ambitious project has any unifying aesthetic experience it is one firmly rooted in the documentary tradition. Photography and video are prioritised as Okwui uses an intelligent combination of the archival and the contemporary to throw into sharp relief current political tension.

Amar Kanwar’s film A Season Outside (1997) documents the public display of national identities on the Indian-Pakistan border crossing at Wagha. The film bears witness to the ritual opening and closing of the border performed by soldiers in an elaborate choreographed dance. Amar’s document of the performed confrontation situation explores the relationship between the construction of national identities and masculine bravado.

The transgression of geographical, cultural and political borders becomes a re-occurring theme. The beautifully crafted Shoes for Europe by the Moldavian artist Pavel Braila addresses a conceptual and historical fault-line separating East and West in the small frontier town of Ugheni on the Moldavian-Romanian border. The artist has covertly filmed the routine procedure of changing train wheels from the Russian gauge to standard gauge used in Romania and Western Europe – a discrepancy of 80mm. Providing an historic strategic juncture for the Soviet military, Ugheni today becomes a symbolic flash point for cultural and economic access to Western Europe.

Closer to home is the presentation of Black Audio Film Collective’s Handsworth Songs (1986). Almost an hour in length, the film documents the riots that took place in Birmingham in the Thatcherite 80’s. The collage of disturbing scenes of violence and inner city poverty has been collated from existing newsreels, interviews and dramatisations. The film is a retrospective reclamation of Black history in Britain, an attempt to refute the received history mediated through institutionalised racism.

Okuwi Enwezor welcomes the implications and questions raised by presenting such archival work within the context of a contemporary art exhibition. That such inclusions disrupt the expected make-up of an international exhibition bears testimony to Okuwi’s belief in de-stabilising and breaking down the mainstream cultural experience. Referring to the classic novel of pre-colonial Africa Things Fall Apart (1958), Okuwi’s Documenta XI is one of cultural ruptures, breaks and fractures in which art becomes a force for delineating a post-colonial identity in a world after imperialism.