Author Archives: tess

Why poor Britons voted to leave the EU

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A popular Brexit narrative is that those left out of rising prosperity lashed out at the establishment because they could take no more punishment. They had suffered years of recession and austerity exacerbated by a Dutch auction – in which the asking price is lowered until there’s a buyer – driven by rising immigration.

The latest NatCen British Social Attitudes Survey shows the true extent of concerns about immigration. Clear majorities thought migrants were having a net negative effect on British schools and the NHS. This was an area where there was substantial agreement between people with different levels of education. Another area in which the public was even more of one mind was in their awareness that the NHS has a funding problem.

This post by Professor Ralph Fevre, of Cardiff University first appeared on The Conversation website.

To find out where those left out of rising prosperity differed from the rest, however, we need to look at other survey questions. These introduce two important caveats to the popular narrative: that at least until the eve of the referendum campaign, poor Britons were not sure that leaving the EU would reduce immigration; and that it wasn’t just rising prosperity that they felt excluded from.

Referendum campaigners said they heard on the doorstep that the poor voted to leave because they thought this would address the problem of immigration forcing down wages. Yet in the second half of 2015, when the survey took place, the poorest and least educated were less likely than anyone else to think Brexit would reduce immigration.

Just over half of those with less than A-level education thought leaving would bring down immigration. UKIP and sections of the press may have persuaded more of them once the campaign got going. However, according to the survey, those who were more likely to believe leaving the EU would reduce immigration tended to be in a higher social class and also more likely to express a great deal of interest in politics. Of course some of this group were for staying in the EU. They were more likely to think leaving would hurt the economy (and reduce British influence) and some of them will have thought lower immigration would be damaging.

Nevertheless, before the campaign got going, the issue of immigration was not what made poor Brits anti-EU. Brexit was, rather, a measure of their grim hope that any change in their country might just be a change for the better.

Views about what would happen if Britain left the EU, by highest educational qualification. British Social Attitudes 2015

Left out of the deal

Education and income were the big dividing lines between pessimists and optimists. Graduates were much more likely to think leaving the EU would make the economy worse off and reduce Britain’s influence. Among those with no or little education, few thought the economy would deteriorate or that Britain’s influence would wane. People without qualifications were unique in that a majority believed that leaving would make the economy better, reduce unemployment and increase Britain’s influence. On the other hand, those less educated Britons (who were also less interested in politics) were also much more likely than anyone to think leaving would change nothing.

Voting to leave was not just the desperate gamble of people who felt excluded and powerless. They had no investment in the status quo but they also felt they were being harmed by it. Even more than the vast majority of Britons, they felt social mobility was rare (the proportion who think this has grown a lot in the last ten years). When they had been told for decades that their future was in their own hands as long as they did well at school, people without qualifications might well conclude the system bore them ill-will.

For 40 years – as union membership declined and inequality increased – Britons were told that education and the labour market were level playing fields on which those with talent and application could shape their own futures. Employers concurred as they promised material rewards and self-fulfilment for those who took advantage of the new individualism. But many Britons were excluded from this neoliberal settlement from the start and their descendants still aren’t getting degrees or good jobs.

Good jobs are not just secure jobs. True, almost everyone in the survey said job security was important and only two-thirds said they had it, but they also liked their jobs to be interesting, to involve helping others and/or society, and to offer chances for advancement. Nearly three-quarters of British workers had a job with four or more positive characteristics – a remarkable increase from 57% in 1989.

Many of those who said they were in good jobs identified as working class but the poorest Britons have been excluded from this story of increasing self-determination and self-fulfilment. In the survey, six out of ten Britons said they would enjoy working even if they didn’t need the money (double the number from 1989). But to see the influence of education required a question which homes in on one of the key features of the individualism fostered by four decades of neoliberal consensus: is a job solely about earning money? Most in professional and managerial occupations said it wasn’t but the vast majority in routine or semi-routine occupations thought it was.

Political scientist John Curtice, one of the editors of the survey, and others predicted that the economy would matter more than immigration in the referendum and that less education would make people more likely to think that leaving the EU would be good for jobs. Many poor Brits hope this turns out to be true but their hope is tinged with despair.

Piece of Silk

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The play, Piece of Silk, is a powerful study of the experiences of women survivors of domestic abuse – an experience that knows no ethnic, national or class boundaries. 

This review by Marion Bowman was first posted on 50:50, on Open Democracy.

Piece of Silk was written by Jennie Buckman, directed by Tanya Azevedo and is a Giants production.

The claustrophobic, small, dark space of a fringe theatre upstairs in a London pub is the perfect setting for Jennie Buckman’s new play, ‘Piece of Silk’, derived from the Arabian Nights story of Scheherazade and the experiences of women survivors of domestic violence.

Sitting cramped and close up to the action, the audience is confronted with the raw reality of control, family dynamics and love gone wrong. Living under the same roof, with escape hard to imagine or effect, the characters in this powerful study bring home to us how, as Buckman puts it, ’story-telling is a matter of life and death.’

Shaz (Tanya Vital) and her sister Dunya (Samantha Shellie) are North London girls in their late teens. Shaz likes shopping, fooling around and having a laugh. Their father, originally from the Indian sub-continent, is dead. Their Mum (Heather Coombs) is a white woman who welcomes her late husband’s son, Sami (Devesh Patel), from overseas into their home and agrees that he should stay on while she takes a holiday. Shaz works as a seamstress in a bridal shop and is close to her sister Dunya who has an anxiety disorder and never leaves the house. Shaz’s big thing is her vlog – she gives her imagination and creativity free rein online and has a spirit undiminished by the constraints of her circumstances. Like Scheherazade she eventually uses this talent to survive what is to come. The girls have grown up with a local white boy, Billy (Jack Bence), who is both witness to, and participant in, their lives.

Sami’s arrival precipitates a visceral drama that starts in love and ends in tragedy. Sami is appalled by Shaz’s teenage brashness, lack of deference and the tongue-in-cheek sexual references in her  vlog. With the best of intentions, in a misplaced belief that he is fulfilling his duty of care as the ‘man of the family’ following their father’s death, he begins to control the young women and develop a friendship with Billy. Driven by the patriarchal attitudes of his upbringing, Sami hatches a plan to take Shaz and Dunya abroad to visit their father’s family. When Shaz resists, there is a riveting confrontation between them. This scene is both the heart of the play and yet one of the weakest. Accusations of fascism, patriarchy and ‘othering’ fly in a way that doesn’t ring true to the speech idioms of these down to earth characters making the play more polemical than it needs to be.

Sami separates the sisters from contact with Billy by taking Shaz’s phone and locking them in the cellar, saying that it was shame about the way his daughters behaved that killed their father.

The theatre’s tiny performing space, in the deft hands of Set Designer Matilde Marangoni and Director Tania Azevedo, shape shifts into a range of places where these differing worlds collide and the story unfolds. We are with the girls in the cellar, in a night club with Billy and Sami, at the bridal shop with Shaz and her boss, Ruby (Heather Coombs) who is suicidal because of the domestic abuse she is also suffering. Props are used sparingly.  Frames of hard metal fencing are rolled around the floor to create the rooms, doors and walls that confine (rather than provide comfort and safety). A floor-to-ceiling gauze provides the screen onto which Shaz’s vlog posts are projected. It is also the soft draping behind which is the haven where Billy and Shaz come to realise and express their adult love for each other.

As the play reaches it denouement Sami talks about the ‘box of treasures’ he has containing his father’s letters. It reveals that his attitudes and actions towards his half sisters are driven in part by his own internal conflicts – especially about his sexuality –  and his relationship with his father who says his son is ‘not quite wholesome’.

Even a minor character like shopkeeper Ruby provides another insight into the complex web of emotion, identity, psychology, cultural influences and inequalities at play. Her story, revealed as she and Shaz work on a wedding dress for a customer, shows that the play’s central theme of the abuse of women within the family crosses continents, that patriarchy is not restricted to cultures where arranged marriages are common, where women are regarded as ‘pieces of silk’, ruined when they are ‘trampled in the mud’.

The production brings everything to bear on Buckman’s powerful story-telling. Sound, lighting, music and video are thoughtfully and creatively designed to enhance this contemporary updating of the Arabian Nights’ most famous character. Scheherazade, with the help of her sister Dunyazade, avoids death at the hands of the king by telling him a new story every night for 1,000 nights.  Shaz records a story for her vlog while she and Dunya are held prisoner by Sami, finding resilience in turning the tables and making up a tale about a prince who is about to be castrated and maimed but who is finally liberated.

The two also win their freedom but at a price when, in a scuffle with Sami who tries to kiss him, Billy is fatally injured.

The strong cast tackles the demands of this complex play with verve. Tanya Vital invests Shaz with an endearing openness and confidence from which she draws convincing strategies of resistance and survival. Jack Bence is an impressive and versatile performer as the sound young bloke who falls for his ebullient childhood friend and Devesh Patel, with his thin frame and gaunt face, is all the more menacing for not looking physically strong or powerful. Heather Coombs, in several parts, brings light and shade to the drama and Samantha Shellie as Dunya is a vulnerable counterpoint to Shaz’s strength and agency as it is tested by Sami’s determination to subjugate them.

In writing the play, Jennie Buckman worked closely with Southall Black Sisters, the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, Not Shut Up and women from the traveller community to capture the nature of an experience that knows no ethnic, national or class boundaries. At times the drama strains with its determination to meld ideas about racism, sexism and homophobia into the central theme of coercive control by men of women, with violence waiting in the wings, but its well-drawn characters, with strong direction from Tania Azevedo, deliver an emotionally engaging story to make us understand and think harder about the difficult subject of domestic abuse.

The play runs until July 2 2016 at the Hope Theatre, 207 Upper Street, Islington London N1 1RL.

 

Pod Academy carried a piece about the work Jennie Buckman did with Southall Black Sisters:

Unspoken: speaking out against violence against women

Education worth thinking about

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The UK government says ‘Student Choice’ is a top policy objective. But are there real choices for those who believe in “education for education’s sake”?

This post by Barbara Gunnell first appeared on the 50:50 strand of Open Democracy

In the first few months of this year a small London-based charity, The IF Project, invited applications for a 10-week course at a no-fixed-abode “free university”. The course, Thinking: A Free Introduction, was free to all comers and offered university-level lectures and seminars in History, Literature and Philosophy. Those attending would not receive degrees or certificates of achievement (other than a statement of attendance if they wanted one). The objective of the course was to “challenge and empower the students to become critical thinkers”. It was pitched at those who wanted to try out university-level study, but could not or did not want to take on debt.

Some 45 Londoners of varying ages and backgrounds turned up for an introductory event. Around a dozen decided it was not for them. More than 30 people returned for the first teaching session (a lecture on literature) and almost all of them persisted with the twice-a-week sessions for the full 10 week course. Seminars and lectures attracted an average of 20-25 students per event, a high rate of retention for evening classes.  Pod Academy will be uploading some of the lectures – stating with History and ‘Thinking and Dying in London’ by Dr Richard Barnett

There was no cost to those signing up. Lecturers taught for no fee; volunteers organised photocopying, printing and teaching rooms; early-career academics and PhD students conducted seminars. The postgraduates, given their own cash problems within the grant-starved university economy, were offered small honoraria made possible by a grant from the Big Lottery Fund. IF was also offered space for some of the lectures and seminars by a supporting firm of lawyers.

Most of the students had day jobs and came to the classes straight from work. One young woman travelled from Birmingham. Even in chill January and February weather, and with students obliged to switch between different venues, attendance held up.  Their persistence and enthusiasm confounds today’s orthodoxy that the main reason young people go to university is to acquire a degree that guarantees higher-paying careers. If that were indeed the main reason to consider studying, why would these students, of all ages and backgrounds, turn up twice a week to learn about and discuss, for example,  “Approaches to truth”, “London, empire and migration” and “Making sense of the world through the novel” – with no end qualification and no consequent enhancement to their career prospects? One student explained: “I have no formal education. I spend a lot of my time figuring out alternative ways to learn as much as I can about the world… This course seemed perfect for me!” Others in their end-of-course assessment said they had been attracted by the idea of learning to think critically rather than learning any particular subject.

Pubs and philosophers 

The idea of informal education groups for working people is not new.  In the nineteenth century, many of the big British cities set up Workers’ Education Associations and Left Book Clubs. Their purpose was to offer chances of study to groups excluded from establishment universities by reason of wealth, status, gender or religion. The growth of state provision of higher education and its broader social intake gradually reduced their impact. But as universities have become more career and vocation oriented there has been a resurgence of informal free higher education organisations: pub “universities”, philosophy discussion forums, alternative PPE lectures and the IF Project itself. These are not set up to improve skills or qualifications or employability. Almost all are created in the spirit of “education for education’s sake”.

These “free universities” – the quotation marks nod to the Privy Council’s exclusive  right to determine use of the word “university” – tend to be collaborative and informal: knowledge is shared, taught, debated and discussed. Most of the work and organising is unpaid, with costs kept to a minimum.

These organisations have differing origins, politics and purposes. For example, the People’s PPE aims to challenge privilege and traditional wisdom on Philosophy, Politics and Economics, the famous ‘toffs and politicians’ degree;The Free University Brighton co-ordinates discussions and talks, often in pubs, and aims to launch a fee-free three-year degree course. The IF Project has no party political agenda and does not aim to be a substitute for traditional academic institutions.

None the less, the IF Project’s humanities-based courses do challenge today’s policy emphasis on students as consumers, argues Jonny Mundey, who designed and managed the 10-week Thinking course and the two IF Project pilot Summer Schools that preceded it.

“IF’s experiment in no-fee higher education is a statement of belief that reading literature, debating philosophy and discussing the Odyssey are activities with intrinsic value,” says Mundey.  “Our core principle is that studying at university – like attending primary and secondary school – is a “public good” and that, like primary and secondary education, it should be free. This is against the grain of the information students get fed, that the more they enter the ‘market’, operate ‘student choice’, the better  their economic options.”

These sentiments may be idealistic, but in historical context, they are not unrealistic. Tuition was free in the UK until 1988 and remains free in Scotland for Scottish students. Germany offers tuition-free higher education. The current leader of the Labour Party believes in fee-free university tuition, as does the Green Party. It is not set in stone that England must continue to follow the United States in creating generations of debt-laden school-leavers.

Student choice?

Last November’s higher education Green Paper, “Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice, spells out its core concerns in the title. Reviewing the consultation document in the London Review of Books, literary critic and academic Stefan Collini reminds us of the traditional and still widely held belief that the existence of centres of disinterested inquiry, and the transmission of a cultural and intellectual inheritance, are self-evident public goods:

“While that conception of a university and its purposes is still very much alive and may, I suspect, still be the one held by a great many ‘ordinary’ citizens, we may be nearing the point, at least in Britain, where it is starting to give way to … barren utilitarianism.”

And indeed, it is rare to find a senior politician today arguing the case for the intrinsic value of studying history, or offering any reason for universities or academic study beyond the need to turn out the skilled workforce an advanced economy needs.

By contrast, the students who attended the Thinking course do clearly share the ordinary citizen’s conviction of the intrinsic value of education.  “The very act of taking part in a ‘free university’ course twice a week for 10 weeks suggests  that they do” says Mundey. One applicant for the course gave this reason for wanting to join: “I would like to meet people who love to think, who want to improve the effectiveness of their thinking… and who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge.”

In feedback after the course, one student wrote: “The course provided me with an opportunity to be challenged, and to meet and debate with people from other backgrounds, age groups and communities. If every adult did things like this even once in their adult lives I believe our country would be a much more welcoming and inclusive place.”

Degrees of debt

Fear of debt was a consideration for some of those deciding to try the IF course. Even if they are willing to take on long-term loans for tuition, they still need to support themselves for three years, and the Chancellor’s recent tweaking of the terms of repayment on existing loans may be a further deterrent. Some are simply unhappy with the idea of debt (including Muslim students for whom borrowing is religiously unacceptable). One IF student reported  “…being unable to afford university left me questioning and criticising the institutions in which we currently learn.”

The latest Green Paper places even greater emphasis on the market, with the number of student applications determining a university’s alleged “excellence” and ultimately how much it will be able to charge in fees. Collini highlights the comedic aspect of this monetisation of students’ choices. “The protesters and ‘spongers’ of yesteryear have become the shock-troops of market forces..” he writes. Their task is to focus on “finding the least expensive course that will get them the highest paying job”.

Such a vision of education reduces the value of a degree to the economic return on investment accruing to the individual who paid for it. But you can’t easily put a value on an education in the humanities or other non-vocational subjects, so perhaps asking whether a degree will secure you a brilliant salary is the wrong question.

The right question is whether universities are creating critical members of society, able to think for themselves. “The value of studying subjects such as history or literature may unfold over a person’s lifetime,” says Mundey. “What about the contribution he or she makes to the wider economic and social environment, the value to society of individuals who can think critically about the lives they lead, the society they live in, its problems and conflicts?”

“We will continue to offer courses in humanities subjects free of charge over the next few years. Our interventions are small-scale, but our courses do offer a slice of undergraduate-level education to those who come along (around a hundred students to date).  At the same time, we provide an alternative vision of what higher education could be. We make the argument for the intrinsic value of a humanities higher education”.

In final anonymous assessments from the students who attended Thinking: A Free Introduction, one wrote,  “I have learned to approach my thoughts and ideas with a critical mindset as well as the thoughts and ideas of others. I am now constantly on the search for evidence.”

Carl Gombrich, programme director of University College London’s Arts and Sciences BASc degree, is one of IF’s academic advisers. Having also met and lectured to students, he sees the free nature of the teaching and learning as critical to its success:  “The best learning, the best exchange of ideas, the most fulfilling intellectual experiences generally come when teacher and student freely give their time simply because they want to teach and want to learn.  The IF university fosters this atmosphere … learners and teachers involved appreciate the tremendous privilege that it is to think, learn and exchange ideas openly.”

Why Beyoncé matters

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Just as the world was recovering from the shock of the untimely death of Prince, Beyoncé released Lemonade, her sixth studio album and her second “visual album”. Unlike its predecessor, which featured individual music videos for each track, a single one-hour film was aired on HBO to coincide with the release.

Lemonade is a much darker album than her previous 2013 visual offering – Beyoncé appears furious at her husband Jay-Z for much of it – although there is the possibility that this is purely a clever marketing hook. The album has a more varied structure in terms of genre, encompassing R&B, rock, country, pop and blues.

This post by Dr Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs, Senior Lecturer in Media and Performance at the University of Salford. first appeared on The Conversation website

Since its release there has been an almost non-stop stream of commentary analysing every aspect of both the film and music, from its cinematic structure, to its significance for black feminism. It has received acclaim from the world’s most influential critics and has even prompted listening parties, broadcast most notably on the UK’s BBC Radio 1. Such a response may seem normal considering Beyoncé’s lofty position in the music industry, but the album has reached beyond pop culture for more reasons than this. There are several other elements that may explain the intense interest in this work.

Identity

The first is concerned with race, feminism and identity. Since she appeared on stage in 2013 with a backdrop branded with the word “feminist”, Beyoncé has been associated with popularising the feminist movement, albeit wrapped in a shiny celebrity package. This was empowerment lite – a feminism that was non-threatening, but important and no doubt inspired young women to embrace and reclaim the word for themselves.

Lemonade goes much, much further. The album is overtly political and in many ways designed to directly represent and speak to the black female listener. This was signalled with the release of the single Formation in which Beyoncé embraces her racial identity by singing:

I Like my baby heir with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.

Lemonade continues and deepens this embrace of her blackness.

The representation of the “angry woman” on Lemonade is arresting. Society and culture teach women that they are not supposed to express rage. They must suppress it, bite their tongues or cloak it in self-deprecating humour. Beyoncé’s performance of the fury of betrayal is unusual and needed. “Jealous or crazy,” Beyoncé sings over and over again on Hold Up, blurring the words before deciding:

More like being walked all over lately, walked all over lately
I’d rather be crazy.

This is powerful simply because it is something rarely expressed by someone in such a prominent position in the music industry and popular culture more widely. It is connecting with people because it matters. Women who express their anger are often reduced to “losing control” or labelled as “shrill” or “crazy”. Beyoncé’s rage is righteous and loud. This is a new phase for Beyoncé, which may or may not be a contrived marketing tool, but it almost doesn’t matter because she is no longer representative of bland, generic pop. These are ideas that matter.

Industry

Aside from the content of Lemonade, the way in which Beyoncé released her album demonstrates how she continues to break music industry rules. On December 13 2013, she released Beyoncé, a full album, complete with videos for all 14 songs, without any promotion or any prior announcement. Social media would provide all the required publicity.

Beyoncé sold more than 600,000 copies in a matter of days, breaking all iTunes sales records, and ushered in a new era of the “surprise release” from artists with similar levels of success. Following suit, artists such as Lamar, Drake, and Rihanna have since released albums without warning.

Lemonade didn’t have the same benefit of surprise, at least not entirely. Fans were aware that something would be released, given the HBO special, announced a week prior to broadcast. But the album also breaks industry rules in subtler ways.

Beyoncé released it on Tidal, the music streaming site owned by her husband Jay-Z. The album was only a Tidal exclusive for 24 hours but Beyoncé is still making sure that music fans, or anybody wanting to be part of the cultural conversation, pay for it, by making it the only platform on which it is available for streaming in its entirety.

The film also proved to be a game-changer in a different way. Forgoing MTV and YouTube, Beyoncé released it on HBO, the cable network that, for decades, has given its Saturday night over to Hollywood blockbusters. The move says that this album has worth and artistic value that can be measured monetarily.

In a week when the death of Prince shocked popular culture in myriad ways, the release of Lemonade reminded audiences that in order to remain relevant, being the exception is the rule. In recent years, Beyoncé has performed Prince-like moves, connecting with her fans only through music and images, creating an enigma which in a social media dominated culture makes her all the more compelling, despite public awareness that this is all part of an intensely personal brand.

There is little doubt that Beyoncé’s recent work is seismic in terms of its representations of black racial identity and feminism. Here is one of, if not the, highest paid female performers in the world grappling with issues of misogyny, sexuality, infidelity, black feminism and self affirmation in ways that have never been seen in the mainstream music industry.

For all of this, it is right that she is discussed and celebrated. Beyoncé has opened a discourse that explores the place of famous women as agents of both political and monetary prowess. That in itself is worthy of respect.

Picture by abbieabc

A unique training opportunity in cinema, human rights and advocacy

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The Cinema, Human Rights and Advocacy summer school,  has just issued its last call for applications.  It will be held in Galway, Ireland 16-25 June and offers a unique opportunity to filmmakers, human rights academics and activists from around the world to develop ideas and projects and to work with internationally acclaimed experts of film, television, photography and human rights..

This year’s will be the the 11th human rights and advocacy summer school. .It is run by the Huston School of Film & Digital Media and the Irish Centre for Human Rights, part of the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Application Deadline: 30-April-2016

The Summer School is led by Nick Danziger an internationally renowned practitioner in the field of human rights documentary making, and Claudia Modonesi a human rights expert and media trainer. The 10-day programme consists of eight teaching sessions, workshops and film screenings that combine human rights expertise and media studies. Sessions develop issues relating to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a History of Human Rights Cinema, Freedom of Expression and Censorship, the Use of Video in Human Rights Documentation and Advocacy, Producing Social Documentaries, the Role of Media in Period of Conflict and Production and Distribution of Human Rights Films. Each module is illustrated by film or documentary screenings.
Elements of the summer school include information on the fundamentals of human rights, how to raise awareness of human rights on camera, developing a project proposal and how these ideas should be pitched.

More info at: www.chra.ie
Apply at: http://www.chra.ie/apply.php
You can email them a query at: info@chra.ie

Tuition fees are 650 euros and there are some scholarships available.

CHRA.e-flyer.2016

Panama Papers: the nuts and bolts of a massive international investigation

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The reporting of the Panama Papers – which has been based on a massive global analysis of documents leaked from law firm Mossack Fonseca outlining how the world’s elite use tax havens – is a remarkable feat of collaboration which builds on several trends in investigative journalism.

Richard Sambrook, Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University explains how journalists have collaborated to mine the data and explain its significance. This post first appeared on The Conversation website.

The whole story started with a whistleblower who leaked a huge number of documents and data. At 2.6 terabytes of information, this leak is enormous, dwarfing the Wikileaks documents about the Iraq war or evenEdward Snowden’s leaks of NSA surveillance details. Once again it shows how in the data age all organisations are vulnerable to vast caches of information being smuggled out on a computer hard drive or USB stick.

Following the authorities’ pursuit of the people behind those stories – Julian Assange, who is in the Ecuadorean embassy in London; Edward Snowden, who remains in exile in Moscow; and Chelsea Manning, who is serving a 35-year jail sentence, many had feared that whistleblowers would be more reluctant to come forward.

This is particularly the case in light of sophisticated corporate as well as government surveillance and the introduction of new laws – including the UK government’s proposed “snooper’s charter” – designed to track the public’s internet and phone use.

Many organisations, including The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and The Guardian who were involved in this story, offer secure online “boxes” into which information can be dropped anonymously and encrypted to encourage and support whistleblowers.

The news organisations partnering in this highly coordinated news story will have had to make extensive use of encryption and other techniques to protect their source and avoid their investigation being discovered before publication. This will have involved the use of encrypted email, the use of software such as the TOR browser and network, which prevents location and websites you visit being tracked, and the use of an “air gap” – computers not connected to the internet or any other network – to analyse the documents.

The journalists, who worked on the documents secretly for more than a year, may well have used open-source software such as Linux rather than proprietary computer systems such as those provided by Microsoft or Apple which can also track user activity.

Working in partnership

Once again, following Wikileaks and the Snowden revelations, it is an example of collaboration between news organisations. In this case the original material was sent to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung which passed them to the ICIJ – because of the consortium’s extensive experience in investigative journalism with members placed around the world. Other global partners were then brought on board.

There are a number of advantages to such editorial collaboration. First, it maximises the impact of the story when it is published – in this case simultaneously and globally. We increasingly see joint investigations between newspapers, broadcasters and digital news sites in order to maximise the profile of their story – and increasingly those partners are ones (including The Guardian and The BBC) with a global reach.

How The Guardian reported the Panama Papers. The Guardian

For the Panama Papers, however, it was notable that no major US media organisation was included in the initial partners. The ICIJ is based in the US and may have wanted to maximise its own profile in its home territory. It is also notable that a number of similar foundations or collectives were involved in the investigation. In the US in particular, there is a view that public interest investigative journalism increasingly has to be carried out by non-corporate media.

International partners bring different specialist knowledge to the investigation – whether geographic, political or business-related. At a time when many news organisations struggle to support permanent investigative teams, partnering is an obvious way to build a bigger and stronger team to look into a complex, long-running issue.

In addition, there may be legal and political advantages to managing an investigation in several centres. During the Snowden investigation The Guardian ran a significant proportion of its inquiries from its US office in order to benefit from the additional protection of the American first amendment – which is not available in Europe. It is what some lawyers refer to as jurisdictional arbitrage – avoiding injunctions in one country by publishing in another. In a globalised, digital media, national legislation can be stepped around and organisations can choose in which jurisdiction to publish.

For all of this, each organisation will have had to take its own editorial view on the story, the evidence, and the legality. What matters most in Europe may be different in Asia or South America. Media lawyers in different organisations may well have also liaised on the issues raised by publishing the papers – but each organisation is independently responsible for what it publishes and will have taken its own view of the evidence and the newsworthiness of the documents.

Open but accountable

The ICIJ has been criticised by some on social media for not putting all the material into the open for anyone to look through. For open media evangelists this would be the most transparent action to take. However, with such a huge trove of documents, any media organisation will want to ensure they act legally and responsibly – putting the material through an editorial and legal filter before publishing.

This is one of the defining differences between professional media and open data activists. In broad terms these are literally stolen documents – can news organisations justify publishing them in the greater public interest? Will undue harm to innocent figures be caused by open publication? The public interest seems clear in this case – but without knowing what else the documents contain it is hard to make a judgement about whether they should all be placed online.

The Panama Papers – like The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, like Wikileaks Iraq War logs and like the Snowden revelations – lifts the lid on the activities of political and business elites in ways which will be discussed for many years to come.

They are also a rich example of how investigative journalism increasingly works in the age of big data and global media. We can expect to see more leaks, more international media collaborations and more reaction from governments trying to clamp down on embarrassing revelations.

Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões

Pay ratios could curb excessive CEO pay and counter inequality

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has earned an eye-popping pay rise. He was awarded US$199m in shares, according to a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It makes him the highest-paid chief executive in the US and though he sits at the top of the pile, news of his or any CEO’s big pay rise will come as little to surprise to many, says Tobore Okah-Avae, PhD candidate in the University of Lancaster Law Department.  This post first appeared on The Conversation website.

CEO compensation has grown at an alarming rate over the last three decades. In 1980 most CEOs at major British companies earned around 15 times the average salary. By 1998 the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was 47:1. In 2014 it had ballooned to roughly 183:1.

In the US, the ratio is even higher. According to the AFL-CIO, a federation of labour organisations, the salary of a typical S&P 500 company CEO in 2014 was 373 times the salary of an average rank-and-file worker – that’s US$13.5m compared to US$36,000.

How did we get here?

Some commentators aim to justify high pay on the grounds of company performance and that the efforts of these highly-skilled individuals is pivotal for a company’s success. These claims, however, are not supported by the research. CEO skill has been found to have more influence over captive corporate boards, not-so-independent remuneration committees and beholden compensation consultants in the ratcheting up of CEO pay. And the runaway train that is excessive compensation, shows no sign of slowing down.

CEO pay began to increase following calls for pay to be more closely pegged to a company’s performance. But if the intent was for growth in pay to keep pace with growth in firm performance, this hasn’t been achieved. The reality is that growth in CEO pay has continuously outpaced company performance – as measured by revenues and profits – even outpacing the FTSE 100 index itself.

These days the typical CEO’s pay packet comprises a salary, an annual bonus, and an equity-based component – usually in the form of long-term incentive plans and other short-term awards in the shape of company stocks and shares, as Pichai received. In this regard, the 1980s were a watershed period, largely due to the introduction of share-based schemes, which are partly responsible for the explosion in CEO pay levels. The same has not happened for average wages, yet the benefits of increasing them extend beyond the employee, and have the potential to benefit businesses, as well as individuals.

Pay ratios are the way forward

Making it mandatory for companies to publish their pay ratios is one way to curb excessive growth of executive pay and income inequality. This is a solution Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party in the UK, put forward in a recent speech and – perhaps more powerfully than a suggestion made by a left-leaning leader of an opposition party – is being introduced in the US.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the main Wall Street regulator, voted in favour of the rule last year and it will become mandatory for most public companies to regularly reveal the ratio of CEO pay to that of employees as of 2017.

Although UK companies are currently required to disclose CEO compensation as it compares with their employees, they are not required to disclose long-term pay incentives, such as shares, which are a large component of current executive pay packets. And they are only required to compare the amount of CEO compensation with the pay of a select group of employees, not that of every worker.

The publication of pay ratios will likely help to reduce pay inequality as a result of the outrage that ratios would produce. In their book on executive pay, Harvard and Berkeley academics Lucien Bechuk and Jesse Fried, outline some of the problems with how pay is determined. They emphasise the importance of “outrage” when it comes to reversing the trend of CEOs setting their own, inflated compensation packages.

Flaws in the way that companies are governed mean that CEOs are largely constrained by the reaction of outsiders when it comes to setting their compensation arrangements. This reaction could range from mere criticism of pay arrangements to fully-fledged outrage in the vein of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Only when outrage is high enough does it function as an effective deterrent.

A mandatory rule requiring the publication of top-to-bottom pay ratios could therefore have two potential effects. It may force corporate boards to rethink excessive CEO pay and would hopefully force an increase in the pay offered to lower-level employees as well.

 

Pic Niall Kennedy

Open-Eyed and Laughing

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Here’s a new year treat!  An animation by Daniel Rowe entirely made up of rectangles. Since this is not an audio podcast – you will need to go to the site to see it – but it is definitely worth it!

Daniels says, “It’s abstract animation with rectangles made frame-by-frame. It’s in some way about life and death (in the natural sense not the philosophical) and the diversity of living things. But I also just wanted to make something fun….”

Daniel Rowe is an independent animated filmmaker.  He’s currently teaching animation at Massachusetts College of Art and Harvard University.  He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013.  Daniel lives in Cambridge, MA.

drowefilms@gmail.com

 

Are you a New Generation Thinker?

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Are you an early career researcher based in a UK Research organisation? If so, why not apply to the 2016 New Generation Thinkers Scheme (NGT) run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and BBC Radio 3.

New ideas, new voices, and new creativity are being sought for the NGT scheme. The Arts and Humanities Research Council and BBC Radio 3, are keen to hear from academics who are passionate about communicating their research and have a keen knowledge of radio and TV.

The call opened on 2 December 2015 until Thursday 7 January 2016. The NGT scheme is seeking innovative programme ideas, talent, and expertise from early career researchers who bring fresh and interesting ideas on communicating their research across the airwaves.

This exciting opportunity aims to develop a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience – through BBC broadcasting. It’s a chance for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community.

Each year, up to sixty successful applicants have a chance to develop their programme-making ideas with experienced BBC producers at a series of dedicated workshops and, of these up to ten will become Radio 3’s resident New Generation Thinkers. They will benefit from a unique opportunity to develop their own programmes for BBC Radio 3 and a chance to regularly appear on air.

To celebrate AHRC’s tenth anniversary year and five years of the New Generation Thinkers scheme, a short film has been produced which follows the journey of NGT applicants. This short film includes useful tips and advice from successful NGT finalists including what to expect from the BBC-led workshops: New Generation Thinkers Film

The scheme is open to all early career researchers based in a UK Research Organisation (either Higher Education Institution or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]).  For more information and to apply to the scheme click here.

Picture by Karola Riegler

 

UN resolution 2249 – now what?

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The west vs ISIS: a new stage

A UN resolution will intensify the war against ISIS.
Such an outcome carries three grave risks, says Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University in this post which first appeared on Open Democracy.

The United Nations Security Council voted in favour of Resolution 2249 on 20 November. The France-sponsored document calls all nations to act to prevent and suppress violent actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It does not authorise the use of force, nor does it invoke the right to self-defence enshrined in Article 7. But it provides a strong argument for those supporting a far more intense war against ISIS.

The UN news centre reports:  “The [UNSC] this evening called on all countries that can do so to take the war on terrorism to Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq and destroy its safe haven, warning that the group intends to mount further terror attacks like those that devastated Paris and Beirut last week.”

Russia backed the resolution in part because its military actions in Syria have propelled the country to a more central international position. If its intervention expresses Vladimir Putin’s aim to restore Russia’s status as a great power, support for the resolution also reflects awareness of the Islamist challenge in Russia itself. The Chinese signed up out of concern over instability in the Gulf, the source of so much of their oil and gas, but also with their own Uyghur challenge in mind.

The practical outcome will be a concentration of the air war and wider use of special forces.  Russia has substantially expanded its air forces in Syria, France is once again deploying its aircraft-carrier to the region, and Britain’s prime minister David Cameron may now get his parliamentary vote to bomb Syria.

But as the war escalates, three ominous elements present a cause for real concern.

The first is that the war against ISIS in Iraq and especially Syria is becoming ever more a western war, with Russia included in what can relentlessly be publicised by ISIS to great effect as a “crusader onslaught” on Islam (see “The Paris atrocity and after“, 14 November 2015. All four Middle East states previously involved in airstrikes in Syria – Jordan, Beirut, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – have withdrawn. Even if they can be persuaded to mount renewed attacks, these will be little more than symbolic. In any case, the view from ISIS is that such states are the willing lackeys of the crusaders.

The second is whether the heightening of military operations against ISIS, now clearly aimed at its complete physical destruction, can be remotely successful. The experience of the fifteenth-month air war is a caution here. As of 13 November, the United States-led Operation Inherent Resolve had seen attacks on 16,075 targets including 4,517 buildings and 4,942 fighting positions. Pentagon figures report that the strikes have killed 20,000 ISIS supporters, up from the 15,000 reported in July. On this basis, the 20,000-30,000 ISIS fighters that were reportedly facing the coalition a year ago should have been torn apart, yet that figure remains unchanged.

Perhaps most notable of all, the estimate of a year ago of 15,000 people going to join ISIS from eighty other countries has now been increased to 30,000 from 100 countries. In short, the persistent refrain from ISIS of being the defender against the crusaders is proving uncomfortably effective (see “Syria, another ‘all-American’ war“, 12 November 2015).

Moreover, destroying ISIS in Syria and Iraq will not be possible without ground troops, which is just what ISIS wants. And even if such destruction were possible, what would come next?  Would it involve long-term western occupation of Iraq and Syria, and what effect would that produce? Would the war then extend to air and ground operations against ISIS in Libya and Yemen, and far more troops going back to Afghanistan?  What about the al-Qaida groups across the Sahel, including those responsible for the attack on 20 November in Mali’s capital, Bamako?

The third element is the need for a more far-sighted view. This series of columns started immediately after 9/11 and has now run for over fourteen years, with most of the emphasis on trying to analyse the unfolding “war on terror”.  If there has been one underlying concern, expressed as each of the major confrontations has evolved, it has been the persistent and dangerousreliance on the “control paradigm” and its consequences (see “The global paradigm: seeing it whole“, 1 May 2014).

The attack on Afghanistan three months after 9/11 dispersed al-Qaida and led to the Taliban melting away. The prospect for the country looked superficially bright, yet fourteen years later the war there is once again intensifying. The rapid military success against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq was celebrated by George W Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech on 1 May 2003, yet US troops stayed another eight years  before leaving behind a rapidly evolving ISIS (see “Iraq war and ISIS; the connection“, 29 October 2015). The intervention in Libya in 2011, which had a semblance of UN approval, saw Gaddafi’s lynching and the regime’s overthrow, yet four years later Libya is a collapsed state. The cascading of arms and ideas down across the Sahel has resulted in yet more conflict, as exemplified by the Bamako operation.

An enhanced war against ISIS may be the inevitable, and indeed fully understandable, response to the appalling events in Paris a week ago. Sadly, though, that does not make it any less of a mistake. That is especially so when other paths could be taken that will do much more to prevent ISIS gaining further strength and may even end up undermining it

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Professor Rogers is OpenDemocracy’s  international security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security on OpenDemocracy since 28 September 2001

Picture: United Nations by Hugh Nelson