.: The Red Brick – Dubai College's Student Newspaper :.

            Amidst the chaos of tumbling dictatorships across the world, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe quietly announces that he will be running for the presidency in 2012, hoping to win elections for the 8th consecutive time in 31 years.

            It costs 10 million Zimbabwe dollars to buy a loaf of bread. Unemployment in the country is at 95% (CIA World Factbook). Yet, 87 year old Robert Mugabe clings to power like a leech, as has done for the past 31 years. Incredibly, Mugabe did not inherit Zimbabwe’s problems. But by pillaging his people and stupid decisions, he single handedly managed to destroy an economy that was once the ‘breadbasket of Africa’. In a world where our dictators are becoming an endangered species, we reflect on the life of one of the remaining few – and how a man is still empowered to swap Zimbabwe’s health care policy for a house in Hong Kong.

            Mugabe first came into power in 1979, a revolutionary hero who toppled the white minority government. An academic with 7 university degrees, he was hailed by the University of Edinburgh as ‘one of the great figures of modern Africa’ and an individual of ‘extraordinary intellectual discipline and energy’. This was undoubtedly reflected in the methodically brutal way Mugabe dispatched political rivals, ordering the murder of an opponent’s wife by burning her alive with gasoline after severing her hands and feet. Mugabe himself was certainly proud of his academic career, claiming that he even had a ‘degree in violence’.

            Needless to say, Mugabe’s revolutionary ideals died. They were replaced by a vicious opposition to homosexuality and white dominance, for which thousands were tortured and killed. In brilliant economic maneuver Mugabe wrote the ‘redistribution act’, where he was able to take land from whites and give it to coloured people. Those that were given farms were not trained farmers and Zimbabwe’s food output fell by 45% as crops died.

            Then came the Matabeleland genocide. In the 1980’s government troops killed thousands of civilians to quell civil unrest in the Matabeleland province of Zimbabwe. That was the official word. In truth, ethnic Shona soldiers systemically slaughtered the Ndebele population of the area. Mugabe never stood trial.

            Unlike other political criminals, Mugabe’s actions are not solely condemned to history. In 2008, the dictator launched a bloody campaign of violence after losing elections. The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights ‘recorded 85 deaths in political violence’ after voting. It turns out that the election committee had the figures wrong, and elections went to a run-off. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party spectacularly came from behind to seal a power sharing deal with the MDC. How much power sharing the deal involved, was explicitly obvious.

            And so Robert Mugabe prepares to run for the presidency once more. In the run up to this years elections Zimbabwe charged 46 with treason for watching videos of the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. With Mr. Mugabe’s prodigious skill in corruption, brutality and intimidation, there seems to be no doubt who will be Zimbabwe’s president this year. 
 

Republic Day in India falls on the 26th of January and is a celebration of the date when the official Constitution came into action. It seems only fitting therefore, upon the 63rd celebration of this day to look at the governance of a country home to the most populous government in the world. 

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of the nation assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921. Of his key policy's, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, easing poverty and expanding women's rights were central. Above all however, was achieving what Gandhi called 'Swaraj', the ability for India to be independent and free. 

Nowadays, while 'Swaraj' may have been achieved in essence, Gandhi's dreams are still far from being fulfilled. While India's booming economy and ever growing GDP thrives in even the largest slum's in the world, corruption grows like a tumor within the heart of Indian politics. 

It seems that in the present day, politicians are more concerned about the bonus they can take home at the end of each year rather than on the goals set out by the father of the nation. Gandhi infamously once noted 'action expresses priority', showing to us that the priority of the politicians is the car they drive or the area they live in and not the well-being of those who make India what it is. 

Hope however, comes in the voice of Anna Hazare. A man who is reigniting Gandhi's flame after modern politicians tried to put it out. A man who understands the needs of the common man and is determined to find the solutions to their problems. 

As India and her people embark upon a crusade against all those who seek to tarnish Gandhi's visions, remembering where they came from and the origins of their politics all outlined in the constitution will become ever more important. To note that corruption is present within a country is one thing and to destroy it is another. 

Remembering the words of Gandhi, of Nehru, of Bose will remind the nation of the foundations and principles that their motherland was founded on. Only time will tell whether or not the protest for freedom will be succesful, whether the dreams of Gandhi will one day be achieved and whether India's people will ever achieve transparency and truth within their government. 

The best advice of course, comes from the Father of the Nation himself,

'First they ignore you,

then they laugh at you,

then they fight you,

then you win.'

At midnight on the 15th August 1947, a nation made its “tryst with destiny.” The true dimensions of India had always been in her masses, and on that day, a vibrant, seething mass descended on Delhi drowning the British under a horde of brown humanity. Yet, in Calcutta, a man lay despondent on a straw pallet besides his spectacles and his Gita.

While India awakened to life and freedom; the pain of partition, a divisive future between Hindu and Muslim, rendered Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi sound asleep. Gandhi was far more than a freedom fighter or a “cunning Hindu politician” as labelled by the acerbic and blinkered Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It is not in connection to India’s destiny alone that his life has significance- since we anyway have callously abandoned most of his philosophies. He was essentially a moral force whose appeal was to the conscience of man and therefore universal. He was no child prodigy like a Vivekananda or Tagore, just an ordinary child like the rest of us with a shyness that handicapped him for years. Yet, there was something latent in his spirit that combined with an unshakeable faith in God, an iron will and a moral sensibility of right and wrong borne from the study of Hindu, Muslim and Christian scripture that made him what he was- a “Mahatma” ie: “Great Soul.” His genius in my opinion was his infinite capacity to strive to fulfill an inner moral urge, out of which sprang his doctrines of “Satyagraha” and “Sarvodaya” his gifts to an India that rendered Nehru’s words of “His light will illumine this country for many years to come” hollow, as 60 years hence, we have eschewed all of Gandhi’s principles.

At the root of “Satyagraha” is self-upliftment. It is about ensuring the good of the individual first and foremost as the good of the individual will lead to the good of all. The individual must seek to control his senses and desires, overcome his ego, thus enabling him to sacrifice himself for the good of his family, the community, and the nation. Gandhi believed that the development of India’s villages and a simple lifestyle was our salvation, yet instead of curing the ills of the perversions of our society we strove to imitate the West and yearned for great industrial complexes where regimented workers and urban youth were forced to sell their values for the sake of progress and a better material standard of life. The interests of the villages are now firmly subordinated to those of the towns and cities and the liberalization of the economy in 1992, brought economic growth to these cities at the cost of great social and moral degradation. Not only have we succumbed to the trappings of a hedonistic, promiscuous, so-called civilized but actually degenerate society, we’ve proved susceptible to the lures of technology and industrial progress. India has fallen into a perhaps irreversible social and moral decay. This is well illustrated by the failure of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. Anna’s movement failed to stay the distance and the reason is simple: public apathy. We could stir ourselves to celebrate a song like Kolaveri di but were unable to churn up anywhere near enough kolaveri (rage) to combat the scar that has eroded the nation for sixty years, ever since the Congress rejected Gandhi’s notions of becoming a socialist People’s Service League and abandoned spiritualized politics. The Indian people failed to rise to Anna’s occasion, seeking salvation either in bad-mouthing Hazare, or opting cynically to cast corruption as a long term resident in the nation. Hazare lost because a billion possible soldiers prematurely decided this was not their fight; they had a life to lead and if a bit of payment was under the table, acha theek hai (that is okay) as we say.

Gandhi’s premonitions with regards to Partition have also borne fruit. Since 1947, India and Pakistan have faced each other on the battlefield 3 times. What is far worse is this sense of enmity and discord between Hindu and Muslim, Indian and Pakistani that has burrowed into our minds. Rather than glory in our shared, almost identical culture, a disturbing antagonism pervades in the respective countries hinterlands. Just as Gandhi feared in 1947, the bloodbath of Partition has left wounds that fail to heal, leaving us estranged as a people. While many in India initially agreed with Gandhi’s claim that an intrinsic link exists between the Indian and Pakistani and only grudgingly agreed to partition, the Muslim terrorism of recent times has led to a disturbing undercurrent from radical Hindu parties that propose doctrines that seek to unite the subcontinent from the Indus to the Brahmaputra under Hindu rule. This notion is for now merely political propaganda that is subdued by the Congress to gain the Muslim vote but ultimately it is up to us, the masses, to contravene this nonsense and restore warmth for each other. Gandhi’s pyre at Rajghat on the banks of the Yamuna elucidates his Platonic dream of Khudai Raj- “making India the Kingdom of God on Earth.” Perhaps idealistic but the real travesty is that not that India and its people have failed, it is that they haven’t even put one foot on the path to Khudai Raj, instead blindly pursued the West’s model of power and success, driven by the need for an intrinsically materialistic society. Forgive us Gandhiji.

The unclear unity of the Republican Party is clearly shown through the extensive range of republican candidates who seem to represent very different parts of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is still reeling from explosions of 2006 and ’08, which blew apart constituencies no longer happy together. The impulse at the party headquarters was to slap Ronald Reagan’s smiling face Band-Aid over the wounds, which might have worked for a while-until the economy collapsed.

Heading into the Florida Republican presidential primary on Jan 31, heaving outside Newt Gingrich was threatening to knock off prominent front runner Mitt Romney. By focusing on the anger of the Tea Party movement, Gingrich rose to victory in South Carolina in time to change the reins unto who is in charge of this campaign.

Inside Operation Gingrich

Gingrich’s day begins and ends with meeting the media. Between goings to his whereabouts, he rides a bus with a smiling mug painted across the side as many as six events a day. His day is manifested with interviews, calling local activists and often conducting tele-town halls with voters. After his speeches, he and his wife work the crowd as a pair; she handles the small talk whilst he scrawls his name. Gingrich is proud to be “grandiose.” He doesn’t just promote agenda; he “renews American civilization.”

He refers himself to a lot of different people such as Charles de Gaulle, the Duke of Wellington and Moses. In his latest reference, he also adds the Mississippi lawmaker Noah “Soggy” Sweat Jr. to his list.

Old Soggy is famous for his short speech in the early 1950s on the topic of legalizing alcohol- a model of ‘having it both ways:’ “If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home…then certainly I am against it,” But he further went to say, “But if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips…then certainly I am for it.”

The Gingrich campaign has been a nonstop “if by whiskey” speech. If when you say Washington Insider you mean the bad guys who are ruining the country, he’s against them, but if you mean former Speakers of the House who make millions on K Street, then he is one. If by the media you mean the folks Gingrich hangs out with in hotel bars, he’s a big fan, but if you mean the people who ask unwelcome questions with millions of people watching, he’s definitely opposed.

So, does it seem Gingrich will succeed with his goal? As Barbara Marks of Laughlin Nev said in regards to Gingrich, “He might not succeed but he’ll die trying.”

By Yasmin Adib

Top grades? Check. Won a million and one awards? Check. Prefect, school newspaper editor, sports captain or a leader of some sort? Er, all of the above. Given a couple of concerts at Carnegie Hall? All sold out. Initiated a massive project that will benefit all of humankind, simultaneously battling world poverty, stopping global warming and paving the way to find a vaccine for the common cold? Like, duh.

Ah, there we go then, the top universities of the world aren’t asking for much at all. The admissions process may be taxing to say the least, but it is comforting to think that a whole year of students have just gone through it, and are very much still alive and kicking. Anyone familiar with Amy Chua’s extraordinary book 'The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' will tell you that banning frivolities like the school play and sleepovers, instead making your five year old practice piano for hours (in the plural) daily and cracking maths sums intended for children two years older, is but usual for those who like to get a head start on these things.

 Charlie Peacock, a Year 13 student whom many of us will know as the Chief Editor of Dubai College’s online newspaper, The Red Brick, having worked exceptionally hard and now the owner of a stellar resume, is set to tackle a course in History at Trinity College, Cambridge next year. She has also been accepted into Kings College London and the University of Durham. Charlie gives an interview to The Red Brick revealing what she did to gain a coveted Place at those hallowed halls of higher education...

When did you develop an interest in History?
Charlie: I have always loved History since I was young – it used to be my favourite subject at Primary School!

Which AS and A levels have you taken?
I have taken History, English, French and Maths, all to A2 Level (though defo regretting the Maths now!)

Which extracurriculars have you been involved in/ mentioned in your personal statement?
In my personal statement I mentioned that I founded the History Society, and had attained the Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award. I also put in that I achieved the highest marks in the world for Coordinated Science, Geography and History in my CIE IGCSEs and also the Highest Marks in the UAE for English Literature and PE; I think that helped a bit! I think Mr Jones mentioned that I was Senior Prefect in my reference and how I was nominated for Head Girl. In my reference I also had sport (e.g. netball, football, rounders etc).

How did you go about planning to apply and researching universities?
I visited some universities at Easter in Year 12, and then visited the ones that I hadn't seen yet in the summer. I knew a bit about them from my sister and I also went onto their websites (although I preferred actually having the prospectus in front of me).

What did you wear, and what are you supposed to wear, to your interview?
To my Cambridge interview I wore some jeans and a smart jumper... I tried to keep it casual and smart at the same time. However, I also had forgotten to take off my nail polish (which was black and gold), and my friends were shocked, to say the least, but thankfully it didn't seem to matter in the end. To be honest, I think the most important thing is that you’re comfortable.

How many letters of reference should you give, and must they be from your teachers?
This doesn't apply to UK Universities, only US universities (which I didn’t apply to).

Did you have to do any out-of-school exams (e.g. BMAT, ELAT), if so how did you go about preparing for these?

No - one of the reasons that I applied to Cambridge over Oxford was the fact that it didn't require the HAT (History Admissions Test); I had no time to prepare for it and so wouldn't have done myself justice. Plus, it looked blimin' difficult! 

Did you refer to any ‘get into uni’ books/ websites- if so are there any you would like to recommend?
Nope

What is the scope of your course- what are the possible career options?

History is really open which I like as there are a lot of different possible careers - from finance to journalism, law to teaching, the possibilities are endless as the skills are transferable to most jobs (except medicine of course!)

Are there any tips you’d like to share with prospective applicants?
I would say definitely visit the universities that you want to apply to as I was pretty set on applying to a certain university, but after I visited it I hated it (one of the buildings looks like they are testing UFOs in there!). Saying that, I know some people that love it so it’s all about personal choice. I initially also didn't want to apply to Cambridge as I thought it was really quiet and village-like whereas Oxford was a proper city (I knew I definitely wanted a city university over a campus university)... However, when I visited again in the summer after being invited to meet one of the Fellows I found the actual city centre rather than the grassy bits which was actually the back of all the colleges - so make sure you know where you're going before you arrive! I would also recommend starting writing your personal statement at the end of the summer... That’s when I did and it was a lot easier for me than for some people who had to juggle that with school work as they can both be really stressful

And the celebrity question- how do you feel about having achieved so much?

I don't know how to answer that one, haha - erm...

Is there anything noteworthy or interesting that happened during the admissions process?
Well, it’s really interesting how I actually changed my mind to do history as I was dead set on doing English Literature last year (and going to Oxford! - a.k.a The Other Place). I applied to do a Summer Course at Oxford in English but was rung up a week before by my Grandma and was told that it had been cancelled. So I started trawling the internet for different courses (as I now had 2 weeks with nowhere to go!) and just found myself looking at History ones. However, it just so happened that my Grandma had misunderstood the phone call and the course wasn't cancelled (typical grandparents!) and I was still enrolled on the English one. From the sense of disappointment I had that I wouldn't be doing History I knew that it was meant to be so I switched to the History course instead. It was fate!

Also... the reason I switched from The Other Place to Cambridge was that light blue suited me as a colour better... Joking! No, I entered a competition in May for a History Essay Prize and was in the final three so got an invite to meet one of the Fellows (who also turned out to be one of my interviewers!) at Trinity College. Actually meeting him gave me the idea that perhaps I had a better chance if I applied to Cambridge as I knew one of the fellows and on the off chance that he might actually remember me! (He didn't though.) But oh well.

---

Charlie will (hopefully) be happy to answer any questions about the admissions process, and can be found in Class 13TD of Dubai College. Congratulations, Charlie, and here’s wishing you, and the rest of the Year 13 cohort, the best of luck for the future!
 

Is the common view in the field of economics that ‘Free Trade’ is the best way forward for the world economy true? Yes. However we are living in a time whereby the field of economics is in despair and disillusion. No longer can we assume that all the theories put forward by economists in the past, and that have worked in the past, are the best options to take in this moment in time. What I am trying to say is that in this day and age there is certainly room for debate in the ‘Free Trade vs. Protectionism’ argument.

The economic case against protectionism is that it distorts incentives: each country produces goods in which it has a comparative disadvantage, and consumes too little of imported goods. And under normal conditions that’s the end of the story. But these are not normal conditions. We’re in the midst of a prolonged global slump, with governments everywhere having trouble coming up with an effective response. The crux of the problem facing us is that there are major policy externalities that are constantly arising. For example, if country X’s fiscal stimulus (measures taken by the government, normally involving increased public spending and lower taxation, aimed at giving a positive jolt to economic activity) helps country Y’s economy by increasing their exports, there is a problem since country Y will not experience X’s addition to government debt. Therefore the benefit that occurs as a result of fiscal stimulus for one country is less than it is for the world as a whole. Subsequently, this means if macroeconomic policy is not coordinated internationally- and it most certainly is not- there will tend to be too little fiscal stimulus, everywhere.

Now ask, how would this change if each country adopted protectionist measures that “contained” the effects of fiscal expansion within its domestic economy? Then every government would adopt a more expansionary policy — and the world would get closer to full employment than it would have otherwise. Yes, trade would be more distorted, which is a cost; but the distortion caused by a severely underemployed world economy would be reduced. You must understand that this is not a cry for protectionist policies at all times, rather it is a second-best argument; a way in which the world must adjust to the ever-changing economic climate it is currently experiencing.

Everything I’ve just said only applies when the world is stuck in a liquidity trap (money is not readily accessible), which is what is going on in the world today. But this shall not be the normal situation. If we do go all protectionist in the long term it will destroy all the advancements made in trade negotiations over the past century, and it would take a long time to put the pieces together again. Nonetheless, there is a short run case for protectionism which will only increase in force and plausibility if an effective economic recovery program is not found.