.: 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.'

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

Richard Nixon’s most prominent childhood memory was of him falling and then running. He was riding in a horse drawn buggy with his mother and when the horse turned a corner too fast, Nixon fell out and the buggy wheel ran over his head, inflicting a deep cut. Despite this, he somehow managed to get up and run after the buggy while his mother tried to make the horse stop. This incident aptly sums up his whole life as Nixon always seemed to be running and falling and running again. He was a man of many masks and few, if any, can say they saw the real Nixon. To many, he was a shadowy conspirator; someone who was coarse, vindictive and paranoid, harbouring hatred within and lacking any sense of emotion or sentimentality. To some, he was an intellectual genius, a foreign policy statesmen and one of the great liberal Presidents. To twenty-first century historians and political junkies, he will forever remain an enigma-a character from a Greek tragedy perhaps; doomed to self-destruction due to fatal character flaws. 

He grew up on the poorest lemon ranch in California and his dad, a social outcast, always struggled to make ends meet. Thus, Nixon was condemned, at a very young age, to a childhood of work and labour. To add to his woes, his two older brothers died when he was just twelve. Nixon’s refuge was his schoolwork. Having graduated first from his local school, he won scholarships from both Harvard and Yale but even with the tuition paid for, his family could not afford to send him so far away and instead enrolled him in a local Quaker institution. This event fed into Nixon’s deep rooted feelings of insecurity and inadequacy as he was never able to shake the sense of having missed out on the Ivy League, which in his eyes was, ‘an exclusive club populated by the bright young men.’ Nevertheless, Nixon continued to work with trademark determination. However, even at college, he struggled to overcome his outsider status. Intensely private and socially awkward, he never felt truly accepted by anyone and instead drowned himself in self-pity. These feelings of inadequacy continued to torment him for the rest of his life.

His lack of self-esteem though, never dulled his burning sense of ambition and his rise to Washington was nothing short of spectacular. Building himself up as a fierce anti -Communist crusader, Nixon won a seat in the Senate aged only thirty-seven. Two years later, he became the youngest Vice-President ever, serving under Eisenhower. Eight years on, he had his eyes on the big one and nothing, it seemed, could stand in his way. He was up against John F. Kennedy, the youthful Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy challenged Nixon to a series of debates, a novel idea at the time. Nixon agreed and on September 26th, 1960, 70 million Americans switched on their television sets to watch the first ever televised Presidential debate. Those who listened to the debate on their radios believed that Nixon clearly seemed the stronger candidate. However, the television audience thought JFK won the debate, claiming that he was more confident, better looking and simply ‘sexier’ than Nixon, who looked tired, stiff and unsure of himself. Nixon went on to lose the closest general election in US history. He was bitter and developed a deep animosity towards the Kennedy’s. JFK exemplified what Nixon was not: charismatic, handsome and extremely likeable. Thus, Kennedy exacerbated Nixon’s lack of self-worth as he highlighted the flaws within Nixon’s character. (While looking at a portrait of JFK hung in the White House, Nixon once remarked, ‘when they look at you they see what they want to be, when they look at me they see who they truly are). Unable to recover from the defeat, Nixon resigned himself to eight years of political wilderness but in 1968, in an amazing comeback, something that perhaps only he was capable of, Nixon secured his party’s nomination for President and then defeated the Vietnam-burdened Democrats. The six years of his presidency would alter the balance of power in the world and change the face of politics forever…..

During his first term, Nixon made some surprisingly liberal innovations: he cut military spending, expanded Social Security and set up the Environmental Protection Agency, awakening the American conscience to climate change and sustainable development. Nixon was not like the Republicans of today; instead, he was intelligent and was willing to reason rather than cling onto right-wing ideology. However, it was in the sphere of foreign policy that Nixon wanted to make his mark and ‘give history a nudge.’ He certainly left his mark, making peace with the Russians and stunning the world by travelling to Beijing to open up diplomatic relations with China. These impressive achievements meant that Nixon won comfortably in the election of 1972.

In the lead up to the election though, Nixon was paranoid of defeat. This fear led him to draw up an official ‘enemies’ list and the creation of a re-election committee which was filled with ex-CIA operatives. They bugged, planted false evidence and knew no limits when it came to tainting Nixon’s opponents. It was this group that bungled up the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters but it was Nixon and his aides who bungled up the handling of the affair, choosing to engage in an elaborate cover-up, filled with lies and deceit that culminated into the ‘long national nightmare’ of Watergate. The scandal has tainted the image of politics and politicians ever since and has made people lose faith in the systems of government all over the world. According to Nixon, it was the ‘mistakes of the heart and not the head’ that led to his downfall. Unfortunately though, Watergate was a burden that Nixon always had to carry for the rest of his life. In the final meeting with his staff before his resignation, Nixon was overwhelmed with emotion. ‘Always remember,’ he said, with tears in his eyes, ‘others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them-and then you destroy yourself.’ Talented in so many ways, but always harbouring an inner core of hatred, Richard Nixon had destroyed himself.

Nationalism. Perhaps what is so controversial about this statement is the fact that it is impossible to define; each nationalist group has different aims and different methods which makes the whole concept of ‘nationalism’ subjective. There is no consensus amongst historians as to how to view nationalism: should it be an ‘imagined community’ of shared culture and heritage? Or rather defined by the terroritorial boundaries of nation states as they have been drawn out today? Is it a reactionary ideal calling for a return to the past or a revolutionary one calling for the establishment of a new nation state? Whatever the definition, this movement is once again gaining momentum around the world thus it is vital that we consider the role it is plays…

At its simplest, nationalism is the study of identity. Despite the changing dynamics of world order, the desire to belong to a specific community is never erased and always relevant. In the 1920s, the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs coined the term “collective memory” for things we think we know for certain about the past of our own societies. Typically, he wrote, “a collective memory… is understood to express some eternal or essential truth about the group –usually tragic”. So the Poles remember the partition of their country just as the Serbs remember the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 as their defeat on earth but their moral victory in an unending struggle against Muslims. ‘Collective memory’ is fundamental to the study of nationalism and reveals more about the present than the past as it is integral to how a group sees itself.

Furthermore, nationalism is increasingly important as it is the source of many conflicts around the world; in order to understand these conflicts we have to understand the root of them. For example, Israelis use nationalism as a justification for preventing Palestinians with basic human rights.

Due to the EU crisis at the moment nationalism is remerging since countries are becoming hostile to the idea of bailing out weaker nations. In Finland, France, and Spain, there are signs that nationalism is on the rise in politics, notably to growth of the Front National in France under Marine Le Pen. Further, in Germany, anti-euro sentiment is growing, as taxpayers become more concerned about the costs of stabilizing the system. Many Germans don’t see why their taxes should be used to help people as far away as Greece when there are problems within their own country which need addressing; similarly, Greece does not want to be humiliated and patronised by Germans just because they have helped them out. Nationalist sentiment against immigrants could transfer to opposition to the euro due to the concept of “in-group bias,” a phenomenon that leads people to prefer their own rather than others. Thus nationalism is rising and its next victim could be the euro…

In my opinion, the next few years will see the study of nationalism focus less on the creation of states and more on the devolution of them. Questions will arise such as what is the best solution for the UK; prompted by Scottish calls for independence, the UK government will need to work out whether to continue with an uneven distribution of powers or to establish a federal system or even dissolve the UK entirely? It is imperative that countries learn how to handle multiple, complex national identities existing side-by-side in a single nation state. It is once again interesting to look at the EU in relation to this as to whether the EU is competing against each individual states or whether these single entities can be embedded into a larger one. Within this, the effect that different languages have on a nation state is interesting as it begs the question as to whether a multi-lingual state can maintain their stability or if they are doomed to fail by their nature.

Living in Dubai as we do it would be impossible to not look at the role of nationalism in the Middle East. With the rise of Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt it seems that religion and nationalism are becoming intertwined; France is struggling to maintain itself as a secular state which will have a direct impact on how people conceptualise ‘Frenchness’ thus whether the same will happen in this part of the world is debatable. Furthermore, given the recent developments in the Arab Spring, it will be interesting to see whether countries in the Middle East develop a more nationalist state structure or whether they go back to the view that was dominant in the early 20^th Century of Pan-Arabism.

Increasingly pervasive in the society that we live in, the question should not be whether nationalism is considered a force for “good” or as inherently “evil”  but rather what effect these changes will have on our lives.

The biggest anti Wall Street demonstration since the US was hit by an economic crisis. Originating from Canada, the editors of the Vancouver-based anti-consumerist magazine Adubsters called for a Tahrir Square “moment” on Sept. 17 in lower Manhattan. They came to protest what they called the disproportionate power of the U.S. corporate elite.

So who were the first responders?

A collection of punks, anarchists, liberals, hackers and artists who spent a night in Zuccotti park; the area of greenery near Ground Zero, the New York Stock Exchange and the New York Federal reserve. Latterly, and repeatedly, with the influence of social media acting as the catalyst; the swell of crowds began to form which included a larger array of people such as cameramen, celebrities and general activists.

Robert Segal, a wine salesman states why he joined in the protests: “What brought me here? I used to work on Wall Street. I came down to validate their fears.”

Do they all want the same thing?

The answers vary in the crowds. Some strive to achieve “collective liberation” whilst others fight for specific economic changes. They want to impose new taxes on financial transactions especially to those wealthiest of the country and also argue the fundamental problem that corporations have too much influence in Washington.

The president’s efforts?

President Obama’s efforts have not been too consequential. He struggled to get America’s attention during his September pivot to call for the wealthy to pay their “fair share” in taxes to fund a new $447 billion jobs bills. Unfortunately, neither the President’s plan nor the efforts of the Senate Democrats have stirred the nation, and both ideas have been voted down.

…His reaction to the protests?

The White House went out of its way to praise the protestors and present them as mainstream. Obama cited: “what I think that the American people understand that not everybody’s been following the rules.” Obama explained this in a press conference on the same day protestors marched by the White House chanting, “We got sold out.” Moreover, Vice President Joe Biden, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi have offered words of sympathy towards the protestors. “The conversations you’re seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens across America,” said David Plouffe, the President’s top strategist.

More importantly, the protests in lower Manhattan are still holding strong whereby the White House will still need to further investigate in the matter to solve the continuous problems with corporate greed that seem to consume our era.