Force:Feed

"He's resting"

2008-11-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

Last week there was a brutal attack on a journalist in Moscow. The man was beaten to a pulp and left for dead in front of his house. He is currently in a coma, with his right leg amputated, his frozen fingers cut off, multiple fractures on the skull and broken bones all over the body.

The more striking thing here, however, is not how and why he was targeted, but how his neighbour's maid, on seeing him lying there on the road face down, actually thought to herself "he's probably just had a little to drink and now he's resting".

These attacks are so common-place in Russia that people no longer wonder who'd done it and why. Instead, they marvel at the fact that some manage to survive. This particular journalist was mostly likely targeted for his investigations into some environmental issues in the suburbs of Moscow.

7.2 magnitude earthquake hits China. 9.8 magnitude cynicism hits me

2008-03-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Could the latest earthquake in the north-west China be a man-made disaster designed to divert attention from the violent clashes in Tibet ? The timing is impeccable and natural disasters are the perfect kind of human tragedies that tend to bring out the shared feeling of national pride in the Chinese. The beloved phrase "we are all Chinese, all brothers and sisters" will no doubt climb out of people's throats once again and time will help heal the scars of the violent clampdown on the Tibetans ahead of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

At times it feels like the 'liberal West' is doing everything in its power to squeeze humility out of China in the run-up to the summer Games. Pressuring China is a feel-good box every celebrity (like Spielberg ) wants to tick. Whether this is necessary or, indeed, useful, is a different question.

Cash for shedded pounds. Not funny

2008-01-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

In an absolutely asinine move, the British government is now looking into introducing financial incentives for people to maintain healthy diets and shed extra pounds. The move is in large provoked by the staggering statistics of child obesity in England and the huge costs of obesity-related health issues passed down to the NHS.

In a Department of Health report entitled Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives published on 23 January, Gordon Brown cracks up scary figures:

In England alone, nearly a quarter of men and women are now obese. Almost a fifth of 2 to 5 year-olds are obese, while a further 14 per cent are overweight.

This is presumably what got the DH moving.

The Health Secretary Alan Johnson stands behind this £372 million strategy that is meant to help cut the proportion of obese and overweight children by 2020 back to levels in 2000.

Obesity has been linked to every ailment from heart disease to cancer followed by hysterectomy. Obesity has been affecting not just the adults, but children and even pets (according to RSPCA). Projects like 'Pets get slim' have made human stories out of pets fighting the challenge of weight loss. This spirit is about to be echoed in humans.

While it might be unfair to assume that all this weight came from wealth (money translated into food), and using money to gag the mouth is at best counter-productive, it's equally unfair, on the other hand, that alcoholics, smokers and drug addicts never got paid for fighting their demons with their bare hands.

Luckily, the Health Secretary is not entirely ignorant. According to TimesOnline, Mr Johnson said: "The core of the problem is simple — we eat too much and we do too little exercise." Bless thou who sees the truth. Shame on those who try to put out a fire with bottles of cooking oil.

Has anyone thought: oh, if I put on some weight now I'll get paid for losing it! It is not entirely impossible that even if this short-sighted move will be effective, it still runs the risk of developing into a dependency on this financial incentive and create a different form of addiction. Such embarrassing plans should not even pause in the heads of the normal thinking members of society.

"Gazans"

2008-01-25T13:31:00.000-08:00

Speaking on BBC News 24 today, the Political Councillor of the Israeli Embassy in the UK referred to the people living in Gaza as 'Gazans'. There's something disturbing about labelling a people in this casual way. It's not quite the same as saying 'Londoners'. Israel is the very reason the Gaza Strip exists; labelling the people of Gaza as 'Gazans' in a way validates Israel's occupation of Palestine and encourages the viewing of the people of Palestine as two separate entities.

Recalling the dawn of the feminist movement, scholars and campaigners always argued that language influences our subconscious. This is why 'policemen' are no longer police 'men' but police 'officers'. It's not a case of political correctness (no one will feel offended if called a 'Gazan') but a matter of language influencing our minds.

This is not to say the word 'Gazans' should be banned. There's nothing less popular than allowing even the thought of stepping on someone else's rights granted by Article 19 . However, it's worth watching out for those casual slips of tongue that may just influence the future of the Middle East.

London Fog

2007-12-23T11:44:00.001-08:00

News less promising

2007-12-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

As a student of media and journalism, the last piece of news I want to hear is about the decline of the media industry, and how difficult it is to get a job worthwhile after graduation. Charlie Brooker - the one name in the British media I still moderately respect, has drawn this prospect for me and thousands like me across the country:

While sceptics may not find the arguments particularly compelling, the hearsay within the industry spells doom for journalists and foresees some form of revolutionary change in the world of media very shortly.

Just yesterday the BBC World Service in a short radio documentary made it clear that the public, it seems, is no longer interested in impartiality. Almost two months ago, the National Union of Journalists celebrated its 100th birthday with a series of demonstrations and rallies in the wake of an obvious crisis in the media industry. The BBC and ITV job cuts have long left the headlines, but the effects of the cuts have already manifested in many ways not always appealing.

The Union people are divided over the future of free press. The more pragmatic have moved on to the Web, while the more orthodox have labelled the Web 2.0 'rubbish' . Futuristic videos started appearing, predicting an ultimate meltdown of media companies and online search engines, rendering traditional journalism of news gathering redundant.

Dark times are upon us. Especially upon the students of journalism and media.

Basing my decision on what really matters: the cull of Bendi Buses

2007-12-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

The London mayoral elections are not until next May, but the race is already on. Ken Livingston and Boris Johnson have been throwing feces at each other for months now. The latest feces throwing contest evolves around London transport system.

The Bendi Buses

In a brief interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC radio (12 Dec) Boris ridiculed Ken's favouritism of the bendi-buses and accused the bendi buses of exacerbating the congestion problem in central London. Johnson promised to cut their numbers, before eventually phasing them out altogether.

However, the Bendi buses provide easy access to all those who may require extra space and lower platforms. It's not just wheelchair users, but also those with luggage (and there's plenty of people who go to work with suitcases) and those with bikes. It also provides an alternative to double-deckers that many find sickening.

The Wind of Change

According to London Elects , the last election in 2004 had a staggering turnout of 37%. Poorly drawn and even more poorly articulated policies might be the problem. Lack of choice and alternative may be another problem.

This time around, many want to close the chapter on the reign of Ken, but for all the wrong reasons. It is rather irritating to hear so many people speak of change when they clearly recognise that there is nothing to change to.

The hope remains that it's just talks. Like with general elections during Tory’s years of glory, many spoke of voting for Labour, but when barricaded in that little booth of anonymity, still voted Tory. That is likely to be the case in the upcoming mayoral elections.

If change means being governed by an eccentric clown, it would be more reasonable to run for the top job yourself. All you need is to have 10 friends in each borough of London and a £10,000 deposit. Applications are still open. Click here to apply

Merry Christmas and Stop Ruining the Planet

2007-12-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

There's much to be said about Christmas - a festive holiday that now begins in October and, for most people, ends in January with a grand pile-up of credit card bills. Restaurants, bars, clubs and even pubs had started advertising their ‘exclusive’ and ‘ultimate’ Christmas plans even before I started shopping for a Halloween pumpkin. So, there is very little to be said when after such grandiose run-up you emerge on Christmas day without any gifts for your loved ones. And that's the high time to get philosophical.

If you start by pondering aloud, in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner, “why, oh, why do I have to buy?”, any reasonable person would just give up trying and make a mental note not to get you anything worth more than 2 quid for next Christmas.

If, however, they manage to miss the sarcasm in a haze of holiday hype and courteously listen in on your deep and meaningful monologue, then you can bring in the religion card. Caught in the spirit of ho-ho-ho, even Muslims and Sikhs go on spending sprees and set up emergency Christmas funds. But if you take a step back from that ever-so-charming spirit and go back to the roots of the holiday… most of us aren’t even Christian! We just like the sales, and the ribbons, and tearing up layers of wrapping only to discover your boyfriend doesn’t know you all that well after all.

And most importantly, a philosophical thought worth a PhD thesis is whether all this consumerism is in accord with the Green idea that is so en vogue these days. "Think of all the polar bears that are drowning because of the global warming! Think of the tonnes of excess packaging produced specifically for this environmentally hostile holiday!" - you could say, and pray they be reasonable.

Perhaps, as an ultimate gesture of desperation, to save the planet and to make poverty history, you could buy each one of your friends a copy of the Big Issue: a quality read for them, a big sincere ‘thank you’ for you, and a hot meal for the homeless.

It takes that little for a Christmas to be truly merry.

De-Stigmatisaion of the Sex Industry

2007-11-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

For a nation so obsessed with sex, why is the sex industry still so heavily stigmatised, marginalised and criminalised?

A thing of a stigma. Ava Caradonna

Ava Caradonna is an awfully smart and determined lady, who has worked as a prostitute for over 4 years now. She began her journey in a brothel in Australia at the age of 23. Here is what she has to say about the stigma:

“There is an incredibly caricatured and clichéd understanding of who works in the sex industry. And that same stigma that is attached to sex workers – as whores, as loose women, as deviants, as drug addicts, as people who basically won’t go and get a 9 to 5 job and be bored for the rest of their life, – a similar stigma is attached to the men and increasingly women who purchase sex”.

The Ginormous White Elephant and The “Ugly” Adverts

The sex industry is a ginormous white elephant that is too awkward for any single force of society to handle.

With a distinctively conservative approach to sex and the role of sex in society, Harriet Harman, Labour’s Minister for Women, believes buying sex should be made a criminal offence, like in Sweden. That was in 2006.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on October 28 this year, Harman drew links between the "ugly" classified adverts in some local newspapers and human trafficking in the country.

The crusade on the “ugly” and the “vice” speaks of a strong desire to push prostitution out of sight, and preferably – out of mind.

Ava Cardonna, on the opposite end of the spectrum, considers this move a ‘short-sighted, moralistic stab’. “By banning adverts, you are certainly not taking away the reasons why people are involved in prostitution”, she says.

De-criminalisation vs Legalisation

According to the Prostitution Reform website, the use of prostitutes in the UK is believed to have doubled over the last ten years. Times Online also reported a noticeable change in the demographics of clients of prostitution.

However, legal regulations around prostitution still create huge barriers for the safe conduct of sex for money. While selling sex is not illegal in this country, plenty of activities associated with it are heavily penalised.

Advertising sexual services, street prostitution, as well as running brothels with more than one prostitute working in a flat – all are essential yet illegal activities in the UK. The pursuit of street prostitutes from a car, otherwise known as kerb-crawling, is also illegal in most of the UK, with the exception of Scotland.

But importantly, taking away the laws that criminalise sex for money is very different from putting in laws that regulate commercial sex. Ava explains: “Over-regulation of the sex industry is counter-productive. Many people work in the sex industry precisely because they don’t have to pay tax and they don’t have to have immigration status”.

Illegal does not mean non-consensual

Legal measures tackling the negative consequences of prostitution are mostly based on a victim mentality. The Poppy Project, for example, provides support for women who have been trafficked into prostitution.

This movement is based on the assumption that trafficked women are forced into prostitution. While this might be true in an overwhelming majority of cases, there is also a growing number of illegal immigrants who choose to enter the UK with the very aim of engaging in prostitution.

These women pay huge sums of money (some Thai women reported paying up to £20,000) to illegally enter and remain in the country. They do not need to be rescued or sheltered. For them, this is just an investment. And deportation means loss of investment.

Telling people how to live their lives is counter-productive. Acknowledging that prostitution can be a choice and facilitating people’s choices, on the other hand, could be yet the best way to help.