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Rap music as a political message

Pauline Zaragoza — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 15:43:56 +0000

Rap music which is mostly considered as a scandalous art can be the subject of curiosity. Actually, by nature rap constitutes a tool for contestation and can carry out a political message.

Origin and characteristics of rap

Rap music can be defined as a cultural movement born in the seventies in American black and Latino ghettos. It is rooted in the Hip hop movement and has been influenced by various music such as reggae, blues, or rock. This music incorporates “rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular“ and it is composed of content (what is being said), flow (rhythm, rhyme), and delivery (cadence, tone). Etymologically, the word “rap” comes from the verb “to rap” which means to “to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow” and is also slang for “to talk or discuss, especially freely, openly, or volubly; chat”.

A political DNA

In the field of music, rap holds an original place. It is considering as the first music “without professional musician”. Rap music is intrinsically politics. Rap’s politicization can be explained by the fact that it’s a way to express the concrete effects of pauperization in ghettos and by the politicized interpretation of rap music by the media. According to Arsenik’s statement, “No one can pretend to rap without taking a position”. In the nineties, this sentence was particularly true with some groups such as the Public Group in the US or Assassin and IAM in France.

Political rap music exploded in the eighties. At this time, it has been a way to express a malaise and claims of the ghettos’ inhabitants. During this Golden Age, what we call “gangsta rap” was born; N.W.A group in California composed by Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella are the standard-bearer of this style. They were inspired by their daily life with police brutalities and gang wars.

In 1988, they signed the hit “Fuck tha police”, a classic song in which they denounce police violence against young black American. Before, in 1982, the group Grandmaster Flash had written the famous song “The Message” in which they criticized power symbols, police and justice.

Rap music can be pictured as the incarnation of oppressed revolt: the representation of an anti-establishment discourse based on identity and claims of urban life’s problems. According to some sociologists, such as Boucher, rap must be studied as a movement which inform us about values conveyed in urban areas and by young people. Hence, rap music is a new political enunciation.

The birth of mainstream rap

With time, rap has become one predominant aspect of world pop culture. Next to the birth of a political rap in the eighties and nineties, we can see a broadening of the genre. There was also a development of a “provocative” mainstream rap with its symbols such as luxury cars, guns or even women.

But compared to this “non-engaged” rap, we can also see the mainstreaming of a more political rap style. Indeed, engaged rap is popular because there are representing certain youth from ghettos. As explained by the French rapper Youssoupha, the success of rappers in society is a “militant act” in itself rather than its militancy being bound to the art-form or the lyrics.

As engaged rap is spread, it carries with it a message. As an example, in the nineties, famous French rappers such as Kery James, IAM, Minister AMER, Assasin, NTM and many others used their popularity for the hit “11’30 against racists laws”.

Also, at the international scale, we are witnessing the coming of popular engaged rappers who wake people up to listen. One of the most famous is Jay-Z who talked about racism and the black experience in America in his Grammy-nominated album, “4:44.”. We can also cite Eminem or Kendrick Lamar with his Grammy-nominated album “Damn” and his 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly”. In this last one, we can listen featuring lyrics such as: “Donald Trump’s in office/ We lost Barack and promised to never doubt him again/ But is America honest, or do we bask in sin?”.

Originally, rap, by tackling topics such as money, delinquency or insecurity, was born from pain and contestation. And even if today we are witnessing a mainstreaming of rap which implies the arrival of white middle-class rappers, this engaged DNA is not dead.

A style still alive: political rap during social crisis

Political rap is especially prominent while a society faces an important crisis, whether it’s a political or historical one, or one concerning identity. In France, the day following the access of the presidential election second round by Jean-Marie Le Pen had led famous rappers to gather and incite youth to block far-right accession with the song “La lutte est en marche”. The French rappers Kery James who is considered as the king of French engaged rap had made the hit “Letter to the French Republic” (“Lettre à la République”) where he tackles the demonization of Muslim people in France and inhabitants of French ghettos who comes from a France that has forgotten its colonial past and its discrimination.

We can talk about Donald Trump’s access to the White House, which has created a wave of engaged rap song. We can cite Eminem with his explosive freestyle rap which he unleashed on the President. About the same target, Childish Gambino with his brilliant and brutal music video “This is America” criticized US modern society; the video clip had more than 1 million views in less than 24 hours. With this song, he raised awareness about the fact that guns have more value than human life and the banalization of violence especially against Black American. In addition, in the United Kingdom, the rapper Stormzy with his song “Vossip Bop” included a gem on Brexit and Boris Johnson: “Rule number 2 don’t make the promise/ If you can’t keep the deal then just be honest/ I can never die I’m Chuck Norris/ Fuck the government and fuck Boris.”

As described by the journalist Karim Madani, rap involves provocation. According to him, “politics and rap are a bad melange. We are in a censured period with the politically correct but Rap Music by its nature is inherently politically incorrect”.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Eminem-04, Mika Väisänen, CC BY-SA 4.0,

Tupac graffiti New York, JJ & Special K, CC BY-SA 2.0,

Jay-Z concert, i am guilty, CC BY-SA 2.0,

Festival des Vieilles Charrues 2017 – Kery James – 170, Thesupermat, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Fast Fashion Industry

Eligija Rukšytė — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 19:16:31 +0000

The “glory” of fashion

Sometimes a big sign that says “SALE” in capital letters blinds us from thinking about what lies beneath the process of making and promoting clothes from big well-known companies that we wear every day.

Well planned marketing strategies

The clothing industry is one where everyone around the world participates every day- whether you wear clothes, buy them, work in a clothing store, a factory which produces them or even as a designer. It has been this way for many years but recently this production went from simply making and selling clothes for everyday wear to a dangerous and manipulating one. This is where the term of Fast Fashion comes along. Worldwide companies, that create inexpensive clothes modified from high end designers, have created an illusion for the average person to have a need to buy new clothes more often than needed.

Big brands went from introducing new clothing items every season to bringing new collections every two weeks. Their marketing campaigns trick us into thinking that we need to have those new clothes in order to fit into society. Commercials broadcast empowering, confident personalities with clothes from certain brands in order to paint the picture that with these clothes you could be the person from the advertisement. Through this, companies play with consumers’ emotions. Everyone is seeking happiness and, according to their model, you can achieve it by simply buying a new T-shirt.

The “affordable prices” that fast fashion endorses make regular consumers believe that they are able to buy more and even enjoy an elite status. But the truth is that it makes people spend excessively and the ones with all the profit are the owners of the companies.

All in order to make profit

The paradox of buying clothes in order to feel better, confident in existing society is that, in reality, the people who make these clothes are not happy at all. A large part of fast fashion clothing is made in low-income countries. A person might often see that majority of garments from brands like ZARA, H&M, Mango, Benetton state on the back of the item that they are made in countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, India. Why do well-known clothing companies produce clothes in countries in which their market is a lot smaller compared to USA or Europe? Wouldn’t it be easier to make them in places where these clothes are actually sold?

Well, the answer to that is simple. For them it is cheaper to outsource production to other countries around the world instead of producing them in the country they are sold. Since low-income countries have low minimum wages, there are unclear collective, labour, child, maternity rights. This serves as an ideal environment for garment production in the textile industry.

Modern slavery

In Bangladesh, eighty percent of clothing factory workers are young women who get paid from 20 to 50 cents per hour. Not only that, some employees get yelled at, or if they are complaining, even beaten. Let’s not forget to mention that employees work in bad condition buildings which often have poor ventilation systems that cause people to inhale chemicals and work in excessive heat. They breathe serious toxins which are used in order to make or die a clothing item.

In addition to already working minimum 10 hours per day, high temperatures make workers more tired and weak. In Cambodia – a country which massively produces garments for fast fashion companies – there are no temperature limits settled that factories have to follow. There have been many reports of people, mostly women, fainting. In this modern textile industry people are exploited as they are treated as slaves. A well known example of poor working conditions is when Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building contained clothing factories collapsed in 2013. This incident is considered to be one of the deadliest in the fashion industry. It took away 1134 lives and got approximately 2500 people injured. All of this happened because the building was in critical condition, but no one bothered to do anything about it. Survivors of this tragedy say that they had informed their supervisors about the cracks in the walls several times. In this case production seemed more important than human lives.

Whose fault is this?

Overall, the reality is that this is how fast fashion brands manage to supply new clothes fast and at an affordable price. A study done in 2014 shows that approximately from 60 to 75 million people work in the textile, clothing and footwear sector industry. It is safe to assume that this number is even bigger today. In order to gain the most profit with the lowest cost, companies do not invest into adequate working conditions. On one hand, it could be said that it is good that clothing factories give jobs and opportunities for people to earn money in low-income countries. However, the environment and the salary these workers are receiving is not acceptable. The only reason why governments are not stepping in is because companies relocate production sites to other countries if they make some drastic changes. However, society, by being ignorant and drawn into this circle of constantly buying new items contribute to the fast fashion industry. Even though being mass consumerism is an outcome of well planned marketing campaigns, a person ultimately still has a choice on how he wants to spend his money. The question, then, arises whether we should we blame companies, the government or each one of us.

Let’s try to fix this mess!

As this topic is slowly becoming a discussable issue, new movements, NGOs and private companies are eager to improve the whole clothing industry. Livia Firth is a founder of EcoAge– a consultancy firm that advises clothing brands how to run their businesses in a sustainable way. She is an activist herself who criticizes fast fashion industry as she hopes for justice. In her speeches she blames fast fashion companies stating that if there was no fast fashion, humanity would not have to face environmental issues and people who work in this industry would not be treated as slaves but with the same respect as everyone else. As companies are operating in a capitalist system, their main goal is to make profit and to be compatible among others and they reach their goal through cheap labor.

With people like Livia Firth and NGOs who openly speak about problems arising from extreme consumer capitalism, there is hope that radical consumerism and exploitation of people could be stopped.

by Eligija Ruksyte

Photo Credits

Banksy black friday, John Jones (CC BY-ND 2.0)

L, ZARA (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Trades Union Congress, Rana Plaza disaster anniversary action on Oxford Street (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

2013-07-09 05.26.46, NYU Stern BHR (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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How Much Is The Fish? The Price of Overfishing

Merle Emrich — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 06:45:52 +0000

Fish is one of the most popular foods worldwide. Yet, the high demand and unsustainable fishing methods come at a price that might prove fatal for coastal fisher communities and indigenous peoples, as well as for the maritime ecosystem.

Within the Time Wave

Let me take you on a journey 30 years into the future. It is the year 2048 and the last fish has been pulled out of the sea. It is flapping on the deck of a huge fish trawler between algae and jellyfish the number of which has drastically increased over the last three decades. It is the result of an insatiable demand for fish and increasingly effective fishing vessels that have emptied the oceans. And true, for a while the fishing industry had been profitable but once fishing had reached a point where more fish were caught than the populations could naturally reproduce, its days were counted-and with it those of the balance of the oceans, the maritime ecosystem as we knew it.

Back to 2018. The EU is the world’s biggest importer of fish and most of it comes from developing countries. There, overfishing does not only threaten the balance of the oceans but also the social and economic situations of coastal communities that are based on and around fishing.

Culture on the Hook

During the mid-1900s a number of governments sought to increase the availability of protein-rich foods through an increased fishing capacity. The fishing industry was subsidised and favourable policies were agreed upon. Eventually, the fishing industry became so big and powerful that it began to replace local fishers. Through the competition of the fishing industry, and the rising number of fish being caught, the catch of local fishers was – and is – getting smaller and smaller leading to them being unable to sustain themselves which in turn not only leads to cultures and traditions disappearing, but also to problems, such as piracy, that are relevant for the Western world that at the moment still profits from a mass consumption of fish.

The life and traditions of many indigenous coastal communities are centred around fish and fishing. Fish is not only vital for them to sustain themselves, but also for their culture. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s culture, for instance, is closely connected to the salmon and its migration. If the fish that these communities build their traditions around disappear, their cultures will disappear, also. And while many of these people only have small boats to use for fishing, the fishing industry uses highly developed equipment and large ships that move closer to shore lines and into native fishing areas as the number of fish in the ocean decreases, threatening traditions and the environment alike.

Always Look on the Bright Side

If we continue fishing the way we do right now, the oceans will probably be empty by 2048. But there are still enough fish in the seas, so that most species’ populations could be restored, scientists argue, and international actors such as the UN are trying to change things for the better by offering guidelines for sanctions against illegal fishing. On a European scale, the EU parliament has worked out a number of measures in order to battle overfishing in the North Sea. The common fisheries policies (CFP) is supposed to ensure fair competition among fishers and make fishing more sustainable, for example through catch limits between 2015 and 2020. But while it is a swimming stroke into the right direction, success is not guaranteed. And in addition, Great Britain is considering pulling out of the agreement as part of Brexit, making it one country less that takes the threat through overfishing seriously.

Responsibilities, however, do not only rest on the shoulders of political institutions. Companies, as well, have to be accountable for the consequences of their businesses. And some of them have already stepped up to the task. The Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) is an initiative of nine Asian, European and US American companies to reform fishing practices. The surface of our overfished oceans might be churning, underneath, though, hope waits in the deep sea.

But while New Zealand, Australia and the US have shown that fishing reforms are possible and impactful much remains to be done. There are still many loopholes through which sanctions can be avoided and a lack of regulations put on commercial fishing. To prevent fish and indigenous traditions from dying out political institutions, the fishing industry and we, the consumers, need to sit in one boat. Effective laws must be past, restrictions put into place, and we need to see a change in the consumers’ attitude.

By Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Trawler by Jon Anderson, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Fish by Jeremy Keith, CC BY 2.0

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Stories of Palestine Told with the Oud

Anna Bernard — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:15:33 +0000

Hopes and dreams and desires are inherent to the human condition. When far away from loved ones, we experience a sense of longing and nostalgia. Different people find different ways of expressing these feelings; some find a language in art, some in music or poetry. The editors of Pike and Hurricane had a unique opportunity to sit down with Adnan Joubran, a world renowned Palestinian musician, to discuss the language and power his oud gives him.

Musical evolution

The oud is an ancient stringed instrument popular in the Middle East. The expertise in the instrument has been in Joubran’s family for a long time:

“I come from […] a family of oud makers and musicians, my father is the third generation in the family who builds the instrument and my brother is the fourth.”

Joubran explains to us how he was enticed by the oud in his youth:

“[…] in the year 2003 there was this kind of phase where I just started to play the oud on my own in the house and I felt it could be my language.” His big brothers supported him and that is how Le Trio Joubran came to be. He explains his path in more detail:

“In 2004 we formed the band Le Trio Joubran, and in 2014 I made my own band. Here I am in Sweden making my own show.”

Many things have happened in the world and in the music scene as Joubran’s career has evolved:

“The oud was only for the old people, culturally the instrumental music is only for the old people. We’ve made a big movement, not only us, but a lot of other musicians too. Young people find it trendy to listen to Trio Joubran.”

Dimensions of hope

When asked what music can do that politics cannot Joubran answers:

“I think with my art I can prove I have existed, I can prove that there is culture,” he says. Further in the interview he explains:

“I am always pro-culture. We should be building history. Whatever we do good today one day will become folkloric, one day will become tradition. In 50 years my music will become tradition. Mozart was contemporary then, he was rebellious then, but now it’s classical,” Joubran asserts. He continues by explaining that music cannot come just from an idea, it comes from history:

“There is culture, there is Palestine, it was there, it is still there.”

Like many other Palestinians, Joubran is a part of the Palestinian diaspora, splitting his time between London and Nazareth. According to him the diaspora is important in preserving Palestinian identity and culture because “each member is a whole nation,” he emphasises and adds:

“I’ve been lately in Chile. There’s more than 400,000 Palestinians in Chile. [Many of them] went in the 1920s. And it’s nice to see in their houses ouds from that time. For me that was so moving.”

During our interview we try to stay away from politics. Nevertheless, we briefly discuss his hopes for the future of Palestine:

“I said earlier I am a bit hopeless, but my mission is to give hope”, he asserts. Joubran’s mission of giving hope comes out of necessity:

“Unfortunately we live in a world where you wake up and you see the news and you suddenly get paranoid: […] is [this] the life that we came for or is [this] the world that we are living in?”

Joubran tells us about a track called ‘I wish I were a tree’ from his latest album:

“We are here only to grow just like the trees. […] we are here just born to love and just born to grow the one next to the other, not to be uprooted, not to be killed. This tree can have red leaves, I can have different coloured leaves, we are different but we should just live this difference and enjoy the beauty that we give to this world, with our differences,” Joubran describes. In addition to giving an awareness of cherishing our differences and a dimension of hope to the listeners, he wishes to provide a space to drop a tear or to get a smile on their faces.

Tears or smiles, Joubran does not seem to give up hope:

“Everyday I wake up with a different dream. I think my pleasure in life is just to dream, to keep dreaming. The way home is nicer than home. […] The pleasure is not fulfilling your dreams, it’s the pleasure of dreaming.”

By Anna Bernard

Photo credits:

Captain.orange, Oud, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Ida Sharla Løjmand, All Rights Reserved
Ida Sharla Løjmand, All Rights Reserved

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Fenix – Close to nature, close to the students

Judith Roos — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 23:05:50 +0000

Environmental issues are real and so is the work done by the student organisation Fenix that works to promote more sustainability. From vegan dinners to cloth swapping events, Fenix puts a lot of effort into reaching people and spreading ideas.

Fenix is a non-profit student organisation at Malmö university. The organisation has its focus on environmental policy and sustainable development. Committing to the environment, sustainable development and fair trade are just some of the main goals that the organisation has.

Just a few months ago, I started attending their regularly organised vegan dinners. Curious about more of their work and events, I had an interview with Bori Yordonova, Judith Schmidt and Theresa Volbert––three young and motivated members of the active Fenix group.

Interview with Bori Yordanova, Theresa Volbert (left)

Interviewer (I): I know that you work for more sustainability. What are your main goals that you focus on in your organisation?

Theresa: I would say we want to raise awareness. Especially for students about these environmental issues, but also about simple things; for example using a sustainable coffee cup instead of a paper cup. We just want to show them that there are many things you can do and that you can join to make your everyday life a little better.

I: So, you show a lot of things for individuals, really concrete things. Are you acting like role models?
Judith: Yes, that’s why we have workshops!

Theresa: Exactly! One example: Maybe not everybody is that much into vegan food but once you’ve been to the vegan dinner you get to know “Oh my god, this is all vegan and it tastes so good! Why should I not try to reduce my meat consumption?”

Judith (nodding): And I also think it is not only raising awareness, but we also want to create commitment, educate people about issues that are going on in our world and are connected to sustainability.

Bori: Yes, and we also like to provide strategies for action on a personal level. It is remembering that it is a system, we are not disconnected from one another and from the institutions we are part of.

Judith nodds and adds that another important goal they have is to have fun. The issues Fenix promotes are undoubtedly very serious, but their aim is to do it in a nice way where people can enjoy what they are coming together to achieve. Theresa explains that otherwise people can easily feel overwhelmed summarizing the common feeling: “there are so many problems but where should I start? I can’t do anything against it!”

I: So, would you say, you want to give people the opportunity to start?

Bori: Yes, we want to empower them. Because if you talk to the general population, an average citizen, he could feel disempowered because it’s a whole new world. It might be that this citizen doesn’t know anything about it. It can then feel very much like: “I can’t do anything.” That’s why, maybe next semester, we can have more fun activities. Like pub quizzes, something that is more entertaining than, rather..

Judith: It sounds like our workshops are not entertaining! (everybody laughs)

Bori: No they are! They are! And that’s the thing. You come here and you see a group of people that are trying to do the same thing! So, you don’t feel alone anymore in that kind of fight.

Just that moment, as Bori finishes her words, I remember a situation from one of the vegan dinners. I was talking to a woman who was looking very happy and enthusiastic. She told me it felt so good for her to be there at the dinner where she totally felt part of the community where veganism is treated as something normal.

And this resonates exactly with what Bori continues: “That’s the goal, to make it normal. Not to make it sound freaky or something that requires many efforts.”

I: That is a good transition to your actual events. Could you tell me more about them?

Judith: I wrote them all down, because it is a lot! You know already about the vegan dinners, which we had every other week this semester. …

And as she begins to talk about the events, I find out about so many I never even knew existed in Malmö.

Judith: We have the coffee cup campaign, and this is an ongoing event that we have every now and then.We give away free coffee to everyone that brings their own cup. We do that to raise awareness to not use single use coffee cups. Then we had an upcycling workshop, where we made our own purses out of trash. We are planning to have another one soon.

We also have different talks. The two we had this semester were one with Gram, a zero waste shop, about zero waste and one with Rude food about food waste. Movie screenings are another part of our events. The last one was a big success! It was “a plastic ocean”.

To me, society as a whole should be included in a holistic program of sustainable development. Economy, ecology and society all need to be in balance. I was wondering how Fenix was looking at this kind of approach.

I: As you said your international dinner was more about social inclusion, do you think it belongs also to sustainable development?

Theresa: Yes, exactly! Most people think it is about the trees and about the environment and about being green. If we look at the SDGs, the sustainable development goals, we find out that there are different topics. They are all connected to economy, ecology and society. So it is not only about the environment.

Bori (nodding): But the environment is our main focus. (everybody agrees)

I: It seems like you’ve done and are doing a lot! What ideas for the future do you have?

Judith: We are planning a clothes swap next semester, where everyone can bring their clothes. Then you can leave a piece and take another. This is about trying to reduce clothes consumption. Second hand clothes are just as fine as new clothes.

Theresa: And you even buy with the thought: “Okay, I can just wear it a summer and then I will buy some new stuff.” (everybody agrees)

Judith: So, we wanna change that!

Theresa: Yes, it is about changing the mindset.

Amazed by the enthusiasm and the big goals that the three interviewees are telling me about, I ask further about their ideas for the future.

I: Do you have more plans?

Judith: Yes, we do! So the next thing is that we are designing a flyer we want to put in the welcome packages for new students. There will be written some tips how you can be more sustainable in your everyday life and a few facts about sustainability.

Bori: And places to go in Malmö which offer sustainable options. This could be second hand stores, markets or restaurants.

Judith: Then we have also the soup lunch which is every Wednesday, each time organised by another student association. We already had one but we will definitely have more.

Fenix also wants to have a bigger media presence on instagram and facebook to have more students being attracted to their organisation and events. I was even introduced to the plan of having short youtube videos of all the events Fenix has; a plan to produce some entertainment while spreading their ideas. In my interview with Fenix I learned that they want to expand in general: having more discussions, more lunches, more everything.

The interview was slowly coming to an end, so I wanted to use the final chance to find out a little more about my interviewees by asking my last question.

I: What are you personally changing to contribute something for a better world?

Theresa: For me it’s like breaking the big, global challenges into smaller things on the local scale and then trying to implement it in your everyday life like using a reusable coffee cup, trying to reduce your waste production, your meat consumption. And then it is about finding people who have the same mind and share the common goals. Together you can take it up to a bigger issue and then try to create a change. I am a nature lover and I want to keep that!

Bori: That’s actually one of the biggest motivation for people, if you point at what kind of benefits the nature has. You know, whether if it’s going up in the mountains or having clean oceans or clean air in the cities. People want to keep this, so that’s something that motivates them.

I really don’t support this kind of approach in which you are more negative or trying to judge. I would much rather have a curious discussion with someone and see where he or she struggles. Just coming from my own experiences, I am trying to support them. I hope that I can be more of the side of education and that I can manage getting people together for the cause.

It is very important to remember that we are not alone in all this and that we have to fight this with communal efforts instead of being lonely soldiers. Just build those communities that believe that there is a way out of the mess.

Judith: Wow, it is hard to add something to that! You absolutely nailed it. I can then maybe say what it means to me to be sustainable or to make a change. For me it is, if I put it in one sentence: Trying your best.

I: Thank you for these words! I especially like that you say that it is about trying.

Theresa: You can’t change yourself within one day by for example going to zero waste. That’s impossible. But if you just challenge yourself every day, you will change.

Judith (nodding): Yes, you cannot change all of the points.

Theresa: Exactly! But the more you get to know about the whole issue and the more you talk about it with other students, the more opportunities you discover.

Judith: And it is a really good feeling just knowing you are not alone, that you are not the only one trying to not destroy the world. And it’s a good feeling. You know you are making a difference!

I was grateful for this summarization by my intervewees: it showed me that they as individuals have the same goals as the whole organisation has. To me, this is the base for every group that wants to achieve something and reach people with their messages.
Fenix needs this base since the organisation has big plans. They do not just want to have more events like lunches, movie screenings and a bigger media presence. An even bigger plan is to become an NGO (a non governmental organisation), so Fenix would not be a student organisation anymore but an official organisation that is supported by the Swedish government.

Their mission to make sustainability something normal will not change but the frame around it will hopefully help to reach a bigger audience and spread their enthusiasm about having a more sustainable and better world soon.

Check out Fenix’ facebook channel “Fenix Miljöförening” or instagram page “fenix_miljoforening_malmoo” and get inspired!

By Judith Roos

Photo credits:

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From the Silk Road to Paradise Papers: Tax Havens and Economic Inequality

Laura Korte — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 20:14:06 +0000

When talks of the wealth gap begin, images of class wars start forming in minds of some. However, other contributors to the wealth gap––globalisation and tax havens––seem to be left out of the debate.

Wealth gap, by definition, refers to the unequal distribution of capital within a population––in other words it is economic inequality. As this inequality is growing, several NGOs and institutes are doing more and more research on the topic. According to The Guardian, “half of world’s wealth [is] now in hands of one percent of population.”

From the Silk Road we have travelled a long way, to the era of opulence and luxury brought to us by modern day globalisation. Globalisation––the flow of capital, cultures and services––has gotten us adjusted to the myriad number of options, but we have now come to see the perhaps unavoidable side effect of globalisation; the global wealth gap. The continuity of its existence is much clearer for those who connect the dots between the wealth gap and its factors. So let us talk about one which tends to not be talked about; the impact of tax havens on economic inequality.

Different Rules in Taxes

The recurring topic of tax havens has surfaced on the front page of many newspapers with titles like ‘Paradise Papers’ and ‘Panama Papers’. Off-shore tax havens with their no-tax or low tax policies appeal to many wealthier individuals and companies as they create more or less lawful migration of capital which in return destabilises the economy. Keep in mind that legality is not the problem here, but rather ethicality.

Tax havens and companies, such as Appleby which helps the super-rich to “hide” their wealth, have been scrutinised for several reasons. Investigative journalists have done their duties and brought up issues such as the connections between individuals who are involved in for instance terrorism, illegal mining, human rights abuses and corruption.

It is believed that on a global level the use of tax havens results in approximately 255 billion US dollars loss in tax money annually. After a quick search you will find multiple research papers and journals talking about how tax havens hold between five and seven trillion US dollars. The 2016 US presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, stated that it is time for the biggest US companies to “pay their fair share of taxes so that our country has the revenue we need to rebuild America.” It does seem like there are different rules for the super-rich and for the rest of us; the financially mortal.

A Gulf in Wealth

Rich individuals and multibillion-dollar companies avoiding taxes in poorer countries, and even wealthy countries like the United States, bereave these countries from providing its citizens with public services.Bad tax schemes in countries also support the existence of economic inequality. According to Tax Justice Network, an example of this is tax competition, where governments try to lower taxes on the rich to keep the tax revenue in their country rather than it ending up in a tax haven, but simultaneously end up increasing the taxes on the poor. This in return, strengthens the economic inequality that already exists in all countries.

Though tax havens may seem like a niche that is exclusively for the exuberantly wealthy, tax havens are not marginal in the context of global economics––they truly have a huge impact on financial instability and politics. We do not tie the knot between the issues of wealth gap and tax havens, it seems as though these two things come hand in hand, ushered into our lives through the miraculous phenomenon called globalisation.

We need to start looking at the problem of economic inequality connected to the system that has been producing the imbalance. So from globalisation to tax havens, and from tax havens to the endless cycle of inequality. But understanding tax havens still continues to be strenuous for the ordinary people. Perhaps the lack of knowledge of these tax havens facilitating the endeavours of the richest stops the ordinary people from unifying in efforts of making a change. Like Ronald Wright once said “socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” But what if we, the bourgeoisie, the working class, the hoi polloi (Ancient Greek: “the many”), finally start rising up against the problem of unethicality and inequality and organise resistance towards this injustice?

Photo credits:

The Shard of glass–sharp like the inequality it reflects.

The wealth of a city built in the midst of inequality.

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A defector’s tale

Anna Bernard — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 20:01:06 +0000

On September the 22nd, UF Malmö members and others intrigued had a rare chance to sit down and hear the story of Mi Jin, a North Korean defector. The hall in Orkanen filled up with curiosity – the lived reality of people inside North Korea remains the great unknown of our time. The experiences of this woman, defecting from the totalitarian rule of one of the world’s most isolated countries, are unimaginable to most of us. She professed in a calm and composed manner the significance of determination and defiance in a battle from destitution to a position of advocacy.

The lecture “Inside North Korea” dealt with the reality of North Koreans’ lives and the Human Rights movement for North Korea. We also had the pleasure of having South Korean Eun Kyoung, Secretary General of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea, acting as interpreter for Mi Jin and sharing her own knowledge regarding the human rights violations found by the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry.

Life in North Korea

The story that Mi Jin shared with us was a narration riddled with hardship and perseverance under the strongman rule of a totalitarian regime. She faced personal loss and famine, overcame bigotry and was forced to endure seeing her young child work instead of study just to make ends meet. Eventually she exerted all the strength she could amass to be able to perform her mission impossible escape from the most isolated country in the world. She abandoned the regime, risking it all, to be able to provide a future defined by freedom to her daughter.

Mi Jin left escaped with her 14-year-old daughter in 2009, arriving in South Korea in January 2010 after traversing Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Mi Jin emphasized on several occasions that her daughter was the core reason for leaving, because their life defined by hardships became increasingly insecure after Mi Jin’s husband died when their daughter was only 10. At this point the daughter had to quit school in order to provide for the two remaining members of the family.

What chimed clearly throughout her recollections of her past in North Korea was the arduous everyday life; getting enough money to secure sufficient amounts of food was a perpetual battle, creating a situation where merely existing in the system was a daily fight for survival: “being employed does not mean anything in North Korea”, Mi Jin declared with contempt in her voice, having reminisced on her various jobs including an army-affiliated job and selling bread in the market.

A new life

The impetus for their plans to defect came when Mi Jin was almost detained by the officials. She reminisced with reticence how a police officer tried to “make trouble”, which led her into further problems. As Mi Jin was almost sent away to a prison camp she looked back at her life – she had always been a law-abiding citizen and a patriot. The constant influx of insecurities inflicted onto her life by the authorities seemed unscrupulous.

It is at this point that she took the required steps to commence her defection. She first explored the possibility of finding a Chinese broker who could sell them into China. Finding a broker who will sell a North Korean woman to a husband in China is a common way of defecting. However this plan did not take flight because she wanted to defect with her daughter, a factor that complicated issues. Thus she was forced to study the regimen of the border patrol squads to find a weak point in order to cross the border undetected.

And in this she managed, and she and her daughter fled the country into China. The perils, however, were not over, since they were forced to make their way out of China across several other countries, finally finding refuge in South Korea.

After settling in South Korea, Mi Jin has worked as a journalist in the South Korean online magazine, DailyNK, exploring the North Korean “ins-and-outs”. Her daughter, even after being so many years away from school, was welcomed by her South Korean peers and has reveled in her studies to the extent that she has been granted a scholarship to attend university in one of the most competitive societies in the world. Time after time, Mi Jin solemnly asserted with a smile on her face how incredibly proud she is of her daughter.

Advocating for change

There is something very impressive about hearing stories of the most vulnerable or marginalized people becoming strong advocates for their rights and the rights of others, trying to highlight an abusive situation in their home country while functioning as an influencer for positive change.

Mi Jin provided us with an insight into this kind of advocacy. Mi Jin and Eun Kyoung came to Malmö from Geneva to show us the power of evidence: the data derived from the monitoring of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry are critical for successful lobbying work.

Their visit showed us the power of relationship building – in this case engaging with the UN and other institutions and organizations. Both advocates make an effort to extend this relationship-building to potential future decision-makers and influencers which explains their eagerness to engage with students.

After the lecture some students had the opportunity to sit down with the guests for a more intimate conversation.

Mi Jin is an example to us all of co-operation of the media in raising awareness with the wider public while relentlessly telling the stories emanating from her North Korean informants still residing in the regime. Her disdain for the North Korean government became clear: advocates are able to and want to work, and it is their basic human right.

A leader cannot lead if nobody follows

Leadership takes many forms, and sometimes the underdog will go to the greatest lengths to advocate for real change. Mi Jin and Eun Kyoung’s cause, however venerable it is, requires not only their work and sacrifice, but it needs followers and support to gain momentum. On a number of occasions Mi Jin pointed out that there is too much focus on the North Korean leader, and not enough focus on the suffering and troubled everyday existence of the North Korean population. They are working to shift this focus, and we should be receptive for their plea.

By: Anna Bernard

Photo Credits

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David Cairns, the United Kingdom Ambassador to Sweden, Tells Us How He Got There

Yaroslav Mikhaylov — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:47:26 +0000

On January 25th, Malmö högskola hosted His Excellency David Cairns, the United Kingdom Ambassador to Sweden. Mr. Cairns has had a long career with the British Foreign Office and shared some of his insights and experiences with the students. Pike and Hurricane also had a chance to sit down with the Ambassador and ask him about his career, the latest developments in world politics and, most importantly, how to get a job doing what he does.

He has nothing but good things to say about a career in diplomacy, calling it “pretty unrivaled in the variety of things you get to do and the places you get to go and, of course, the people you meet.” Though, he is quick to mention, it is not exactly the path to political power: “you are not the big boss. The bosses are politicians.” And there are other drawbacks to working in the public sector, he concedes, “you’re never going to be rich. But, as I said, the quality of what you get to be involved in far and far outweighs the material side.” Nonetheless, he absolutely recommends the diplomatic track to students close to graduating who are considering their options. Cairns considers it especially important to reach out to people who, for one reason or another, are not commonly represented in diplomatic circles, since they are also among the people that the diplomatic corps represent. “We are a very popular employer, but a lot of minority communities and sometimes women as well, might think that it is not for them. And actually, we want to represent the Britain of today, and that is a very multicultural society and we have to represent that to be relevant,” says he.

Cairns’ own journey to the British Foreign Office started at university, where he was studying Japanese. During his third year, he went on exchange to Tokyo with the intention of not just studying, but working as well, so he reached out to the embassy. “I wrote to the British Embassy in Tokyo, asking: ‘Can I have a job?’. And they said ‘No, you can’t have a job, but we will send your letter to some of the British companies who are there in Japan.” One of these companies hired him for the duration of his time in Japan, but he was still a regular visitor at the embassy, playing squash and attending holiday parties. Despite that, even though he applied for a job with the Foreign Office after graduating, he did not have high hopes. He instead got a job working for a securities firm. When he finally heard back from the Office a year later, he went into the interview with no stress or pressure. “I had a job, I was doing quite well, I was very relaxed and so, of course, it all went very smoothly. And they said ‘You are through.’ and ‘You want to join?’ and I said ‘Sure!’ and that was it,” he recalls. There were a few hiccups along the way, such as the language aptitude test – “On the basis of that actually, I wasn’t very good.” – but soon a position opened up and Cairns was on his way to Tokyo.

This was the part of a long career that took him to Japan twice, Geneva once and even to a British research base in Antarctica. He considers the latter to to be one of the memorable highlights of his career: “We spent a couple of days out on the ice, in tents, seeing the staff. And that is quite memorable I must say.” Now, Cairns is about a year into his four-year rotation in Sweden and is not spending too much time worrying about where he will be sent off next. “I try to enjoy the day, and enjoy being here in Sweden, which I am doing,” he says, “I’ve had a pretty lucky run so far, to be frank. We’ll see what comes up and how it comes up.”

In terms of the key skills necessary to be a successful diplomat, Cairns singles out three most important ones: analytical skills, communication skills and people skills. “You, as students,” says he, “absorb a lot of information and then you distill that down into answering questions on, I don’t know, why were the Taliban successful, or what is happening in Syria. So we do the same, but with a slightly different angle, which is ‘What should we do?’” He mentions his own first-hand experience with that question, when he was invited to sit in on an office meeting with the top Foreign Office staff, including Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, as a junior staffer writing down the meeting’s minutes. They were discussing whether to purchase American-made Tomahawk missiles when the Minister turned to him and asked his opinion. “That was pretty scary,” remembers Cairns, “I mumbled some rubbish, completely. It was terrible. But it was a super good lesson, because of what I learned from that was actually that this is what it’s all about. On this particular issue of ‘Should we buy this?’, the answer is ‘What do I think? What should we do?’”

That anecdote goes hand-in-hand with the second set of skills that he recommends budding diplomats to practice: communicating your ideas. He recalls that in his first year with the Office, he was already expected to attend meetings and conferences and articulate the UK’s point of view on relevant issues. Even today, communication remains a big part of the job for him, as a big part of his job is appearing on Swedish radio or television to give the UK’s take on relevant issues. Cairns also reminds that it is always important to have good interpersonal skills, “Enjoying being with people, being happy to get out and meet them, trying to be a good listener to them.”

Cairns brings the same positivity and optimism to questions about current events in the world as well, focusing on finding solutions that work best for everyone. “There is a lot of discussion about what to do about Trump,” he says, “Well, the answer for us is the same as what to do about Obama or what to do about Bush or what to do about Reagan: be involved, work with him as close as we can, so that we can further our interests as best we can.” He likewise appeals to the long history of engagement with Europe that Britain had when discussing the withdrawal from the European Union. “We’ve had an ambassador here in Sweden since 1535. We have had a relationship with the continent forever, and we will continue to do so.” he says, before elaborating that it is now up to the Europeans and the British to figure out the way that this new relationship will look. “It will be different, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be bad.”

However the events unfold, Cairns urges people, especially students, to get involved by either joining the foreign ministry, a non-governmental organization or going into politics. “I think the important thing for people like me and the next generation thinking about it is that the future isn’t written and you can be passive and let somebody else make it happen or you can get involved and try to make it as you think best.” So let’s sharpen up those analytical, communication and people skills and get out there, shall we?

Yaroslav Mikhaylov

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