culture
Je Suis Charlie: Controversies on Screen The Bertha Dochouse, resident at the Bloomsbury Curzon in The Brunswick, gave us the opportunity to review ‘Je Suis Charlie,’ a documentary looking at the events in Paris of January 2015. Lara El Kalamawy, BA Economics and Politics Directors Emmanuel Leconte and Daniel Leconte
drama
Jordana Belaiche, BA Politics The London Student Drama Festival, a yearly celebration featuring devised performances of entirely student written pieces from London Universities, approaches its fourth year on 5th March 2016. The festival, which began as a conception devised by UCLU, is now prestigiously hosted by the Pleasance Theatre – one
features
Harry Wise, BA Politics During the 1970s, when the trade unions were considered more powerful than the government, union leaders, such as Jack Jones, would often pop round to 10 Downing Street for ‘beer and sandwiches’ to thrash out a new deal with the government of the day. Beer has
Books
An interview with Jack Shenker on the topic of his first book, ‘The Egyptians: A Radical Story,’ published by Allen Lane / Penguin in January 2016, the Egyptian revolution, and journalism. Atika Dawood, BA Arabic and Linguistics Atika Dawood: I’ll start with a cliché, were you always interested in journalism?
Education
Maddy Ridgley, BA International Relations When I was 14 I was part of a small group from my high school that went on a weeklong ‘Army Insight Course’ in Oakhampton. We were promised a week of high ropes, obstacle courses, paintballing, meeting soldiers and generally running around and having a
hiv
Florence Goddard, BA Politics There’s still a strongly held belief that those living with the virus in some way ‘deserve it’ for their carelessness, stupidity or immoral behaviour. Even amongst my relatively enlightened peers at SOAS, jokes or comments about ‘catching AIDS’ or ‘people with AIDS’ are fairly common.
climate change
Our friend in Amman takes a look at the intersectionality of climate change in Jordan. Ammanymous King Abdullah II of Jordan attended the recent COP 21 talks in Paris to continue his country’s preparations for climate change. His numerous photo opps with other world leaders will hopefully raise more
Boycott
Mel Plant, BA Arabic and Turkish On the date of publication, it will be almost a year since the SOAS community passed a motion for the academic boycott of Israel. Part of the School’s historic support of the wider Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), the academic boycott motion
east germany
Harry Wise, BA Politics In the third episode of the television series, Deutschland ’83, the East German Secret Service (HVA) is trying to access information stored on a floppy disk stolen from NATO. The disk contains a NATO security report regarding the viabilities of a nuclear attack. It’s extremely
cultural appropriation
Sophia Moghal, BA History and Southeast Asian Studies Deciding to click on the following headline on a news site led me to discover Mango’s newest campaign. The title: “Kendall Jenner’s New Mango Campaign Shows A Side We’re Not Used To Seeing”. “Tribal Spirit”; is apparently the side
Opinion
Joe Dunne, BA Politics How could I forget that quiet Which descended over a city of three hundred thousand? The calm How could I forget those pleas Of a dying wife and child Emitted through the whiteness of their eyes, Piercing our minds and souls – Sankichi Toge, August Sixth The
lacrosse
Mel Plant, BA Arabic and Turkish ‘Sports doesn’t have to be aggressive, boisterous and alcohol-fueled like it is at every other uni,’ says Reiss Palmer, captain of SOAS’ first lacrosse team, ‘people forget we’re SOAS students too.’ Palmer met with The SOAS Spirit last week to talk