Spontaneity at TEDx Warwick 2012

Photography: TEDxWarwick

On 10th March, I attended TEDxWarwick 2012 for two reasons. The first was in my capacity as part of the speakers team and the second at part of the TSJ team covering the event (TSJ were the official media partners for the event). I joined TEDxWarwick in my first year at Warwick; I wanted to get involved in various activities and it was one of the first that caught my eye - and I am so glad I did. After the first event, I was hooked - I heard some fantastic speakers and the team environment was fantastic. So I re-applied and joined the team for the next event. And I did the very same a year later.


Yet the event this year was different - TEDxWarwick 2012 was taken to the next level and its new venue (the Butterworth Hall) could hold 1800 people. It still sold out. The event was once again brilliant and I can't imagine any of of the attendees having left the event feeling at least a little bit inspired or more knowledgable. I'm not here to talk about the event though - we will be publishing an article summarising the event in the next few days.


I want to talk about the moment when over 1000 people stood up and started dancing.

Kony2012 – Share intelligently, donate wisely

Screenshot from YouTube

Fact: In 2003, Jan Egeland, then UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said, “The conflict in northern Uganda is the biggest forgotten, neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today”.

Fact: 300,000 children are presently involved in over 30 conflicts around the globe, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Fact: Joseph Rao Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been abducting children and using them as sex slaves or child soldiers for over 20 years.

Fact: Invisible Children (IC) have made millions of people aware of the situation in Central Africa through their Kony2012 campaign and should be commended for their admirable work.

Fact: IC have deceived millions of people into believing that by donating money, they will join an “army of peace”; in fact, the organisation is in favour of military intervention and supports the Ugandan military.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to briefly explain. In their words, Kony2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that “aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.” The video is about 30 minutes long and is well worth a watch.

Why David Thomas is so utterly wrong about why English students need not learn a foreign language

I was recently directed to a segment of the MailOnline’s website, RightMinds, and let’s just say that I was pretty disappointed by what I read. David Thomas, a journalist and author with a multi-lingual background argues that the 380,000 students in England who chose not to learn a foreign language are being sensible (it gets worse) because English is the second language of 85 per cent of Europeans.

This argument practically gives way to the idea that students in this country should be lazy; ‘Well they’re already doing it so we don’t have to.’ But the joke is not on them, it is on us. It is on those who truly believe that simply because others are learning our language that we should make no effort to learn another.

I struggle to understand the argument in any sense, especially as the journalist essentially nullifies his argument further on in his article by saying that due to writing books set in Germany, he now has “a tiny smattering of German, too”. When writing a book, you conduct detailed research on the area it will be set in, but learning any part of the language is, arguably, unnecessary especially if nearly everyone you’re working with speaks English anyway.

Regardless, Thomas continues to argue that learning a language is handy for proving on holiday “that you’re more sophisticated than the rest of the tourist herd.” What’s more, Thomas claims, “there’s absolutely no need to learn any one particular language unless you’ve got a specific professional use for it.”

Muslim Writers Awards & The Guardian Student Media Awards

This past week has been a rather big one for me, personally. On Tuesday, I attended the Muslim Writers Awards as I was shortlisted for the Young Journalist of the Year award. I was delighted to have just been shortlisted and it is safe to say that I was shocked when I was named the winner! All in all, it was a really great night; I met some very interesting people, in a fantastic venue (Shakespeare's Globe Theatre) and received some very nice (and kind) feedback from the BBC presenter, Asad Ahmad, who presented me with my award. Some people have asked if they can read the pieces that I submitted for the award (you have to submit 3 articles) so here's a list of the articles and brief descriptions.

1. Ethnic Profiling as a Policy of Counter-Terrorism is Not Working - This article was written shortly after the attack by Anders Behring Breivik and I wrote about how racial profiling should not be the main focus of our counter-terrorism policies, giving Norway as a primary example. I also write about how Muslims were asked to spy on their communities and mosques (resonant to the times of Vichy) when returning to the UK after a holiday.
2. Unveiling the 'burqa ban' - This article focusses on Sarkozy's wrongly-named burqa ban (the main object being banned is the niqab) and how he is simply continued the trend of Islamophobia in France in order to try and get the right-wing vote.
3. Kettled in Parliament Square - This is a very long, detailed report of what I saw, heard, felt and the views of other students on the day that tuition fees were raised to up to £9000. I was in Parliament Square and was reporting live on the day and so experienced the kettling by police and was on of thousands to be without access to basic sanitation as we were not allowed to leave.

On Wednesday night, the next night, I attended the Guardian Student Media Awards as The Student Journals was shortlisted for the Website of the Year category, which was very enthusing mainly because the judging took place before TSJ had even been publishing for a year. We didn't win on the night unfortunately but we did end up being runners up, which I feel is a fantastic achievement for what we have done so far. Hopefully, our continued growth and development will help us do even better next year.

What I'm reading (France's burqa ban: women are 'effectively under house arrest')

From time to time, I may update this blog with articles that I find are particularly good.
While writing a piece for The Muslim News about the fact that Muslims have been banned from praying in the streets (I'll post the article on this site once it is published), I did a fair bit of research and read a number of articles. However, a fantastic feature article by Angelique Chrisafis in the Guardian caught my eye and I feel that it is definitely worth sharing. I found it particularly interesting because I've written about the niqab ban in the past and I have not yet read a piece with such a detailed update.


In her article, entitled 'France's burqa ban: women are 'effectively under house arrest'', Chrisafis answers some burning questions that I had, such as why the European Court of human rights had not yet overturned the law:

Gilles Devers, a lawyer acting for Ahmas and several other women in niqab, argued punishments were not being handed out because the niqab law contravenes European human rights legislation on personal liberties and freedom of religion.

Chrisafis explains the real implications of the ban for Muslim women:

In April, France introduced a law against covering your face in public. Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. French politicians in favour of the ban said they were acting to protect the "gender equality" and "dignity" of women. But five months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of confusion and apathy. Muslim groups report a worrying increase in discrimination and verbal and physical violence against women in veils. There have been instances of people in the street taking the law into their hands and trying to rip off full-face veils, of bus drivers refusing to carry women in niqab or of shop-owners trying to bar entry. A few women have taken to wearing bird-flu-style medical masks to keep their face covered; some describe a climate of divisiveness, mistrust and fear. One politician who backed the law said that women still going out in niqab were simply being "provocative". 

Ahmas, 32, French, a divorced single mother of a three-year-old daughter, puts her handbag on the table and takes out a pepper spray and attack alarm. She doesn't live on the high-rise estates but on a quiet street of semi-detached houses. The last time she was attacked in the street a man and woman punched her in front of her daughter, called her a whore and told her to go back to Afghanistan. "My quality of life has seriously deteriorated since the ban. In my head, I have to prepare for war every time I step outside, prepare to come up against people who want to put a bullet in my head. The politicians claimed they were liberating us; what they've done is to exclude us from the social sphere. Before this law, I never asked myself whether I'd be able to make it to a cafe or collect documents from a town hall. One politician in favour of the ban said niqabs were 'walking prisons'. Well, that's exactly where we've been stuck by this law."...

Before the law, Stephanie would often be called names like "Batman, Zorro, or Ninja" in the street – often by pensioners. Now people favour swear words or sexual insults. She wants to work with children, but despite having a degree in theology, she can't find a job.

She also enlightens us as to some very interesting news:

Rachid Nekkaz, a French property developer, explains why his association, Don't Touch my Constitution, was the only group to stage high-profile protests when the law came into force – he backed Ahmas's birthday-cake stunt and has set up a ¤1m fund to pay any fines over the niqab. His next, and most radical, protest action will be this Thursday, when his association announces its plans to field a woman in niqab for president in 2012.

This really is simply a brief glimpse into the article and I would urge you to read the full piece when you get the time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/19/battle-for-the-burqa?