1
Year 10 – English
Language Paper 2
Extracts Booklet
 Some extracts will be used in lessons.
 Some extracts are there for you to use for
revision/assessment practice.
 Some extracts will be used for your assessments.
 A few are in there because they’re just fun to read.
Name:
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Class:
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Teacher:
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2
George Alagiah writes about his experiences as a television reporter during the war in
Somalia, Africa in the 1990s. He won a special award for his report on the incidents
described in this passage.
A Passage To Africa
I saw a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces as I criss-crossed Somalia between the
end of 1991 and December 1992, but there is one I will never forget.
My reaction to everyone else I met that day was a mixture of pity and revulsion. Yes, revulsion. The
degeneration of the human body, sucked of its natural vitality by the twin evils of hunger and disease, is a
disgusting thing. We never say so in our TV reports. It’s a taboo that has yet to be breached. To be in a
feeding center is to hear and smell the excretion of fluids by people who are beyond controlling their
bodily functions. To be in a feeding center is surreptitiously to wipe your hands on the back of your
trousers after you’ve held the clammy palm of a mother who has just cleaned vomit from her child’s
mouth.
There’s pity, too, because even in this state of utter despair they aspire to a dignity that is almost
impossible to achieve. An old woman will cover her shriveled body with a soiled cloth as your gaze turns
towards her. Or the old and dying man who keeps his hoe next to the mat with which, one day soon, they
will shroud his corpse, as if he means to go out and till the soil once all this is over.
I saw that face for only a few seconds, a fleeting meeting of eyes before the face turned away, as its
owner retreated into the darkness of another hut. In those brief moments there had been a smile, not
from me, but from the face. It was not a smile of greeting, it was not a smile of joy — how could it be? —
but it was a smile nonetheless. It touched me in a way I could not explain. It moved me in a way that went
beyond pity or revulsion.
What was it about that smile? I had to find out. I urged my translator to ask the man why he had
smiled. He came back with an answer. ‘It’s just that he was embarrassed to be found in this condition,’ the
translator explained. And then it clicked. That’s what the smile had been about. It was the feeble smile that
goes with apology, the kind of smile you might give if you felt you had done something wrong.
Normally inured to stories of suffering, accustomed to the evidence of deprivation, I was unsettled
by this one smile in a way I had never been before. There is an unwritten code between the journalist and
his subjects in these situations. The journalist observes, the subject is observed. The journalist is active, the
subject is passive. But this smile had turned the tables on that tacit agreement. Without uttering a single
word, the man had posed a question that cut to the heart of the relationship between me and him,
between us and them, between the rich world and the poor world. If he was embarrassed to be found
weakened by hunger and ground down by conflict, how should I feel to be standing there so strong and
confident?
I resolved there and then that I would write the story of Gufgaduud with all the power and purpose
I could muster. It seemed at the time, and still does, the only adequate answer a reporter can give to the
man’s question.
I have one regret about that brief encounter in Gufgaduud. Having searched
through my notes and studied the dispatch that the BBC broadcast, I see that I never found out what the
man’s name was. Yet meeting him was a seminal moment in the gradual collection of experiences we call
context. Facts and figures are the easy part of journalism. Knowing where they sit in the great scheme of
things is much harder. So, my nameless friend, if you are still alive, I owe you one.
3
Overcrowded, overpriced and overrated:
welcome to Britain.
With the world's attention undoubtedly caught by the royal wedding, the nation's hoteliers,
restaurateurs and tourist attraction operators will barely have time to take the bunting down
before next year's Diamond Jubilee, and then the small matter of the 2012 Olympics Games.
Most might be hoping that the millions of tourists expected to arrive will not pick up the latest
edition of longstanding travel bible
Lonely Planet's guide to Great Britain,
lest they take one look, turn around
and head off again. "Britain ain't
cheap," it warns in its opening pages.
"Public transport, admission fees,
restaurants and hotel rooms all tend
to be expensive compared with their
equivalents in many other European
countries."
Stoke is picked out as "a sprawl of
industrial townships tied together by
flyovers and bypasses", while leafier
Surrey is "made up of uninspiring towns and dull, sprawling suburbs".
"We're not a tourist board," said the book's co-ordinating author, David Else. "We're not trying to
promote any place, we're telling it how it is."
Many more places simply haven't made the cut at all. "We only have limited time and space," said
Else. A glance at the index reveals Brae, in the Shetland Islands, but no Bradford.
The verdict on Leicester is diplomatic: "Alive with the sights, sounds and flavours of the
subcontinent, creating a strange juxtaposition with the Victorian factories and eyesore concrete
architecture." And the book praises London as "one of the world's great cities, if not the greatest" –
provided you are happy to "fork out £30 in a restaurant for a 'modern European' concoction that
tastes like it came from a can".
"Unfortunately, at a time when everyone is in desperate need of a great value summer getaway,
some of Britain's tourism industry just doesn't deliver," said Else.
4
The Maharajas' Express: Great Train Journeys by Anthony Lambert
The journey on to Fatehpur Sikri allowed time for watching scenes that so enthral foreign
travellers in Indian railways. From lush green fields women emerge with bundles of grass perched on their
heads, making for a cluster of rudimentary dwellings. Close by are discs of dung, painstakingly arranged in
herringbone fashion to form a beehive-shaped pile to dry in the sun. Herds of long-eared goats are looked
after by children too young for school, and camels hauling carts wait at level crossings, their head and
necks in a haughty posture as though expressing their disdain for such humble work.
Can there be a more grandiloquent white elephant than Fatehpur Sikri? This vast architectural marvel was
commissioned by Akbar, the third Mogul ruler, and work began in 1571. It was completed in the mid1580s, but within 15 years had to be abandoned when the water supply gave out and the capital was
moved to Agra. We wandered the ornate halls, courtyards and gardens and gave silent thanks to Lord
Curzon, who put restoration work in hand in 1905.
Another dawn start, but no one minded because the reason was to see in the soft light the world’s greatest
monument to love, the Taj Mahal. This sublime creation by the heartbroken Shah Jehan is incomparable,
made the more poignant by his last years incarcerated by his ruthless third son, Aurangzeb. From his prison
window Shah Jehan was at least able to see the huge white tomb built for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
We continued our appreciation of the Taj Mahal from nearby gardens, sipping champagne with breakfast
in a marquee overlooking the trees and gardens surrounding the great dome; it was hard to imagine the
two-mile ramp built to enable elephants to drag the Makrana marble to its upper levels.
Our final day was spent in Lucknow, where a strong presence of army and air force has helped preserve the
cantonment area of large bungalows in generous and well-kept grounds. Admirably, the most famous
memorial to the Indian Mutiny/First War of Independence has been well cared for post-independence; the
Residency was besieged for 87 days, and fewer than a thousand of the original 2,994 incarcerated troops,
sepoys and civilians survived. Among the ruined, roofless buildings forming the Residency is St Mary’s
church and cemetery where one of the heroic defendants, Sir Henry Lawrence, lies with a simple epitaph:
“Here lies Henry Lawrence who tried to do his duty.”
5
‘The Sun Offers No Wisdom’ by Erik Gauger.
On a still afternoon in the baking sun on a street in Marrakech, the smell of an old city
comes alive - dust and charcoal, stale food, incense, motor oil, damp stone. All these smells, occasionally
unpleasant, are the smells of travel, and so while some are surely unique to Marrakech, others evoke
places that I can't quite place in my mind. Places and times, fragmented memories and broken images the fragrance of travel.
I am returning to the Riad after a long day in the sun, walking the Bahia Palace with Hicham, and visiting
the Majorelle Gardens. I leave my backpack in the room and climb the stairs to the rooftop, which peaks
out over the medina for miles. This is my favourite time in travel; the one where the day is over and there
is nothing left to do, nobody to talk to, no responsibilities. Traveling alone is important to me - you see
more, you hear more, you move faster, you are less noticeable, you don't have to worry about your
traveling companion wearing the wrong shoes. But most importantly, you can take that ladder up the sidewall from the rooftop to a narrow flat surface, the one where the rooftop cats were fighting last night, and
you can focus your binoculars on the minaret on the other side of the city, and draw, at your own speed,
the cityscape, without having to watch clocks.
I am not sure of how much time passes up here, but as the sun lowers even more, the birds come out. A
dozen White Storks are traveling high up in the sky, silhouetted by peach clouds. A buzzard floats in the
wind, and dozens of Pallid Swifts and House Martins zigzag through the sky. I work on their identifications,
slowly, at my own pace, sketching them and the sky and the city. The cityscape in Marrakech is like no
other in the world. For one, no building can be higher than the Koutoubia Mosque minaret, forcing a
horizontal architecture. Second, few desert cities are so old and so large; making the maze of sandstone
and TV satellites feel endless.
The habits and interests I have formed while traveling are not the interests of any other traveller, just as
the habits and interests of any other traveller are not mine. And I have found, that the more years I have
under my belt as a traveller, the more specific those interests and habits have become: I sketch, I identify
the plants, I eat the local cheese.
I am also a fussy traveller, preferring to do things in my own particular way. In this way, I am like other
travellers, because they are all particular and fussy too. Pondering this, I remember a Guitar Magazine
Interview in which Jerry Garcia described what made musicians unique. His answer surprised me: He said,
"I’ve got nothing but limitations, I’m limited by everything — my technique, background, education, the
things I’ve heard. I’m limited by being a human being. In a way, a musician with a distinctive style is in fact
a product of his limitations. This is assuming that almost everybody plays at the outside edge of their ability
— as good as they can do."
I see traveling as a creative pursuit; a personal ambition to create, and in this way I am able to relate
Garcia's explanation of personal limitations to travellers. Our strengths as travellers are our limitations;
the particular way and the particular things that we see when we travel force us to see something about
the world that others do not. It was the earliest age of travel blogs that first helped me see travel this way.
6
‘Our morning routine’ by Heather B. Armstrong.
The girls and I have our morning routine down to a fine science, one with moving parts that are at times
heavier and not as well-oiled as others. It starts when my alarm goes off at 6:30 AM, and every morning
when I turn over to hit snooze I have the exact same thought: “Really? Really?”
Yes, it’s an exasperated thought, and maybe you have more of a leaping lily of a personality where you
wake up before the alarm, rush to the window and greet squirrels with a kiss. I’ll high five those
squirrels at night, for sure, but in the morning I would gladly shove them off of the ledge.
Usually that exasperated thought is followed by a somewhat more positive one: “Oh, thank God she
slept through the night again.” And then I’ll sigh and fall right back asleep for another nine minutes.
Marlo very rarely wakes up in the middle of the night anymore, at least not until she got the stomach
flu a couple of weeks ago. That illness blew a two-and-a-half month record to bits, and I’ve slowly been
getting her back into her rhythm. Meaning I have had to tighten the bungee cords that strap her to her
bed.
I hit snooze twice, a delicious 18 minutes of alone time where I prepare myself for the onslaught. There
is this looming sense in the morning that we’re on this hamster wheel, you know? Does that make
sense? Like, are we seriously right where we were yesterday morning about to do the exact same
things we did? But by bedtime that apprehension has transformed into a feeling of victory. We DID do
the exact same things we did yesterday! TAKE THAT, THINGS.
I usually have to wake Marlo from a sleep so deep that all of her covers have been kicked off and she’s
lying across her entire twin mattress like a starfish, mouth wide open. I have to wake Leta from an even
deeper sleep, but instead of her covers being thrown off she’ll be tangled up inside them, limbs jutting
out from knots she has tied from spinning circles around her bed in her sleep. They both sleep like
water in the sense that if there is a space in their bed to fill, by God, they will use their body to fill it.
Marlo usually helps me get the dogs out of their crates and pours a scoop of food into their bowls as
Leta makes her way downstairs for breakfast. I knew this day would eventually come, but wow, there
really is such a delicious sense of payback when the child that woke you up at 5 AM for how many
years? A lot of years. So many years. When that child wearily wipes the sleep from her eyes and
complains that she couldn’t possibly be more tired, it’s very hard not to steeple my fingertips and order
Smithers to release the hounds.
7
‘Bloodbath at the Bentota Fish Market’ by Marco Ferrarese.
It’s an open-air massacre. Heaps of shiny, mutilated carcasses extend from me to the pier.
The stench is unbelievable, as if two rubber-gloved fingers smeared with rotten fish paste were digging up
my nostrils. But it’s not just the smell that turns my stomach. It’s the knives. Manoeuvred by expert hands,
they slash off the fins, the most valuable part, leaving stark, bloodless holes in the dead creature’s lucid
skin.
Standing here with rivulets of water and blood running between my legs makes me almost forget that just
down the coast is an idyllic stretch of ochre sand called Bentota Beach. Forty miles south of Colombo, Sri
Lanka’s capital, and a stop on the way to the charming walled heritage town of Galle, Bentota is one of the
country’s most famous beach resorts. A string of five star hotels presides over the dark waves of the
restless Indian Ocean, and what remains of the once-dense palm tree forest separates the swimming pools
and al fresco patios from the bare sand.
But there’s a dark secret hidden beyond the sun bathing lounge chairs and tan lotion—something lurking in
the shadows of the local markets that bestow fresh fish to the buffets served daily at the swanky resorts.
This dark side is something the Russian and other international tourists resting their reddening bodies on
lounge chairs while their offspring run around the beach will never see.
“Come, let’s choose our lunch,” Saman says, guiding us through the crowd and picking through the dead
fish on display.
Something catches my eye over in the market’s corner. There, the market’s concrete expanse juts into a
not-so-visible dead-end street running between a row of storage rooms and the sea.
“What is that place, Saman?” I ask.
“The docks,” he says, his voice sounding a bit anxious. “It’s better if we go now, my wife is waiting for us to
start cooking.”
But I’m drawn to the line of moored, beaten-up bumboats and the people shuttling tanks from their decks
into waiting trucks. They move around a group of oblong, dark objects I can’t discern as workers wash the
floor around them with rubber hoses. They look like soft and useless missiles.
As I get closer, the smell becomes almost unbearable. When I reach the first bumboat, the pavement is a
slippery mess. A barefoot man is hosing it down, sloshing away red swaths of blood. I finally understand
that the floor is littered with dead sharks. They are moored to the pavement like shiny black toy boats
without batteries, their heads dried and shrunken. I understand why. Grains of white salt flicker off their
skin as a group of workers pulls the carcasses out of a hole in a bumboat’s deck. The sharks have been
preserved in salt inside of the boat.
Slung on the concrete dock, they await more post-mortem torture. Standing barefoot in a thick layer of sea
slime, blood, and entrails, a man holds a machete in his right hand as he grabs the front knot of his sarong
with his left. He approaches the mounting row of sharks, bends down naturally, and slices the fins off with
quick thrusts of his blade. The severed appendices are thrown mechanically into a pile.
8
Whale Hunting by Jo Fidgen.
Whale hunters tend to shy away from publicity because of the controversy
surrounding their profession. But the crew of the Jan Bjorn in Norway - a country whose fishermen kill
around 500 minke whales a year for commercial purposes - agreed to let us join them on a hunting trip.
Boom! The shock of the cannon judders through the old boat.
It's a hit.
The minke is motionless maybe 30 yards away, the rope attached to the harpoon trailing in the water.
The skipper, Jan, strains his small frame to haul in the catch. It does not give an inch. So Fred lends his
considerable bulk to the task. He turns to me with a flicker of a grin.
"Now the work begins," he says.
Fred is a paramedic by day. "Whaling is like a vacation," he told me one afternoon as we sat in the
crow's nest, scanning the sea for tell-tale puffs of vapour.
It was a beautiful day to be out in the fjords. There were no clouds to muzzle the ferocious mountains
guarding the coast of Lofoten, in the far north of Norway, and no wind to ripple the water.
Perfect weather for hunting whales.
We had chugged on for hours without a sighting, giving me time to poke around the boat. At 15 yards
long (13.7m), it was on the small side for a whaling vessel - just twice the length of its prey. It had been
prowling these waters for 40 years, and looked tired. The rusty cannon had claimed a couple of Jan's
fingers a while back when it exploded as he attached the grenade.
"Oh, it's not dangerous work," he assured me, "accidents can happen in any job. The only problem is
that I can't cover the bass any more when I play the accordion."
Jan is the easy-going sort. A lot of whalers would not have had a woman on board - it is considered bad
luck.
Fred was less comfortable with my presence. "Are you sure you're not an activist?" he kept asking me.
A couple of local boats were sunk some years ago in protest at the Norwegian government's decision to
resume whaling. It argued the industry was important for a community that has lived off the sea since
Viking times.
Every whaler I met insisted whales were eating too many fish, leaving too few for them. Many wanted
to be allowed to hunt bigger whales, and seals too.
The fuss baffles them.
Jan told me: "I was raised on a farm. We took care of the cows and the sheep and slaughtered them
when it was time. For me it's no worse to take the life of a whale than to kill an ox. Whale is food."
That is a lot to take on board when you've been raised on a diet of anti-whaling protests. But it is only
50 years since Britain stopped whaling, and in the days after World War II, plenty of people were glad of
the meat.
I comforted myself the kill would be quick. Nine times out of 10, I had been told, the grenade
detonated inside the whale's brain, an instant death.
Only, this day it was not going to plan. Three minutes had passed since the whale had been
harpooned. For most of that time, it had been under the surface.
Suddenly it lurched into view, revealing a deep gash in its back where the harpoon had passed right
through. Only now did I realise that it was still alive and trying to swim. Fred grabbed the rifle just as the
whale dived again. The boat was tense.
Two long minutes went by before the whale reappeared and Fred could finish the job.
He turned to me grim-faced. "I want you to know, it almost never happens like this," he said.
The captain, Jan, took the blame - saying he misfired and was sorry it had happened. But these are
practical men.
"This can happen in all kinds of hunting," he told me. "If you shoot an elk, it might run into the forest
and you don't manage to kill it until the next day."
9
Caitlin Moran: My husband’s war on flies.
I always think I love summer, until it arrives, and then the flies start happening.
I should make it clear I don’t mind about the flies – to me, they are more than outweighed by flowery
dresses, freckles, the ladies’ swimming pond on Hampstead Heath, skylarks and festivals. I do not mind the
flies at all. In some ways, I find them fascinating. I am, perhaps, fly-curious. My family, on the other hand,
feel differently.
“It’s started,” Pete said, dolorously, in May.
It was the first hot day of the year, and he was staring into the fruit bowl in much the same way the
little kid in Poltergeist stares at the TV and goes, “They’re heeeere.”
Sitting on top of a banana – looking like a tiny surfer-dude atop a massive yellow surfboard – was a
single, lone fruit fly.
“He won’t be alone for long,” Pete said. “He’s the pioneer. He’s the outrider. He’s going to go back to
all the other fruit flies and say, ‘Guys, it’s hit 60 degrees, and the bananas are out. Gather the wagons. We
ride at dawn.’ By tomorrow, this place is going to be crawling in fruit flies. I’m activating the protocol.”
Pete then activated the protocol: buying a massive, catering-sized roll of clingfilm, and wrapping the
lid of every fly-attracting bottle of vinegar, ketchup and dressing, so that our shelf looked like 40 Laura
Palmers at the beginning of Twin Peaks.
“They won’t get past that,” he said, wrapping the fruit bowl in a similar layer. “Ha!”
“But how can I get fruit?” I asked, pathetically bouncing my hand off the clingfilm.
“That’s exactly what they’re thinking,” Pete said, turning and leaving the room like a satisfied lone
gunslinger. I opened the fridge, sadly, and ate a cold sausage instead.
Of course, that’s only the first bit of Pete’s Fly Protocol – sealing off all vinegar and fruit until October.
The second part is outright guerrilla warfare.
Five days later, I found him standing over a mug, which had clingfilm over the top.
“Idiots,” he was saying, delightedly. “Idiots.” Inside the mug was a piece of pineapple, and around 50
fruit flies. “They crawl through that, you see,” he explained, pointing at a tiny hole in the clingfilm, “to get
to the delicious pineapple. But once they get in – they can’t get out again! Ha ha! FOOLS!”
After 20 years of marriage, you pick your battles, so I wholly ignored this Fruit Fly Death Mug for the
next 4 days. On Friday, I looked inside it again. Where once had been 50 flies, there was now just one huge
one. It moved very slowly – in a way I would describe as “borderline menacing”.
I called Pete over and made him look in the cup.
“Where have they all gone?” he asked, looking worried.
“I’ve read about fruit flies,” I said. “They’re what geneticists use in experiments. Because their life
cycles are so short, and they reproduce so quickly, you can breed mutations into them very, very quickly.”
We looked into the cup again.
“I’ve seen The Fly,” I said. “And I can’t be totally sure that fruit fly hasn’t eaten all the others and is
now turning into Jeff Goldblum.”
We put the cup out in the garden, under a tree, and resolved to leave it there until the first cold snap.
If you are Jeff Goldblum, I’m very sorry. You were brilliant in Jurassic Park.
It’s not just fruit flies that Pete wages war upon, of course – the “normal” flies are equally unwelcome.
Each one that buzzes into the house is viewed with the same level of disdain as would greet a freeloading
cousin, or a burglar. Pete’s belief – which I sympathise with to a certain extent – is that this is his house,
and if the flies wish to spend all day hanging around a four-bed terraced house in north London, they
should simply go out and tie themselves into a 25-year-long mortgage repayment plan, as he has done. It’s
an either/or choice. You can’t doss around all morning on a poo and then waltz into our house and fly
round and round an Ikea pendant lamp. You need to stay in your lane.
To explain this issue to the normal flies, Pete purchased the Guard ’n Care electronic fly swatter, £8.95.
Resembling a tennis racket, the Guard ’n Care can be slapped onto an airborne fly, immediately
electrocuting it while the assailant shouts, “This ISN’T your HOUSE.” The dead flies can then be lined up on
the windowsill – acting as a warning to other flies.
I pray for winter.
10
Caitlin Moran: Leave fat girls alone.
Teenage girls are extraordinary portmanteau, mythic creatures, like the hippogriff,
kitsune or chimera. For they are – and this is their magic – two quite different things, simultaneously.
On the one hand, nothing craves attention more than a teenage girl. Teenage girls in a gang;
teenage girls causing a sensation; teenage girls screaming, “OH, MY GOD!” Teenage girls want the
world to notice them.
On the other hand, on just as many days, teenage girls want to be invisible – totally invisible. The
slammed bedroom door, the hood up, the mute shrug – this is how you try to disappear from the
world, when you don’t know any real magic.
When I was a teenage girl, I spent half my life wanting to dissolve, like sugar in rain, whenever
anyone looked at me. More than half my time. Perhaps most days, now I think of it. For this is the
mythic, portmanteau creature I was: I had the head of a fat teenage girl, on the body of a fat teenage
girl – and usually, when the world notices that species, what happens next is not joyous, or kind.
Given all this, then, I could do nothing but shudder, in horror, at a speech given by Dr Aric Sigman at
the Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference last month. In his speech, Dr Sigman noted the
growing body-image problems for teenage girls in the western world, and proposed a novel solution:
that teenage boys help sort it out.
For girls who worry about being fat, Sigman noted, “an increase of fat on bottom and thighs is …
good for girls, because it is appealing to males”.
Sigman’s plan, then, is that in schools, boys from senior years will go into the classroom of younger
female schoolmates and tell them what female body types they prefer. That they’re sometimes quite
partial to a “pear-shaped” girl.
Well. While I find it genuinely moving and lovely that men are trying to figure out how to make
women feel better about themselves, this could not be a worse idea unless it ended with the sentence,
“And then we will set fire to the classroom, and everyone inside will die SCREAMING.”
For what makes teenage girls most want to be noticed, but also most want to be invisible, is boys.
For maybe 20 minutes a week, you want teenage boys to look at you. But the rest of the time, you want
to be invisible to them. You fear them laughing about you, with their mates. You fear them looking at
you – assessing you – then looking away, uninterested. You fear them categorising you as undesirable
or “weird”. You fear them deciding your worth.
And this is the horror of Dr Sigman’s plan – for that is exactly what he is proposing to make a
formal part of the school day. Boys telling girls that they’re sexy. Boys telling girls their worth – to boys.
But what if you don’t want to be sexy right now, at 14? What if the idea of boys assessing your
desirability makes you want to run away and hide? What if you never want to be sexy? What if you don’t
care what a single goddamn boy in your school thinks about you? What if you only want to be attractive
to girls? What if you’re inventing robots in your head? What if you’ve already drawn plans of the city
you’re going to build the minute you get out of this stupid town? What if the idea of building your selfworth on some hormonal teenage boy’s opinion of your legs will drive you mad, literally mad?
Because it will, you know.
I do not wish to cast aspersions on teenage boys, but there is a reason why we do not have the
saying: “I shall now go and repair my fragile mental state by talking to a teenage boy.” Are we really
going to put a generation of girls’ self-esteem in the hands of teenage boys? The same teenage boys
that I’ve seen standing under wasps’ nests, shooting at them with an air rifle; or swimming in a quarry
in moon boots? And why on earth are we loading young boys with the gigantic, complex task of
stopping girls from becoming self-loathing, or anorexic, when they have worries of their own, and
should be studying for their GCSEs and worrying about their own acne?
The secret to teenage girls’ self-worth is there in that phrase – “self”. The only functional,
transformative and infinitely sustainable source of female self-worth comes from the self. From you,
and women like you – women you see on the news, governing countries and programming CERN;
women you read about in books; women floating through space, or saving lives, or dancing on their
own, and none of them ever caring what teenage boys in their school thought about their arses.
11
Caitlin Moran: ‘What I would tell my teenage self’.
Oh, baby — I know the address to put on this letter. It is “To The Dark Place” and I know it because I
have been there. I have walked down the gloomy, empty roads at 4pm in January, to that disused
warehouse with no windows, and walked around that room. I have slumped on that floor. Sometimes I
would get drunk there — but it’s no place for a party and the wine soon tastes of vinegar. And anyway,
the hangover makes the floor seem harder, as you lie on it mouthing, blankly, “I want to die” into the
dust.
And it’s not like you’ve totally lost your sense of humour. You will laugh at yourself as you do this. “This
is like the low point in a film, where everything is lost for the hero,” you will say to yourself, lying face
down on the floor, dramatically tear-stained. This is good. You’re still on speaking terms with yourself.
You’re trying to make you laugh. You’re making yourself aware of other people who have been in bad
places — and then got out of them again. You’re looking for inspiration. You’re doing the right thing.
Because this is the most important thing, when you’re in the Dark Place — to be aware of how you are
talking to yourself. You must not treat yourself any less courteously than you would a loved one, or a
team-mate.
You cannot spend days bitching at yourself, saying “You are worthless”, “You said a stupid thing”,
“You always make these same mistakes, and your knees are fat. Indeed, the mistake you keep making
is to have fat knees. You are a terminally fat-kneed clown.” You would not stay silent if you saw
someone being so repeatedly vile to someone else — if someone spoke to your brother, or sister, like
this. You would fight them. You would ride into battle on a horse against them. And yet, look at all the
things you are saying to you — the unkind whispers as you dress, or sit on the bus. You are so rude to
yourself. No wonder you have ended up here, alone, in this warehouse — at an impasse with yourself,
once again.
So here’s how you get out of that room. You must treat yourself as a loved one, or team-mate. Or pet.
Imagine how you would treat a pet — how you talk to it in a gentle voice; make sure it’s warm; delight
in giving it treats, or taking it for a walk. Become your own pet. For many years now, I have been a
small, charismatic dachshund called Eric. I love Eric. I can be unabashed in my love of Eric — his stumpy
legs, his gleeful leaping. Oh, I treat Eric so well! I make sure I walk Eric every day, for I have found he
gets morose if he’s cooped up. He needs an hour of fresh air, regardless of the weather — he needs to
look up at the sky, and have his heart race when birds fly overhead. He needs to gallop around a bit,
woofing — which I disguise as jogging, and going “AHHHH!” at the top of steep hills. Eric loves jaunty
clothes — he’s got a red bobble hat and a duffel coat he feels very dapper in. And whenever Eric gets
fraught and thinks he’s having a nervous breakdown, I give him a cup of tea and a biscuit, and he
almost invariably feels happier. It is amazing, over the years, how many times you will confuse “having
a nervous breakdown” with “just needing a cup of tea and a biscuit”. So I always have a big biscuit tin
— for Eric.
And, because I am kind to Eric, we do not fear visits to the Dark Place now.
12
How do you know if you’re a good mother? by Caitlin Moran
I guess I’m more than halfway through parenting now. The youngest has just turned 12 so, if she
takes after her mother, in another 12 years she’ll be pregnant. Oh God, that’s terrifying. I can’t even think
about that. Let’s start again.
I guess I’m more than halfway through parenting now, and I’ve started wondering how you ever
know if you’re any good at it. I know I’m good at Scrabble, because I once put “alacrity” down as my first
go and got a double-word score.
But how do you know if you’re good at parenting? No one ever tells you – not your friends, your
parents or your children. How I would love my children to come to me crying, “I feel really well-raised
today, mother! Even though I’m only 12, I can totally call it now: I will never take heroin, start smoking, get
into an abusive relationship, or be the kind of person other people bitch about behind their backs. Thanks!
You’ve aced this!”
Instead: nothing. Just your own, quiet worrying.
In the beginning, it’s easy. Every day they don’t fall down the stairs or get eaten by wolves, you’re a
good parent. If you go to bed with the same number of children you woke up with, you’re all right. You put
a certain amount of broccoli in them, keep them clean, put hats on them when it’s cold, remove nits as and
when they arise. If they don’t look like a character from the Hogarth etching Gin Lane, you’re a winner.
But then they start getting older, and that’s when it becomes more difficult to calibrate.
I can point to my successes: they have impeccable manners when in a café or Pizza Express; they
know the entire Beatles back catalogue; they have an orderly box-folder system for their homework;
whenever they fall over, they shout, “I meant to do that,” and laugh; they are innately distrustful of
everything Simon Cowell does. (“Oh look, he’s doing another sad story. Pathetic.”)
But then I think of all the things I thought I would teach my children – what thought was important –
and I realise how many of them have fallen by the wayside. For instance, neither of my daughters knows
any survival techniques. Raised by hippies who believed in the Apocalypse, by the age of 10, I knew the SAS
Survival Handbook like the back of my hand. Whenever I try to pass on this knowledge base to my children,
however, they stare at me as if I’m a lunatic.
“Why would we want to learn where north is using only the stars?” Nancy asked, one particularly
fruitless, cold night in a field. “I have a compass on my iPhone.”
I’ve tried to teach them my superlative charity-shop skills – look for intriguing textiles, always sniff
the armpits, never buy a lamp pre-Eighties or it’ll fuse your entire house – but they are unimpressed. They
have no interest in identifying flora and fauna as a matter of competitive pride with other children. And,
however much money I offer them, they will not read the war memoirs of Spike Milligan.
I thought there might be a trite, easy answer, such as, “I can tell I’ve been a good parent, because
they love me/have said they want to have children of their own.” But we all know people who’ve been
raised appallingly but still love their parents, and go on to have children, too – so no dice there.
I also considered reading their diaries, to see if there were any comforting entries along the lines of,
“Some superlative parenting today, when I expressed worries about my GCSEs – a definite 9/10. Well
done, mother!” But when I was halfway through picking the lock on Lizzie’s desk, I realised the innate
paradox, and put the penknife away.
In the end, I asked the kids. “Are you being parented well?”
“Don’t ask me – you’re apparently the one who knows everything,” Nancy replied.
“And can I borrow your leather jacket and button-up ankle boots?” Lizzie added. “I’m going for an
Amy-Winehouse-meets-Mary-Poppins look.”
Gobby, and dressing like two badasses. Yeah – they’re being parented OK.
13
Menstruation, Misogyny and Caitlin Moran by Artemis Irvine.
Menstruation, misogyny* and Caitlin Moran. These are what I’m going to be talking to you about
today.
So, all the women and the girls in the room have been there. It’s that time of the month again and you
just haven’t brought the right supplies into school. So you make your way down to the school office, where
they (very kindly) supply you with a pack of sanitary towels. But, on the pack for the sanitary towels,
there’s a picture of a girl and she’s going like this “shhh”.
What’s the big secret? Why is it so secret that I have a fully-functioning female body?
If boys got their period, it would be an entirely different story. When they turned twelve or thirteen,
when they first ‘got it’, there would be a big celebration. “Well done, son, you’ve reached manhood. Go
forth. Procreate.” And, at the end of each month, there would be a sort of competition between the boys. I
imagine they’d come into school like “Aw, mate. My period’s much bigger than yours.” It would be a sign of
how manly they were. But, for girls, it just isn’t the same.
It is a manifestation of misogyny that girls should be made to feel ashamed of a bodily function. A few
weeks ago, I was made to feel ashamed about speaking out about this misogyny, when I saw three
comments below the video of the speech I did for the regional final of this very competition.
The first comment said “slag”.
The second comment said “mug”.
And the third comment said “this is so awks. I’m crying.”
I’d like to note that I’m the only speaker in the competition who received a negative comment under
their video. I’d also like to note that I’m the only speaker in the competition who explicitly used the word
“feminist” in their speech.
I mentioned a lot of words in that video that people sometimes use about women: “slag” or “frigid” to
denigrate* their sexual choices. “Bossy” because a woman can’t be ‘inspiring’ or ‘authoritative’ like a man
can be. But, of these, “feminist” was the one that these people found the most offensive. When I first did
this speech, I spoke to a room full of girls and I defined the term by using a quote from an author I greatly
admire called Caitlin Moran. And she puts it like this: “Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge
of it? If the answer to both those questions is ‘yes’, you’re a feminist.”
But I realise this isn’t necessarily true; you don’t have to have a vagina to be a feminist. So, instead, I’m
going to define it using a quote from Nigerian feminist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and she puts it like
this: “Feminist. A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.”
And I hope that is something everybody in the room can sign up to.
*misogyny (n), dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women
*denigrate (v), criticise unfairly; ridicule
14
I have a dream.
Martin Luther King (August 28, 1963)
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for
freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon-light of hope to millions of
negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end
the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the
life of the negro is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of
material prosperity. One hundred years later, the negro is still languished in the corners of American
society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we've come here today to dramatise a shameful
condition. In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our
republic wrote the magnificent words of the constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the
inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has
defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of colour are concerned. Instead of honouring
this sacred obligation, America has given the negro people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back
marked "insufficient funds".
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are
insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this cheque, a
cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to
engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquillising drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the
negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning.
Those who hope that the negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude
awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America
until the negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the
foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
15
'Black Man In A White Man's Court’.
Nelson Mandela (October 1962)
This was Mandela's first court statement, in Pretoria. He opened his arguments by saying
he believed this was a "trial of the African people".
In its proper meaning ‘equality before the law’ means the right to participate in the making of the
laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of
the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of
rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as
judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions.
In the absence of these safeguards the phrase 'equality before the law', in so far as it is intended
to apply to us, is meaningless and misleading. All the rights and privileges to which I have referred
are monopolised by whites, and we enjoy none of them.
The white man makes all the laws, he drags us before his courts and accuses us, and he sits in
judgement over us.
It is fit and proper to raise the question sharply, what is this rigid colour-bar in the administration of
justice? Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white
prosecutor, and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously
suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?
Why is it that no African in the history of this country has ever had the honour of being tried by his
own kith and kin, by his own flesh and blood?
I will tell Your Worship why: the real purpose of this rigid colour-bar is to ensure that the justice
dispensed by the courts should conform to the policy of the country, however much that policy
might be in conflict with the norms of justice accepted in judiciaries throughout the civilised world.
I feel oppressed by the atmosphere of white domination that lurks all around in this courtroom.
Somehow this atmosphere calls to mind the inhuman injustices caused to my people outside this
courtroom by this same white domination.
It reminds me that I am voteless because there is a parliament in this country that is whitecontrolled.
16
Gender equality is your issue too.
Emma Watson (September 20, 2014)
Today we are launching a campaign called “HeForShe.”
I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do
that we need everyone to be involved.
This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and
boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but
make sure it is tangible.
I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have
realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If
there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop. For the record, feminism by definition
is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of
the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”
I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called
“bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were
not. When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press. When at 15 my
girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”
When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.
I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has
shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of
women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and,
unattractive.
Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?
I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts.
I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that
women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is
right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one
country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.
No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality.
These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer
privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did
not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might
give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made
me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing
the world today. And we need more of those.
And if you still hate the word—it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition
behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact,
statistically, very few have been.
In 1995, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the
things she wanted to change are still a reality today. But what stood out for me the most was that
only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half
of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?
Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your
issue too.
Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my
needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from
mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the
UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents,
17
cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a
distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of
equality either.
We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they
are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.
If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be
submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled. Both men and
women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is
time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals. If we stop
defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are—we can all be
freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.
I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from
prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim
those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of
themselves.
You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN.
It’s a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am
qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something.
English Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for
enough good men and women to do nothing.” In my nervousness for this speech and in my
moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when? If you have similar
doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.
Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred
before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be
married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural
African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.
If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.
And for this I applaud you.
We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called
HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And
to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?
18
‘Freedom or death’ speech by Emmeline Pankhurst
I do not come here as an advocate, because whatever position the suffrage movement may occupy in the
United States of America, in England it has passed beyond the realm of advocacy and it has entered into
the sphere of practical politics. It has become the subject of revolution and civil war, and so tonight I am
not here to advocate woman suffrage. American suffragists can do that very well for themselves.
I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain - it seems strange it
should have to be explained - what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women. I am not only here as
a soldier temporarily absent from the field at battle; I am here - and that, I think, is the strangest part of my
coming - I am here as a person who, according to the law courts of my country, it has been decided, is of
no value to the community at all; and I am adjudged because of my life to be a dangerous person, under
sentence of penal servitude in a convict prison.
Very well then, when you have warfare things happen; people suffer; the non-combatants suffer as well as
the combatants. And so it happens in civil war. When your forefathers threw the tea into Boston harbour,
a good many women had to go without their tea. It has always seemed to me an extraordinary thing that
you did not follow it up by throwing the whiskey overboard; you sacrificed the women; and there is a good
deal of warfare for which men take a great deal of glorification which has involved more practical sacrifice
on women than it has on any man. It always has been so. The grievances of those who have got power, the
influence of those who have got power commands a great deal of attention; but the wrongs and the
grievances of those people who have no power at all are apt to be absolutely ignored. That is the history of
humanity right from the beginning.
Well, in our civil war people have suffered, but you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs; you
cannot have civil war without damage to something. The great thing is to see that no more damage is done
than is absolutely necessary, that you do just as much as will arouse enough feeling to bring about peace,
to bring about an honourable peace for the combatants, and that is what we have been doing. Within the
last few days you have read - I don't know how accurate the news cables are to America. I always take
them with a grain of salt - but you have read within the last few days that some more empty houses have
been burned, that a cactus house has been destroyed and some valuable plants have suffered in that
house, that some pavilion at a pleasure ground has also been burned. Well, it is quite possible that it has
happened.
We were called militant, and we were quite willing to accept the name. We were determined to press this
question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where we were no longer to be ignored by the
politicians. You have two babies very hungry and wanting to be fed. One baby is a patient baby, and waits
indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily,
screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby
is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics. You have to make more noise than anybody else,
you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than
anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.
19
The Tenth Anniversary of the London Bombings: A Service of
Commemoration - The Bishop Of London
Soon after 7/7 the families and the friends of the victims compiled a Book of Tributes. It is a taste of
the ocean of pain surrounding the loss of each one of the victims. The tribute book is also very revealing
about the character of the London which the bombers attacked.
The majority of the victims were young. They came from all over the UK and all over the world.
London is an astonishing world-in-a-city but beyond the diversity the book also conveys a unifying agonised
outcry – this was a terrible crime which robbed us of beloved sons and daughters, partners and friends.
Like so many here, I can remember the day vividly. First the confusion, then confirmation, of the
dreadful truth; and then all through the day stories of the courage and the humanity of the Emergency
Services. The London Underground Staff were first on the scene in the smoke-filled tunnels, comforting the
dying at a time when no one knew whether there might be other bombs.
The doctors from the British Medical Association building rushed out to help those caught in the
blast which destroyed the Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square. All through the day police, fire, ambulance
crews worked past exhaustion point to bring relief to the injured and very soon to the bereaved. London
was and is proud of them and grateful.
I remember the spontaneous outpouring of grief and sympathy which very soon was expressed in a
mound of flowers and tributes at the various stations and the churches close to the explosions, open to
emergency workers and the whole community.
There could have been so easily demonstrations of anger but beyond the numbing shock there was
solidarity. London had been attacked and our unity was in our grieving.
There are many who bear the physical scars of that day but also thousands of survivors who
sometimes years after the event relive the nightmare in their dreams. As our hearts go out to the families
and friends of the victims of terrorism, especially those murdered so recently in Tunisia, we must learn as a
society that care for survivors is a responsibility both in the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy and for
years to come.
The Mayor summoned thousands to Trafalgar Square. A succession of community leaders and
politicians went to the microphone to denounce the crime and declare our solidarity with one another. The
leaders of the various faith communities were there also, the Cardinal, the Chief Rabbi, the Bishop and
representatives of the Muslim, Hindu and all the communities represented in London. We all knew one
another already and so we decided to go to the microphone together to make the united pledge which we
shall repeat in this service. One of the lessons of today is that there must be no let-up in building and
repairing the friendships which are so vital at times of crisis.
Communities are made by stories and the story of 7/7 in which every part of the community
suffered and every part of the community helped to bring succour deserves to be remembered. It deserves
to be woven into the tapestry of London’s memory as a contribution to a story in which we all have a stake.
Our London is a laboratory for testing whether it will be possible for the cosmopolitan civilisation
which is becoming a global reality to hold together. We are in the midst of debate about identity including
what it means to be British. Some in the world are reacting to change by retreating into ever narrower
definitions of their identity. And at the same time, merely invoking the universal concepts of tolerance and
respect with which we probably all agree, does not generate one iota of the energy required to transform
lives and build a community.
We cannot exorcise the satanic by creating a spiritual vacuum. Other life forms conform, without
the possibility of conscious choice, to the laws laid down for them. We humans are shape shifters who
shape ourselves and our futures by referring beyond ourselves to some god or more often an idea like
success, wealth, power. Sometimes tragically we manufacture a god in our own image, an idol created
when a bruised and humiliated ego surreptitiously re-ascends by projecting its own rage and lust for
power.
20
No doubt social and economic factors have a role in incubating religious extremism
but the religious element cannot simply be reduced to something else. It is part of being
human to worship and if there is no worthy object of worship then the vacuum is filled by something banal
or lethal.
21
CNN Reports On The 'Promising
Future' of the Steubenville Rapists, Who
Are 'Very Good Students'
by Mallory Ortberg
One way to report on the outcome of a rape trial is to discuss the legal ramifications of the decision
or the effect the proceedings may have on the life of the victim. Another angle reporters can take is to
publicly worry about the "promising future" of the convicted rapists, now less promising as a direct result
of their choice to rape someone.
Reporters at CNN today chose the latter technique. General correspondent Poppy Harlow, speaking
to anchor Candy Crowley, had this to say about the verdict:
"Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men
that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed
their lives fell apart...when that sentence came down, [Ma'lik] collapsed in the arms of his attorney...He said
to him, 'My life is over. No one is going to want me now.' Very serious crime here, both found guilty of
raping the sixteen-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August."
CNN also played footage of both convicted rapists tearfully apologizing in court. Harlow went on to
describe in detail an emotional exchange between Ma'lik Richmond, one of the defendants, and his
estranged father.
Candy asked Paul Callan, a legal expert, to elaborate on the future of the two young men, stressing
their youth and emotional vulnerability.
"Sixteen-year-olds just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, they still
sound like sixteen-year-olds...what's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in
juvenile court of rape, essentially?"
"The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label
is now placed on them by Ohio law...That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Employers, when
looking up their background, will see that they're registered sex offenders. When they move into a new
neighbourhood and somebody goes on the Internet, where these things are posted, neighbours will know that
they are registered sex offenders."
Yes, that is how the sex offender registry works. People who commit acts of sexual violence (rape,
for example) and are convicted in a court of law are required to register with the national sex offender
public registry, so that future employers and neighbours might do things like check said registry.
For readers interested in learning more about how not to be labelled as registered sex offenders, a
good first step is not to rape unconscious women, no matter how good your grades are. Regardless of the
strength of your GPA, if you commit rape, there is a possibility you may someday be convicted of a sex
crime. This is because of your decision to commit a sex crime instead of going for a walk, or reading a book
by Cormac McCarthy. Your ability to perform calculus or play football is generally not taken into
consideration in a court of law. Should you prefer to be known as "Good student and excellent football
player Trent Mays" rather than "Convicted sex offender Trent Mays," try stressing the studying and
tackling and giving the sex crimes a miss altogether.
It's perfectly understandable, when reporting on a rape trial, to discuss the length and severity of
the sentence; it is less understandable to discuss the end of two convicted rapists' future athletic and
academic careers as if it were somehow divorced from the laws of cause and effect. Their dreams and
hopes were not crushed by an impersonal, inexorable legal system; Mays and Richmond raped a girl and
have been sentenced accordingly. Had they not raped her, they would not be spending at least one year
each in a juvenile detention facility.
22
It is unlikely that Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow are committed rape apologists;
more likely they simply wanted a showy, emotional angle at the close of a messy and
sensationalized trial. Since the identity of the victim is protected, and the rapists obliged the camera crews
by memorably breaking down and crying in court, they found an angle to match: extremely gifted young
men were brought tragically low by... mumblemumblesomething.
That isn't how rape trials ought to be discussed by professional journalists.
Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond are not the "stars" of the Steubenville rape trial. They aren't the
only characters in a drama playing out in eastern Ohio. And yet a CNN viewer learning about the
Steubenville rape verdict is presented with dynamic, sympathetic, complicated male figures, and a
nonentity of an anonymous victim, the "lasting effects" of whose graphic, public sexual assault are ignored.
Small wonder, then, that anyone would find themselves on the side of these men—these poor young men,
who were very good at taking tests and playing sports when they were not raping their classmates.
23
Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow
Should Be Ashamed
by Olly Lennard (Huffington Post)
Even as I'm writing these words Twitter is buzzing like a hornets' nest with vituperative venom for
CNN's Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow. Not long ago, the news broke that two teenagers in Ohio, Trent
Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, had been convicted of raping a teenager whose name is not in the public
domain but whom Twitter has dubbed 'Jane Doe'. While Jane was intoxicated and incapacitated at a party,
Mays and Richmond held her by her arms and legs (as shown in an upsetting photo that I won't link you to
but which has done the rounds on the Internet). They then penetrated her with their fingers. Whilst in
Britain this might be 'sexual assault', in Ohio this counts as rape. Regardless of what side of the semantic
Atlantic fence readers are on, I hope the moral condemnation will be the same.
When the story broke, Ms. Crowley lamented (on television) the impact that the verdict would have
on the "promising" lives of the perpetrators and reporter Poppy Harlow sympathized with their emotional
state following the sentencing. Now the Internet has turned on them both with disbelief and fury. Even
Judge Tom Lipps, who handed down the sentence, has attracted negative attention for mentioning that
the case highlighted the dangers of alcohol abuse by teenagers. "Blaming alcohol and social media for
Steubenville... = rapeculture" Tweeted Shelby Knox. (Ms. Knox is often referred to as a 'feminist writer'
when mentioned in articles like this. I dislike explicitly using the prefix 'feminist' as it carries marginalizing
connotations and suggests that writers and readers don't share the view that women are equal to men.)
Lipps sentenced Richmond to one year minimum in a correctional institute and gave Mays an extra year for
distributing photos of the crime, a sentence that has been criticized for being surprisingly lenient
considering Lipps could have kept both incarcerated until they were 21.
And the enmity is justified. Crowley and Harlow should be ashamed of themselves for choosing to
focus on the impact this appalling crime had on the perpetrators instead of the victim. I'm not sure how
much control CNN as a body has over the nature of their coverage and so how much blame should be
attributed to the broadcaster itself, but the degree to which the point was missed would almost be comical
if it wasn't so shockingly vile. The ever-acute Jessica Valenti summed it up best: "The verdict didn't "ruin"
the "promising" lives of the Steubenville rapists. Their decision to rape did."
Perhaps surprisingly there was a much higher (or more ethical) standard of reporting to be found
online: the evidence, comprised mainly of videos, pictures and text messages, spread via social media sites
like Instagram and is now so widely available that you could probably find most of it yourself in seconds.
This quick transmission doubtless drummed up a good deal of support for Jane Doe. Anonymous were
responsible for spreading much of the footage around the web and the eerie, silent, ivory-white Fawkesian
masks were waiting outside the Jefferson County Justice Center. Unsurprisingly they attracted some
negative attention, particularly from Breitbart News who said Anonymous had "terrorize[d]" the town,
though exactly how terrifying a silent protest can be is unclear.
The guilty verdict is a chance for Jane Doe to begin recovering from what was done to her but the
media has lessons to learn from the mistakes of Crowley and Harlow. When it comes to rape the news
needs to enforce the message that sadly still needs to be enforced: that anything except "Yes" means "No".
24
France’s burka ban is a victory for tolerance
Britain’s politicians take fright at the idea – but Sarkozy’s brave step is both popular and right, says
William Langley.
Despite some high-profile protests, France’s banning of the burka is enormously popular with the
public. Unfortunately, as in Britain, almost anything politicians do that the voters approve of tends to be
denounced as populisme – a particularly dread charge among the over-earnest French political class – and
instead of enjoying the deserved benefits, President Nicolas Sarkozy has found himself on the defensive.
Sarko’s modest measure (the burka is forbidden only in public places, the fines are piffling and the
enforcement procedures incomprehensible) has led to much talk of sledgehammers and nuts, warnings of
an apocalyptic Muslim backlash and claims that the Republican tradition of liberté is being compromised in
a seedy ploy to combat the resurgence of the hard-Right Front National under its new leader Marine Le
Pen.
Almost anything, in fact, than an acknowledgement that the public overwhelmingly sees the ban as
right for France, beneficial to its Muslim communities and justified – if on no other grounds – as a
statement in support of liberalism against darkness. Approval runs right across the spectrum, with Fadela
Amara, the Algerian-born former housing minister in Sarkozy’s government, calling the burka “a kind of
tomb, a horror for those trapped within it”, and André Gerin, the Communist MP who headed the
commission investigating the grounds for a ban, describing it as “the tip of an iceberg of oppression”.
So what do we get in Britain? Theresa May, the Home Secretary, rules out a ban because “it would be
out of keeping with our nation’s longstanding record of tolerance”, while the Leftist commentariat
continues – with apparent seriousness – to suggest that the face veil is a “lifestyle choice” and essentially
no different from a balaclavas worn by middle-class types on the ski slopes of Courcheval. I suspect this
thinking is going to have to change.
During the years I lived in Paris it became clear that what people in polite society alluded to as the
“Muslim issue” was, actually, a fiendishly complex knot of social, religious and historical threads all
bundled up as one. On the surface – and there was no need to doubt the genuineness of this – most
French Muslims declared themselves to be patriotic, and resoundingly supportive of the constitutional
separation of church and state.
It wasn’t surprising. The post-war Muslim presence in France had been built around the harkis who
had lived and worked under French administrations in north Africa, often serving in the French forces and
seeing France as their true home across the Med. Like the West Indians who came to Britain in the 1950s,
they were astonished on arrival to discover that the natives were far less respectful of the mother country
and its institutions than they were.
But this generation’s influence was starting to fade, and in the unlovely satellite suburbs where many
Muslim immigrants settled, or – to be more accurate – were dumped, a new kind of identity began to
emerge. Today, virtually cut off from mainstream society, the populations of many of these places have
become hostages to virulent strains of radicalism. Women who refuse to wear the hijab, and, increasingly,
the burka, are intimidated and brutalised by gangs whose ideas about female emancipation are on an
exact par with those of the Taliban.
This, as Mme Amara painstakingly tries to explain, is the problem with all those charming liberal
pieties about allowing women to choose how they wish to dress. Large numbers of the women who wear
the burka – whether in France, Britain or anywhere else – don’t have a choice.
So France has taken a stand. The first country in Europe to do so, and, I would suggest, by far the
best equipped for the task. Secularism is taken seriously in French society – a legacy of revolutionary anticlericalism that was further enshrined in the landmark 1905 law that prohibits the state from recognising,
funding or favouring any religion. Schools are strictly non-faith, and all public bodies must be free of
religious influence. As recently as 2007, a public outcry resulted from the disclosure that a senior
government minister had sought informal advice from a Catholic priest on matters of policy.
Perhaps the big question is why the burka hasn’t been banned earlier.
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Sarko can’t compete with the far-Right’s populist rhetoric. What he has been able do
is to recognise that populism isn’t always wrong. And, in banning the burka, to demonstrate
that France has a more sophisticated concept of tolerance than Britain.
From Aladdin to Lost Ark, Muslims get angry at 'bad guy' film images
Crude and exaggerated stereotypes are fuelling Islamophobia, says study
Popular films ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to children's cartoons are depicting "crude and
exaggerated" stereotypes of Muslims and perpetuating Islamophobia, according to a study published
today.
A report by the Islamic Human Rights Commission argues that films as diverse as The Siege, a
portrayal of a terrorist attack on New York starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis, the Disney film
Aladdin and the British comedy East is East have helped demonise Muslims as violent, dangerous and
threatening, and reinforce prejudices.
While The Siege is attacked for inter-cutting Islamic ritual and terrorist violence, potentially linking
the two in the minds of audiences, Aladdin faces criticism for depicting Arabs as "ruthless caricatures" with
"exaggerated and ridiculous accents".
The study, titled ‘The British media and Muslim representation: the ideology of demonisation’,
argues that Hollywood has a crucial role in influencing how the public views Muslims.
A survey conducted as part of the research revealed that Muslims in Britain felt negative images of
their faith on the big and small screen had consequences in their daily lives. Those interviewed "found a
direct correlation between media portrayal and their social experiences of exclusion, hatred,
discrimination and violence".
Bias
As well as deep unease with big screen portrayals, the research also found a perception of "unashamed
bias" in the media against Muslims, with 62% believing the media to be Islamophobic and 16% describing it
as racist. Only 4% considered its representation "fair".
The authors call for more power for cinema censors to be able to curtail or even decline certification
of "objectionable material", as well as more effective media watchdogs and increased responsibility in
coverage of issues involving Muslims on the part of newspapers and television. The report, part of a series
produced by the commission - a research and campaigning body - with the backing of the Joseph Rowntree
charitable trust, is significant in that it seeks to provide a direct voice for the Muslim community in Britain.
Massoud Shadjareh, spokesman for the commission, said: "Rather than guess what the Muslim
community's needs and aspirations are, it actually comes from the community itself rather than
organisations that represent it."
There was widespread agreement among more than 1,100 Muslims questioned by researchers that
media reports involving Muslims in Britain are "selective, biased, stereotypical and inaccurate", with
Muslims generally considered as "others" and outsiders.
Arzu Merali, head of research at the commission and co-author of the report, said the representation
of Muslims in film and television was particularly important, given recent research indicating that eight out
of 10 Britons had no close contact with Muslims.
The problem with portrayals in film was not the fact that they were negative images, but that they
were the only images: "You don't get a good Muslim guy in a movie." Any suggestion that films such as
Aladdin were never intended to be realistic portrayals was "analogous to saying similar things to the Jewish
community in the early 1930s", she said.
The fact that films such as The Siege pre-dated the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers challenged any
argument that negative portrayals of Muslims as potential suicide bombers are a "natural" result of
atrocities such as the Madrid and London bombings, Ms Merali added.
The report says the tale of indiscriminate terrorist violence in New York "brings into focus some of
the worst American fears - that is, Muslims or Arabs attacking the country, murdering men, women and
children ... and 'attacking our way of life'."
26
Repeated juxtaposition of Islamic ritual practices such as prayer in a mosque and the
call to prayer from a minaret with scenes of exploding bombs and indiscriminate killing
implies that "terrorist acts are intrinsic to Islamic beliefs and practices", the study argues.
Executive Decision, featuring a plane hijack by Palestinian terrorists, also shows terrorists reciting
prayers before and after murdering innocent passengers, "almost defining terrorism as an Islamic ritual", it
adds.
Other films criticised include Raiders of the Lost Ark, where, say the authors, the Egyptian backdrop is
portrayed using a stereotyped shorthand including veiled women hurrying through bazaars to the sound of
snake-charming music.
Harsh
The cartoon Aladdin faced protests on release in 1993 because its opening song referred to a place where
"they cut off your ear if they don't like your face", forcing Disney executives to edit out the lines. Today's
report says: "Rather than portray the Arab culture and Islamic religion in a positive or neutral light, the
producers associate it with harsh punishments and oppressive practices.
Some of those interviewed believed that the film industry is used as a tool of foreign policy in
western countries to demonise Muslims and galvanise public distrust. A Bradford man, aged 35, said the
film industry needed "a new bogeyman" after the collapse of communism. Others said the media was the
chief instrument of Islamophobia, particularly through the frequent linking of "Islam" and "Muslim" with
words such as extremism, terrorism and bombing.
Many felt the media failed to give enough opportunity to Muslims to represent themselves. Those
Muslim figures who do appear in the media are seen as either holding extremist views or are "marginalised
Muslims" who do not represent the Muslim community.
Myths and messages from the movies
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Indiana Jones must find the ark of the covenant before the Nazis. The report says: "The cultural
stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious," pointing to a street scene featuring bazars, veiled women
and bearded men in traditional dress, all set to snake-charming music.
The Siege(1998)
Depicts a wave of attacks by Palestinian terrorists in New York city, in response to an Islamic religious
leader's abduction by the US military. Report says that the film reinforces "the monolithic stereotype of the
Arab/Palestinian/Muslim being violent and ready to be martyred for their cause".
East Is East (1999)
A mixed-race Anglo-Pakistani family in 1970s Salford struggle against the traditional background
enforced upon them by their father. The report says the representation of the Muslim husband as a
polygamous wife-beating tyrant "fits into many of the negative perceptions people have of Muslims".
Executive Decision (1996)
Palestinians hijack a Boeing 747 to launch a nerve gas attack on Washington DC. Report says the film
"plays on the worst fears ... about a potential terrorist lurking in every Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslimlooking person, and the incompatibility of Islamic and western values".
Aladdin (1992)
The report queries why a children's cartoon describes Aladdin's homeland as "barbaric", and notes
that "good Arabs" including Aladdin are given American accents while the rest of the cast have
"exaggerated and ridiculous Arab accents".
House of Sand and Fog (2003)
An abandoned wife is evicted from her home, which is taken over by an Iranian family forced to flee
their country following the 1979 revolution. The report says the film constructs a "negative description of
the revolution, without enabling any detailed or balanced analysis of the event"