Positive thinking

Lee Jarvis, University of East Anglia ; Eylem Atakav, University of East Anglia , and Lee Marsden, University of East Anglia Channel 4’s recent programme My Week as a Muslim , in which a non-Muslim woman lived with a Pakistani family for a week, was a reminder of the ongoing curiosity about Muslim life in British society. The programme was criticised for its use of “brownfacing” as the woman wore dark make-up and a niqab to appear Pakistani – highlighting the resilience of assumptions that British Muslims are non-white or somehow non-British. This abiding curiosity about how Muslims live and what Muslims think frequently stems from enduring concerns around integration. In the past, such concerns were usually couched in the language of multiculturalism or community cohesion, but today they are often centred around the idea of “British values”. While the meaning of the term remains unclear, it saturates public life in areas as diverse as counter-radicalisation policy a...

Angela Clow, University of Westminster and Nina Smyth, University of Westminster October is a dismal time of year. The clocks go back, which accelerates the onset of darker evenings and the “shorter days” inevitably lead to calls for the tradition of putting clocks forward or backward to stop. Of course, the annual return to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) from British Summer Time (BST) doesn’t make the days any shorter, it merely shifts an hour of available daylight from the evening to the morning. For many, lighter evenings are a priority and little attention is given to the benefits of lighter mornings. Arguments over clock changes tend to revolve around benefits for easier travel in lighter evenings. Nevertheless research suggests that holding onto lighter mornings might have hitherto unforeseen advantages. Light in the morning – more than any other time of day – leads to powerful brain-boosting effects , helping us to function as best we can, despite the approachin...

Fiona Robertson-Snape, Staffordshire University Two anti-arms trade activists, Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse, have been found not guilty of criminal damage after they were accused of breaking into the BAE Systems plant in Warton, Lancashire, with the intention of disarming warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia. Their protest has strong echoes of a case in 1996, when four women broke into the same plant and used a hammer to damage a Hawk jet . Known as the “Ploughshares Four”, those women made legal history when they were acquitted despite having admitted criminal damage . The court accepted that their action was lawful because it prevented the greater crime of genocide by the regime of former Indonesian president Haji Mohamed Suharto against the people of East Timor, which was then under an illegal Indonesian occupation . The trial of the Ploughshares Four put defence exports firmly on the political agenda. When Labour came to power in 1997, arms sales became a litmus t...

1. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin 2. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison 3. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams 4. “Learning is a gift. Even when pain is your teacher.” –  Maya Watson 5. “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened” – Mark Twain 6 . “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha 7. “Hope is a waking dream.” – Aristotle 8. “The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle 9. “Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” – Francesca Reigler 10. “I do believe we’re all connected. I do believe in positive energy. I do bel...

Anne Wesemann, The Open University It started with a letter . A seemingly simple request for information, sent by the Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris to university vice-chancellors . But you don’t even have to read between the lines before alarm bells start to ring, because in the letter, Heaton-Harris requests access to university course documents as well as the names of professors involved in “the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit”. The UK government has distanced itself from the letter, which has understandably caused outrage at universities across the UK. Many academics have spoken of their anger at such requests, calling the letter “sinister” and accusing the MP of carrying out a “ McCarthy-style witch hunt ”. To put this into context, while asking a vice-chancellor for information regarding the institution generally is of no concern, it is unusual to address them for detailed matters of curriculum in this way. This is mai...

Jessica Potter, Queen Mary University of London When I first qualified as a doctor more than ten years ago, it was simple – my duty was to provide the best possible care to the patient in front of me. Evidence and clinical experience were my guides. Unlike in a commercialised health system, such as the US or India, I was not torn between doing the right thing and demands from a profit-making paymaster, or concerns over whether my patient could afford the care. Identity checks at the front door and upfront charging have changed all that. They compromise my duty to “ show respect for human life ” by prioritising British lives over all others, regardless of the wider implications. According to the NHS constitution , healthcare should be “available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion, belief, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity or marital or civil partnership status”. It is a service that provides care “based o...

1. “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” – Paulo Coelho 2. “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”  –  Edith Wharton 3. “With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.” – Dr Wayne W Dyer 4. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” –  Norman Vincent Peale 5. “Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world but has not solved one yet.” – Maya Angelou 6. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle 7. “An attitude of positive expectation is the mark of the superior personality.”  – Br...

Elizabeth A Faulkner, Staffordshire University There has been an explosion of interest in modern slavery and human trafficking in recent years. Figures such as British prime minister Theresa May , UN secretary general Antonio Gutteras and Pope Francis have come together to fight against this “ scourge ”. Awareness campaigns are part and parcel of this initiative. Anti-Slavery Day , for example, has been held every year on October 18 since 2010. The day is an opportunity to “raise awareness of human trafficking and modern slavery, and encourage government, local authorities, companies, charities and individuals to do what they can to address the problem”. The introduction of this national day is seen as a positive step by many. But to me, it sums up the major flaws of the contemporary anti-slavery movement. The problem? That the aim is to raise awareness. This may seem a controversial statement. What better way to tackle contemporary slavery than through awareness rai...

Andreas Kaplan, ESCP Europe Can the EU still portray itself as a strong reliable institution for all Europeans? The UK’s 2017 “Brexit” vote and recent events in Catalonia have raised questions about the role and value of the European Union. Another symptom was the alarmingly weak participation in the most recent European parliament elections, in 2014. The lack of interest is all the more worrisome when remembering that the initial idea of the EU’s founders was to bring and maintain peace and prosperity to its citizens, matters of no small importance. However, over time the conversation turned from creating peace and prosperity to bureaucracy and bailouts enforced by national politicians and media who blame European institutions for their inefficiency and costly functioning. The EU appears to be in need of profound reform. What’s in it for the average citizen? Emmanuel Macron, France’s President, suggested several of such reforms , including the creation of a f...

Whitney Sanford, University of Florida Almost a century ago, Mohandas K. Gandhi – commonly known by the honorific Mahatma, the great-souled one – emphasized nonviolent resistance in his campaign for Indian independence. Today, as my research shows , Gandhi has become an iconic figure for people seeking social change, including communities across the United States. Explaining nonviolence For Gandhi, nonviolence was not simply the absence of physical violence . Self-rule and radical democracy in which everyone participates in the governance process were also part of Gandhi’s idea of nonviolence. He believed that self-rule should extend to all people, rich and poor, male and female, and at all levels of society. To him, authority over others was a form of violence. To achieve that vision, he encouraged participation of women and the lower castes in economic and political matters. These ideas about violence and authority had circulated in the U.S. in the 19th ce...

Jonathan Perraton, University of Sheffield Britain has £490 billion less in its coffers than previously thought, according to revised estimates of Britain’s balance of payments from the UK’s official statistics body, the ONS. Whereas previous estimates indicated that in 2016 Britain’s assets overseas exceeded its liabilities to the tune of £469 billion, this has now been revised downwards to a net deficit of £22 billion. In the context of the potential disruption to trade and foreign investment from Brexit, this is a worrying development. It is important to note that this does not mean that the country has suddenly become nearly half a trillion pounds poorer. The ONS has now collected more detailed data on Britain’s financial transactions with the rest of the world to build up a more accurate picture of its net stock of external wealth. Nevertheless, the figures do indicate that the UK’s external wealth position is much weaker than previously thought. ...