Kenyon’s oldest UndergradUate Political and cUltUral Magazine

President Sean Decatur| page 8

October 29, 2013

www.kenyonobserver.com

Kenyon Observerthe

If You Can Play, You Can ListenMolly O’Connor | Page 8

Kenyon Observerthe

October 29, 2013

The Kenyon ObserverOctober 29, 2013

From the Editors

Cover StoryMolly o’Connorif you Can play, you Can listen

stewart polloCkabbot Down unDer

Max aMberger syria’s kurDs

sterling nelsonon Defensive bullshitting

Julia MCkay golDen Dawn

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The Kenyon Observer is a student-run publication that is distrib-uted biweekly on the campus of Kenyon College. The opinions expressed within this publication belong only to the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Observer staff or that of Kenyon College.

The Kenyon Observer will accept submissions and letters-to-the-editor, but reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. All submissions must be received at least a week prior to publication. Submit to tko@kenyon.edu

Cover Art by Brianne Presley

Editors-in-Chief Jon Green, Sarah Kahwash

and Gabriel Rom

Featured Contributors Molly O’Connor,

Max Amberger, Stewart Pollock, Julia McKay, John Foley

and Sterling NelsonLayout Editor John Foley

Art Directors Peter Falls

Ethan Primason

Faculty AdvisorProfessor Fred Baumann

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Dear Prospective Reader,

The Kenyon Observer is proud to put forward our first professionally-printed issue. We look forward to a continuing relationship with Printing Arts Press of Mount Vernon, and to a higher-quality production in general. Leading off this issue, Molly O’Connor highlights good intentions and unforseen issues sur-rounding the recent Kenyon Athletes for Equality movement. Also in this issue, Stewart Pollock looks to Australia to discuss recent issues surrounding Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Max Amberger details the oft-ignored plight of the Kurdish minority in Syria, Sterling Nelson exhorts students to take pride in the essays they are assigned to write and Julia McKay details the rise of fascism in Greece and its implica-tions for European democracy. We invite our readers to consider the topics discussed and the views expressed here, and to use that knowledge to form their own opinions on the matters they find most important. It is our hope that our contributors’ words will provoke debate among students, professors and community members alike. As always, we welcome letters and full-length submissions, both in response to content and on other top-ics of interest.

Jon Green, Sarah Kahwash and Gabriel Rom Editors-in-Chief, the Kenyon Observer

FROM THE EDITORS

From El Capitan in Yosemite, to the base of the Aeolis Mons on Mars, Uncle Sam ground to a halt for the first few weeks of October. But beyond America’s borders, life contin-ued. Even in Syria, public workers still got paid, and for most nations, the political deadlock gripping the United States was nothing but a curiosity. Yet the partial shutdown of the world’s sole hegemon has inevitably caused some awkwardness over-seas. The old saying “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold” is a cliché for good reason—every move made by the U.S. has reverberations far beyond Washington. In fact, one of the many effects of the government shutdown has been to show just how significant some of the U.S.’s commitments are, including those down under.

On October 4th, the White House announced that an up-coming trip to an APEC meeting in Southeast Asia by the President would be cancelled. As a consequence, President Obama would miss his first face-to-face meeting with Tony Abbott, the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia. In re-sponse, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told report-ers, “it is obviously a crucial time for the U.S., but we want to encourage [the U.S.] to continue its rebalancing towards Asia.” This “rebalancing” term has become a central buzzword when discussing U.S.-Pacific relations, and hides a larger truth: Asia, including Australia, is doing quite a bit of rebalancing of its own. Australia has always been in an unusual place diplomati-cally, transitioning from a British penal colony to a largely au-tonomous parliamentary democracy, with a culture incorpo-rating a myriad of Aborigine, Anglo and increasingly Asian features. It remains part of the British Commonwealth, and in 1975, a budget shutdown not unlike the one in Washington was ended when the Governor General, the Queen’s direct representative, fired Parliament and called for new elections.

Yet diplomatically, Australia is closely aligned with the U.S. Since the Second World War and the dissolution of the Brit-ish Empire, the U.S. has moved to fill the void left in Oceania, both militarily and economically. The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement has kept the U.S. as Australia’s largest foreign investor, although it is not its closest trading partner. That distinction belongs to China, which has become increas-ingly concerned about the other major agreement between

Australia and the U.S., the ANZUS treaty.ANZUS is the joint defense agreement between Australia,

the U.S., and New Zealand. In practice, the treaty has allowed for the stationing of U.S. troops on Australian military bas-es, especially in the north around Darwin. In 2011, President Obama announced that over 50,000 U.S. Marines would be rotated through Australian Defense Force bases, for training purposes. This provoked a heated response from China’s state-run media, which went so far as to accuse the U.S. of seeking to “encircle” China militarily.

This sort of rhetoric is par for the course in Beijing, where U.S. Asian policy is widely viewed with suspicion if not out-right hostility. Yet it is unclear what exactly Beijing’s own de-signs on Oceania are. Although China’s economy continues to skyrocket, though not nearly as fast as it once did, its inter-national relationships have not expanded accordingly. China can exert a great deal of economic leverage on its neighbors, but it has yet to translate that into meaningful diplomatic rela-tionships. Heavy-handed bullying and petty name-calling have characterized most of the PRC’s efforts to reach southward, and nowhere is this more evident than Australia, where Chi-nese economic interests, especially in the profitable mining sector, continue to expand.

Different Australian governments have pursued highly divergent policies when dealing with China. John Howard’s reception of the Dalai Lama in 2007 represented a nadir in relations, which had been in decline since the Howard Govern-ment had moved closer to the U.S. following 9/11 and Austra-lian involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. (In 2003, noted fake cowboy George Bush referred to Australia as the America’s “deputy sheriff ” in Asia, demonstrating that China is not the only country guilty of diplomatic incompetence.) Under Kev-in Rudd, who spoke fluent Mandarin, it was widely hoped that relations would improve, although several high profile cor-porate espionage cases involving Chinese mining executives soured relations. After Australian businessman Stern Hu, was arrested in China, the countries placed de facto bans on “top-level” diplomatic visits. Nonetheless, new trade agreements during this period involving natural gas and mining continued to strengthen economic ties, with China having surpassed Ja-

Abbott Down UnderSTEWART POLLOCK

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“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”—Charles M. Schulz

pan as Australia’s largest trading partner. The clear imbalance between the countries economic and political ties has contin-ued to widen, and thus Australia’s new leader faces a delicate political situation.

Tony Abbott and his (conservative) Liberal Party were elected on, among many other things, the promise to “bal-ance” Australia’s commitments to the U.S. and China. What this means in practice is unclear, especially since the extent of Abbott’s mandate remains opaque. The most recent election was a particularly ugly one, with both sides resorting to populist and vaguely-nativist rhetoric (the catchphrase “Stop the Boats,” referring to asylum seekers from southern Asia, was especially popular), and widespread accusations that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was unfair-ly covering the election in favor of the opposi-tion. Abbott himself is a complicated figure—a devout Roman Catholic in a country which is almost as secular as Sweden, a prominent advocate for aboriginal issues who is also accused of being an anti-immigrant climate-change denier, he does not easily fit on the American political spectrum.

Only time will tell whether the London-born Abbott is the nu-anced moderate he claims to be, or the populist demagogue his opponents (and perhaps a few of his supporters) believe him to be.

Meanwhile, the makeup of Australia is changing. The end of the government’s “White Australia policy” in the mid-sev-enties ushered in an era of immigration, especially from south-ern Asia. Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian immigrants have flocked to Australia in the past few decades, having a profound effect on the country’s demographics. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to draw comparisons to the effect of immigration in the U.S., and the political and cultural changes it fosters. How and to what degree this affects the future dy-namic between Australia and its neighbors is hard to say, but it is certain to result in a reappraisal of the Australian national identity, either sooner or later. Australia’s new leaders have ac-knowledged this, with Bishop claiming that Australia’s future would be “less Geneva, more Jakarta”.

Perhaps this means that Abbot has an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. His credentials as a true blue con-

servative mean that he can withstand the inevitable accusations of selling-out to China should he attempt to take meaningful steps to improve relations beyond the silly squabbling of the Rudd and Gillard eras. Meanwhile, he needs to acknowledge the changes taking place in Australia, especially regarding im-migration. Xenophobic populism might be good for elections, but it is not solid policy — either for Australia or Arizona, for that matter.

Immigration reform could help ease political tension with Australia’s growing population of ethnic minorities, including its sizable Han population. There does not need to be a con-tradiction between Australia’s “loyalties”—even though China (and other Asian countries like Indonesia) is where its econom-

ic future lies, the U.S. remains the state most capable of providing military support and political clout.

But Tony Abbott is not the only one who needs to play along. A certain group of old men in Beijing have to be willing to extend the olive branch as well. China is quick to accuse the United States of seeking to box it in; but the truth is that the Politburo has no one to blame but itself for the Mid-dle Kingdom’s relative diplomatic iso-lation. After spending decades either ignoring or strong-arming their neigh-bors, China has only recently realized that in order to achieve the regional power status it craves, it needs friends, and not just cronies like North Korea. Authoritarian states are never good at

playing nice with their democratic neighbors, but in light of China’s huge economy and history as a regional hegemon, its inability to establish more concrete relations with its southern neighbors is baffling nonetheless.

If China cannot pursue long-term, mutually beneficial trade with Australia under the Abbott government now, then its long-term political prospects in Canberra seem dim, to say nothing of Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. Of China’s many wasted oppor-tunities, this would be the worst—a demonstration that China sees its neighbors as little more than sources of cheap minerals. And, shutdown or not, the U.S. has made it quite clear that its future lies in Asia, from Okinawa to Melbourne. Military and economic cooperation with the U.S. remains generally popular in Australia, and unlike China, the U.S. has made serious and tangible efforts at strengthening ties, both militarily and politi-cally. It is unlikely that Abbott is too worried about being hung out to dry by the Yanks. TKO

Tony AbboTT And his (conservATive) Liber-

AL PArTy were eLecTed on, Among

mAny oTher Things, The

Promise To “bALAnce” AusTrALiA’s commiT-

menTs To The u.s. And chinA.

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In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime. —Phyllis McGinley

If You Can Play, You Can ListenShared Responsibility in Athletic Discourse at Kenyon

MOLLY O’CONNOR

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Krishnamurti

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The Kenyon College Athletes for Equal ity (KCAE) held their f irst meeting on Oct. 8, 2013. KCAE aims to promote a safe environment for LGBTQ athletes on campus, specif ical-ly through their athlet ic endeavors. In September, the group released a video featuring several Kenyon athlet ic teams, coaches and Kenyon Athlet ic Center (KAC) staff members to introduce the group’s message highl ighting the impor-tance of acceptance and the necessity of a safe environment for LGBTQ athletes. In conjunction with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, KCAE asked students in Peirce to ex-press why they think fostering a safe environment for LG-BTQ students and student-athletes is important.

Both of these measures have seen considerable re-sponse from the Kenyon com-munity. Few would argue that KCAE and similar groups at other schools are unneces-sary. In fact, the necessity of groups with a similar mission has become more and more evident in collegiate and pro-fessional athlet ics. In Septem-ber, a group of University of Mississippi footbal l players at-tended a showing of The Laramie Project. The play recounts the events of the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. The players were seen heckl ing, laughing and using homophobic slurs.

Instances l ike this highl ight the need for awareness of ho-mophobia and transphobia in college athlet ics and, more im-portantly, the need for an init iat ive to educate students and push for change. The st igmatizat ion of homosexual ity can be seen in professional sports as well. Last May, National Basketbal l Associat ion center Jason Coll ins used Sports Il-

lustrated as a platform to become the f irst openly gay male professional athlete. This feature sparked massive debate in the professional athlet ic community about the acceptance of, or discrimination against, gay professional athletes, spe-cif ical ly males. Coll ins expressed hopes that his “identity as a gay man wouldn’t hurt him in free agency, especial ly with his reputat ion for being a model teammate.”

Nevertheless, Coll ins remains a free agent nearly six months after his admission. Some members of the athlet-

ic community postulate that Coll ins has yet to be offered a contract because of the atten-t ion fol lowing his coming out. In l ight of a national st igma against LGTBQ athletes, i l lus-trated by Coll ins, groups l ike KCAE aim to f i l l a void in col-legiate athlet ics that is felt on a national level.

Both the cases of the Mis-sissippi footbal l players and of Coll ins demonstrate issues of homophobia in male athlet ic organizat ions; displays of ho-mophobia in female athlet ics tend to receive less notoriety.

This is not to say that female athletes do not express homo-phobic sentiments, or that women are immune to discrimi-nation based on sexual ity, but the majority of homophobia in sports takes place in exclusively male organizat ions.

The measures taken by KCAE, which was founded by Av-ery Anderson and Emil ia Louy, have undoubtedly garnered attention around campus. However, the examples above beg the question: have the right people heard them? The national culture of homophobia in athlet ic organizat ions demands a substantial change in male athlet ic discourse. KCAE’s founding members are both women who have ac-

How does KCAE plan to break down barri-

ers that have been built throughout the history

of male-dominatedathletics?

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“If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” — Kurt Lewin

t ive or past part icipation in the athlet ic community, and the group’s methods may not el icit an adequate response from the students toward whom it is most targeted.

Several trends in the world of professional athlet ics sug-est that women are more l ikely to accept LGBTQ teammates than men. The WNBA has the largest openly gay populat ion, with seven active players who identify as LGBTQ, while the NBA has only one. How does KCAE plan to break down barriers that have been built throughout the history of male-dominated athlet ics?

In KCAE’s most prominent projects on campus, the male athlete part icipation has been severely lacking. Of the 67 people who part icipated in pic-tures for National Coming Out Day, only seven were male ath-letes. Addit ional ly, in the video released by Avery and Louy on behalf of KCAE, the majority of the message comes from ad-ministrators and coaches.

While coaches must foster an open and safe athlet ic envi-ronment, effect ive change has to originate from student-ath-letes. Thus the potential short-comings of KCAE become not only a quest ion of the group’s inf luence, but of the respon-siveness of Kenyon students, and part icularly male student-athletes. Moreover, in a com-munity as small as Kenyon’s, students tend to adopt a f l ip-pant att itude towards serious issues. KCAE’s slogan, “If you can play, you can play,” quickly became a joke on campus, which devalued the sentiments of the expression. Instances l ike this i l lustrate the diff iculty of KCAE’s objective to fos-ter a sincere understanding in al l community members.

Furthermore, in addressing the issues of homophobia in Kenyon athlet ics negative general izat ions can be reinforced. In a recent art icle released by the Collegian, the KAC was

named as an unsafe corner of campus where “some lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer athletes have reported issues of intolerance and hosti l ity.” The art icle indicated that not al l LGBTQ athletes felt this “intolerance and hosti l ity;” the issue at hand is not the KAC itself, but rather the cul-ture of intolerance embodied by some students who are there often. If people, not places, are the source of the issue, we return to the original problem of creat ing a culture in which discrimination is social ly unacceptable.

KCAE has provoked a dis-course on campus about the presence of homophobia in sports, but because of a di-vided and potential ly unrecep-t ive student body, its reach has been somewhat l imited.

The group has expanded on efforts of the national athlet ic community to curb discrimina-t ion in collegiate and profes-sional sports. For example, in 2007 the National Collegiate Athlet ic Associat ion and the National Center for Lesbian Rights collaborated to host the seminar “Think Tank on Homophobia in Sport”. But the event conference was held in conjunction with a lesbian rights group, not an al l-en-compassing LGTBQ group,

emphasizing the chal lenges that KCAE wil l face in com-ing years, especial ly in encouraging part icipation from male athletes. This cal ls attention to the lack of act ivism by male athletes, a drawback on which KCAE and similar groups must focus their energies in order to create last ing and sin-cere acceptance. TKO

While coaches must foster an open and safe athletic environment,

effective change has to originate from student-

athletes.

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” — Mao Zedong

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The world’s largest stateless nation, Kurds number 30 to 40 million individuals living in a mostly-contiguous area of land known as “Kurdistan.” But due to regional geopolitical machi-nations, Kurds have seen their homeland forcibly divided into North Kurdistan (Bakûr, in southeast Turkey), South Kurdis-tan (Baqûr, northern Iraq), East Kurdistan (Rojhelat, northwest Iran) and West Kurdistan (Rojava, northern Syria). Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, they have waged campaigns for self-determination in their own lands against those four occupation governments. Despite many decades of near-constant struggle, the Kurdish movement remains rela-tively unknown and ill-understood in the West.

As in every state where Kurds constitute a substantial mi-nority, Kurds in Syria have for many years been oppressed by the central government. In 1962, a special census was con-ducted exclusively in the Kurdish-populated areas in northern Syria. Its goal was to determine whether or not the Kurds living in the area were “real Syrians”, or whether they were recent ar-rivals from Turkey. Despite the vast majority of Kurds being able to trace their descent on the land back many generations, hundreds of thousands of them were stripped of citizenship, rendering them— and all their descendants—effectively state-less and denying them constitutional rights and even the free-dom to move elsewhere.

The ascent of the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party in 1963 only further enshrined this majoritarian mindset in state policy. Indeed, Syria’s official name is the “Syrian Arab Republic” in spite of the fact that well over 10% of the country is not Arab. The teaching of the Kurdish language was banned, and cultural practices such as Newroz, the Perso-Kurdish New Year, were similarly prohibited. All the while, the government promoted an “Arab Belt” policy, in which ethnic Arab settlers were re-located to Syria’s north to dilute Kurdish demographics and ensure a loyal populace.

Beginning in the 1980s, President Hafiz al-Assad sought to distract Syria’s Kurds from oppression at home by support-ing leftist insurgent groups in neighboring states, particularly the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, in Turkey. This strategy worked for a while, as thousands of Kurds in Syria joined and fought for the PKK. But in the late 1990s, Damascus and An-

kara sought rapprochement, and Syria pulled the rug out from under the PKK. The Syrian government thus either arrested or handed over to Turkey many PKK fighters as it banned and designated the group as “terrorist.”

Abdulla Öcalan, the group’s leader, fled the country only to be kidnapped by Turkish Special Forces in Kenya. Tensions continued to simmer in west Kurdistan. In 2004, riots broke out during a soccer match in the Kurdish-majority city of Qa-mishli in Syria’s north after Arab fans of the visiting team from southeast Syria provoked hostility by brandishing portraits of Saddam Hussein, who had ordered the genocide of perhaps 100,000 Kurds in Iraq in the late 1980s. The riots were only quelled with the intervention of regime security forces who fired on the Kurdish crowds after they pulled down a statue of Hafiz al-Assad, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

The conflict in Syria that broke out in March 2011 was to change this state of affairs drastically. As protests turned into armed clashes, Syria’s Kurds stayed generally quiet, unsure of which of the two sides would better safeguard Kurdish inter-ests. Initially, both the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekî-tiya Demokrat, PYD)—seen by many as the locally-grown suc-cessor of the PKK—and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Syria joined the government-sanctioned opposition National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB).

Several other Kurdish parties joined the rebel Syrian Na-tional Council The KDP-S soon left the NCB and formed the KNC in October 2011 together with a number of other small Kurdish parties close to the South Kurdish. In June 2012, gov-ernment forces largely pulled out of Kurdish areas in Syria, leaving matters of administration and defense to local Kurdish groups. In an effort to head off tensions between the PYD and the KDP, KRG President Massoud Barzani brokered a power-sharing deal in Erbil, leading to the creation of the Su-preme Kurdish Council (Desteya Bilind). The DBK, ostensibly a 50/50 compromise between the PYD and KNC, nominally controls the Asayip police force as well as the People’s Protec-tion Units (Yekîyenên Parasitina Gel, YPG), a predominantly Kurdish militia with a large female component which is by a very large margin the most powerful armed force operating in West Kurdistan.

MAX AMBERGER

Syria’s Kurds: A Bulwark Against Extremism Ignored

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“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato

Nevertheless, the better-organized PYD has always exerted de facto control over the DBK and its dependent armed forc-es, relegating the KNC to the status of political opposition. As the civil war deepens around them, Syria’s Kurds have set about creating a string of relatively stable semi-autonomous enclaves in Kurdish-majority areas across northern Syria.

One is centered around the city of Efrîn (Arabic name: Afrin) in the rugged northwestern corner of Aleppo prov-ince, a second comprises the northern neighborhoods of Aleppo city, a third is centered on the northern city of Ko-banê (Arabic name: Ayn al-Arab), and a fourth encompasses the northern and eastern parts of oil-rich Hasakah province in Syria’s northeast. Over the summer, the PYD began laying the framework for a transitional democratic self-governance plan to improve living conditions and serve as a model for the rest of Syria. However, this stability has not been unnoticed by other groups in the coun-try. The YPG have fought against government forces and both moderate and radical rebels on numerous occasions throughout the conflict. It is clear, though, that Assad regards fighting with Kurds as a low strate-gic priority, and prefers to focus his increasingly lim-ited resources on fighting Arab rebels.

The bulk of attacks on Kurdish areas have there-fore come from rebels par-ticularly jihadists aligned with al-Qaeda. In the past few months, these attacks have greatly intensified.Despite being better-armed and better-supported, the jihadists have been regularly routed by the YPG, who have successfully defended most Kurdish areas and even liberated some. But in those Kurdish areas that extremist groups have entered even temporarily, reports of looting, ethnic cleansing and even massacres against Kurdish civilians have surfaced. Meanwhile, al-Qaida-linked groups continue to easily subju-gate “moderate” rebels, who seem to prefer complacency to resistance. So if the Kurds in Syria represent the only anti-Assad group that actively and effectively oppose al-Qaida domination, unlike Senator John McCain’s vaunted “moder-ates,” why have they been almost totally neglected by our gov-ernment?

Perhaps the primary obstacle to any U.S. or Western assis-tance to Kurds in Syria is the fear of offending fellow NATO

member and E.U. candidate Turkey, who continues to this day to actively suppress its large Kurdish minority (though less so than in years past). Having listed the PKK as a “terrorist” group largely to appease Turkish state interests and so ensure further strategic cooperation with our only Muslim ally, the US and EU are reticent to deal directly with the PYD. This designation makes it difficult for the West to encourage ef-fective democratic change in Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey has gone from terror state to state sponsor of terror in its ongoing campaign to deny human rights to its Kurds. While the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (aka al-Qaeda in Iraq) was able to establish a presence in the towns of Jarablus and Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey without Ankara making the slight-est sound of protest, the efforts of Kurds in northern Syria to establish peaceful self-rule have triggered loud condemnations from the Turkish government.

Turkey remains a major tran-sit hub for foreign jihadists heading for Syria, and reports abound of Turkish soldiers hav-ing cut gaps in the barbed-wire and cleared paths through the minefields along the border with Syria’s Kurdish areas to allow their passage. Pro al-Qaeda fight-ers wounded in clashes with the YPG make regular appearances in Turkish hospitals near the border only to be sent back through these secret crossing points. The Turk-ish government officially denies such allegations, but fails to build any convincing case to defend it-self. Indeed, the US government has even confronted Turkey in closed-door diplomatic meetings over its support of such radical elements. Another roadblock is

the generally Kurdophobic attitude of the Syrian opposition, both “moderates” and radicals alike.

Despite the rebels’ opposition to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, most Kurds do not see a substantive difference be-tween the policies of the Ba’ath regime and the mentalities of the rebels; Turkey’s staunch support of the opposition further intensifies the animosity on both sides. The West has here-tofore thrown its support behind these groups—in spite of the rapid proliferation of radical Islamist ideologies amongst them and the inability of supposed moderates to contain this dangerous trend. TKO

If the West wishes to regard itself as any force for positive, democratic change in Syria—indeed, in the entire region—it

must embrace the Kurds as equal partners in any

dialogue.

“Shine bright, shine far, don’t be shy, be a star.” — Tyra Banks

“I finished it, I finished the essay at, like, 2 am last night. Yeah, I mean, it’s bullshit, but at least it’s finished. Yeah, I did it all last night, I don’t even remember typing parts of it. Yeah, I read over it, but I didn’t, you know, edit it really.”

These words have probably come out of every Kenyon stu-dents’ mouth at some point during their four years here. Ken-yon students, on the whole, generally spew expectation-lowering rhetoric about the quality of their essays. We spend so much time separating ourselves from our work, we don’t realize that we’re actually pretty smart, that our ideas may actually be profound, and that we may actually have something productive and intelligent to say.

The Class of 2017’s admissions statistics are impressive to say the least. 21 percent in the top 1 percent of their class, 61 percent in the top 10 percent, 42 percent had a GPA of 4.0 or higher, and the average first year took 4.8 AP classes. Other classes here have just as academi-cally impressive statistics. Not to toot our own horn, but we’re some of the best from our respective high schools and if you’re anything like me, that’s become your identity. In high school, many of us were la-beled as “smarter than the rest.” It was true then, and that’s why we ended up in Gambier.

But Kenyon is a whole different ballgame. Everyone at Ken-yon was smarter-than-the rest in high school, but not sure where they stand now. That intelligent, smarter-than-everyone-else identity seems to disappear, and now we have to reinvent who we think we are.

Our confidence influences how we talk about our work and ourselves. As first years, Kenyon shakes that confidence and suddenly, instead of walking around, proud of our thoughts and ideas we lower expectations. We become afraid of failure and afraid of being wrong and afraid of our own ideas. So we hide them under persistent claims of bullshit and inadequacy. We in-tentionally set the bar low so that if we are wrong, it wasn’t because of a lack of intelligence, it was because we bullshitted the essay.

I understand that not every Kenyon student is like this. With Kenyon’s sometimes-large workload, quick and last minute essay

writing is a valuable and useful skill. We’ve all written an essay or a paper in a rush the night before it’s due. But this isn’t about quick writing, this is about how we talk about our writing. How we talk about our ideas and how we talk about thoughts. It’s very easy to write yourself off. It’s easy to say that everyone else is better than you, it’s easy to lower expectations. But we came to Kenyon because we didn’t like it easy. We took hard classes in high school, we were involved in clubs and sports, we survived on little sleep.

But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? We liked the challenges that we could overcome. Most of us didn’t fail at any-thing in high school. We successfully balanced varsity sports with AP classes and National Honor Society. It was a challenge, sure, but it was a challenge that we overcame. We beat it. We like the challenge, but we seem to only em-brace the challenges we can win.

As a first year community advisor, I had an opportunity to give some “words of wisdom” to the incoming class their first night here. Here’s what I told them, and it applies to all who study at Ken-yon.

Kenyon is hard. I’m sure you all know that, because you probably wouldn’t be here if it was easy. Classes

are going to challenge you, making new friends is going to challenge you, college life is going to challenge you. And you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to write a bad paper. You’re going to screw up a midterm. Some of you may drink way too much at a party. Mistakes are going to happen. Failure is going to happen. And that is okay. Here’s the thing, you deserve to be here. And here’s the bigger thing: At some point or another everyone will feel just as scared as you.

Everyone is afraid of failure and screwing up and mistakes and not having friends and not finding a job after graduation. You deserve Kenyon and you are not alone.

So own your fantastic paper. Own those ideas. They’re wrong? So what? That’s how you learn. No one will think you’re stupid or dumb, because you put it out there. I’m telling you this because no one told me: you’ve worked hard to get here and you deserve to be here. TKO

STERLING NELSON

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You’re Better than That: On Defensive Bullshitting

cartoon by Peter Falls

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Most Americans are famil iar with the economic meltdown occurring in Greece. Government over-spending and widespread tax evasion created an overwhelming debt that forced Greece to default on their loans. As the meltdown began, tough aus-terity measures were enacted by Parl iament under Prime Minister Antonis Samara to restore f inan-cial conf idence and to pay back some of Greece’s mounting debt. These act ions harmed Greece’s economy, raised unemployment rates and lowered l iving standards.

R ising frustrat ion with the government has spread throughout Greece. Publ ic response in-cluded riots in Athens and other cit ies throughout Greece protest ing the passage of strict budgets. Many people turned to violence to express their frustrat ions. These frustrat ions have given rise to the Golden Dawn Party, known a for their far right extremist ideals and ant i-immigrant platform. Golden Dawn represents a rise in support for hy-pernat ionist and ant i-immigrant ideals throughout Europe, caused by increased economic uncertainty, a disturbing trend that could take root in America.

In 2009, support for the party was 0.3%, but frustrat ion over austerity measures in Greece in-creased those numbers to 7 percent during the 2012 elect ions, giving the party 18 seats of the total 300 in Parl iament. However, pol ls have seen sup-port grow as high as 12 percent according to a Sept. 29th CNN art icle.

The party’s barely disguised neo-Nazism paired with its often-violent tact ics has been a nightmare for immigrants. Golden Dawn vigi lantes have been

involved in a swath of ant i-immigrant hate crimes. Threats towards immigrants such as “You need to leave the country or we wil l burn your store down” were reported by the New York Times in July 2012. While there is no off icial data on the number of such crimes, Human Rights Watch report publ ished in 2012 “Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic violence in Greece” described abuses of immigrants and stated, “migrants and asylum seekers spoke to Hu-man Rights Watch of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of fear of attacks by often black-clad groups of Greeks intent on violence.”

The report also condemned local authorit ies for turning a bl ind eye towards the crimes. Weak bor-der security and European Union deportat ion laws make Greece a hotspot for i l legal immigrants look-ing for jobs, often forcing them to sett le in poor neighbors f i l led with crime.

The presence of immigrants in low wage jobs provide an easy scapegoat during the mounting economic crisis. The Golden Dawn’s toxic pol i-cies creates turmoil in the streets and harm Greek democracy. They draw dangerous paral lels to the Nazi party, with their mil itarist ic management and party symbol bearing a strik ing resemblance to a swast ika. Their use of vigi lante “just ice” to abuse immigrants proves that they have l itt le respect for the Greek judicial system. Golden Dawn has dem-onstrated that they are wil l ing to cross any l ine to reach their goals, no matter how harmful their goals might be to Greek democracy.

Recently, the k i l l ing of Pavlos Fyssas, an ant i-fascist rapper by Golden Dawn thugs triggered in-

14

“Fascism is just Socialism with shareholders.” -Victor Aguilar

JULIA MCKAY

Golden Dawn

15

ternat ional outrage. According to the Economist, amidst increasing protests over the party’s act ions, the Greek government arrested members of the Golden Dawn Party, including leader Nikos Michalol iakos, four MPs and fourteen others. The charges include murder, con-spiracy and other criminal act ivit ies. However, crit ics fear that if the charges are not legit imate, the arrests may only fuel support for the party. The Greek const i-tut ion prevents the banning of pol it ical part ies. If the crackdown is not successful then the Golden Dawn Par-ty wil l be al lowed to contin-ue and possibly be stronger than ever. The Party would be able to use the trial to ral ly supporters, using the fai led crackdown as proof that their party is just and the government simply are persecut ing them.

Ultra right-wing par-t ies are growing al l across Europe. According to Al-jazeera, part ies such as the Progress Party in Norway, the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands and the Swiss People’s Party have strong ant i-immigrant views and are gaining support.

While many of these pol it ical part ies are not as ex-treme as Golden Dawn, their views trend towardsfar-right extremism, nat ivism and racism. People across Europe have become disi l lusioned the E.U., and with pol it ics in general. This frustrat ion has led many to turn to extremism, when conventional pol icies do not appear to be effect ive people often take extreme posi-t ions to enact change. The Brit ish think tank Demos, found in a 2011 study cal led the “New Face of Digi-tal Popul ism” that support for far-right part ies has increased since the onset of economic trouble in the Euro zone and the rise of social media. They found an increase in feel ings of ant i-immigrant and ant i-Islamic sent iments, along with fear of losing nat ional ident ity within the subjects respect ive nat ions.

These developments –in Greece and elsewhere in Europe – lead one to consider whether such right wing extremist views could take hold in American pol it ics. The Minuteman Project, a hardl ine ant i-immigrat ion group, saw relat ive popularity in the early 2000’s and exhibited many similar characterist ics to Golden Dawn. Headed by Jim Gilchrist the project gathered cit izen volunteers with guns to guard the Mexican-American

border. The project has since dis-solved due to inf ight ing but many of the former members have been absorbed into the Tea Party. There seems to be no quest ion that pow-erful ant i-immigrant sent iment is present in America today.

Condit ions in America are not currently as dire as those in Greece but the presence of groups l ike the Minuteman Project shows how a worsening of economic condit ions can bring otherwise extreme sent iments into the main-stream of American pol it ics. Any country, placed under similar eco-nomic pressures, is l ikely to wit-ness the rise of groups l ike the Golden Dawn.

Hard economic t imes are able to bring extreme pol icy into a mainstream government in almost any nat ion; this raises the quest ion of how gov-ernments wil l cope with pol it ical part ies that become so extreme that their views are harmful to part icular cit izens. It remains to be seen whether the Greek gov-ernment wil l be successful in their attempt to end the Golden Dawn Party’s inf luence. The recent shutdown of the American government is evidence that America can be held powerless when a smal l minority hijacks the pol icymaking agenda. Economic condit ions can al low relat ively smal l groups to gain a foothold when they are loud enough. The Golden Dawn Party is an example of cit izens no longer bel ieving that their gov-ernment can or wil l protect their interests, and turning to radical ideals that they may have rejected under more stable circumstances. This however, is a natural danger of l iving under a democracy. TKO

“Collective fear stimulates heard instinct” –Bertrand Russell

With hard economic times able to bring extreme policy into a mainstream govern-ment in almost any nation,

it raises the question of how governments will cope with political parties that become so extreme that their views are harmful to groups of

citizens.

JOHN FOLEY

The Last Word

If you want something like...

A Tale of Two Cities In this classic British novel, Charles Dickens

mines the depths of social inequality in Paris and London during the time of the French Revolution.

Paradise Lost A timeless tale of Good versus Evil.

The collected works of the Bronte SistersThese novels deal with the brutality of adoles-

cent life in early industrial Britain and the isolation felt by female protagonists whose life choices are limited by their gender.

A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf brilliantly articulates how women

need to create their own spaces in order to thrive creatively, professionally and personally.

John, you say coyly, as we sip our cappuccinos, I want to read sophisticated literature. I understand, friend. So do I. The only thing any of us wants in this world, aside from beauty, is to appear smart in front of friends and acquaintances. But John, you interject rudely, I am vapid and have a tragically short attention span. So am I, friend, and so do I. How can anyone possibly sit through reading books like The Secret Garden and Charlotte’s Web without getting headaches?

I’ve had variations of this same conversation countless times. Friends want to acquire knowledge for din-ner parties and job interviews, but invariably hate reading, especially books by dead people. This is an age old dilemma. Murals found in caves accross the world depict the first peoples of this earth struggling to get through Great Expectations and Sense and Sensibility. A giant statue on Easter Island depicts a woman yawning as she struggles to finish Middlemarch.

Luckily, this problem has a solution. We live in a time and culture that offers us plenty of opportunities to enrich ourselves without dying of boredom or crying blood. Many television shows, films and contemporary books offer similar themes and social commentaries as the classics, without all the extra words. Here are a few of the best.

May I suggest...

Sex and the City, Season 3, Episode 14, “Sex and Another City” In this classic episode, Carrie and the Girls visit

Los Angeles, learn about the downsides of Brazil-lian waxing and “overdose on health food.”

The Hills, Season 2, Episodes 6 to 9, Heidi and Lauren’s Fight A timeless tale of Good versus Evil.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants I actually don’t have anything snarky to say

about this book series. It very touchingly deals with adolescent life at the start of the 21st century. Those pants fit all of them! And I cried when Bailey died.

HGTV’s “House Hunters” Rich homebuyers tour mansions and complain

when they don’t have stainless steel appliances.

Editors note: Ryan Mach is in India this week. TKO