Yesterday, we
saw a hugely positive turnout of almost 700,000 at the People's Vote March in
London, demanding to have a second referendum on Brexit ahead of crunch time
negotiations. The number of protesters exceeded the expectations of even the organisers and police who
managed the march! It’s a powerful statement to Theresa May and to the European
Commission that the way to win back our future is to have a people’s vote, lest
we simply sit back and watch ‘’unmitigated chaos’’ unfold.
Theresa May
hasn’t just been under fire from the British public this week, but she has been
under enormous pressure from members of own cabinet (again). In an interview
with BBC news, the Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has urged ‘jittery’ Tory MPs
to hold their nerve. Some Tory MPs firstly expressed anger at the possibility
that the post-Brexit transition period could be extended and, if the disastrous
Chequers summit of July 2018 is anything to go by, a vote of no confidence from
fellow Tories could well be on the cards. I’m anxious to see whether the
withdrawal agreement could still be negotiated after November. Because realistically,
it seems an impossibility that any deal will be brought back but if there were
to be an agreed deal, what of the challenges of implementing it on time?
A
conversation on Disney no less has been ignited this week in response to an
interview with actress Keira Knightley, who said she has banned her three year
old daughter from watching certain films. In the interview, she said that there’s
a ''couple of films which [I'm] just not cool with'', including the likes
of Cinderella, ''who waits for a rich guy to save'' her
and The Little Mermaid.
Despite
the huge backlash Knightley has received from the press, I definitely agree
with her underlying logic. I think it's so important to create an environment
where young girls grow up aspiring to be the strong female leads in their own
lives and not just damsels in distress and young boys are taught the power of
expressing their emotions, because even superheroes do.
Many
critics have called her out on social media, claiming that it's political
correctness gone mad and to just let kids
be kids. But these kinds of virtual, fairy-tale representations have
very real material consequences for
our youth, as the soaring rates of male suicide in this country have told us
all too well. The cultural constructions of what it means to be a woman and what it means
to be a man need to be discussed. Knightley's decision to simply ban the
films from her household, no matter how honourable her intentions are, doesn't
seek to solve anything.
Less
than 18 months ago in the French presidential elections, it seemed France's
far-right nationalist fate was sealed, signed with just the ink of a pen.
Marine Le Pen, to be precise. But after a crushing defeat to
Emmanuel Macron in the presidential elections, her leadership of the
National Front party was strained to say the least and so off slipped Marine Le
Pen from the political radar and international agenda. Or so we thought.
After
a summer of political scandals for President Macron, Marine Le Pen's search for
a new ally in the Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, couldn't have been
better timed. Matteo Salvini has taken a shine to Marine Le Pen's
political philosophy against a ''totalitarian'' Europe. It's a depressing
friendship to say the least, as it symbolises the inevitable revival of
populist and nationalist ideologies to the ballot box in Western Europe once
more…
Saudi Arabia
has finally released a statement accounting for the disappearance of
journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. At the start of the week, it was beginning to seem
more and more likely that the Saudi government did kill him. But the official
statement claims that he died inside the consulate building in Istanbul on the
2nd October, after a ‘fist fight’. Nations around the world are
calling the Saudi state government out for this unsatisfactory explanation, although
none yet have imposed any sort of economic sanctions against them.
I’m deeply
disappointed with the statement the Saudi government gave, not least because
those who responsible must be held accountable for their actions. If he did die
in a ‘fist fight’, the burning question on everybody’s lips is where is his
body? Turkish officials claim intelligence that a Saudi ‘kill team’ were
brought into the consulate, dismembered Khashoggi’s body and made a snuff video
showcasing it. What scares me the most about the whole affair is how it proves
that the Saudi government is becoming increasingly repressive and that no one
is safe from their violent wrath, not even from beyond Saudi’s borders. I hope
that the Saudi government buckles underneath mounting international pressure
and provides much needed clarity as to what really happened to Jamal Khashoggi.
Antonia x
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