Beyond the Class Ceiling: Education and Upward Social Mobility

PASCAL BLACKFOOT

One of the major differences between working and middle to upper-class parents, when it comes to their children’s education, and specifically how to best maximize their chances at upward social mobility, is that the former – in America, especially, since this nation pretty much purged its radical Left long ago – essentially believe that they ought to control their children’s behaviors and actions directly; the belief being that one is determined primarily by one’s actions (e.g. “to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps”) – often the jurisdiction of authoritarian Dads, or Moms. Whereas the latter (i.e. middle to upper-class parents, also known globally as the “Bourgeois”), although they superficially agree rhetorically with the former that one is determined by one’s actions (as the very legitimacy and persistence of their class privileges partly rests on this social belief – meritocracy! –), actually know, deep down, that one is primarily determined by one’s environment – considering many of them inherited a substantial part, if not all, of their start-up economic, and even cultural and social capital (connections) – and that therefore the key is to provide the right environment to shape the individual, as opposed to trying to control their actions directly.

Hence, Bourgeois parents, unlike their working-class counterparts, deliberately align the proper “determinisms” by actively controlling and shaping their kids’ environment. For example, by making surethat their kids attend to the right – private, preferably prep – schools, learn the right foreign languages early (in America: French, and increasingly nowadays Mandarin; while in Europe: English, German and French), take the right classes (AP in high-school), partake in the right activities early-on (ex: piano, tennis, golf, sailing, horseback riding, dance, ballet, etc. – not Brazilian Jujitsu! –), hang out with the right kids from so-called “good” families, are exposed to the right stimuli, such as:  the right books, the right toys, the right clothes, the right words, the right ideas, the right tutors, the right learning methods (analytical, ahead of so-called “global” or memorization-based ones; ex: for reading, phonics over “sight words”), often the ability to think and talk relatively independently – executive functions! –, rather than rigorous obedience and conformity, or adherence to some “lowest-common denominator” manufactured dreams (like some commodity cults, devotion to “Jesus”, playing the lottery, …), little or no screen-based media, etc. An entire carefully selected, class-based sociocultural environment, largely concomitant with their chosen place of residence, in the right neighborhoods!  For the wealthy, the idea is to systematically transmit their class habitus – succinctly: internalized psychological and kinesthetic predispositions shaped by a specific class environment, i.e. the incorporation of the experience of class – (*), which of course comes naturally to them, but is obviously a much more difficult, and even risky proposition, particularly for aspiring members of the lower-middle class (and I don’t mean objectively, considering what they own, but rather who the parents are and where they come from culturally and psychologically, class habitus-wise) who typically lack the right “codes”, and often have overly rigid and caricatural ideas as to what those might be. As a result, working and lower-middle class kids frequently get “stopped” by their peers, or by some other gatekeepers – including some teachers! –, if they have the misfortune of making it far enough to hang out with what Pierre Bourdieu called the “Heritiers” (the inheritors). I guess one might call this the class ceiling.

And often, the psychological and/or physical pressure – physical intimidation, if not beatings, are not unheard of – exerted by working, and more often lower-middle class parents on their kids for them to succeed, as well as conform to ill-perceived upper-class cultural norms – or “codes” – is so great, longstanding, insidious and pervasive, that the child, or more likely by that time teen, winds up seeing it for what it is:  his parents’ unbridled status ambition and implicit class-bound shame, through the reckless, if at times ruthlessinstrumentalization and denial of his or her authentic self, producing a feeling of alienation – i.e. dispossession –, since these injunctions likely went on since childhood, frequently ending in either open rebellion and/or self-destructive behavior (ex: drugs or other addiction, including video games):  the “rocket” exploding either on the launch pad, so to speak, or soon after launch, at the first setback (ex: such as getting ostracized or ridiculed by upper-class peers, or other gatekeepers, for failing to be endowed with the “correct” habitusor status markers – should he or she make it that far). I believe that in most cases, the sum of whatever may have been gained – and lost – in such a “transaction” likely results, at best, in a small upward increment: near class replication, and a lot of bitterness. The point being that upward social mobility is an inherently morally hazardousand generally slow process, over generations, despite high-profile exceptions – if it happens! –, and that it is probably best – meaning smarter –, for eager parents to temper their vicarious class ambitions, lest they be counterproductive, if not outright destructive. Who knows?  This may well be the most effective strategy for their children’s long term health and even “success”.

One of the principal ironies regarding orthodox (or even hyper-orthodox – ex: conservative “Libertarians” –), often lower-middle class parents attempting to emulate upper-class norms and culture, in the misguided hope of increasing their offspring’s chance at upward social mobility – “success” –, by turning them, often forcefully, into “good” little boys and girls, who are obedient and respectful – reverent – of political authority (i.e. of the power-structure), is that upper-class kids are, in reality, quite the opposite; being frequently self-entitled, arrogant and cynical “smart little shits”, who know – often at a gut level –, that these sort of meritocratic, slavish attitudes are for peons!  I would know, having been exposed to a fair number of them: a relative’s cohort at an elite liberal arts college, in Lakeforest, IL – one of the top 10 prep colleges in the United States (as listed in Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook). By the way, contrary to what’s being pushed on the rest of the unsuspecting population, the upper-class fully appreciates the value of a Liberal Arts education (i.e. of arts and language as cultural capital) – up to a point, naturally!  These kids know, often from an early age, that the game is rigged in their favor and that there is no meritocracy, and therefore that “the system” (e.g. Calvinist ideology) is on some level a lie to be used but not to be believed, which is why they are typically cynical, often crassly so (see Jared Kushner’s – President Trump’s son-in-law’s – entrance essay to Harvard, leaked in The New Yorker). For example, their first car, in high-school, is not uncommonly a $40,000+ luxury SUV: inertial safety – read: mass and momentum as capital – and status, combined.  And usually, they are exceedingly good at understanding and using power, either overtly, or more often covertly (ex: through bluff or symbolic violence, including the use of words and pronunciation, body language, manners, etc.; basically in using the force of their inherited class habitus and “natural” self-assurance as a domination instrument) – which, I suppose, is a form of intelligence –, if for no other reason that they are typically around politically powerful – influential – people, such as their parents. However, and this should come as no surprise, they are also frequently lacking in moral intelligence, in its true philosophical – humanistic – sense, and are themselves or rapidly become, somewhat paradoxically, slavish tools of “the system” – drones, as Chris Hedges would say –, the same as most everyone else, and perhaps even more so, considering that they are so richly rewarded by it. They are, in a subjective but very real way, not free, for being so effectively and thoroughly determined by their class environment. This often leads, in time, to profound alienation (i.e. spiritual – and social – dispossession), a good example of which is what happens to the mother character in Robert Redford’s Oscar winning Ordinary People, 1980, or to the father character, at the start of the movie, in Robin Swicord’s recent Wakefield, 2016 (see also: Stephanie Land’s I spent 2 years cleaning houses. What I saw makes me never want to be rich, published in Vox).

As for the few working and more likely lower-middle class kids who somehow make it past the class ceiling, objectively realizing their parents’ wildest upward social mobility dreams, they are very often haunted by the contradictions and conflicts arising between two distinct, incorporated class habitus:  that of their original milieu, and of the one they ultimately acquired. And typically, in order to sustain the legitimacy of their newfound privileges and group belonging, they must actively suppress the former, i.e. their native class tastes, values and patterns. This is never more so evident than in the embarrassment, shame, and sometimes even contempt, these kids – now “successful” grown-ups – often feel with regards to their parents and formative class environment (both material and social); especiallyin the Anglosphere where the predominant puritan, Calvinist view is that being of a lower class, especially poor, is a reflection of one’s character, and that consequently one must somehow deserve this standing (which is the flip-side of the meritocracy myth, and a potent form of social control). This is one of the basic ironies of rapid social ascension:  the original class stigma – shame – that commonly spurred this often vicarious journey endures, if secretly, regardless. I suppose one might call this a case of “split-personality”: one essentially at war with itself (note: the “bastard-king” or “princess-housemaid” archetypes come to mind, for ex: Game of Thrones’ John Snow, or Cinderella) – incidentally, never a good omen for long-term mental and physical health! –, which is, in a way, entirely fitting, considering that the ethos of fervent class promotion is inherently a conflict-ridden and inducing – warlike – one. This is not a “Care Bears” ethos, as it does not only involve the denial of other “lesser” people’s intrinsic value, often former-class members (frequently including parents, siblings, and relatives), through the process of implicit and explicit class exclusion and domination (ex: disparities in wealth, opportunity and experience, symbolic violence, overt class contempt, etc.), but is a veritable form of self-denial in this case, as well, despite outward appearances; which is bound to leave its marks…

As we have seen, class ceilings exist not only between the working-class and the Bourgeoisie (i.e. lower-middle to upper-class), but also between the petite-Bourgeoisie (i.e. lower-middle class) and the Bourgeoisie proper (the actual middle-class). Another, somewhat more porous barrier also separates the true upper-class (our very rich), from the classes immediately below. Other obstacles also exist within classes, erected by various class fractions engaging in the struggle for supremacy. According to Bourdieu’s in depth – and often breathtaking – sociological analysis, published in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, originally released in France in 1979, and said to be one of the top 10 sociology works of the 20^th century by the International Sociology Association, the various classes and class fractions are determined not only by the amount, but also by the relative distribution of their economic and cultural – learned – capital, as well as, to a somewhat lesser extent, by their social capital (social connections); the various types of cultural capital possessed (e.g. arts, literature and philosophy, human sciences, science and technology, or economics and politics) often playing a decisive role in how the inter and inner-class game of social domination is played. In other words, this is not a one-dimensional “game”, one presumably based on economic capital alone, as most Americans are culturally predisposed to believe, but a multi-dimensional one, reflecting the fact that there is more than one way to dominate, or to define and justify a social hierarchy (knowledge being one of them). These class walls, or “ceilings”, form redoubtable obstacles, not simply to achieving much sought-after (and in my view, overrated) upward social mobility, but more importantly, to evolving a happier, saner – more equal – society: one where human development would be widely shared (as measured, for example, by the UN’s Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index).

In my opinion, and contrary to popular belief, the pursuit of happiness, self-worth and realization through upward social mobility ultimately delivers none of these things. It is yet another one of those empty dreams which we are fed by the ambient capitalist, consumerist environment – probably the most seductive and widespread: a “fake dream”, as Slavoj Zizek would put it –, and yet another form of power-structure (i.e. status) worship, which has, in the end, very little to do with most people’s true personal development, in the sense of looking inwardly to know themselves better – Know Thyself – and hopefully deriving a genuine sense of value, purpose and meaning through it, one not based on money or fame – outward “success” –, and which therefore could not easily be lost or taken away, and everything to do with serving the interests of those very few at the top, while ironically hoping to themselves be served. Hence the trope: “getting the success one deserves” – or, more likely, not.

Rohingya and the Myth of Buddhist Tolerance

M. REZA PIRBHAI

When old and young are systematically rounded up and shot. When women are gang raped and their babies thrown into waterways to drown. When their homes and businesses are burned. When all the atrocities of ethnic cleansing are plain to see, international law leaps into action. Global bodies and their constituent states work to simultaneously put an end to the atrocities, provide refuge for survivors and bring perpetrators to book, no matter the identity of the offender or the victim. Or so we are told. For as the on-going slaughter and displacement of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims reveals, international law is not so blind.

Since their citizenship rights have been progressively revoked between the 1940s and ‘80s, thousands of Rohingya men, women and children have been subjected to murder and rape, their villages have been raised to the ground and more than a million have fled to neighboring countries without much protest from the world beyond. Even the UN’s late attempts to investigate the most recent barbarities have fallen short of constituting a full Commission of Inquiry and independent investigators have been blocked from entering Myanmar by the Buddhist-led government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi. “Just imagine, for a minute,” Columbia University’s Hamid Dabashi urges in a recent article, “if it were Jews or Christians, or else the ‘peaceful Buddhists,’ who were the subjects of Muslim persecutions.” Given the attention Muslim violence ceaselessly garners, the reason behind the apparent lack of outrage to protect the Rohingya is clear to him: “Something in the liberal fabric of Euro-American imagination is cancerously callous. It does not see Muslims as complete human beings.”

Even when one acknowledges that Muslim Bangladesh (where about 500,000 Rohingya have sought refuge) has long sought to prevent their “infiltration,” Dabashi’s point hits home. According to the UNHCR, ordinary Bangladeshis have opened their villages and towns to the latest influx of Rohingya refugees, providing food, clothing and shelter. And even the state’s seemingly cold-hearted actions only reflect Bangladesh’s inability to accommodate its Rohingya co-religionists without international support, which is clearly not forthcoming. Furthermore, various Muslim-majority governments, as well as the Organization of Islamic Conference, have begun pledging funds and voicing the deep concerns expressed by their constituencies. But is it just the dehumanization of Muslims in the Euro-American imagination that seems to be at play in their voices falling on deaf ears beyond? What of the contrasting image of ‘peaceful Buddhists’?

Academia is in fact rife with examples of scholarship that touts the tolerance and inclusiveness of Buddhists and the general argument is nothing new. According to Thomas A. Tweed, Professor of History at Notre Dame University, increasing awareness of religious diversity due to colonial expansion and Christian missionizing led Euro-American Enlightenment intellectuals repelled by Christian sectarianism to consider Buddhism to fit the bill of the “natural religion” (or “perennial philosophy”) they sought, one that exuded “tolerance” toward people of different faiths and was amenable to scientific progress. So convinced were they that some, such as the nineteenth century German-American scholar Paul Carus, even chastised Asian Buddhists when they launched polemical assaults on Christian missionaries, accusing the Asians of using language the “Buddha certainly would not…” So was born the pervasive myth, characteristically articulated by the early twentieth century Swedish-American Theosophist Herman Vetterling, that Buddhism is “a religion of noble tolerance, of universal brotherhood, of righteousness and justice,” and that in its growth as the religion of a global community it had not “caused the spilling of a drop of blood.”

Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Michael Jerryson, picks up where Tweed signs off to show that the tendency to associate Buddhism with tolerance did not die in the early twentieth century or remain bound in an ivory tower. In the wake of World War II, it found its way into the writings of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, marching further forward in time with such works as Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and by the 1980s assumed political dimensions in the form of the Free Tibet Movement. And finally, who can forget (even if you want to) Keanu Reeves in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha.

Social history, however, tells a different tale than Orientalists and popular culture. For every instance of forbearance, history also provides examples of violent intolerance legitimated by Buddhist doctrines and conducted by practitioners. As many ancient Jain and Brahmanical texts speak of persecution at the hands of Indian Buddhists, as Buddhists accuse their South Asian competitors of the same. And consider Jerryson’s examples of the sixth century Chinese Buddhist monk Faqing, who promised his 50,000 followers that every opponent they killed would take them to a higher stage in the bodhisattva’s path. Or recall that with the advent of nationalism, Buddhist monks rallied to the cause as with Japanese Rinzai support for the military campaign against the Russians in 1904-5, or Zen and Pureland Buddhist justifications of the Japanese invasions of China, Korea and Singapore during World War II. Buddhism has been corrupted in these places, they argued, and violence is necessary to insure that ‘true’ Buddhism is restored and preserved. The same rhetoric – of some fundamental Buddhism under threat – also underwrites the more recently nationalized bigotry and violence that Buddhist monks and laypersons have unleashed on non-Buddhists in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and, last but not least, Myanmar.

“No religion has a monopoly on ‘violent people’,” Jerryson astutely concludes, “nor does any one religion have a greater propensity for violence.” All religions are vast complexes of thought and institutions and devotees of each can always find legitimacy for hostility or hospitality toward the other depending on mundane needs or wants. It is for this very reason that the apparent disconnect between historical Buddhism and the sustained Euro-American myth of its tolerance is as malignant as the perpetual dehumanization of Islam and Muslims is cancerous. These Buddhists have long been the good guys and those Muslims the bad in this lore. Each is a necessary fiber in the liberal fabric of Euro-American imagination that veils the gaze of international law when it comes to the murder and displacement of the Rohingya.

Marriott TestBED Accelerator for Startups in Middle East and Africa 2017

Application Deadline: 4th October 2017

Eligible Countries: Countries in Middle East and Africa

To Be Taken At (Country): The 8 finalists gather in Dubai, UAE to take part in a series of workshops and pitch their businesses to a panel of judges.

About the Award: TestBED is a 10-week accelerator programme that gives startups an invaluable opportunity to test their products within an operating Marriott Hotel.

Marriott TestBED Middle East & Africa is an accelerator programme powered by Marriott Hotels with the aim to find cutting edge technologies, that can transform hotel guests experience. The programme will work with startups that have developed products and services which can enhance Marriott Hotels guest experience.

Marriott TestBED Middle East & Africa is a 0 cash; 0 equity; 100% opportunity accelerator. TestBED provides startups with an invaluable opportunity to test their products/services for 10 weeks within an operating Marriott Hotel in a major city in the Middle East or Africa. During this period, startups will be able to receive feedback from Marriott guests and associates to help develop their product. It does not offer startups cash, nor does it ask for equity.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Participating startups should fulfill the following conditions:

• Be a for-profit business
• Have a product or a service focusing on:
  • Enhancing Marriott Hotels’ in-room experience
  • Transforming the overall guest stay and F&B experience, in and outside the hotels
  • Helping guests discover a ‘headspace’ and achieve a relaxed state of mind during their stay with Marriott Hotels
• Be ready to pilot within a live hotel environment (fundamentally beyond “idea stage”; seed and early stage startups are welcome to apply)
• Be based in the Middle East or Africa
• Be independent entities, meaning that they should not be a subsidiary of an existing corporation or have legal ties to a government body
• Be represented by team members aged 21 years and older

Selection Criteria: Participating startups will be assessed according to the following criteria:

• Extent to which the product solves a Marriott-specific business problem
• Innovative and disruptive technology to transform the guest experience
• Size of market opportunity and revenue potential
• A strong market rollout plan
• Proven traction (e.g. users, customers, revenue)
• A motivated and skilled team

Number of Awards: 8 startups

Value of Award: Marriott TestBED Middle East & Africa offers the participating startups:

• The opportunity to test their products/services for 10 weeks within an operating Marriott Hotel in a major city in the Middle East or Africa
• A marketing training programme, tailored to their needs, provided by industry leaders
• Mentoring from a range of experts from Marriott Hotels
• Global exposure through Marriott Hotels’ marketing and media

Duration of Program: 10 weeks

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Marriott Hotels

University of Nottingham (Malaysia Campus) Developing Solutions Scholarship for Students from Third-World Countries 2018/2019

Application Deadlines: 

• application for September 2017 intake is open from 15th March 2017 and closed by 28th July 2017. Successful applicants will be notified by 15th August 2017
• application for December 2017 intake is open from 1st June 2017 and closed by 13th October 2017. Successful applicants will be notified by 31st October 2017

Eligible Countries: Developing and third world countries

To be taken at (country): University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, Malaysia

Fields of Study: 

• MSc Chemical Engineering
• MSc Civil Engineering
• MSc Mechanical Engineering
• MSc Electronic Communication & Computer Engineering
• MSc Crop Biotechnology
• MA Educational Leadership & Management
• MA Special Needs
• MA TESOL
• MSc International Development Management

About the Award: The Developing Solutions Scholarship Fund will reach out to students who have the potential to make a real difference to the development and prosperity of their home countries.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: In order to apply for one of these scholarships, candidate must;

• be holding an unconditional offer letter and accepted the offer by paying USD1000 for full time Masters degree programme at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus for 2016/17 intakes. Copy of unconditional offer letter and acceptance form must be attached together with the application.
• be classified as an ‘overseas’ student for fee purposes.
• have at least 1 full year working experience after completion of undergraduate programme. Fresh graduates will not be considered.
• must sufficiently enable to support cost of living throughout the duration of studies.
• complete our scholarship application form online. Please take note only completed form with all supporting documents will be considered.
• current students and graduates of UNMC will not be considered for this scholarship as to give new students an opportunity.
• only complete applications and meet the above requirements will be entertained.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Program: 100% tuition fee waiver

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: Download the Application Form (pdf)

Once the form has been filled in, please save and attach the form to your email and send it to Developing Solutions Malaysia.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Nottingham

RNTC Fully-funded Media & Journalism Scholarships for African & Developing Countries 2018 – Netherlands

Application Deadline: 24th October 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligibility Subject Areas: As of today you can apply with a scholarship for the following courses:

• Investigative journalism
• Media campaigns
• Producing media to counter radicalisation
• Using media for development

About Scholarship: The RNTC Netherlands training centre provides training for media professionals from all over the world: from journalists and programme-makers to social activists and communications professionals from non-governmental organisations. Whether you are a journalist, a blogger or a media manager, there are courses to fit your needs.

The most commonly used scholarship for RNTC courses are the NFP and MSP (MENA) scholarships. NFP stands for Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP), MSP stands for MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Scholarship Programme

Offered Since: 2012

Type: Short courses

Selection Criteria: The scholarships will be awarded on academic and professional merit.

Eligibility: RNTC Netherland Fellowships are available for professional journalists, programme-makers, broadcast trainers and managers coming from the countries listed below (a combined NFP list and low-middle-income countries according to the World Bank criteria).

cholarship Benefits: An NFP or MSP scholarship will cover the full cost of your travel and visa (if required), accommodation and meals, insurance, and the course fee. The NFP and the MSP scholarship programmes are funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and administered by Nuffic, the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education.

Duration: scholarships are available for courses of two weeks or longer.

Eligible African Countries: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Other Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Autonomous Palestinian Territories, Bangladesh, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eritrea, Fiji, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kiribati, Kosovo, Laos, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Moldova, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Syria, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen

To be taken at (country): The Netherlands

How to Apply: If you want apply for a scholarship to cover the costs of the course, you need to apply to both RNTC (for your course application) and Nuffic (for a fellowship).

There is no preference for where you start, but it’s wise to start with RNTC and to wait to hear whether or not you are eligible. Once you’ve received RNTC’s positive reaction, you can start your application with Nuffic.

It is important to visit the Scholarship Webpage for more information on how to apply.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for details

Sponsors: RNTC Netherlands

Leiden University Mandela Scholarship for South African Students 2018

Application Deadlines: 

• 1st October 2017 for programs starting in February 2018
• 1st April 2018 for programs starting in September 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: South Africa

To be taken at (country): Netherlands

Type: Short Courses

Eligibility: Candidates must be:

• Permanent residents of South Africa;
• Enrolled in at South African University;
• Accepted for a semester programme at Leiden University as an Exchange student or Study Abroad student;
• Motivated to upgrade or extend their knowledge in order to make a contribution towards the development of South Africa;
• Committed to return to South Africa after their study period at Leiden University.

Number of Awardees: Several

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship amount differs for Exchange students and Study Abroad students:

Exchange students 

• International travel costs: € 1000
• Living allowance: € 800 per month (for a maximum of five months)
• Insurance: will be sponsored by AON Student Insurance and arranged by the Scholarships Department of Leiden University.

Study Abroad Students

• Tuition fee: the actual fee
• International travel costs: € 1000
• Living allowance: € 800 per month (for a maximum of five months)
• Insurance: will be sponsored by AON Student Insurance and arranged by the Scholarships Department of Leiden University.

Duration of Scholarship: Five months (1 semester)

How to Apply: Visit Scholarship Webpage to apply

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Leiden University Fund (LUF), The Netherlands – South Africa Alumni Network (NESANET)

Morocco’s Rebellions

Vijay Prashad

Not far from Rabat’s train station, a small group of protesters hold Moroccan flags and banners as they chant for their lives. They are a family of farmers who have lost their land. These are rebels in the name of the King, to whom they plead for redress. “If only the King knew our situation,” says one of the men. Passers-by skirt the protest. So do the security forces. They are embarrassed. After a few hours, the farmers gather their things. They walk towards the train station. It is over.

The palace of Mohammed VI, the King of Morocco since 1999, is a short walk from the train station. But the King is not home. Nor is he in one of his 12 large palaces in grand cities as Casablanca, Fez or Meknes (the daily upkeep for these palaces is over $1 million). News comes that Mohammed VI is where his passion lies — on a jet ski far from Morocco.

Tourists do not go often to the city of al-Hoceima, which sits between the Mediterranean Sea and the Rif Mountains. This is mainly a fishing town with flashes of old Spanish architecture hidden behind the urgency of modern construction. Last October, the police confiscated some fish from Mouchine Fikri, a 31-year-old fishmonger, and threw it into the garbage. Fikri jumped into the garbage compactor to retrieve his fish. He was killed by the machine. People saw this as another example of hogra — the everyday humiliation of people like themselves by the makhzen (the royal family and its military establishment as well as the landowners and the businessmen). Fiercely rebellious, the Rif exploded.

Heated protests

Regular protests moved from al-Hoceima to cities and towns across Morocco. These are not demonstrations that embarrass the government. They terrify the makhzen. The government oscillated between arrest of the protest leaders and conciliation of their demands. Arrests of the leaders of the al-Hirak al-Sha’abi (Popular Movement) — Nasser Zefzafi, Najib Ahamjik and Silya Ziani — angered, rather than intimidated, the public. Fifty thousand people took to the streets of Rabat on June 11. That was the biggest protest in the city since the February 20 Movement of 2011 (as part of the Arab Spring).

It is difficult not to be in awe of Morocco’s history. Inside the charming maze of the Medina of Fez sits the Al-Karouine University that was founded in 859 AD by Fatima al-Fihri. This daughter of a wealthy merchant put her money into a place of scholarship that taught such luminaries as Ibn Khaldun, Moses Maimonides and Leo Africanus. Ancient manuscripts reside inside the library.

There is solace that the destructive impulse that tore through Mosul, whose great library was ravaged by the IS, will not come to this jewel. Neglect is the criminal. Outside the university runs the Fez River, which has more effluent from the tanneries than fresh water. The architect of the restoration, Aziza Chaouni, calls her city a ‘living city’, not just a city for tourists but also for the million people who live inside it.

Chinese presence

Morocco’s authorities worry that the Hirak protests might dampen tourism — the main foreign exchange earner. The government would like to see 20 million tourists enter the country, double the current figure. Numbers from the West are flat. Chinese tourism has, on the other hand, increased. It is not hard to run into Chinese tourists in the medinas of the old cities and in the hashish region anchored by the blue city of Chefchaouen (70% of the world’s hash comes from Morocco).

Poverty and hogra, as well as state-supported radical clerics, had opened the door for anger to move away from mass protest towards terrorist action.

The IS bomb-maker Najim Laachraoui, who died in the suicide attack in Brussels Airport, is from Ajdir (Morocco), while Paris attackers Salah Abdeslam, Brahim Abdeslam and Abdelhamid Abaaoud were all Moroccan. In June, the Moroccan authorities dismantled an IS cell in the southern coastal town of Essaouira. About 1,500 people have joined groups like the IS.

Hirak put the basic needs of the Moroccans on the table: dignity, healthcare, education and access to water. It is also the antidote to the growth of the IS. Neglect of the people threatens to push them into the arms of toxic radicalism that is typically antithetical to Morocco.

One of Al-Karouine University’s most important graduates was Abd el-Krim, the founder of modern guerrilla warfare.

Krim’s rebellion in the Rif from 1921 to 1926 defeated the much stronger Spanish army. But he was eventually caught and exiled to Egypt. His demands were also elementary: for dignity and for livelihood. These are unredeemed. They are on the table once more.

The Rationality of Kim Jong-un (and His Nukes)

Gary Leupp

Kim Jong-un is not mad. Quite the contrary. He has pulled off a wholly rational feat. By producing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of delivering them to U.S. territory, Pyongyang has obtained near-assurance that the U.S. will not attack it, in (yet another) attempt at regime change.

Wait, you’ll say. He already had that insurance. Every talking head on cable news says a U.S. strike would inevitably mean an attack on Seoul, which would kill tens of thousands immediately. South Koreans would blame the invasion on the U.S. So it’s just not tenable. Even if limited to conventional forces, the threat of invasion already constituted adequate deterrence. There’s no way the U.S. would trigger an attack on a city of 10 million people who are supposed to view the U.S. as their benevolent protector. So the North Koreans didn’t need to upset the world by acquiring nukes.

But think about it from Jong-un’s point of view.

Born in 1984, Jong-un was 7 when the U.S. first bombed Iraq, supposedly to force its troops out of Kuwait (although Saddam Hussein had already agreed to withdraw). Then the U.S. imposed sanctions on the country that killed half a million children.

He was 11 when the U.S. intervened in Yugoslavia, bombing Serbs to create the dysfunctional client state of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He was 15 (probably in school in Switzerland) when the U.S. bombed Serbia and created the dysfunctional client state of Kosovo.

He was 17 when the U.S. bombed and brought regime change to Afghanistan. Seventeen years later, Afghanistan remains in a state of civil war, still hosting U.S. troops to quell opposition.

He was 19 when the U.S. brought down Saddam and destroyed Iraq, producing all the subsequent misery and chaos.

He was 27 when the U.S. brought down Gaddafi, destroyed Libya, forced the Yemeni president from power causing chaos, and began supporting armed opposition forces in Syria. He was 30 when the U.S. State Department spent $5 billion to topple the Ukrainian government through a violent coup.

He knows his country’s history, and how the U.S. invasion from September 1950 leveled it and killed one-third of its people, while Douglas MacArthur considered using nuclear weapons on the peninsula. He knows how U.S. puppet Synghman Rhee, president of the U.S.-proclaimed “Republic of Korea,” having repeatedly threatened to invade the North, executed 100,000 South Koreans after the outbreak of war on the grounds that they were communist sympathizers who would aid the enemy. He loves Elizabeth Taylor movies but hates U.S. imperialism. There’s nothing crazy about that.

Jong-un was 10 years old when the U.S. and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework, by which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its nuclear power plants, replacing them with (more nuclear proliferation resistant) light water reactors financed by the U.S. and South Korea, and the gradual normalization of U.S.-Pyongyang relations. He was 16 when U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang and met with his father Kim Jong Il. (In that same year, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung met with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang during the period of “Sunshine Diplomacy” eventually sabotaged by the Bush/Cheney administration.) He was 20 when the agreement broke down (undermined by Dick Cheney and his neocons in 2004).

He was 17 when his older half-brother Jong-nam was busted at Narita Airport, for stupidly trying to enter Japan with his family on forged Dominican passports, to visit Tokyo’s Disneyland. That stunt ruled Jong-nam (murdered as you know in Malaysia in February 2017) out for the succession, whereas the next son, Jong-chul, was deemed “effeminate.” (At a Clapton concert in Singapore in 2006 he was seen with pierced ears.) Jong-un probably didn’t expect to be the next monarch until he was in his mid-20s.

He was 24 when the New York Philharmonic Orchestra visited Pyongyang to a warm welcome. (Washington refused a North Korean offer for a reciprocal visit.) Selected as successor, he became the new absolute leader of North Korea at age 27, a young, vigorous, well-educated man (Physics degree from Kim Il-song University) groomed for the post and with a strong sense of dynastic responsibility. That means returning the DPRK to the relative economic prosperity of the 1970s and 80s, when average per capita energy consumption in the north exceeded that of the south.

Analysts suggest that Kim has made economic development primary, and the long-standing “military first” (Songun) policy is giving way to a policy more empowering civilian Korean Workers Party leaders. The DPRK economy, according to The Economist, “is probably growing at between 1% and 5% a year.” A new class of traders and businessmen (donju) has emerged. The complex social status system (Songbun) that divides society into 51 sub-categories of “loyal,” “wavering,” and “hostile” (and distributing privileges accordingly) has been falling apart with the rise of market forces.

Fourteen months into his tenure, Jong-un invited Dennis Rodman, a member of the U.S. Basketball Hall of Fame, to Pyongyang for the first of what have now been five visits. He is a huge basketball fan, an aficionado of U.S. popular culture, a child of rock ‘n roll. He is also rationally aware of the threat the U.S. poses to his country (among many countries). So his strategy has been to sprint towards nukes while he can. Perhaps he thought that since the Trump administration was (and is) in such disarray, no violent response (such as an attack on the Yongbyon nuclear complex) was likely. But it was risky; the U.S. president is, after all, unstable and ignorant. He has asked his advisors repeatedly, why can’t we use nukes since we have them?

The fact is, Mattis, Tillerson and McMaster have been presented with a nuclear fait accompli to which they must respond, in a period of diminishing U.S. influence and relative economic decline.  They cannot do it by dropping a MOAB bomb (like they did in Afghanistan in April) or a missile strike on a base (like they did in Syria the same month, to display their manhood). Jong-un has insured that.

If Jong-un plays his cards right, he will get international recognition for the DPRK as a nuclear power—the same degree of recognition afforded other non-NPT signatories like India, Pakistan and Israel. The U.S. will have to defer to Chinese and Russian sobriety and abandon hollow threatening rhetoric. It will have to back down, as it did in the Korean War, when it realized it could not conquer the North and reunify Korea on Washington’s terms and had to accept the continued existence of the DPRK.

In return for tension-reducing measures by the U.S. and the South, and the establishment of diplomatic and trade ties, Pyongyang will suspend its nuclear weapons program, content with and proud of what it has accomplished. It is the only way.

The other way is suggested by John McCain, crazy warmonger to the end. The Senate Armed Services chairman told CNN’s “State of the Union” that if the North Korean leader “acts in an aggressive fashion”—whatever that means to McCain who will never realize that his bombing of Vietnam constituted aggression—“the price will be extinction.” Shades of Gen. Curtis LeMay and his casual comments about killing every man, woman and child in Tokyo during the terror bombing of that city in 1945.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain’s good buddy, has said that Trump told him: “If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong-un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here… And that may be provocative, but not really. When you’re president of the United States, where does your allegiance lie? To the people of the United States.”

Just knowing that the enemy is capable of contemplating one’s people’s extinction surely motivates some leaders to seek the ultimate weapon. The dear young Marshall pulled it off. He replicated what Mao did in China between 1964 and 1967. He got the bomb, which had been introduced to the world over Hiroshima on August. 6, 1945, and used again three days later over Nagasaki. And never used anywhere since in the years since, in which the U.S. has been joined by the USSR, UK, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan as members of the nuclear club. He has no reason to use it, unless the U.S. gives him one.

Negotiations on the basis of mutual respect and historical consciousness are the only solution.

Putin Warns Against Hysteria About DPRK

Manuel E. Yepe

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the opening of the high–level segment of the Ninth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit against “military hysteria” around the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. He said it could lead to a “planetary catastrophe” and called it “useless and ineffective” to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang such as those recently announced by Washington.

Such a position raises the prospect of another dangerous confrontation between Moscow and the United States, whose president called for “the strongest possible sanctions” by the UN as a sign of rejection of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test. It was carried out in early September, according to according to a statement from Radio Havana Cuba quoting as its source the French Press Agency (AFP).

Putin, who participated in the summit recently held at the Xiamen International Convention Center in China, told reporters there that “Russia condemns these exercises in North Korea, but considers that the use of sanctions of any kind in cases like this is always useless and ineffective. ”

“A military hysteria has no meaning … because it can lead to a planetary catastrophe with a high number of victims,” warned the Russian president.

Following Pyongyang’s sixth most powerful nuclear test so far, the United States, its European allies and Japan have announced that they are negotiating new UN sanctions against North Korea.

However, the position of China and Russia –both with veto rights in the Security Council – has not been sufficiently clear.

The North Koreans “will not give up their nuclear program if they do not feel safe. For this reason, we must try to open a dialogue between the parties concerned, “Putin said.

The Russian president believes that “military hysteria does not make sense, because it is a road that leads us to a dead end.” Putin adds to the position of China, which advocates a “peaceful solution” to the North Korean crisis and wants to resume negotiations with the government of Kim Jong–Un.

By contrast, US President Donald Trump, who pledged last month “fire and fury” if Pyongyang continues its threats against Washington, considered last week that, from now on, “any appeasement talk no longer works” with North Korea.

In response to the North Korean nuclear test, South Korea began ground maneuvers with live fire. The South Korean navy had done the same thing a week earlier, hoping to dissuade Pyongyang from any alleged provocation at sea.

US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced in New York that a new sanctions package would be presented by Washington –the eighth– will be negotiated in the coming days before being voted on by the Security Council on Nov. 11,.

At the beginning of August, the last resolutions sanctioning Pyongyang –each more severe than the previous one– were unanimously adopted by the 15 members of the Security Council.

According to diplomatic sources, the new measures being negotiated this week could affect oil, tourism, remittances to the country by North Korean workers abroad and other diplomatic decisions.

The hydrogen bomb that Pyongyang announced it had tested on Sunday, had a power of 50 kilotons, five times more than the previous North Korean test and three times more than the US–launched bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, according to South Korean sources.

North Korea is now capable of transporting an atomic bomb in a missile capable of reaching US territory, although, according to Washington, its experts have not confirmed this prediction with absolute certainty.

North Korea has never succumbed to the intimidation of the US and this has generated prestige and admiration for its proven intransigence and resilience in circumstances that have led many other governments of the world to indignant capitulation.

Pyongyang is proud to have survived as an independent nation with a communist orientation in a global context as extremely dangerous as its own. It attributes the success of its national security program –in large measure– to the fact that it includes possession and development of a small nuclear arsenal that serves a deterant. This is because of the possibility that Washington, through its participation in and monopoly of the atomic bomb, could launch another war like the one it carried out on Korean territory, in the 1950s of the last century.