Category: Antonio Rolo Duarte

Boots instead of briefcases?

11/2/2016

Prime Minister Theresa May hanging out with British athletes during the Olympic parade in Manchester last week // Ph: Number 10/Flickr

Analysis Sport was for decades overlooked by politicians and diplomats, but times are changing. In this article, we look at how modern governments such as the UK can use sporting competitions and athletes to their advantage

António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief

“You didn’t just make history this summer; you have helped to shape our future too. Thank you for bringing our country together in a wonderful sense of pride; thank you for inspiring generations to follow in your footsteps; and thank you for making Britain one of the world’s greatest Olympic and Paralympic superpowers,” said Prime Minister Theresa May in Manchester last week, welcoming home the British athletes who competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Powerful rhetoric, an emotional appeal to nationalism and an indirect allusion to a powerful past. Any typical British politician’s speech could incorporate these. But they would not have been included by Theresa May if she had been prime minister just a few decades back. In fact, if we were not in the twenty-first century, she would most likely not even have made that speech at all.

The reason? The speech was about sport.

A mere fifty years ago, the cliché statement that “politics and sport do not mix” was still repeated by politicians whenever important sporting contests took place. It was common practice for government officials to dismiss sport as an issue under their level of importance. Foreign Office officials such as Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Eyre Crowe would happily state that sport “is not a Foreign Office question at all” and grand events such as the Olympics “are no business of ours”.

As we saw in the prime minister’s speech last week, the traditional approach has been abandoned. In the twenty-first century, sportspeople and politicians are now contacting ever more often, and ever more comfortably. The reason is obvious: this relationship presents invaluable opportunities for statesmen who crave for influence over the masses, both at home and abroad.

Michelle Kwan, Figure Skating World Champion, speaking at the UN // Ph: UN Women/ Flickr

Cameron and Gerrard '14 // Ph: Number 10/ Flickr

All you need is a ball
In particular, sport is valuable in changing perceptions abroad. Who would a Syrian child most likely listen to: a British embassy worker with some leaflets about human rights; or Wayne Rooney with a football ball and a few minutes to spare?

Sport is a valuable diplomatic tool which reduces estrangement, promotes positive values and brings people together. Employing athletes in public diplomacy initiatives, hosting major sporting events such as the Olympics, or sending sportspeople abroad to engage in development projects can all spread a particular country’s ideas abroad in a positive and non-threatening way.

As opposed to hard power’s decisive actions and methods of coercion, sport as a soft power tool can work slowly to change perceptions. It can advance national interest by increasing the ideological influence on local populations. In most cases, it can also reduce attrition and foster understanding - as happens, for example, with the recurrent use of cricket events to deescalate tensions between India and Pakistan.

Who would a Syrian child most likely listen to: a British embassy worker with some leaflets about human rights; or Wayne Rooney with a football ball and a few minutes to spare?

It must be noted here that I do not wish to overestimate the power of sport in diplomacy: sport alone is, of course, no solution to the major challenges of our time. There is no chance that sportspeople will stop terrorism, climate change or an increasingly aggressive Russia. But sport can contribute to manage these, if it is effectively used by governments as part of wider diplomatic efforts.

Sport has a worldwide audience and speaks a universal language, making it an exceptionally accessible tool. It can bring old enemies together, as in the 2002 Football World Cup, which was successfully co-hosted by Japan and South Korea. It can change international perceptions of a country and communicate a rejuvenated identity, as happened for China following the Beijing 2008 Olympics. And it can effectively stop wars, as happened during the 1966 Football World Cup, the first one broadcast on television, when soldiers on both sides of the colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea would effectively stop fighting to watch their heroes play.

States in Europe and elsewhere would particularly benefit from using sport in their diplomatic strategies at this point in history. International politics now involves a range of new players and is characterized by a plethora of different layers and networks, which thanks to modern technology and travel links can wield greater influence than they did just a couple of decades ago.

In this sense, the use of sport can help to keep up with the pace of change. It can change the image of a country’s diplomacy from elite, aloof and out-of-date to fresh, proactive and transparent. Sport is therefore a valuable soft power tool which should no longer be left in the shadows of government policy.

Vietnam and Philippines use sport to reduce tensions in the South China Sea

Australia benefits from an investment in communicating its sporting culture

Scoring for Britain
Two countries lead the global move to include sport in the modernization of diplomatic strategies: the United States and Australia. On the other hand, nations like the United Kingdom are only beginning to explore what sport can do for the statesman.

British diplomacy would benefit from a larger investment in sport for four main reasons:

The first is British sport’s values. In 1922, Lieutenant Colonel Temperley, military attaché at the British embassy in The Hague, reported regarding an international fencing tournament which he attended: “I was approached very early and informed that the organizers regarded the presence of an English team essential not so much on the account of their fencing abilities, but because the fact of our team being there would raise the whole tone of the meeting.” Politeness, good sportsmanship, generosity and gentlemanly behaviour are all synonymous with British sport and can be a powerful soft power tool abroad.

The second British advantage is its sportspeople. From David Beckham to Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton to Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Alex Ferguson to Chris Hoy, in the twenty-first century the UK has an almost unparalleled array of stars which are idolized and respected across the world. Used in ambassadorial roles, these sportspeople can considerably amplify a diplomatic message. They can promote British identity, values and culture abroad, either it being at diplomatic meetings, sporting events or development projects.

Politeness, good sportsmanship, generosity and gentlemanly behaviour are all synonymous with British sport and can be a powerful soft power tool abroad.

The third feature is an institution called English Football Premier League. According to research by the Institute for Government, the Premier League is one of the three most powerful soft power tools of the UK, along with the monarchy and the BBC.

Figures of the British Council show that the Premier League is watched by 4.7 billion people worldwide; and 10 per cent of the world’s population are said to support Manchester United, a club which has been academically defined by researcher Simon Rofe as “a diplomatic non-state actor in international affairs”. Potential partnerships between the British government and the national football industry could, undoubtedly, originate a significant impact on international perceptions.

The fourth and final main advantage of the UK is stability. Foreign perceptions of the country are positive and solid, which means that the UK can afford to plan carefully and wisely, and only tap into the most profitable of sports-diplomacy ventures. It is in no rush to change perceptions abroad.

Stability is, however, also one of the main challenges to the use of sport in diplomacy – both in Britain and across the world. It can mistakenly lead officials to assume that current diplomatic strategies will continue to work for the future.

Theresa May made a brilliant speech last week, but it must not be a lone one. Failure to acknowledge that a reputation is only rented, never owned, can be a challenge to the full embracement of sport as one of the ways to adapt to the ongoing changes in the international political environment. TMM

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University pressures student publications

9/26/2016

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Riding along Oxford Road // Ph: Elena/ Flickr

Editorial In less than six months, student publications at The University of Manchester have twice felt intimidated by staff close to the president and vice-chancellor, Dame Nancy Rothwell. We tell you about what happened, and why it should not be happening

António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-chief

It has been a rough start for student media at The University of Manchester this academic year. Just last week, student newspaper The Mancunion was forced to go to print with two pages of improvised advertisements after university staff threatened with legal action if the newspaper printed an interview it had conducted with President and Vice-Chancellor Dame Nancy Rothwell. Earlier this year, we too at THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE suffered a similar experience when we interviewed the vice-chancellor.

This kind of behavior by university staff cannot be accepted in a society ruled by liberal values, where the free press holds and must continue to hold a central position. That is why this week, both the editor of The Mancunion and I are writing to express our concern over the issue.

From pressuring to threatening
In April, THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE conducted an interview with President and Vice-Chancellor Dame Nancy Rothwell – recently, in September, it was The Mancunion’s turn. The only condition agreed before both interviews took place was that there would be a university media relations officer present at the interview. In both cases, after the end of the interview and with the tape already turned off, the media relations officer asked for a draft to be sent over before the article was published. In both cases the reporters agreed. At no point was it agreed that the vice-chancellor or her staff would be able to make changes to the articles before they were published.

In both cases, however, after receiving the drafts the media relations office demanded that changes were made to the final copy of the interviews. Pieces of text were to be deleted, words that were not said were to be added, and sentences were to be changed. Let it be clear that these changes did not lead to a total makeover of the pieces – in fact, most of them bordered on insignificant and were about polishing the speech of the vice-chancellor. But they were more than enough for both The Mancunion and us to consider that the interference risked our independence and was therefore unacceptable.

We both conveyed that to the media relations office. In our case at THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE, we later received a phone call in which it was said to us that the vice-chancellor was very adamant about the changes and would refuse to speak to anyone from THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE in the future if the interview was published without being altered.

This kind of behaviour by university staff cannot be accepted in a society ruled by liberal values, where the free press holds and must continue to hold a central position.

Regarding The Mancunion’s case, the media relations office went one step further. In an email to the newspaper, a media relations officer says that the interview “can’t go in the paper this week”, due to alleged factual errors. Later, just as the newspaper was about to go to print, the media relations office made a phone call to the University of Manchester Students’ Union (which owns The Mancunion) and threatened to sue for defamation if the article was printed.

The media relations office has since failed to explain what exactly it considered defamatory. What is more, this does not seem to be the attitude of the university towards outside bodies. Contacted by The Mancunion, representatives of the Sunday Times, New Statesman and Times Higher Education all said that they could not recall similar requests for copy approval being made when they interviewed the vice-chancellor.

It is unquestionable that President and Vice-Chancellor Dame Nancy Rothwell and the media relations office both have a number of outstanding qualities from which students benefit significantly every day. However, if the university does not behave inappropriately with writers from outside Oxford Road, then it should not do so with its own students.

Writers from THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE, The Mancunion or any other student publication must continue to be able to operate independently and free from outside pressures. This has not been the case in these two occasions. While something that happens one time might be an isolated incident; when it happens twice, we have a pattern. This pattern needs to be changed – for the benefit of students, the freedom of the press and the university’s reputation. TMM

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"Nobody was there from my family when I became chancellor"

5/30/2016

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Lemn Sissay MBE, globally acclaimed poet and chancellor of The University of Manchester // Ph: Aida Muluneh

Interview Against all the odds, the most loved poet in Manchester is now chancellor of The University of Manchester. We spoke to Lemn Sissay about the city, the new chancellorship and what it took for him to get to where he is today

António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief
Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief

The one thing that Lemn Sissay cannot hide, is that he is a busy guy. One need only follow him on Twitter to see that the new chancellor of The University of Manchester is constantly jumping from cocktail to guest lecture, award ceremony to television programme. His workload has even made him stop “morning tweets” an initiative which he had had for almost four years, where he wrote a tweet every day exploring the feelings that the morning had called upon him.

And yet when we meet him on a cold day a few weeks back and ask how long he has for our interview, he says that we can have as long as we want. He has cleared his schedule for the rest of the day and is keen to share with us the memories, opinions and experiences of what has been quite an unconventional life, and an even odder climb to the chancellorship – Sissay himself never attended university in the first place.

He might never have been a university student but Lemn Sissay has always learned from those around him. He is as humble as he is great. This is a chancellor who might have photos with the Queen, but who does not refuse a selfie with a student. A chancellor who is much more than just a figure with a fancy title. Lemn Sissay is one of us. And now we are part of him.

At the start of the interview, his unmistakable smile leads the way to an easy-flowing conversation. We are not even seated, let alone asking questions, and Lemn Sissay is already talking as if we have known each other for years. “You better start recording,” he says, as we settle at the bar of a hotel just off Piccadilly Gardens.

We do as he orders. With our voice recorders out, the chancellor is already midway through a fascinating argument about migration. We have no idea where it came from, but we definitly do not want to interrupt.

(...)
You see, we are a migrating species by nature, we are all migrants. My homes are in different places. My spirit is in Manchester, in London, in New York, in Addis Ababa. And education helps a person to migrate. I think that’s actually at the heart of who we are. Parents never say to their children, oh don’t go anywhere. They say, go out into the world, migrate!

Expand your horizons, right?
Expand your horizons! If that’s not a celebration of migration, then what is? It was Professor Brian Cox who said that inspiration is economically quantifiable. It is a beautiful thing. What he was saying is that if people were not inspired by space, then governments would not give money to it. It is because humanity is inspired by the idea of space that they can spend so much money on the exploration of space. And what is the exploration of space other than the idea of mass migration? The space man is a migrant! He is populating the moon.

And they are planning on going to Mars soon.
Absolutely. As far as we go, we will consistently want to go further, because it is in our nature. And that is why I think that anti-migration is kind of anti-nature. In every country where a person is anti-immigrant it throws up all kinds of anti-humane behaviour. When the opposite happens, it throws up humane behaviour, incredible people helping other people. It shows the worst and the best in people.

Brian Cox’s idea of inspiration being quantifiable links very much to that slogan of yours, “inspire and be inspired”. You have certainly inspired many people with your writing. Was that always an aspiration of yours?
I always wanted to be a poet. I always knew that from the age of 12 or 13, when I went into the children’s homes. For some reason it was what I wanted to do. I believed in what I did, and I did what I believed. There was no other option.

Was it a way to survival, perhaps?
The most important thing to me was to live, not to survive. I didn’t want to be somebody who always needed to have a fire to put out. I just have a lot to say. A lot of interesting stuff happened to me and I really needed to speak it. Because I felt like I had been experimented on for 18 years. So I left the experiment, I left the laboratory, and I was like: listen folks, something has happened here, there is a bigger story.

The most important thing to me was to live, not to survive. I didn't want to be somebody who always needed to have a fire to put out.

So could you tell us a bit about those 18 years that you felt you were experimented on? I know you were split from your Ethiopian mother when she came to study in England…
Yes, when I was a child, my mother approached a social worker and asked to have me fostered for a short period of time. But the social worker had no intention of giving me back to her and he didn’t tell her. He gave me to foster parents and he said: treat this as an adoption.

Why would he do that?
To know why that happened, you have to look at the late 1960s and the situation in Britain for single pregnant women. There was a practice of children being adopted if they were with a woman who didn’t have a husband. And essentially this story is about women, it is about women’s rights and it is about the disempowerment of women in the late sixties. So the social worker had no intention of giving me back to my mother because society then saw my mother as a bad person, just because she was pregnant and without a husband. That’s why this entire story occurred.

So what happened after you were given to foster parents?
I was then held with my foster parents who told me that they were my mom and dad forever. I was held with them for twelve years, and I thought I was going to be with them forever. But then they put me into children’s homes. They held me in different children’s homes until I was 17 and then they released me in the care system, with no family. It was then that I realized how important family is as you grow in independence. As any of us grow in independence, we grow seemingly away from our family and we become what we think of as independent. But we are only independent with a point of reference to look back at. So we can say “I am not part of you as a family, I am now an independent human being”, whereas actually, we are totally relative to them. And I didn’t have that.

Did you ever get to know your real family?
When I was 18, the social worker gave me letters and told me that somebody did love me. He gave me letters from my file, letters of my mother pleading for me back to the social worker. He said “somebody did love you, she wanted you back”. So at 18, when my friends were going to university, I began searching for my family. Using the address on that letter the social worker gave me, after about three years, I found my mother. She worked for the United Nations in the Gambia.

How was it for you meeting the mother who you had never met?
It is one of the most unnatural sentences, “are you my mother?” Those words don’t really go together, they shouldn’t really go together. It was difficult for her. Somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow, I realised that it was about her story. She came to England to study, that’s all. She was pregnant. Women get pregnant, that’s what happens. But they don’t expect to be punished for getting pregnant.

In your Ted talk, you said that Margaret Thatcher was your mother when you were in foster care. How did you feel about that when you were in foster care and how to you feel about that now?
Things were done to me that were very wrong. I am seeking redress presently for things that happened to me when I was under the care of the government.

Do you resent your time in foster care?
No, no! I don’t. I think people try as hard as they can. I think one of the greatest things a human being can do is to foster, or to adopt. And I think that when people do mistakes in fostering, they are trying. Bitterness rots the vessel that carries it. I don’t resent what happened to me, but I do want it to be recognized.

So do you think that there are no “good” and “bad” people?
Well, Hitler did his best. If you suffered at the hands of Hitler, do you forgive? This is not a question for me, this is a question mainly for the Jewish community, to whom unspeakable things happened. Does a person forgive? That’s your internal spirit, it is your choice as to whether you do that or not.

But is forgiveness is important?
For me, ultimately forgiveness was important for the people who did me wrong as a child; who took away my mother from me and my father, who took me away from my family, put me into children’s homes, took away the entire narrative of my family life, took away my education, took away the possibility of going to university. So for me yes, forgiveness is important. But I don’t say that everybody has to do that.

Hardys Well, Wilmslow Road. Lemn Sissay's poems adorn the walls of Manchester // Ph: TMM

Our editors with the man himself // Ph: TMM

In an interview some time ago, you said that your favourite character was Lisbeth Salander, from The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, because of her pursuit of justice. What is the kind of justice that you pursue?
I would like equality to be a practice in life. But I think the most obvious place where I pursue justice is where a child who was looked after by the state receives honest care from the state. When I say honest care I mean the state is the parent of the child who is in its care, either in foster care or children’s homes or whatever. And I would hope that that child would receive the best education, the best psychotherapeutic, psychological and home care from the state.

We know that there were many obstacles to that kind of justice in your case. Some of them are... how shall I put it? A bit odd. For example, I saw somewhere that your name changed a couple of times during the period you were in foster care. Were you actually called Norman at one point?
Norman Mark Greenwood, yes! [laughs] Norman was the name of the social worker, he named me after himself. Mark was the name of the foster parents, that’s in the Bible. And their last name was Greenwood. And that was never my legal name. When I was 18, I was given my birth certificate and that’s where it said my name, Lemn Sissay.

And you took it.
Yes, I took my name. People thought I was kind of crazy.

Why? And why did your name matter to you?
All our names matter, man. You grow to love your name because you become who you are, you grow to own your name. Lemn, in Ethiopia, means the question “why?” It is a very unusual name to have in Ethiopia. Who is called why? But to think that my name is Lemn and that I was always a poet is just perfect. I fit my name. Our names are celebrations of who we are as human beings.

Do you remember your time as a student? I am curious about what it would be to have Lemn Sissay as a classmate in school…
I went to school in Lancashire, close to the mines. Teachers loved me but they realized that what was going on in my life would get in the way. A lot of teachers in school will say: these children spend longer with me than they do with their parents. To someone who is in children’s homes, that means that the teacher and the school environment is more like family than their home environment. So I really loved school. But I loved it from the perspective of society, of meeting people. I could smell family on other people.

Is there any particular person from school that you can remember?
Oh yeah! A bald, rugby-playing, socialist, beer-drinking English teacher called Mr Unsworth. He was really inspiring to me. He spent time with me, he gave me books and he read my poetry as well. And so I invited him to the launch of the chancellorship and he came, he was in the audience.

So you kept in contact in some way?
I came back to him. He contacted me after seeing me in a newspaper. And so we’ve regained a relationship. Part of the reason to be in the newspaper for me in my early career was very much to say I am alive. Because I didn’t have family, this was a place where somebody could say, “oh he is alive, he has lived, and he was there at that time”. Because all a family is, is a group of people proving that each other exist.

So even after you found your mother, for you there still wasn’t a family?
I have tried to keep in contact with her but I don’t know her, you see, I don’t know her. I don’t have a family. I don’t have, I just don’t have it. I just acknowledge that there isn’t. Nobody was there from my family when I became chancellor.

You could look at my life and ask: how far has that man gone? How far has he come from where he was? And if you want to go as far as he has, that is the place to do it, The University of Manchester.

Truth is, you did become chancellor. You are the chancellor of The University of Manchester. One of the most interesting aspects of that is perhaps the fact that you never even attended university. So is this also a message that university isn’t everything, that great careers and great lives can be achieved without going to university like you did?
Well, I didn’t have a choice. From what I know, given the choice, I would have done it. You know, I don’t think it would have taken anything away from me. I think it would have just added. So I’m not saying that you don’t need a university education, look at me. I’m saying that you deserve a choice.

How does a poet who never had that kind of opportunities beat Peter Mandelson, one of the most senior British politicians of the twenty-first century in this country, in an election for a university chancellorship?
What is really interesting about the election is that leading up to it, I was on national radio and said that Manchester is the greatest place on earth. A few weeks before that, I gave a keynote address in the Manchester Town Hall in front of 500 lecturers. Also, I was offered a doctorate from the university, from Nancy Rothwell, a year earlier. None of this was connected to the election, all of this had been booked 4 months, 8 months before. But all of these things proved that I was engaged with Manchester, and particularly with the university and with education in general. So I said to myself: why not, why shouldn’t I do it? And you could look at my life and ask: how far has that man gone? How far has he come from where he was? And if you want to go as far as he has, that is the place to do it, The University of Manchester, and Manchester as a city.

You got the chancellorship of The University of Manchester, and Peter Mandelson went up Oxford Road to our neighbours at the Manchester Metropolitan University, settling as chancellor there.
That says to me one really interesting thing: is that Manchester is the place to be. When a politician such as Peter Mandelson is so determined to contribute to the betterment of Manchester by going for two chancellorships, then that tells me that something really good is happening in Manchester. The city has grown a lot for the past 25 or 30 years, definitely for the better. It is more mixed now and there are more people from different parts of the world, on the streets and in the cafes and restaurants. Diversity is really good for Manchester. The future of Manchester is quite wonderful.

One of the mottos of the city is “we do things differently around here”…
Yes, and we have to do that. We have to do that not in relation to London, but in relation to who we are. If I’m always looking at you and saying, “oh, one day I will be better than you”, I’m empowering you. And I think Manchester doesn’t need to do that. It is an incredible city.

Is Manchester an English city or an international city?
I think it is a big international city, without a doubt. I travel around the world as a writer and everybody knows Manchester. Manchester United, the football team, is a great promoter of the city. And I see the university right at the forefront of the story of Manchester. It would be nice for more people to be aware of the role of the university in the making of Manchester. The cultural nature of the city is not Oasis, it is not Stone Roses, it is not Tony Wilson even. It is what the university is doing. It is science and it is also the artists. The science and the artists are incredible promoters of the university and the city. Again, it is the diversity that is really inspiring.

Is that Manchester’s biggest strength?
Yes, possibly.

What is its biggest weakness?
Nostalgia. We are an innovative, forward-thinking city and we need to be that. Nostalgia can sometimes be this sort of anchor that wants us not to change.

We could almost say that a question about weaknesses would not apply to you. You are one of the most acclaimed British writers alive. You were the official poet of the London Olympics, you have performed at hundreds of important places worldwide and you even have your poems printed in public walls across Manchester. Despite never having gone to university, you are now chancellor of one of the greatest universities in the country. Your successes are countless. But what would you say has been your biggest failure in life?
The thing that comes to mind is not having children. Because I’ve spent a lot of my time searching for my family and I said to myself that I wouldn’t have children until I found them all. I don’t think it is a failure but I could have popped a couple out on the way.

Would you consider adopting?
Yes. [silence] Yes, I would.

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No seats left empty

4/21/2016

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Steve Rawling, "the infinite storyteller", was one of the main attractions of TEDxUoM // Ph: The Manchester Magazine

Review The most coveted conference of the year, TEDxUniversityOfManchester, took place last Saturday. We went down to Deansgate and experienced its most breathtaking moments

António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief

Tickets sold out only two minutes after they were released. Hundreds were left to scavenge social media in desperate pursuits for that one person that might want to sell their ticket. Nobody did.

TEDxUniversityOfManchester was one of the most highly anticipated events of the year and the whole lead-up to it was not suited for the faint-hearted. In the end, only a lucky 100 people, the maximum allowed by the strict rules of TED’s home office in New York, crowded the event which took place last Saturday, April 16.

At the Rise creative space in Deansgate, a modern location adequate to the sophisticated feel of the conference, the excitement was palpable. After all, this is the franchise that has brought “ideas worth spreading” to millions across the world.

TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design was created in 1984 as a one-off event in Vancouver, Canada. It has since expanded into a yearly event plus dozens of franchise independent “TEDx” events across the world – of which the one at The University of Manchester, broadly themed "Infinite Possibilities", was one.

The idea of bringing TED to Manchester pertains to two undergraduate students, Emrana Khatun and Liz Tiong Li Chen. “We first had the idea over dinner,” Liz, who studies law, told THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE. “We thought it would be great if we could make this happen in Manchester.”

Organization was key to this event which counted with about a dozen student volunteers, and some high-profile supporters from the banking and media industries. It took six months to make the event happen, after Emrana and Liz first started planning it late last year.

“In order to organize it, we had to get a license from TED,” explained Emrana, who studies geography. “It took a while for them to answer, but we ended up getting it.”

Both the ambition and the problem-solving abilities of the event’s team were noticeable at the conference itself. And the speakers, for the most part (a couple of them did not really understand what a TED Talk is supposed to be), delivered the goods that the TEDx franchise has accustomed wisdom-seekers worldwide.

Some of the talks were... different // Ph: TMM

Liz and Emrana, the founders of TEDxUoM // Ph: TMM

There were nine talks throughout the day. BBC’s creative leadership trainer Steve Rawling and Marks and Spencer’s digital director Marcus East were the favorites of the crowd. They were inspiring, persuasive and often amusing. Most importantly, they had a very clear message to deliver – something that some of the other speakers did not.

Steve’s talk was about the importance of telling stories in our lives, businesses and jobs. “You can tell a person a series of facts but a couple of hours later they will only remember two or three of them,” he says. “But if you tell them a great story, chances are they will remember it. And then they will tell it to someone else.” Steve made us believe that being an infinite storyteller will open up infinite possibilities.

Marcus spoke about the dark side of technology. His opening statement summed up the spirit of his talk entirely: “I am not here to inspire you or to entertain you,” he said. “I am here to warn you”. Marcus’ talk, which for the first moments seemed sustained on conspiracy and pessimism, ended up developing into a highly coherent and valid argument. He talked about the digital revolution of our time and the danger’s posed by the use of artificial intelligence in functions which seek to harm people – the use of robots in asymmetric warfare, for example. Marcus is uncomfortable with the work of tech giants like Google who are developing more and more sophisticated robots for the wrong purposes. He says we should be, too, and surely convinced many of those in the room.

On a different level to Steve's and Marcus', some of the other talks were also engaging. Hassan Iqbal, an award-winning 18 year old entrepreneur who studies at the Manchester Metropolitan University, told us that every opportunity is an opportunity and asked us to think about what makes us different – that, he says, is our best asset. Jennifer Arcuri, the only woman speaking, did not disappoint when she argued for a redefinition of the role of the computer hacker in society – for her sake, she says, since being a hacker means she has been for months without a bank account.

Later in the day, the room went silent when Ash Dykes, the athletic adventurer who was the first recorded human to cross Mongolia unsupported, walked onto the stage to talk about perseverance. He taught us about feeling alive, but also about the value of life itself.

That was a message Shiv Tulsiani, the host for the event, seemed to know well. In a blustery Manchester day like last Saturday’s, the afternoon would not have felt half as alive if it weren’t for its solid anchor. Shiv, a final year management student, steered the event with charm and professionalism through its highest and lowest moments. He was the most visible reflection of what was a generally well-run conference.

In their closing statement, Liz and Emrana promised that this event was just the start of TED at the university. That is good news. Bring us more speakers like Steve Rawling and Marcus East, and hosts like Shiv Tulsiani, we say, and expect another full house. TMM

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The rebel who kept Manchester safe

12/11/2015

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Sir Peter Fahy was in charge of Greater Manchester Police for almost eight years // Ph: Antonio Rolo Duarte/ The Manchester Magazine

Exclusive In his first major interview since retiring from Greater Manchester Police, chief constable Sir Peter Fahy speaks to The Manchester Magazine about his time as a student and his 34 years fighting crime

Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief

In the space of less than a week, Sir Peter Fahy retired from being Britain’s longest serving chief constable, was appointed CEO of the charity Retrak and became an honorary professor of criminal justice at the University of Manchester. That comes after a 34-year career in policing, in which he was knighted by the queen, changed the lives of thousands of vulnerable people around the country and influenced security policy worldwide.

We had the honour of having coffee with Sir Peter at Christies Bistro on a blustery morning a few weeks ago, while just up the road the Manchester Christmas Markets were being evacuated due to a terrorist threat. Surrounded by Gothic-style architecture of the Whitworth Building and the Old Quadrangle, and with one of the university’s Nobel Prize winners sitting just a few tables away, we felt there could be no better setting to be inspired by the words of the man who for so many years kept our city safe.

You have just retired from one of the most admirable policing careers ever. Still, many years ago you were also a student, just like us. What kind of student were you?
Well, I did a lot of volunteering but I was also on the edge of fairly extreme politics. The big thing then was South Africa and the Apartheid, and the University of Hull [where Sir Peter studied Spanish and French] had shares in Barclays bank, who were big in South Africa. So one of the things we did was we had a big campaign to try and get them to disinvest from South Africa. We actually occupied one of the university buildings and I got carried out by the police.

You got carried out by the police... So how does one go from there to a life fighting crime?
After leaving university, I worked for about three months for Arthur Andersen, a big accountancy company. And one day in London I walked down the street at lunch time and there was a newspaper that was closing that day. All the staff were standing around because they were going to be made redundant. And I looked and thought: “I’ve lost my contact with you.” So I went back to the office, put in my resignation and joined the police. I wanted to do something where I was more in contact with the community.

Was that motivation important for your work in the police later on?
Definitely. People think that a policing career is all about studying the law. It is not, really. You can go on the internet to learn about law. The big thing is to be able to relate to people, to be able to talk to people. And certainly here, when I first became chief constable of Greater Manchester, it was a very traditional force. The change I tried to drive through was a far greater commitment to neighbourhood policing, building relationships with local people and trying to make long term change by engaging with the communities.

People think that a policing career is all about studying the law. It is not, really. You can go on the internet to learn about law. The big thing is to be able to relate to people.

The police has changed quite a lot since you first joined. Now there are more regulations, more oversight as well. Do you feel that these changes have undermined in any way the effectiveness of the police?
No, I would actually say the opposite. I think greater transparency enables us, and makes policing better. Every single development I have seen in policing which has brought in more transparency, oversight and independence, has helped improve policing.

Why?
Because it forces you to be more professional. It forces you to be more accountable, it forces you to think more carefully about what you are doing. It forces you to think about your justification because you have to explain it. And by having more oversight and more independence, you get more people coming in, who will then challenge you with new ideas. And the other thing is that for police to be effective, you have to have legitimacy.

Speaking of legitimacy, the UK is the country with the highest level of CCTV cameras per capita in the world. Is this a good thing?
In my entire police career I cannot ever remember anyone complaining about CCTV cameras, if anything it was always the opposite. For me, the strength of the oversight is very important. There should be no problem whatsoever for anybody to walk into the control room at Manchester City Council to see all the CCTV cameras, how are they are operated and what are the safeguards. You know, let’s be completely open.

More cameras have not made the student population less concerned about crime, especially crime towards women. Every year a number of rape cases are reported in student areas like Fallowfield. Has the police in Manchester failed us students in dealing with rape?
No, I do not think so. One of the changes we brought through in Greater Manchester Police was a huge commitment to dealing with vulnerable people, particularly with sexual offences. What you always have to remember within the offence of rape, is that sadly most rapes are between people known to one another. The impression always is that this is about a stranger being attacked in the street. Those cases are actually pretty rare. And it can just be “I met this lad in a bar and we had quite a lot to drink together and we were getting on pretty well and I went back to his flat and I never wanted this to happen” but that is sadly what most of the rapes are, cases between people who are known to one another. And that does actually make it harder to investigate.

What is the solution then?
We must never get across to women that in any way you are to blame for rape. But sadly we have to say that you need to use common sense. If one of your friends goes off with a complete stranger, be concerned about it. We also have to try and find a way of students organizing themselves, of students being able to take a stand about this themselves.

Another concern of the community is the one of drugs, not only the consumption but also the dealing.
Because we have given much higher priority to protecting vulnerable people, then it is quite clear that things like drugs are taking less of a priority. Our approach to drugs has largely been about trying to prevent harm. If people complain about a drug dealer in a given area, or drug use in an area causing problems, then the police will try and address it. But it is more about education, more about trying to keep people safe.

Some would say arresting the drug dealers could keep people safe.
We can arrest dealers and they can be sent to prison, but what then happens is you disrupt the market. Because now there are other dealers who are trying to get that position so you often get violence and shootings as somebody tries to take the spot. Also, if you have taken drugs off the market the price will go up. That means some of the addicts will have to steal more things to fund their drugs. So as a police chief it does cause you quite a lot of agony about what is the right thing to do, I certainly don’t think legalization is an answer…

Sorry, why not?
Because I cannot see that that will actually solve the problem of the violence and the crime that drug dealing generates. The people who are dealing the drugs are not suddenly going and operate a soup shop or open a supermarket. All that will happen is that they will try and gain different substances, they will try to undercut the official price and they will go more into some of the other substances. And also I do not think as a society we can give a green light to people putting dangerous things into their body.

Antonio Rolo Duarte, Jeanmiguel Uva and Sir Peter Fahy // Ph: TMM

Sir Peter Fahy lecturing at the University of Manchester // Ph: TMM

70,000 police jobs were eliminated in the last coalition government. Nevertheless crime is still relatively low overall. Does this mean austerity is working?
No, I think what it shows and what research has shown for quite a long time is that the number of police have little impact on the level of crime. And some of that is clearly about better technology and the fact that a lot of things people used to steal are now very cheap. But I personally think that it is because people are more civilized. And I do actually think that your generation is more civilized than my generation was.

More civilized?
I am highly optimistic about your generation. Your generation takes fewer drugs, drinks less, commits less crime and is not involved in so many dodgy relationships. I think you are a lot better at communication and relationships and I think that, strangely, social media has enabled that to happen. You are also growing up in a more diverse world and you do not have all the prejudices that my generation had. Every generation will say: “it is young people who are the problem”. But actually all the evidence shows that your generation is actually a lot better than my generation.

After the Paris attacks, some American politicians argued that if the attacks had taken place in US soil the outcomes would have been very different. Due to different gun control laws, the Americans could more easily protect themselves. What do you think of that?
Nonsense, absolutely nonsense! Look at all the mass shootings they have in America. And we only hear about the more serious ones. They have mass shootings every single day. You can get very upset about Paris, but look at the number of people being killed every single day in America. No, the problem they have in America is the availability of weapons. And unfortunately the problem they have in mainland Europe, particularly in France, is the availability of military level weapons.

If a situation like the Paris attacks happened in Manchester, would the police here be prepared to respond?
I do not think we would be any better prepared to respond than the French police were.

Talking about terrorism in an interview to the Manchester Evening News, you said that “people should be realistic but not scared”. You said this before the Paris attacks. Now, after the Paris attacks, people are, understandably, scared. So does the police role change? Is it more about informing rather than preventing or reacting?
You do try and inform, you do try and calm things down. You do say to people: “be vigilant but don’t be scared”. Unfortunately terrorism produces a huge emotional reaction and some of that reaction can be pretty irrational. For instance, people will say: “it is not safe to go to Paris”. And you try to get across to them saying that actually the most dangerous thing you can do is drive a car. For women in Manchester, sadly, you are more likely to be attacked by someone you know than by a terrorist. So the most important thing is to get across that it is not essential for a police officer to have a machine gun in order for you to be safe, the most important thing is that people in a mosque or in a school are aware of what to look out for and will be prepared to tell the police if necessary.

It all goes back to the links with the community then.
Yes, you always have to be realistic that just having more and more guns will not protect you. Because it sadly did not protect people in Paris. It is about your relationship with local people, your relationships with schools and communities and places of worship. The big question about Paris is: why did nobody see it? Why did nobody say these people were planning this? The big question must be why this was being planned and nobody saw anything or said anything or felt they should tell the police.

You have to be realistic that having more and more guns will not protect you. Because it sadly did not protect people in Paris.

You retired from the police little more than a month ago. Were you happy to leave the police at this point?
I was happy certainly about leaving the police, but that was more a feeling of satisfaction that I had achieved all I wanted to achieve. Part of that is that I won some battles but there are some other battles that I did not win and did not want to keep fighting them. I am not going to succeed. I have tried, but now somebody else can try to do it.

So what is your biggest dream for the future?
My biggest dream would be that people of different faiths live peacefully together. Because unfortunately this is the root of quite a lot of dissention in the world and one of the great things about being a chief constable in a place like Manchester, is that you meet people from all sorts of religions and races, and you see the richness of them. So I think one of my biggest dreams is that people in the world from different backgrounds realize that what unites us is far stronger than what divides us.

And that links to your new job as CEO of a charity, Retrak.
Yes, Retrak is a charity which works with street children mainly in African countries. What it does is to rescue street children that want to live life on the streets, find out the reason why they left home and then hopefully reintegrate them back into their families and communities. And also trying to get them to understand that running away is not a solution to anything. When the chance came to do some work in Africa I absolutely loved it, I love Africa, I love the show of humanity and the vibrancy of the place.

Will we still see you influencing the criminal justice system though, perhaps in your new role as honorary professor at the University of Manchester?
I hope so, I believe that is one of the reasons why I wanted to get involved with the university, to see whether we can use a lot of the power of academic research and thinking to influence the criminal justice system.

As a final note, in your life you have been interviewed hundreds of times and asked many different questions. Is there a question you wish people asked you more often?
I think the difficult ones are always about your personal dilemmas, and what would you resign over.

So what would you resign over?
I hope I would resign over a political initiative that I felt would do harm to vulnerable people or where a short-term political initiative was overriding my professional judgment about the liberty of individuals. I do think that is always a difficult question. And an almost more difficult question is: what you think you should have resigned over? But I am not sure I have an answer for that one. TMM

Sir Peter Fahy is now an honorary professor of Criminal Justice at The University of Manchester.
He is also Chief Executive of Retrak, and you can find more about that at www.retrak.org

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