Archive for the ‘Features’ Category

“Dear Europe, sorry about that cloud of ash over your heads & that you can’t travel anywhere. We feel just the same, everyday. Sincerely, Gaza”.

Whether it’s an ash cloud spoiling our travel plans or an essay deadline making our lives apparently miserable, it’s good, once in a while, to get a little perspective. Over the Easter holidays (before the volcanic ash cloud) more than twenty students from Goldsmiths travelled to the West Bank as part of the university’s Palestine Twinning Campaign to see for themselves the realities of life in the occupied Palestinian territory.

One of the universities they visited, Al Najah University in the northern city of Nablus, looks idyllic on the surface. One of the best funded in Palestine, its on-site swimming pool, basketball court and expansive sun-soaked campus provoked some surprise and even envy from Goldsmiths students accustomed to the grime and greyness of New Cross.

But the façade of normalcy only thinly veiled the darker side of life that the university’s 19,000 students all experience on a daily basis. Not so much ‘behind the scenes’ as all around, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank makes life, let alone education, a constant struggle for young Palestinians.

Goldsmiths is twinned with another university; Al Quds Open University. The group visited one branch of it in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. First, a welcome talk and some facts about the university: more than 62,000 students are registered making it the biggest higher education institution in Palestine. It is fully independent and relies on tuition fees for funding. On top of the 22 institutions dotted around Palestine, it is trying hard to internationalise; there are proposals to receive Chinese students to study Arabic and even the hope of opening centres abroad.

After the informational, one of the university directors fields questions from Goldsmiths students. Has he faced any problems with the Israeli authorities? “Who doesn’t?” he replies.

“This is not a propaganda effort”, he says. “I’m just telling you like it is. Unfortunately some of the younger generation are starting to believe that this prison surrounded by checkpoints is normal.

Some of the younger generation are starting to believe that this prison surrounded by check-points is normal

“We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is not a normal issue. This bloody wall cuts off people in Bethlehem from their neighbours and separates brother from brother.”

The wall built contrary to international law by Israel in the West Bank has only existed since 2002 (and is still under construction). It has made life immeasurably harder for Palestinians, limiting mobility and educational opportunities even further. But restrictions on access to learning have existed for decades. The Open University was founded in 1991 as a response to the restrictions – it meant students could study from home or while working, without having to travel around the West Bank. Many young Palestinians have not even visited neighbouring cities in the West Bank.

Meanwhile Al Najah operates like most universities – students come in for lectures and tutorials. The 20% of the student body who travel from Jerusalem to university in the West Bank must pass through the Kalandi checkpoint twice each day. Here, uncertainty rules – they could be delayed for hours, harassed by the military at gunpoint, or possibly detained on a whim.

For students at Birzeit University, the military closure of the Ramallah-Birzeit road by the Surda Roadblock between March 2001 and December 2003 effectively put the university under siege for close to 3 years. Although the road is now open again it remains subject to frequent ‘flying checkpoints’ – when soldiers and army jeeps block the road, preventing access to students and teachers trying to reach their classes. Students have been killed at checkpoints. Invariably Israel says its soldiers were acting in self-defence.

A severe lack of human resources blights the country’s higher education system. Palestinian professors sometimes leave to work abroad, often reluctantly, because of a lack of employment opportunities – a symptom of the stifled academic and economic climate. Ironically, at the same time, foreign professors who want to take up jobs in the West Bank requiring native English speakers also face a host of obstacles. Obtaining a work visa for the Palestinian territories is next to impossible, and so visiting academics must lie about the purpose of their visit and enter on tourist visas via Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv. Lecturers have in the past been deemed a “threat to security” by Israeli authorities and refused entry to the country or deported (the same happens to foreign journalists not infrequently).

In the 1980s there were many American and British teachers in Palestine, but today the numbers are severely limited. Even the Arab-American University in Jenin nearly had to close its English department because it was so hard to recruit academics who were native speakers and retain them long-term.

The First Intifada or ‘uprising’ of 1987-1992 was a period of primarily non-violent civil disobedience and resistance against the Israeli occupation. During this time, for almost four years, all Palestinian universities (and schools and even kindergartens) were closed down by an Israeli military order which came into effect on the 29th October 1987. During these years Palestinian education was effectively made illegal. The Israeli authorities would sometimes arrest anyone suspected of organising classes elsewhere – it was risky to carry too many books around.

A lecturer returning to his office found a book he’d been reading three and a half years ago still open at the same page

When students at Birzeit were allowed to return to university they found that the animals in the biology department had died, long ago. One lecturer returning to his office found a book he had been reading three and a half years ago still open at the same page on his desk.

A month before the Goldsmiths visit, on March 16th, Israeli troops had opened fire – on this occasion using rubber-coated bullets – on dozens of students at a protest at ‘Atara checkpoint, located close to Birzeit university. The students were demonstrating against the recent announcement by the Israeli administration that they will build 1600 new homes in East Jerusalem – illegal settlements on illegally occupied land in the eyes of international law. This impingement on students’ rights and freedoms is not unusual; students are often imprisoned in large numbers, especially if politically active.

There are currently 85 students from Birzeit university alone either in Israeli prisons or in “administrative detention”. This involves detention without charge for up to 6 months, but since this can be renewed, in essence the incarceration is indefinite. It is also made extremely difficult for lawyers to access crucial information – the files that the Israeli judge will use to decide whether to renew the term – making it virtually impossible to construct a defence. Over the last 5 years, 415 of the 5,000 students at Birzeit at any one time, have been arrested; in 2009 twenty three students were sentenced simply for belonging to a student society. Extra charges are often levelled at students for being “in a position of leadership”.

Israeli authorities targeted and arrested successive Student Council Presidents at Birzeit University so often that students decided there was little point in electing anyone to the position – it merely made them a sitting target. One student, Arafat Dawood, spent 3 years in detention, but was never charged with any crime. Two months after his release he was re-arrested.

The director of Al Quds open university explained that a significant proportion of adults registered on distance learning courses were taking up the opportunity they missed to gain a degree when younger, because of imprisonment in Israeli jails (which not uncommonly brings with it torture and abuse.) The university has tried to offer courses to the thousands of Palestinians currently in prison – but Israel, he says, refused to allow it.

Meanwhile, some of those who have managed to obtain undergraduate degrees in Palestine hope to continue studying abroad. In October last year London Student reported on the case of Othman Sakallah who was offered a place to study for an MSc at the London School of Economics, but could not leave Palestine to take up his place due to the Israeli siege on Gaza. Others, especially in Gaza, suffer similar frustrations, for example Refaat Abd Elaal who is currently trying, for the second year in a row to attend an International Youth Leadership Conference in Prague but is yet to be allowed to leave.

For Hind Ramal, hoping to study for a Masters in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, the mobility issue is just one problem. She must, like any other student, submit a portfolio that sufficiently impresses the admissions tutors; she must also be awarded one of the four humanitarian scholarships created last year by Goldsmiths after pressure from a student occupation during the bombing of Gaza, led by the Palestine Twinning Campaign. One factor that the university cannot and does not take into account is the emotional trauma resulting from the death of Hind’s mother, killed by Israeli soldiers who raided the house late one night and pushed her over to shut her up while they searched the family home, containing only frightened toddlers. Hind was prevented from leaving the scene to get an ambulance, and was told instead to fetch a blanket – not for the journey to the hospital, but to cover the body. One soldier shrugged and said sorry. A mistake. These things happen. In Palestine, very often.

Unsurprisingly children who are pelted with rocks on the way to school have concentration problems

The psychological trauma suffered by Palestinian children and youths is the most subtle and insidious damage done by Israel’s occupation, because it is hardest to see. Before ever dreaming of university, school children in ‘high risk’ areas such as Hebron must endure shocking levels of racist abuse and violence on a daily basis.

Extremist Israeli settlers intent on driving Arabs out of ‘their’ land, jeer and throw rocks – sometimes fire handguns – at Palestinian children on their way to school; disturbingly, the settler children are often the perpetrators. Numerous videos document instances of Israeli soldiers, supposedly there to ‘keep the peace’, passively observing these incidents and intervening only to ‘protect’ the settlers should a Palestinian child think to react by picking up a stone. Adult settlers in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, have tried to burn the local Palestinian school down twice, with the children inside. Unsurprisingly those children who are pelted with rocks despite being escorted to school are fearful, depressed and insecure; have problems with concentration,and communication; their education suffers; some drop out altogether.

Even without settler attacks, the Israeli authorities seem determined to systematically undermine the fundamental human right to education, enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Twaneh School, for example has had a demolition order on it since 1999 and could be razed to the ground at any time – with vital help from Israeli peace activists in court and on the ground, this has been avoided – so far. For the Goldsmiths students who witnessed the evidence of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian students, exams this summer will, in comparison, not seem particularly stressful.

More information on violations of Palestinian right to education can be found at right2edu.birzeit.edu

* Names have been changed

If there’s one job in one country you’d particularly expect to be hostile to and uncomfortable with homosexuality, it’s professional sports in the USA.

Before he came out, John Amaechi was probably best known for turning down a $17 million contract offer to play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers, instead opting to remain with Orlando Magic. Then in February 2007, he became the first player in the NBA (National Basketball Association) to say openly that he was gay. He explains why he had to wait until he retired to come out.

“I would have lost my job. When I played you could be fired in 32 out of 50 states. Now it’s less, now it’s 13 states, so that’s progress. We’re moving in the right direction, but not very quickly. There are still a lot of people who have to actively hide their sexuality.”

Expecting the wrath of Middle America, Amaechi says he was pleasantly surprised by the limited negative reaction. “I certainly feared worse, I think I underestimated the reasonable nature of a good majority. Their reasonableness is always quite quiet; the minority who are vehemently opposed are quite loud.” But he’s not optimistic that his case makes it an easier step for others to take, since “none of the structures that perpetuate homophobia and bigotry of all sorts have changed.”

Interestingly, he cites Ian McKellan as a role model and part of the reason he chose to come out publicly in America. Open with friends and family in the UK for over 15 years, he was not especially famous here, nor was the news as shocking as it was across the pond. Having grown up originally near Stockport, son to a Nigerian Igbo father and English mother, when he finished with the NBA he intended to return to the UK and “not have any further connection with the States”.

“But I came home and had a bit of time here and spoke with Sir Ian McKellan. Ive had a chance to get to know him since then, and his status as a role model – and not just for the LGBT community, but in general – made me want to be the same type of role model.”

Describing himself as “the fat nerdy kid at school”, his unlikely status as an NBA star means he hopes that “anybody who aspires to something that others would call impossible” takes him as an example.

But he downplays my suggestion that coming out for a sportsman must be harder than for an actor. “Theatre is different than Hollywood for sure, in theatre there are more openly gay people but in Hollywood I don’t think that applies. You can name on one hand the number of out men, and you can count on two fingers those who get to play roles other than foppish, camp stereotypes. It’s still an issue.”

He concedes though that in sport homophobia has pretty much “never been targeted”, whereas the need for campaigns such as ‘Kick Racism Out of Football’ has been recognised and acted on for some time now.

“People are stupid at times and they think stereotypes are true. There are some people who genuinely believe there are no gay people in sport, because the stereotypes around sport are so diametrically opposed to those [stereotypes] of gay men.”

Amaechi belies the stereotypical sportsman ‘caveman’ persona as well, given that he articulately and incisively analyses his own situation and the problems in wider society.

“The way we address [homophobia] needs to be brought into 21st century. We can’t section off groups, and go through blacks, Jews, Muslims etc, go through all the ‘isms’. All bigotry has a generic home; racism and homophobia are different heads of the same monster.”

To this end he divides his time between political activism and broadcasting, as well as supporting human rights campaigns with Amnesty International and the National Literacy Campaign, and running his own youth centre in Manchester.

Being back in England, and comparing it the USA has not made him complacent about the state of the LGBT movement in Britain, or any other vector of discrimination.

“There are still owners and in football in this county, just like in basketball in the US, who have very strict ideas about what type of person should be involved in their team. The reality is if you  look at football, the premiership, it’s pretty clear that there are those who aren’t used to women in their board room, or black people on their coaching staff either – so there’s no reason to believe that they would suddenly embrace gay people.

“It’s not just in sport, but in society as well. In Britain there isn’t marriage equality. As a country we’ve still got some hang-ups that need to be addressed.”

In response to my insistence that there is some truth in the stereotype of macho sports players being more likely to display latent if not overt homophobia, using the word ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘crap’ for instance, he argues that it is just as difficult for someone “who hears that term used in a school or university hallway.” If people aren’t maliciously motivated? When people don’t mean it to be homophobic, if it’s not “caused” by homophobia, it “could still have that effect, and make people feel …uncomfortable.”
“Defeating homophobia is incumbent on all of us” he declares, and “we need to decide that the ‘f word’ is a bad as the ‘n word’”.

He seems to have grown bored of talking about being gay, and starts to tell me about his memoir, ‘Man in the Middle’ which details, as well as his experience of coming out, his childhood growing up with racism.

“People need to know that my life has and is more than being a basketball player, a tall person, a black person… we’re all more than just these finite discrete areas. The book describes my life in a way that makes it clear that I can’t be squashed into a box as a black person or a black British person.”

A government funded survey ‘British Social Attitudes’ recently found that nowadays about 36% of people think homosexual acts are “always” or “mostly” wrong. This is down from 62% in 1983, when the first survey was carried out. Within the field of psychology and psychiatry, attitudes and approaches to problems experienced by LGBT people have been changing. There is a growing acceptance now that LGBT people’s experience of life can be distinct in many ways from that of their heterosexual peers, usually as a result of equally distinct problems and challenges.

One of the leading, and most prolific, researchers on issues relating to gay mental health is Professor Michael King, head of the research department of mental health sciences at University College London (UCL). Some of his research has indicated that gay men are twice as likely to attempt suicide, one and a half times more likely to experience depression and anxiety and abuse alcohol and drugs. King attributes this to the particular stresses experienced by LGBT people and the Home Office is recording ever-rising levels of homophobic crime.

Stonewall’s survey supports this, finding that around a third of lesbians and gay men reported experiencing workplace harassment related to their sexuality and 40% reported verbal abuse in day-to-day life.

There is now a greater acknowledgement of problems specific to LGBT people, such as: the effect of social, cultural, family and religious pressure to be heterosexual; the lack of LGBT role models; and the pressure to fit the image of LGBT lifestyle as being attractive and hedonistic. This greater understanding contributes to a more progressive appreciation of how best to approach and understand the specific problems faced.

However, the change in attitude and approach to the psychology of homosexuality in the UK has been more recent and more dramatic that most of us might expect. It is shocking to learn that it was only 15 years ago that the World Health Organisation removed ‘homosexuality’ from its list of mental illnesses. Only in October of last year did the American Psychological Association (APA) formally declared that ‘therapy’ to alter a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, categorically does not work.

This is despite almost forty years worth of supporting evidence being published in peer-reviewed publications. While this might lead you to think that the APA is radically behind the curve of current research, the British Psychological Society has yet to make a definitive comment on the issue. Responding to a request for further comment, they refer to a statement released in April ’09 that referred to their code of conduct which requires psychologists in the UK to ‘Respect individual, cultural and role differences, including … sexual orientation.’

Even more shocking are the practices that, until the early to mid seventies, were prevalent in treating the problems of LGBT people. As the declaration by the APA suggests, these treatments did not aim to support people in navigating the various difficulties involved in life as an LGBT person, but instead aimed at ‘curing’ homosexuality. Since it was seen as a mental illness, the assumption was that a ‘treatment’ was required.

While it could be argued by some that the treatments were not as inhumane as some earlier approaches (in a review of the history of the ‘treatment’ of homosexuality, King highlights one bizarre 19th Century practice of experimenting with testicular transplants, from hetero donor to gay recipient), the behavioural treatments prevalent often involved participants being given electric shocks or drugs to make them physically sick while they were shown naked images of people of the same sex with the intention of ‘programming’ them with an aversion.

As a form of relief and re-enforcement the participants would then be shown naked images of the opposite sex. Unsurprisingly, more recent follow-up evidence on this practice indicates lasting psychological harm to many participants.

While this in itself is disturbing, what is worse is that new research published in the later part of last year by King found that some British therapists are still offering forms of ‘sexual realignment therapy’. Of a group of around 1300 British therapists, King found that 4% admitted they were still offering therapy to ‘cure’ homosexuality and a further 17% admitted having assisted at least one instance of this approach during their career.

Interviewed in Therapist Today King stated “I think it’s probably the tip of the iceberg” and condemned the practice saying: “There is no evidence that anyone can ‘help’ so I think it’s unethical to say it’s possible.” When asked what approach he takes when faced with a patient conflicted by their feelings for the same sex King replied ‘What I try to do is explore with them what it’s all about, to try to understand where they’re coming from. Is the pressure self-generated? Is it religion? … a wife or husband or family? It’s often other people who have the problem accepting it.’

One justification given for offering the ‘cure’ is that it was the patient’s homosexual thoughts and feelings were causing them internal conflict by clashing with their existing cultural, social or religious values. Further, therapists claim it is their responsibility to respect their patient’s autonomy in choosing to opt for ‘cure’. Yet casting the most common reason for the original referral of the patients to the therapists was confusion about sexual orientation, rather than an expressed desire to change it.

The current advocate for ‘reparative therapy’, American psychiatrist and former president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) Joseph Nicolosi, echoes the same sentiments. Both Nicolosi and NARTH campaign for ‘the right of gay people to be given access to treatment, if they want it’. Nicolosi’s brand of the ‘gay cure’ does not, like other modern ‘cure’ treatments, involve electroshock or medication but does involve reinforcing activities that are considered typically ‘straight behaviour’, such as sports activities. The cure also involves avoiding activities he considered of interest to homosexuals, such as art. (Who knows what he makes of the successful rugby career of the now openly gay Gareth Thomas or the womanizing of the late Pablo Picasso).

Yet, despite the work of Nicolosi, NARTH and the therapists of King’s, they are most definitely in the minority in believing homosexuality can – or should – be ‘cured’. In response to a recent article in the Guardian on King’s study, Phillip Hodson, a Fellow and Media Consultant to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) replied, decrying the practice of offering ‘cure’ therapy and saying “it would be absurd to attempt to alter such fundamental aspects of personal identity as sexual orientation by counselling.” Nicolosi and his counterparts have yet to produce any empirical evidence of success; few in the scientific community take them seriously. The main obstacle to moving forward towards a progressive approach to LGBT issues lies in how new practitioners are trained.

Domenic Davis is the director founder of Pink Therapy, a London-based therapy organisation working with gender and sexual minority patients. Pink Therapy produces the UK’s first online directory of ‘Pink Therapists’ who respect gay rights and gay issues.

Davis is also one of only a handful on therapists to offer training to others with a specific emphasis on working with people who have LGBT related issues. In an article in ‘Therapist Today’ Davis states: “Training institutions are failing to provide an adequate level of training to their students to prepare them for the challenge of working with sexual minority clients.”

Phillip Reilly, listed ‘Pink Therapist’, training provider in working with sexual minorities, and manager of the counselling service at the London-based Metro Centre, an LGBT service told me that although “things are better than they used to be, there’s no doubt about that, that’s mainly down to the BACP, but most courses don’t do a sexuality component…The specifics of homosexuality are not looked into in any depth, and unless a therapist can recognise their own attitude, their own internalised homophobia, and have that attitude countered as part of their training, it can make it difficult to work with a client in a positive way.”

Essentially the idea that therapists have to overcome their own homophobia before taking on patients is at the heart of new developments in providing mental health support for LGBT people.

While there appears to be a lot of work to do before this becomes widespread in the training of those who work with LGBT-specific issues, growing support suggests a more reflective and inclusive approach to LGBT mental health may be seen before long.