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This holiday season make sure to prepare these sweet, sweet treats with a bucket-load of love for those you appreciate, which of course, means first and foremost, yourself! < Back Sweet, Sweet Love: Desserts to Prepare During this Holiday Season By Angela Saab Saade December 31, 2022 Fellow Sciences Pistes, in the spirit of festivities, love and joy, allow me to share with you a cherished moment dear to my heart that I experienced just this month. As I was procrastinating revising for my final exams by aimlessly scrolling through social media, my lovely roommate knocked on my door and replenished my taste buds with the delicious scent of apple crumble, escorted into my room with a side of vanilla ice cream. Kindly take the time to place yourselves in my shoes to be properly immersed in the experience. The degree of warmth and love I felt in that particular moment is one I cannot describe in words. Though, I could assume that “heavenly” was the closest description of my experience devouring my plate of apple crumble. Although you may unfortunately not have incredibly sweet and supportive roommates as I thankfully do, I hope to indirectly shower you with warmth and love by equipping you with the recipe of the apple crumble that made this entire heart-warming story amid a cold and rainy night possible. Given that I was not the one to bake or come up with the recipe of the hour, the apple crumble recipe provided to you today will be taken from multiple online sources and tailored to replicate exactly the plate prepared by my roommate, which involved some of her creativity and choice of recipe modifications. Further, to make up for this circumstantial exception, which is alien to the regular character of my articles — usually based on my personal knowledge and experiences — I will also bestow upon you the recipe for my own Bomb Dessert. This holiday season, make sure to prepare these sweet, sweet treats with a bucket-load of love for those you appreciate, which of course, means, first and foremost, yourself! Apple Crumble Heaven This recipe includes the filling, the crumble and the topping. Begin by preheating your oven at one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius. For the filling: Chop seven medium-sized apples into small cubes and toss them in a bowl. Add two tablespoons of white sugar, one tablespoon of all-purpose flour and half a tablespoon of ground cinnamon. Mix everything well. Butter a baking pan and add the mixture. Flatten it using your hands or a spoon to create a smooth base for your crumble. For the crumble: Sift two cups of flour into a bowl. Add a cup of brown or white sugar, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Add half a cup (or one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty-five grams) of melted unsalted butter onto your dry ingredients and mix them all using your hands to make sure you break any big pieces and reach a “moist bread crumbs-like” consistency. Pour your crumb mix over your apples in the pan. For the topping: Sprinkle a cup of rolled oats and your choice of nuts onto the crumble. Lastly, place your pan in the oven for thirty to forty minutes. To know when to take the pan out, insert a small knife into your apple crumble. You should look for soft apples and a golden top as your queues. Serve with vanilla ice cream and bon appetit! Bomb Dessert With no more than forty-five seconds of preparation and forty-five seconds in the microwave, this Bomb Dessert will satisfy any sweet craving. It involves two base ingredients: marshmallows and chocolate. The recommended toppings are whipped cream and ice cream. You could also add anything from walnuts and almonds to oatmeal, and, for an ultimate bomb experience, Oreos, M & M’s, and — my personal favorite — peanut butter and chocolate chips. You do you. Place a handful of marshmallows into a bowl. Top them with pieces of chocolate, choosing the chocolate-marshmallow ratio that satisfies your taste. Place the bowl in the microwave, set the timer for forty-five seconds, et voilà! Take the bowl out and add whatever toppings you like. You can thank me later.

October’s association events, summarized for you. < Back October Associations Recap By Celeste Abourjeili October 31, 2021 Cinementongraphe x SPRH “Capernaum” movie screening In a collaboration, Cinementongraphe and SciencesPo Refugee Help hosted a movie screening-turned-fundraiser featuring the Lebanese film “Capernaum” on Wednesday, October 10. Debate Society drunk debates In its second annual drunk debate on Saturday, October 9 the Debate Society kicked off its season discussing the topic of hookup culture in Menton. The opposing side (arguing against hookup culture) won, led by 2A Ada Baser and 1A Felipe Boitard. The society’s drunken spectators eventually ended up at Bastion, and those who lasted till the end of the night found themselves at Sablettes. Philosophical Society discussions The brand new Mentonese Philosophical Society, led by a team of six, kicked off its first year with two insightful events. On October 3, it organized a discussion on personal ethics at student house Soundproof, and on October 24, an investigation of the alt-right at student house Brothel. TASA movie screening The Thracian andAnatolian Student Association screened the mini-documentary “Coğrafya Kader” (Geography is Destiny) on Saturday, October 9 which features the wife Selahattin Demirtaş, a politician in the HDP who is currently incarcerated. Later on, the group discussed the status, treatment, and rights of Turkish Kurds. Amnesty movie screening On Sunday, October 10, Amnesty International held a screening of the movie “l’État du Texas contre Melissa” (the state of Texas vs Melissa). The movie discussed the case of Melissa Lucio, a mother charged with killing her daughter. Melissa was charged with the death penalty and is currently on death row. The movie focuses on the ambiguity of the case and the lack of a concrete story and evidence regarding the crime. The movie was chosen in remembrance of the abolishment of the death penalty in France 40 years ago and focuses on the danger of the death penalty when ones guilt is not fully sure. Environnementon Spa Night Following midterms for 1As and many 2As on Saturday, October 16, Environnementon hosted a spa night at 1A-run student house Gar Hira. Students were able to unwind with face masks and by making their own healthy and sustainable deodorant. La Fabrique Politique: Politiquerie La Fabrique Politique a organisé sa deuxième politiquerie le dimanche 17 octobre. C'était l'occasion fortuite pour échanger idées, réflexions et propositions sur un thème à la couleur chaude, “la cancel culture : une censure bénéfique?” Les participants se sont engagés dans un débat de plus d'une heure, ponctué par deux passionnants et éloquents plaidoyers. Babel Museum The Babel initiative presented the Babel museum: an event to highlight the past trips of the Babel board and researchers on Friday, October 22. The event included the Babel wall, now located in Espace Étudiant, with pictures of these different experiences. Videos showing off the immersive experience of past Babel trips alongside an off-campus MENA bake sale perfectly kicked off the Babel initiative’s cultural events. BDE Halloween Fair As one of the many Halloweekend activities, the Bureau des Élèves held a Fall Festival on the SciencesPo Menton campus on Thursday, October 28. Students were able to play games such as bean bag toss, ring toss, pin the hat on the witch, etc. and partake in activities like pumpkin painting after a few stressful weeks of midterms and projects. SSA: Homesickness The Student Support Alliance hosted an event on homesickness on Thursday, October 7 filled with cozy vibes and autumn treats. The group talked about what it means to be away from home for them, and about the parts of home that they carry with them. October Rose Run (BDS x FU x RacingClub) In a mega-collaboration, the Bureau Des Sports, Feminist Union, and Racing Club brought awareness to the battle against breast cancer on Sunday, October 3. UNICEF On Sunday, October 10, UNICEF held a yoga session on Sablettes to kick off Mental Health Week and help students unwind. The session was led by 2As Lilinaz Hakimi and Daniel Santana.

The white majority society remains silent about this political disciplining, although it is such policies of the bourgeois-right alliance that are the driving force of the authoritarian re-structuring of Germany. It is these policies, which criminalize and attack the identities of ethnic and Arab minorities, that provide the breeding ground for the AfD. < Back False tears about fantasized walls Lou Hildebrandt February 28, 2025 Whilst Germany appears to have—once again—chosen the path towards fascism, protestors against this trend seem to notice only the tip of the iceberg. The anti-Muslim racism they, themselves, re-produce is a part of the larger framework. Germany’s anti-Muslim racism is not per se surprising and manifests, for instance, in its seemingly unconditional support of Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza. However, the above-described dynamics endanger not only Muslims in the Middle East but those living within Germany too. Simultaneously, the fascist “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) glooms jarringly over the horizon, but already under the former government’s parties, Greens, Socialdemocrats, and libertarians (the so-called “traffic light-coalition”), a spiral of brutal police assails on Arab protestors, plans for and executed deportations, as well as increasingly racist rhetoric in public media become the new German mainstream. Now that the CDU-CSU (conservatives) won the elections, this trend is likely going to continue, and even worsen. Very recently, Friedrich Merz, the chief of the German conservative party CDU, along with his parliamentary fraction, passed an anti-immigration bill –a project that could only be realized because of the votes cast for the fascist party AfD. For Germans, this marked a turning point, since the democratic parties had agreed on a categorical rejection of political collaboration with the fascists. This was called the Brandmauer (Engl., approx. “wall against the fire”), a metaphor for the collective effort to stand strong and unshakeable against the rising right-wing-extremist mobilization. As a result of the fall of that “wall,” people everywhere in Germany protested fascism. Only a short time later, something happened that left the Palestinian and Arab community in Berlin breathless: The police banned the Arabic language at demonstrations and, after that, arrested people for chanting in Arabic . Obviously, this has nothing to do with “security” and is another instrument for criminalizing Arab identity in Germany. How come there is such an outcry over the fall of a symbolic wall, but not over the fact that minorities see their rights disappear? Since attacks on the rights of minorities mark a step towards authoritarianism, it seems inconsequential to protest fascism and simultaneously ignore the anti-Muslim policy that characterizes Germany’s political landscape. The silence emerging from those kinds of antifascist demonstrations feels familiar because a similar series of events occurred less than one year ago. Fascists had gathered for a meeting in a villa in Potsdam, Brandenburg, to plan deportation schemes not for hundreds or thousands but millions of migrants and migranticized people in Germany. The AfD was part of it, of course, but high-ranking CDU politicians and other civil society figures also attended this conspiratorial meeting. The investigative journalist magazine Correctiv shed light on this secret meeting with a report and, after the fall of the wall against the fire, there were anti-fascist protests as a reaction that mobilized hundreds of thousands in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, as well as in the countryside. One could interpret it as a good thing that fascist ideology is not tolerated in Germany and established parties together with civil society stand united against the far-right. However, this symbolic commitment, just like a symbolic wall against the fire, pales in comparison to the real racism that exists at these demonstrations as well as in Germany ruled by the establishment parties. Similarly, protests erupt seemingly overnight when the AfD or CDU say or do discriminating things, but the actual right-wing anti-immigration policies by the traffic light parties are hardly met with public outrage. One year ago: protests of symbolism As the protests mobilized millions of people, all with diverse backgrounds, which is why it is difficult to write about “the protesters” as a uniform unit. There were certainly protestors who were aware of the dangers posed by the AfD and also the increasingly right-wing traffic light policy . At the same time, the slogans and chants of these demonstrations were problematic. Even if demonstration signs are often deliberately polemical, it is questionable whether political contexts were addressed at all with slogans such as “Hatred makes you ugly,” which was also recommended as a demonstration slogan by the supposedly left-wing journal taz . Those sorts of slogans reflect the larger liberal context that fails to acknowledge or differentiate how fascism is not merely about “hatred,” but rather about how the ruling class, neoliberal political agendas and the rising securitization of migration work hand in hand. Racism and fascism run deeper, to the core of society itself, instead of being senseless hatred. However, there were also slogans that more obviously lacked anti-racist sensitivity and thus reproduced racism, such as “ AfD ban because I like kebabs .” While such a slogan is essentializing, it also implies that migrant people should not be deported from Germany because they add value to white people. This is a severe dehumanization. Nevertheless, racism has not only manifested itself through insensitive slogans or chants, but also through physical violence against Arabs and migranticized people-on-the-move. At such demonstrations, there are always different blocs of activists, such as climate activists or Antifa blocs. At an anti-AfD demonstration organized in Berlin, however, a bloc consisting mainly of Arab and Palestinian activists was explicitly excluded by the organizing crew and pushed away, encircled and harassed by the police . Where insensitive slogans and chants show us a racist cognitive dissonance of a white society that ironically perceives itself as anti-fascist, the actions described are tangible acts of racist physical violence. The fact that supposed anti-fascism demonstrations allowed violence against minorities to happen mirrors Germany’s historical continuity of racism and white supremacy. A year full of violence against Muslims The AfD's secret deportation plans in Potsdam deserve rejection and protest. However, the specific policies of the traffic light government would have deserved the same rejection and protest. Both before and after the anti-AfD demonstrations in January and February 2024, the coalition government has deported dozens of people, strengthened Germany’s borders, expanded the military apparatus, sent weapons that kill Palestinian lives in the Gaza Strip to Israel, and increased funding of the police—who have been using unprecedented violence against Palestinian and Arab protesters since October 2023. The same Olaf Scholz, who, probably for PR purposes, stages himself as an anti-fascist at the anti-AfD demonstrations, had himself been featured on the cover of the Tagesspiegel , the major newspaper of Berlin, in October 2023, just three months before the meeting in Potsdam, with a serious face followed by the lingering headline: “ We must finally deport people on a grand scale .” The violence against Arabs in Gaza and Germany's complicity sparked protests, but not nearly on the scale that the AfD's secret meeting accomplished. The protesters were overwhelmingly Arab or even Palestinian themselves (Berlin has the largest Palestinian diaspora outside of the Arab world), and the white German pseudo-antifascist mainstream was nowhere to be seen here. These protests have experienced extraordinarily severe police violence . Not only pro-Palestine protests have experienced this police brutality; even when Syrians were celebrating in the streets of Berlin after the fall of the Assad regime, the police were also present and ready to use violence. The far-right in Germany not only hates Arab anger and despair, but it also wants to crush Arab joy. One year later, a fictitious wall falls Nationwide protests across Germany only resumed when Friedrich Merz passed an anti-immigration law with the AfD in January shortly before the new elections, resulting in him bringing down the fictitious Brandmauer . Once again, there were anti-AfD demonstrations and hashtags such as “we are the wall” and “we are more” went viral. Many politicians of the Social Democrats and the Greens also use those hashtags, marketing themselves as “antifascists” in times of political campaigning. Demonstrating those bills when passed by fascist AfD and far-right CDU, but not when passed by the former centrist government is politically inconsistent. Shortly after the imaginary wall came down, the Berlin Senate issued a ban on the Arabic language at demonstrations. The white majority society remains silent about this political disciplining, although it is such policies of the bourgeois-right alliance that are the driving force of the authoritarian re-structuring of Germany. It is these policies, which criminalize and attack the identities of ethnic and Arab minorities, that provide the breeding ground for the AfD. Photo credits: conceptphoto.info , 2023

What was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel across the globe and encounter a culture and civilization parallel to their own quickly became 38 days in prison, thousands of kilometers away from their home country. < Back The Illegitimate Detention of Two Brazilians in Germany and the Current Approach to Security in Airports By Catarina Vita for Sciences Defense January 31, 2024 What was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel across the globe and encounter a culture and civilization parallel to their own quickly became 38 days in prison, thousands of kilometers away from their home country. Jeanne Paolini and Katyna Baia, both in their forties and married for twelve years, were flying from Goiania, Brazil to Frankfurt, Germany, to celebrate Paolini’s veterinary residency in one of the best universities in Brazil, the University of Brasilia. Upon arriving in Frankfurt, the two women were detained in the airport’s prison, accused of carrying forty kilos of cocaine in their baggage. The cocaine, however, was proven not to be theirs. One day later, they found themselves outside the airport, but in the city’s prison for women. It was found that the name tags in their baggage were displaced to luggage filled with drugs, by the Brazilian airport staff. Their case was a gateway to a massive scheme of drug trafficking from Brazil’s biggest airports to European metropoles. The Case The couple flew from the capital of their Brazilian state, Goiania, to Frankfurt, for a connecting flight to Berlin, but their bags were intercepted in one of Brazil’s biggest airports, the Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo. The couple would only revindicate their luggage in Berlin, their final destination. Upon disembarking from their flight to Frankfurt, they were detained and imprisoned on March 5, 2023. They stayed in custody for 38 days. The couple alleged mistreatment by the German police, and were denied access to the winter garments in their hand luggage despite -3 degree temperatures in Frankfurt. Preceding the interception of Paolini and Baia’s luggage, two employees at the Guarulhos Airport were caught on security footage examining each of the women’s suitcases and removing them from the rest of the luggage reaching Frankfurt. In sequence, two women with cocaine-filled luggage encountered the employees and helped with placing the couple’s name tags in the new drug-filled suitcases. Paolini and Baia’s luggage was still sent to Berlin, but without their name tags. It is important to note that airlines, not airports, are responsible for employees handling baggage. As the Brazilian Federal Police (PF) became aware of the case, allied to the Brazilian Public Ministry (MP), they compiled a total of 200 hours of security footage which enabled these bodies to identify the ones responsible for displacing the name tags. The couple’s lawyer highlighted that the trip was booked months before their departure date, and both women had health insurance, showing that they did not have a profile of a drug mule. These people, who have the role of smuggling drugs often through high security scenarios (especially in between international borders), are often not provided with health insurance or plane tickets bought in advance, since they will only be in the country of destination for a short amount of time and only to deliver drugs. On April 5, 2023, the women were heard in German court in face of the evidence provided by Brazilian authorities. They were found to be innocent, but the German authorities requested evidence incriminating the airport staff for having exchanged Paolini and Baia’s suitcases, as the Brazilian government alleged. When this was presented around eight days later, Paolini and Baia were released. The Operation Collateral Effect Paolini and Baia’s case introduced the Operation Collateral Effect by the Brazilian police. As stated previously, Paolini and Baia’s luggage were apprehended by employees at the Guarulhos Airport. The Brazilian Police Force noticed that similar cases occurred in 2022 and 2023 in the same airport to Portugal and France, respectively. The Operation culminated in “14 mandates of temporary prison, two mandates of preventive detention and 27 mandates for search and apprehension,” according to G1 Brazil . The Brazilian police commenced their operation by questioning the airport employees involved in Paolini and Baia’s case. Out of the six questioned, five of them denied their involvement in the crime and one of them confessed. All six of them were arrested with supporting evidence. The Brazilian Police Force was able to trace the cases of drugs being smuggled to Portugal and France to the same group of employees, but also identified other cases of cocaine smuggling also from the airport of Guarulhos with the same modus operandi as the smuggling to Germany, nonetheless without evidence that the group had responsibility. Upon increased investigation on how the group thought and acted to smuggle drugs from Brazil to Europe, the police authorities discovered that they divided themselves into working at the airport, to observe in whose name they would send drugs to. Another subgroup simulated a check-in, but in the domestic flight part of the airport, with the actual drug-filled suitcase, but the other members of the group that worked at the airport made sure the luggage did not pass the metal detector. Continuing, the drug luggage was smuggled into the international section and then the name tag displacement process initiated. What This Means for International Security Katyna Baia and Jeanne Paolini’s illegitimate detention showed Brazilian and international defense authorities the extent to which the drug trafficking business has adopted in the present, and how this can come at the expense of innocent tourists’ rights. It also showcased how the drug business is everywhere, even hidden inside airport staff. What was perceived to be one of the most secure places in Brazil, the country’s biggest airport in the largest city in Latin America, was responsible for at least three massive 20 kilogram smuggling operations of illicit drugs. Airport authorities are shown to be keen on security checks on passengers and even in migration control, but this case shows that there is corruption from within the system as well. While being interviewed by G1 Brazil , Brazilian PM Officer Felié Faé Lavareda said (contextualized translation from Portuguese): “The link in the Guarulhos Airport to Europe (in drug trafficking) was dismantled today.” In fact, the Guarulhos Airport implemented a few measures to attempt to keep the security in the restricted areas of the airport, in which the criminal group displaced name tags and smuggled drugs, such as prohibiting cell phone usage. Nonetheless, nothing indicates strict background checks on airport employees, or a further investigation on the drug smuggling cases the PF could not trace back to the criminal group. The Guarulhos Airport communicated to CNN Brazil that the airlines, not the airports, are responsible for luggage-dealing employees and are thus supposed to be held accountable for anything relating to luggage. However, especially when it concerns tourists from your own country leaving for Europe, a shared effort between airport authorities, airlines, and even government authorities is fitting — particularly because the criminal group acted under surveillance cameras and nothing was noticed. In light of this illegitimate detention and according to CNN Brazil, Brazilian authorities aim to implement a new regulation: photographing the dispatched bags with the passenger’s respective names. The efforts from the Brazilian authorities and police to investigate Katyna Baia and Jeanne Paolini’s case is a result of disciplined work ethic and intricate scrutiny in the gathered evidence. However, taking pictures of suitcases and the passenger it belongs to barely scratches the surface of the problem. Baia and Paolini’s case surrounds the lack of surveillance in airports and the omnipresence of drug smuggling in Brazil – their experience exemplifies that further scrutiny and security measures in airports must be implemented in conjunction with airlines and national authorities.

Upon arrival in Menton, I enjoyed the scorchingly hot summer weather and the sunshine that the Côte d’Azur is renowned for. As the seasons changed, though, I found myself disappointed by the lack of “gold and saffron and red” leaves, pumpkins and the other autumnal accouterments that I become accustomed to back home. < Back To All the Disillusioned Autumn Lovers, You Are Not Alone By Colin Lim November 30, 2022 The weather has always been a classic non-controversial conversation starter. References to the weather being the subject of unimaginative, banal small talk span from The American Claimant by Mark Twain to Taylor Swift’s sappy, poetic ballad “Back to December.” As the Northern Hemisphere transitions from summer to winter, there is an interstitial period that most of the global population has the joy of experiencing — autumn. Growing up in northern California, transplants from other parts of the country and the world would inform me that our state was a barren desert with no seasons. This was a bizarre claim to make in the homeland of the coast redwood, with its temperate Mediterranean climate and its drought-resistant yet evergreen native vegetation that graces the hills John Steinbeck described as “a brown which was not brown but a gold and saffron and red—an indescribable color” in his chef-d’œuvre, “East of Eden.” The leaves of the non-native maples, oaks, elms, ginkgos and magnolias would turn an equally, if not more, impressive “gold and saffron and red” and fill the air with an overwhelming sense of coziness and joy. Upon arrival in Menton, I enjoyed the scorchingly hot summer weather and the sunshine that the Côte d’Azur is renowned for. As the seasons changed, though, I found myself disappointed by the lack of “gold and saffron and red” leaves, pumpkins and the other autumnal accouterments that I became accustomed to back home. Like me, Menton second-year Sara Kovacheva has a certain tenderness for turning seasons. Her Bulgarian hometown’s autumn memories are of welcoming, joyful foliage-covered streetscapes; winter reminds her of playing with her dogs in the crisp snow and going on brisk walks with friends. These recollections contrast Menton’s lack of a true autumn and winter, which makes Kovacheva sad. Now in her last year in Menton, she has come to appreciate the Mentonese version of autumn. Similarly, second-year Yasmine Afifi affectionately recalls the four palpable seasons of her native Casablanca, Morocco. She does not enjoy the fact that there is very little transitional period between the “beautiful summer weather” of Menton and the “gloomy, depressing rainy winter season.” Afifi states that her emotions are closely tied to the weather, and although she now is acclimating to the seasonal patterns of Menton, not being able to enjoy the beach for several months of the year and having classes before sunrise and after sunset are aspects of the town that she finds less than ideal. Absence does make the heart grow fonder for many students at Sciences Po Menton, but fellow autumn lovers need not wander too far to experience fall foliage. The trees in Square Victoria and the plaza abutting the parking lot behind the Marché des Halles are presently shedding their leaves, albeit rather unimpressively. The Roya Valley, nestled in the foothills of the Alps, also offers some colorful trees for those willing to make the trek. We should be grateful, at least, that we do not have to trudge through feet of snow to get to class.

Mentoniya, on behalf of the Menton Times, I thank you for your readership and a successful first year together. The trials and tribulations of just one year at Sciences Po have filled the pages of our newspaper with fresh opinions, breaking news, sparkling student features, and insightful coverage of sporting events and local arts. < Back The Menton Times: A Year in Review By Celeste Abourjeili April 30, 2022 Mentoniya, Mentoniya. Last summer, I was struck with a vision for a newspaper that would synthesize campus discourse and bring all student events together in one collective monthly recount. Though I was committed to bringing it to life, I never foresaw the scope or size that it would reach in just one year. Mentoniya, on behalf of the Menton Times, I thank you for your readership and a successful first year together. The trials and tribulations of just one year at Sciences Po have filled the pages of our newspaper with fresh opinions, breaking news, sparkling student features, and insightful coverage of sporting events and local arts. The journey of creating a newspaper from scratch was filled with the unexpected — it was a turbulent yet irreplaceable experience. I got to watch our designer and my dear friend, 2A Ada Baser, create a layout template from scratch. She pieced together over 30 articles worth of content into one digital masterpiece each and every month. “Starting the design of a paper from scratch wasn’t the easiest experience… [but] at the end of the day, it’s been a pleasure to work with the many different members of the team, because designers need to communicate with reporters, photographers, and the editorial board,” said Baser. “I hope I have been able to bring their amazing works to life.” Her clean-cut designs have been praised by Mentonese students. “I really like the mise-en-page,” said 1A Amira Zargouni, “it’s really easy to read.” Our editorial team, made up of 1A Ayse Lara Selcuker, 1A Lara-Nour Walton, 2A Morgane Abbas, and myself, has had to edit just as many articles to fulfill our three-step editing process. “Editing felt special to me because journalism has been a really formative source for me,” said Walton. “To make this newspaper a reality was genuinely so fulfilling.” My role as Editor-in-Chief, besides managing and organizing the team, consisted of a wondrous albeit time-consuming process by which I had to review each article that was ever published. I knew that I was collecting stories from the students, combining them in one collective and polished form, and sending them back to the student body for all to read, and I wanted to do them justice. I grasped the significance of my job in qualifying the words our students were entrusting to the paper to send out to the world. Our photography team, led by 1A Hugo Lagergren and composed of 1A Emilia Kohlmeyer and 2A Wang Di, has brought each and every story to life with its talent and eye for the camera. “ The staff reporters and guest reporters, without whom this paper would not exist, made the decision to share their stories with us and with you — a decision for which we are endlessly grateful. “Writing for the Menton Times has been incredible! I joined the team with little writing experience, but I saw my skills improve through the feedback and support of our editors, and my articles allowed me to further immerse myself in the topics I am most passionate about,” said 1A Magdelena Offenbeck. Over the course of one year, we have worked with a team of about 20 people and around 39 guest writers. We wrote articles in collaboration with a variety of associations, ranging from Sciences Alcoolémiques to the Stone Skipping Society to the BDS to Babel, MEDMUN, TedX, Environnementon, and the list goes on. 2A Isabella Aouad, who contributed to the newspaper as a guest reporter, noted, “It was very impressive how, in one year, the Menton Times became a real thing. It was very consistent and rigorous and featured really high quality articles.” 1A Joudi Arafa, who claimed she was proud to contribute as a guest reporter, affirmed, “The Menton Times is a big campus name.” I’m proud of our team for creating a shared vision out of what started as a small idea. The process behind the paper starts with our monthly meetings, which take on the form of a team brainstorming session, to choose article topics for that month’s issue. “I really enjoyed the flexibility of choosing my topics instead of having them assigned,” said 1A staff reporter Luca Utterwulghe. I’ve always trusted our writers with the topics they chose, and I was ecstatic that they matched my trust with passion and motivation for the job. Besides our partnerships and guest articles, we try to include everyone on the campus by including student quotes and opinions in each article. “It’s fun interviewing people to get quotes for my articles,” said Utterwulghe, “I learned a lot from this past year at the Menton Times.” I am grateful to you, Mentoniya, for electing our association to be an official student initiative this past semester, opening up doors of opportunity for us with your trust. With the exception of the godforsaken month of February, we upheld our promise to you to publish each and every month. For the first year, our 7-1 success rate makes me quite proud. I recognize that our process wasn’t perfect. This was just the start of an association that I hope will live on for years after my departure. I believe in the future leaders of the association to not only enhance our process, but establish additional projects and events to make campus life even more robust. I am proud to announce that the association will be carried on by Lara-Nour Walton as Editor-in-Chief, Magdalena Offenbeck as Managing Editor, Hugo Lagergren as Head of Photography. I originally intended for the Menton Times to be a route for students to be heard by their peers, an opportunity for one to collect their thoughts before making them public, and to bring attention to a particular experience or event. It was supposed to serve as a chance to create change in our small, cozy Mentonese ummah. My goal, above all, was to bring students closer together. In my original “Letter from the Editor” in our very first issue, I wrote that journalism is a pillar of democracy, a chance to touch the hearts and minds of those around us and change the course of history for the better. Here in Menton, I hope we’ve done that on a personal level — if nothing else, I hope we’ve helped you better understand and resonate with the going-ons of our little community. I hope we’ve informed you. Thank you for your attention, and for the last time this year, happy reading! Sincerely and with love, Celeste Abourjeili Founder & Editor-in-Chief Menton Times 2021-2022

< Back Une France qui s’assèche, des scientifiques qui alertent, un gouvernement qui se dépêche By Salomé Greffier March 31, 2023 « Sens-tu l’air du désert/ Te dessécher la peau/ Comme si l’on avait/ Laissé le four ouvert/ Et ce souffle brûlant/ Nous ôter le repos/ Pour venir nous donner/ Un avant-goût d’enfer ? » Laurence Hérault s’exprime en ces mots afin de décrire un phénomène observé à grande échelle par les sociétés depuis une cinquantaine d’années déjà : la sécheresse. Tandis que les populations subissent des épisodes sans qu’aucune goutte de pluie ne tombe du ciel, les scientifiques parlent d’avancée du désert et les pouvoirs publics tentent de proposer des alternatives économiques et sociales moins énergivores en eau. La sécheresse, fait désormais l’objet d’observations rigoureuses et constitue un enjeu majeur pour les États. En outre, le dernier rapport du GIEC publié en 2022 tire la sonnette d’alarme quant à la fréquence des périodes de sécheresse à travers le monde dans les années à venir. Ces dernières devraient devenir plus régulières, voire permanentes, impliquant une remise en question de la gestion de l’eau à l’échelle individuelle mais aussi collective, au regard des comportements agricoles principalement. Le groupe d’experts intergouvernemental place l’activité humaine comme responsable de ces phénomènes météorologiques extrêmes. Par conséquent, seule une adaptation anthropique face à cet enjeu climatique (mais aussi socio-économique, politique et qui atteint plus généralement la santé publique) permettrait d’inverser, ou du moins de ralentir, le processus en cours. Pour le moment, les baromètres français affichent un record historique inquiétant. En effet, à la date du 21 février 2023, les météorologues cochent la case d’un 31ème jour sans pluie sur le sol de l’hexagone. Or, en plein milieu de l’hiver, l’eau des pluies devrait remplir les nappes phréatiques afin de répondre aux besoins des mois d’été. Février se termine donc avec un déficit de précipitations de 75 %. En d’autres termes, la situation actuelle est celle que l’on chiffre, en temps normal, autour de la mi-avril voire de mai. Les réserves souterraines en eau se trouvent par conséquent à des niveaux particulièrement bas alors que la saison estivale de 2022 avait déjà puisé plus d’or bleu que la nature pouvait apporter. Dans le même temps, il ne faut pas omettre les inégalités territoriales en matière d’exposition à la sécheresse. Ainsi, les scientifiques décrivent un phénomène plus fort dans des régions comme l’Occitanie, la région PACA ou encore la Corse. De manière plus générale, une analyse du quotidien La Tribune de Genève avance qu' en temps normal, Nice enregistre plus de 800 mm de pluie par an. Entre février 2022 et la première quinzaine de février 2023, seuls 285 mm de précipitations se sont abattus sur la ville, soit 500 bons millimètres de moins que d’ordinaire !” Une situation qui devrait nous préoccuper en tant que (nouveaux) habitants de la région en perspective du retour de l’été. Ce constat posé par la communauté scientifique et l’observation empirique obligent les pouvoirs publics français à agir en prévention des épisodes de sécheresse. Ainsi, lors du Salon de l’agriculture 2023 le président de la République, Emmanuel Macron, s’exprime en ces termes « On sait qu’on sera confronté à des problèmes de raréfaction d’eau : plutôt que de s’organiser sous la contrainte, on doit planifier tout ça ». Un appel à la sobriété soutenu par son ministre de la Transition écologique, Christophe Béchu. Ce dernier a demandé aux préfets des sept grands bassins du territoire, le 27 février dernier, d’anticiper les pénuries et de contraindre dès à présent les particuliers et entreprises à travers des arrêtés. Le gouvernement lance alors un « plan sécheresse » pour se préparer aux difficultés à venir. Ce projet public a tout d’abord pour vocation d’adapter l’agriculture. En effet, si le chef de l’État choisit un moment comme le Salon de l’agriculture pour exprimer ses inquiétudes, c’est avant tout pour toucher une frange de la population directement concernée par la sécheresse. L’agriculture représente en France 45 % de la consommation d’eau, chiffre qui s’élève jusqu’à 80 % au cœur de l’été. Celle-ci repose sur un modèle d’irrigation trop consommateur par rapport aux ressources disponibles. Par conséquent, il est demandé aux agriculteurs d’employer la méthode du goutte à goutte ou de se procurer des outils optimisant l’usage de l’eau. Néanmoins, la mise en place de ces moyens revêt un coût économique parfois trop important pour les exploitants qui doivent en priorité répondre à des demandes de rendements et générer des bénéfices pour maintenir leurs entreprises. L’État, pour pallier à ces inégalités, a débloqué des fonds à hauteur de 20 millions d’euros pour la « protection contre la sécheresse » à destination de toutes les exploitations en espérant que ce budget soit utilisé pour lutter contre les aléas climatiques et non à des fins économiques. De plus, l’idée d’installer des compteurs capables de recenser la consommation en eau des agriculteurs est envisagée par les pouvoirs publics de la métropole. Le « plan sécheresse » se déploie également en intervenant sur les failles du réseau d’eau. Ancien, sous dimensionné et parfois mal entretenu, le système d’alimentation se doit d’être rénové pour limiter les fuites en eau potable. Chaque année, c’est en effet 20 % en moyenne d’eau potable qui s’échappent des tuyaux à cause de l’obsolescence du réseau. Ensuite, l’État a pour objectif d’accélérer le déploiement de la réutilisation des eaux usées traitées. En bout de classement européen, la France recycle seulement 1 % de ses eaux à l’heure actuelle notamment à cause d’une réglementation sanitaire stricte en vigueur. On cherche dès lors à remplacer l’eau potable nécessaire au fonctionnement et à l’entretien des stations d’épuration par de l’eau recyclée et étendre progressivement cette pratique à des usages industriels et agricoles. Enfin, la conscience écologique mariée à des intérêts socio-économiques mobilise de plus en plus les citoyens. Les Français semblent prêter davantage attention à leur consommation d’eau et soutiennent des projets tels que l’utilisation de l’eau recyclée ou de compteurs « intelligents ». La tendance à la sobriété individuelle apparaît nécessaire pour les spécialistes mais insuffisante. L’appel des experts insiste davantage sur un changement collectif des usages de l’eau et des mentalités à l’échelle globale. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le levier de l’action individuelle est une goutte d’eau essentielle à, espérons-le, un recul du désert dans les prochaines années.

Je ne vous apprendrai donc rien en vous disant que notre université, et le campus de Menton en particulier, souffre d’une image pour le moins ternie par des accusations d’antisemitisme et autres propos diffamatoires circulant dans les médias. Mais les questions qui demeurent sont : pourquoi en sommes nous arrivés là, et comment est-ce que cela nous impacte concrètement ? < Back La perception médiatique de Sciences Po Menton By Anonymous April 30, 2024 Si vous lisez ceci, vous êtes probablement élèves de Sciences Po. Je ne vous apprendrai donc rien en vous disant que notre université, et le campus de Menton en particulier, souffre d’une image pour le moins ternie par des accusations d’antisemitisme et autres propos diffamatoires circulant dans les médias. Mais les questions qui demeurent sont : pourquoi en sommes nous arrivés là, et comment est-ce que cela nous impacte concrètement ? Depuis le 7 octobre, Sciences Po a été au centre de l’attention pour les positions prises par ses élèves en relation au conflit en cours. Mais le campus de Menton en a souffert doublement. En tant que campus ‘Méditerranée Moyen Orient’ il est le plus directement affecté car ce conflit touche à notre zone géographique de prédilection, mais aussi car il touche certains de nos camarades de près. Pourtant, la discussion a été difficile et la gestion compliquée. En effet, notre campus a souffert d'attaques par des élus locaux d’extrême droite visant directement certains étudiants en postant des vidéos de leurs visages dans un but de diffamation du campus. Ils les ont ainsi mis au centre d’une attention qui n'était pas voulue et haineuse. De plus, les médias ont abondamment répété que notre campus était “antisemite”, associant tout une communauté étudiante aux actes certes répréhensibles mais non représentatifs d’une petite minorité, et vidant de son sens cette notion si grave et complexe. Il est donc impossible de ne pas être choqué de la durée durant laquelle ces propos ont pu circuler en ligne, endommageant gravement l’image de notre campus. On pourrait peut être penser que la réputation du campus, et de Sciences Po plus largement, s’en remettra probablement; après tout, les classements QS ne semblent pas en tenir compte, Sciences Po arrive 2 ème en politique, et c’est peut être tout ce qui compte… Néanmoins, cette attention médiatique est grave, car elle attise les divisions et fragilise notre confiance dans la capacité de notre institution à nous protéger. Souffrant d’une gouvernance instable, nous nous sommes donc retrouvés démunis. Qui plus est, les propos ont été plus d’une fois démentis par des élèves de manière très ouverte, mais étrangement cela ne semble pas autant attirer les médias. En ce qui concerne les impacts directs de ces accusations, notre campus en souffre déjà. En effet, le président de MEDMUN, l’une des cinq associations permanentes du campus, a évoqué la difficulté à inviter certains diplomates ou à nouer des partenariats avec certaines marques qui ne voudraient pas que cette image leur soit associée. Pour lui, il est d’autant plus difficile de se défendre contre de telles positions tant que Sciences Po ne fait pas de “contre attaque”, car sans un démenti officiel nous n'avons que peu d’arguments. Néanmoins, il est important de reconnaître l'existence dans notre campus de postures antisémites. Comme la conférence du 24 avril nous l’a rappelé, les élèves juifs de notre campus en ont souffert. Les témoignages l’ont montré, nous ne sommes pas toujours très à l’aise. Il est aussi important de se rendre compte que l’antisemitisme est souvent mal compris. En effet, ce que certains voient comme anodin ne l’est pas toujours pour ceux à qui ça s'adresse systématiquement. Et oui les ‘blagues’ stéréotypes toujours justifiées a ce titre sont dures à vivre, et oui être convoqué sur la conversation a propos du conflit en Israël/Palestine sans toujours être à l'aise pour donner notre perspective est un problème. Je dois l’admettre, durant le mois d’octobre et même depuis, certains jours ce malaise m’a envahie. Mais je refuse de laisser ces angoisses définir notre campus et mon expérience. Ce n’est pas en stigmatisant tout le campus que ce sera résolu. En effet, la reprise de la vraie souffrance de certains élèves à des fins politiques rend le dialogue d’autant plus difficile. La diffamation venant des médias pousse à des réactions antagonistes de certains qui empêchent la discussion modérée et honnête. Il est donc évident que la diffamation à l’encontre de notre campus affecte tout à la fois des individus, le fonctionnement d’associations et la capacité d’organiser des événements en son sein. Le manque de réponse face à ces attaques médiatiques et leurs reprises politiques nous laisse nous questionner sur l’avenir du campus.

Gardening is good for the body and good for the soul. Getting your hands into some steamy compost and picking out handfuls of weeds is a meditation—a respite from the fast-paced hustle and bustle of our increasingly rushed lives. I have certainly found that it’s very difficult to be unhappy when you’re collecting handfuls of fresh greens for dinner or flicking caterpillars off broccoli leaves. And if you get to share a garden’s produce with others, the happiness surely multiplies. < Back Why We All Need to Get Our Hands in the Soil Finn Leary for Environnementon December 31, 2024 When I put my hand up to write this article, I initially had plans to write about environmental NGOs and why so many continue to fall short in delivering meaningful change, despite bold, well-intentioned promises. Then, after witnessing the ways in which COP29 again stormed its way into the news cycle, with not much to show, I thought perhaps this was a more important conversation to have. But after an afternoon of getting my hands dirty, pulling out a few weeds in the garden following an obnoxiously boring French class, I decided perhaps this was a ripe place to focus my attention. And a bit more of a hopeful place to dwell. So yep, you guessed it! This article is going to be dedicated to the humble act of gardening. For ease of reading, I’ll be discussing three main ideas: gardening as a profoundly (often unintentional) anti-capitalist act, gardening as self-care and care for the planet, and gardening as a directed political action. PSA: This article is driven in equal parts by my desire to find a lovely human (or several) that are willing to give some love and care to the garden after I’m gone (sounds like I’m dying, I’m just heading back to Australia) but also to convince more of you of the value of gardening and growing your own food. Source: Finn Leary, January 2024. Gardening as Profoundly Anti-Capitalist I want to start here with a little story. This past summer, at home in Tasmania, my father, an avid gardener, was blessed with a handful of tomato plants that sprouted naturally from last year’s crop. They popped up in the veggie garden and quickly announced their arrival by growing prolifically. These tomato plants were huge, spreading to cover the whole garden. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tomatoes emerged over the course of the coming months. Dad was so overwhelmed (in the best way possible) by the sheer scale of his tomato success, that he started finding new homes for the tomatoes. Boxes full were given away at the local markets. Handfuls were passed over the fence to the elderly neighbors. Their sweet juicy nectarines were handed back. This quickly evolved into passing over bottled passata and tomato relish for nectarine pie. A local restaurant heard of Dad’s surplus tomatoes, and for the rest of the summer Dad swapped boxes for a meal at the restaurant. Thankfully this extended to his sons whenever they visited. A friend of mine who has her own fermentation and preserves business took buckets full to use in her recipes. A community group in Hobart used kilos of pasta sauce and fresh tomatoes to feed the masses at their weekly gatherings. And still tomatoes went to waste. But that’s the beauty of gardening. Fruit falling to the ground never really goes to waste. Just returning to the soil, seeds aplenty, waiting for the next year to sprout again. Indeed, all of this arose from the seeds that fell to the ground the previous autumn. Just a few months earlier, in a class at university, my favorite professor had been discussing the beauty of seeds and gardening more broadly. For the last class of the semester, he brought in broad bean seeds that were gifted to him by a previous student 15 years earlier. For the past decade and a half, my lecturer had grown broad beans and given the seeds to every class member, asking each student to sow the seeds and to pass on the gesture. It is fair to assume that one handful of beans given 15 years ago had led to the planting and harvesting of hundreds of plants in backyards around Hobart and further afield. I planted mine and they are still growing in my old shared house garden. My lecturer’s point with this act was this: That the beautiful gift of life stored in the form of a seed costs nothing but can generate so much good. And that this gift is exponential. In this sense, gardening is very anti-capitalist. Produce grown in the garden (and the seeds from these plants) are a gift from nature that can be regifted to others, shared and swapped and eaten and celebrated—a liberating and life-bringing act fundamentally rooted in connection to the land and to others. Source: Finn Leary, January 2024. Gardening as Self-Care: Nurturing Ourselves and the Planet Gardening is also fundamentally about returning to something better, something rooted in the past and oriented to the future. It’s about returning to ourselves in new ways (old ways really) and to the natural environment around us. Gardening is good for the body and good for the soul. Getting your hands into some steamy compost and picking out handfuls of weeds is a meditation—a respite from the fast-paced hustle and bustle of our increasingly rushed lives. I have certainly found that it’s very difficult to be unhappy when you’re collecting handfuls of fresh greens for dinner or flicking caterpillars off broccoli leaves. And if you get to share a garden’s produce with others, the happiness surely multiplies. Gardening requires slowing down. It forces us to contend with the seasons, and cycles of death and decay. Gardening makes us more aware of what is happening all around us, from the critters and the pollinators to the amount of rain held in the clouds above. We live such distanced and disconnected lives from the natural world that we are inherently a part of, that simply getting in the garden can be a reclamation, a way to remind ourselves of all we are connected to and the stewardship we must return to. Gardening also fundamentally orients us toward big, important questions: What is our role within the natural world? How do we care for what sustains us? How is food grown, and who grows it? How can individuals and communities take control of their food systems? Gardening as a Political Act Gardening can take so many different forms; it can be as varied as the people who practice it and the environments in which it occurs. Gardening can be a solitary endeavor pursued in private space like a courtyard or a balcony, or it can be a deeply connected act embedded in communities and shared public space. Gardening can differ radically in scale, from a few pots of herbs and greens to bustling community gardens. There lies beauty and value in all these examples. Gardening can also be a rebellious political act that challenges the status quo, as seen in practices like guerrilla gardening and botanarchy. These forms of gardening are premised upon transforming and reclaiming neglected and poorly used public spaces into green, productive areas, often without permission, to challenge private ownership and environmental conservatism. A good friend of mine in Australia started a guerrilla garden in Meanjin (Brisbane) during Covid, turning an abandoned council-owned plot into a thriving communal space where all walks of life from the community would meet and get their hands into the soil, sharing produce and meals. Engaging in guerrilla gardening/botanarchy is an empowering act, a way to push back against systems that aren’t really serving us. With our ecological systems in crisis, political instability growing the world over, and social divisions deepening, it is hard to envision a livable future without radical scaled change—the revolutionary, system-transforming type. I want to suggest that it is too the small battles that can pave the way to new modes of living and relating to each other and the planet. The peaceful revolution of growing something in the garden (whether in your backyard, or in a poorly used public space), in my opinion, is a small but sure step forward out of this mess. Source: Finn Leary, January 2024.

La littérature en traduction peut offrir une lueur d’espoir. < Back La littérature en traduction : bénédiction ou malédiction pour les langues minoritaires ? By Gruffudd ab Owain February 29, 2024 La présence de langues et de dialectes minoritaires est en pleine vue, même à Menton. Chaque jour, en route vers le campus, nous sommes accueillis par le nom de l’ancien restaurant, ‘A Braïjade Mentounasc’, ainsi que de nombreux noms de rue mentonasques. Grâce à son positionnement géographique, il n’est pas surprenant que le dialecte mentonnais se trouve entre la langue d’oc de type provençal niçois et le ligure intémélien parlé dans la région de Vintimille-Sanremo. Le mentonasque fait partie du patrimoine de cette ville historique, mais de nos jours, il est moins parlé qu’auparavant. Comme pour plusieurs autres langues minoritaires, son utilisation était interdite aux écoles il y a quelques générations. « Ma grand-mère se faisait taper sur les doigts avec une règle en fer si elle parlait mentonnais, » a raconté Patricia à Monaco Matin en 2023. De cette façon, l’expression « langues minoritaires » n’est pas toujours appropriée. Le catalan, considéré comme une langue minoritaire malgré un nombre de locuteurs supérieur à celui du danois, langue majoritaire et officielle, en est un exemple évident. En anglais, on utilise désormais minoritized language pour souligner les connotations politiques de la domination d’une langue majoritaire. L’oppression à l’école n’est qu’un exemple des menaces pour la transmission de ces langues; sans transmission, quel espoir reste-t-il pour leur survie? La littérature en traduction peut offrir une lueur d’espoir. Sa popularité et son importance sont en hausse. Les ventes de la fiction en traduction ont augmenté de 22% en 2022 par rapport à l’année précédente, grâce notamment aux lecteurs moins de 35 ans qui font partie de la moitié de son marché. En 2023, « The Blue Book of Nebo » de Manon Steffan Ros a remporté le prix Carnegie qui honore chaque année le meilleur roman pour adolescents en Grande Bretagne. Déjà primé dans sa langue originale, gallois, en 2018, il a été traduit en plusieurs langues, y compris le français sous le titre « Le Livre Bleu de Nebo ». C’était la première fois qu’un roman traduit remportait ce prix. Mais, quel est l’impact de la traduction de romans? Elle offre sans doute une visibilité nouvelle pour les langues minoritaires elles-mêmes, mais aussi des avantages pour les lecteurs du roman traduit. Selon Manon Steffan Ros, son roman est même plus ‘gallois’ en traduction que dans l’original. On en déduit que le processus de traduction peut adapter l’histoire, l’authenticité et les représentations pour différents publics. Dans une étude publiée dans un journal de multilinguisme durable, Guillem Belmar discute du rôle de la traduction à l’heure de revitaliser des langues telles que le Basque. Il affirme que la traduction est une arme pour lutter contre la dominance linguistique, et pour encourager des nouveaux auteurs qui peuvent ainsi atteindre un plus grand public, toujours en écrivant dans leur langue maternelle. Surtout, Belmar affirme que la traduction est essentielle pour la dignité de ces langues, prouvant leur capacité à élargir leurs horizons, leur pertinence, et la nécessité de les respecter. Cependant, la traduction fait face à des défis importants. La traduction anglaise de « Llyfr Glas Nebo » était « plus galloise » parce que Manon Steffan Ros l’a traduit elle-même. Il n’est pas rare que les auteurs ne puissent ni traduire ni lire leurs propres œuvres en autres langues, ce qui pose un risque pour l’authenticité et la fidélité des représentations. Comme le dit Michael Cronin, les structures de la traductologie sont marquées des préjugés et de la dominance des langues majoritaires, ce qui peut renforcer les inégalités linguistiques, surtout en contextes post-coloniaux. En gallois, au moins, le défi s’agit non seulement d’encourager les traductions, mais aussi dans la représentation de la culture dans la littérature anglaise. Des romans originaux en anglais, surtout les romans policiers, situés en Irlande ou en Écosse sont devenus très populaires. Créer une ‘saveur’ galloise dans les romans qui attirent un large public pourrait être une manière d’attirer des nouveaux locuteurs, ou, au moins, de garantir la connaissance de l’existence de la langue. Pour revenir au mentonasque, certains, comme Jean-Louis Caserio, pensent que sa littérature possède une richesse qui « mérite d'être plus connue ». Toutefois, elle n’a pas connu le même succès par rapport à ses voisins occitans, qui ont une longue et riche histoire. Parfois, sa littérature a prospéré même si la langue était en déclin : Robert Marty (1944-2021) a prévenu, de manière provocante peut-être, qu’il pourrait y avoir plus d’écrivains que de lecteurs. Aujourd’hui, elle est toujours vivante - il suffit de jeter un œil à la section des nouveautés du site Découvertes Occitanes pour en être sûr – même si les traductions d’œuvres étrangères sont plus présentes que dans d’autres langues minoritaires. Cela représente à la fois une opportunité pour assurer la vivance de la littérature et aussi un défi pour que les œuvres originales ne soient pas marginalisées. L’âge d’or de la littérature occitane a eu lieu au 13ème siècle, ce qui correspond avec l’époque des Troubadours. Leurs œuvres ont souvent été traduites, et Dafydd ap Gwilym, qui écrivait en gallois à la même époque, a été profondément influencé par leurs thèmes, surtout l’amour courtois. On dit que ap Gwilym est le poète qui a eu l’impact le plus significatif sur la poésie galloise, introduisant des nouvelles idées et structures qui conservent une valeur importante jusqu'aujourd'hui. Ainsi, cette histoire nous rappelle que la littérature en traduction construit des ponts entre les langues et les cultures pour un enrichissement mutuel.

It’s time to embrace these styles as more than just ‘trends’, but as a long-lived facet of Black culture. Recognizing the enormous influence that Black communities have had on fashion and aesthetics will allow for the long-overdue dismantling of structural hegemonies, which not only ignore Black culture but also build an alarming double standard between races in the fashion industry. < Back “Clean Girl” or “White Girl”? Exploring Racial Double Standards in the Fashion Industry Loowit Morrison April 30, 2025 Clean girl. We can all picture her: slicked-back bun, neutral nail polish, “no-makeup” makeup with lip gloss. She is an image of sophistication, elegance and fashion, not to mention hyper-trendy. She is a model off-duty. She is praised as glowing. And, more often than not, she is white. The clean girl aesthetic is widely credited to celebrities such as Gigi Hadid, Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner, champions of the “model off-duty” look. However, the unquestioned praise of white women who flaunt the clean girl look perpetuates a deep double standard in the fashion industry. Despite the face of the aesthetic being white, the clean girl was born in Black communities. The typical “clean girl” gold hoop was not born with the emergence of the clean girl aesthetic in the early 2020s. They actually have roots traced back to fourth Century Africa, in modern-day Sudan. In the U.S.’ Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s, singer Josephine Baker pioneered hoops as a fashion statement, and thus began their ascent to staple jewelry. Throughout the 1900s, stars such as Cher and Diana Ross continued to popularize the hoop. Chola style, defined by Chicana women on the U.S.’s West Coast, was also instrumental in the popularization of gold jewelry. Chola was used to symbolize Latina women’s struggle and to assert their unique cultural identity. Perhaps the most appropriated element of historically Black fashion is lip liner. An essential in many girls’ bags, no matter their race, lip liner was not just invented to upgrade a lip look. Liner first emerged in Black communities in the 1920s as a way to combat the exclusion of Black women from the beauty world. At a time when shades of brown were not even available in the makeup industry, Black and brown women had to “be the creators of their own beauty”, according to NYC makeup artist Sam Fine. While seen merely as a makeup tool today, the history of the lip liner is a story of protest—of Black women seeking femininity in a white hegemonic social landscape. What, then, allowed lip liner to expand past Black and brown communities? Well, it was only when white women adopted it, when liner went “mainstream”, that the negative connotations associated with it evaporated . Once viewed as “ghetto,” as soon as it was claimed by white women, it became “sophisticated.” In August 2022, Hailey Bieber’s tutorial on her “unheard of technique” for “brownie glazed lips” went viral. A combination of brown lip liner and clear gloss, this look was received with praise and enthusiasm as the “hot new thing” in makeup. However, this look was not a “new thing” at all. It was merely the elevation of a Black beauty trend by a thin white woman. The adoption and appropriation of Black fashion trends by white women is not limited to makeup. Long nails, which date back to Egyptian women in 3000 BCE, have long been donned by Black women. Black disco icons in the 1970s U.S. expanded the popularity of acrylic nails, which were brought to the forefront of fashion after being worn by Donyale Luna, the first Black supermodel on the cover of Vogue , in the March 1966 edition of the magazine. The growth of the acrylic nail was fostered by other Black icons, including track star Florence Griffith-Joyner and pop stars Missy Elliott and Janet Jackson. Today, acrylics are celebrated among all races. However, their perception on white women versus Black women reveals a deep double standard in fashion. When white women wear acrylics, whether a clean girl “Bubble Bath” pink or with an elaborate design, they are seen as chic and cute. When a Black woman wears acrylics, on the other hand, she is seen as “cheap” and “unprofessional.” Even the same set of nails would be seen in a completely different light based on the race of the person wearing them. Hoops, lip liners and acrylic nails are only three examples of the clean girl’s double standards. Despite its roots in Black culture, the clean girl aesthetic is rarely associated with Black girls. In fact, while heralded as fresh and cute on white girls, when Black girls wear hoops and nails, they are seen as the opposite. The clean girl aesthetic is not the only example of fashion’s racial double standards. Black people have long been pioneers of fashion, and can be credited with many of society’s favorite looks today, from athleisure to logomania and all-leather looks. This influence, however, is often pushed aside and purposefully ignored by a white-dominated fashion landscape that refuses to give credit where credit is due. Along with the slick back bun, braids have been a defining source of double standards in the fashion industry. Braids and cornrows date back thousands of years, the earliest known depiction of which is illustrated in a rock painting from the Sahara desert, around 5,000 years ago. While braiding culture is not limited to Black culture, braids gained a special significance during times of slavery in the Americas. Various braiding styles were used to draw maps of escape routes, denoting obstacles and pathways to freedom. Braids hold inextricable cultural significance in Black communities, highlighting a long-fought battle for freedom and unique identity. However, braids are also a place of contention. Despite holding a large place in Black identity, braids are a source of stereotypes and stigmatization, especially in the workplace. A study from CROWN Workplace Research in 2023 found that one-fifth of Black women surveyed between the ages of 25 and 34 had been sent home from the workplace due to their hair, and Black women’s hair was two-and-a-half times more likely to be considered unprofessional. Black women’s hair, whether in braids or an afro, has been widely regarded as “messy.” However, when a white woman wears braids, such as Kim Kardashian’s “ Bo Derek braids ,” she is praised as cutting-edge and cool. The more we analyze current trends, the more we uncover the ignored influence that Black culture has had on fashion. Without trailblazing Black leaders in the fashion industry, the world wouldn’t have sneakers, hoodies or name-plate necklaces. These trends have been seized and appropriated by the white-dominated industry, distorted to appear as belonging to white people only. This isn’t to say that the world should stop wearing sneakers or hoop earrings. Actually, we should do the opposite: it’s time to embrace these styles as more than just ‘trends’, but as a long-lived facet of Black culture. Recognizing the enormous influence that Black communities have had on fashion and aesthetics will allow for the long-overdue dismantling of structural hegemonies, which not only ignore Black culture but also build an alarming double standard between races in the fashion industry. So the next time you reach for hair gel, lip liner, or even your favorite pair of sneakers, think back to where they came from. So much of what we, as a society, love today has roots in Black culture, and it’s time to recognize, celebrate and uplift that. Photo source: Historical Liscense on Flickr

Essentially, the work that Jean-Luc Godard accomplished transcends cinema. < Back The Children of Marx and Coca Cola: The Life and Work of Jean-Luc Godard Beyond the Aesthetics By Ecesu Basara for Cinémentongraphe December 31, 2023 "The philosopher and the filmmaker share a certain way of being, a certain view of the world that is that of a generation.” - Maurice Merleau-Ponty Jean-Luc Godard is perhaps the most iconic figure in cinematic history; he is the first name every person who calls themselves a cinephile should know. His name reverberates with such significance that its absence from one's cinematic lexicon may induce shaming by others. The French-Swiss film director, known for his contribution to the New Wave movement of the 50s and 60s, pioneered new narrative structures, innovated and developed filmmaking techniques and produced many masterpieces, some of which you may all have heard of, such as Pierrot Le Fou or Breathless ( À bout de souffle ). Yet, we tend to ignore Godard's impact beyond his cinematic aesthetics and his role as a political activist who used his art to articulate his socio-political convictions. A period of civil unrest and social upheaval took place in France, particularly in Paris, during May and June of 1968. Mai ‘68 started as a series of student protests but quickly escalated into a widespread movement involving millions of people from various societal sectors. This upsurge symbolized defiance against established authority, denounced the suppression of academic freedoms within universities, and later gained the support of labor unions. Artists joined this vibrant societal movement, among whom Godard's stance was particularly significant: the director got the world-renowned Cannes film festival canceled, his impassioned words —"I talk to you about solidarity with students and workers, and you talk to me about tracking shots and close-ups! You're idiots!"— showed his commitment to sociopolitical justice and solidarity over formalities such as film festivals. His activism also took more implicit forms as he communicated his political views through his films. In Masculin Féminin , based on two short stories by the great French author Guy de Maupassant, the story revolves around the romantic relationship between Paul, a young man who is looking for a job and protesting against the Vietnam war, and Madeleine, an aspiring pop singer. The film captures the essence of the youth in the 1960s; Godard shows the youth’s raw struggles, relationships, and opinions during the period. He uses the characters' dialogues and interactions to reflect the political apathy and growing shift away from traditional political ideologies. He states in an intertitle that, “This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca Cola,” confirming his efforts to portray the political climate of the time through a cinematic lens, illustrating the romantic lives of young Parisians, busy signing petitions against restrictions of freedom of speech and quoting philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Essentially, the work that Jean-Luc Godard accomplished transcends cinema. He manages to depict a moving history of social revolutions and reflect the dynamics of political dissent and periods of social change. His legacy lives on not just in the frames of his many films but also in his ever-present dedication to promoting social change and expressing his beliefs through the medium of film.

Here are recent environmental developments to help ease your climate anxiety. < Back These Six Environmental Developments Will Help Your Climate Anxiety By Lara Prakash and Titouan Huber September 24, 2022 Clean energy projects surge after Biden approves new climate bill. Since U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a climate bill, this past August, large corporations have announced projects that promote sustainability. The bill provides financial incentives to companies that make their products more sustainable and accessible. In accordance with the act, Toyota will invest in a $2.5 billion electrical car parts factory. First Solar, a large solar manufacturing company, has pledged to build a factory in the United States. These initiatives will take a few years to come into fruition, and political leaders still want to “accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels and to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, especially those in China.” As such, Biden aims to work on transmission projects in the meantime. These initiatives will be necessary for getting solar and wind power to states that want clean energy. With big corporations and political figures collaborating, slow but steady progress will be made in creating a more eco-friendly future for America. This summer, Solar power helped the European Union avoid €29 billion in gas imports. In the European Union, 12.2% of the electricity generated this summer was from solar power, the highest amount ever produced by this alternative power source. Natural-gas burning plants would have cost the EU approximately 29 billion euros, substantiating the claim that solar is beneficial for the environment and cost-effective. According to the think tank Ember, solar usage increased by 28% this summer compared to last year. The Netherlands and Germany were the two countries that used the most solar energy: 23% and 19% of the countries’ electricity expenditure, respectively. Between the rising gas prices and the increase in power costs due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, solar is greatly impacting the environment and helping citizens save money. Love coffee pods but hate the waste? This Swiss company has invented a green alternative. People all over the world say that drinking coffee is a central part of their morning routine. Many make their daily cup of coffee at home using single-serving coffee pods. Most coffee machines use aluminum and plastic pods, contributing to immense quantities of environmental waste. Migros, a Swiss company, has launched “Coffee Balls,” which are climate-friendly, dissolvable coffee grinds that will replace capsules. These coffee balls, known as Coffee-B, will work in a specific machine called the “Globe.” This innovative approach to making coffee may seem simple, but it will have a significant impact on the amount of waste produced if the majority of people using aluminum or plastic coffee pods make the transition. Marseille dévoile le premier ferry au monde n'émettant aucune particule polluante Lundi 5 Septembre, un engin très particulier à été dévoilé à Marseille: un ferry n’émettant aucune particule polluante! Cette première mondiale a vu le jour dans le but de faire face aux enjeux de protection de l'environnement, dans une ville où les habitants se plaignent souvent des résidus de pollution liés aux émissions des multiples ferrys circulant dans les eaux. Avec ce ferry, renommé le Piana, vous pouvez oublier la fumée noire et l’odeur de souffre des ferrys classiques qui détruisent l’environnement, Équipé d’un filtre à particules, unique au monde, il limite la pollution de l’air et de l’eau : une très belle avancée technologique. Et, cerise sur le gâteau, cette innovation révolutionnaire a lieu dans notre belle région. Google Maps veut faire économiser du carburant aux automobilistes français Depuis mercredi 7 Septembre, l’outil Google Maps a lancé une nouvelle fonctionnalité qui va réjouir de nombreuses personnes. Il est désormais possible de demander à l’application GPS un itinéraire “bis” pour se déplacer, permettant de faire des économies et de rejeter moins de CO2. Ces itinéraires, parfois plus longs de quelques minutes, seront le plus économe en essence possible, permettant de faire d’une pierre deux coups en réduisant notre empreinte carbone et en soulageant notre portefeuille. L'algorithme se base ainsi sur de nombreux facteurs comme la vitesse autorisée, les embouteillages, les côtes et les descentes ou encore le nombre de feux rouges. Testé depuis l’an dernier en Amérique du Nord et en Allemagne, la fonctionnalité aurait entraîné une réduction de plus de 500 000 tonnes d'émissions de CO2, soit l'équivalent de 100 000 voitures à moteur thermique retirées de la circulation. À Toulouse, 6 millions de litres d’eau récupérés dans une piscine pour arroser parcs et jardins Présenté comme le bassin le plus grand d’Europe avec ses 150 mètres de long et 50 mètres de large, la piscine Alfred-Nakache, construite dans les années 1930 à Toulouse, va servir d’exemple du changement que les “nouvelles” problématiques environnementales nous imposent. En effet, là où chaque année, en Septembre, la tradition voulait que le bassin soit vidangé, et où des millions de litres d’eau étaient gaspillés, une révolution s'amorce. Ces 6 millions de litres sont, cette année (et, on l’espère, pour les prochaines à venir), récupérés pour arroser les parcs et jardins de la ville, une grande première qui s’est mise en place dans le contexte de la sécheresse dont fait preuve le pays. Grâce à l’évaporation naturelle du chlore au contact de l’air, cette eau est totalement saine et va permettre de soulager de nombreux arbres victimes de la sécheresse. À l’avenir, la ville de Toulouse (et d’autres, on l’espère) renouvellera l’expérience et étendra son champ d’action à d’autres bassins.

Art has become the playground of impostors and also a means to escape taxes. Everything must be immediate and, most importantly, one arm away reachable. The greater threat was not totalitarianism, as Orwell thought, but the irremediable attraction of the immediate and the always reachable, as Huxley proposed in his dystopia, Brave New World. We are definitely not that far from that. < Back The mediocratization of the world Amer El-Ibrahim March 31, 2025 This article will be dedicated to an idea that has been remarkably captured in Mario Vargas Llosa’s book-” The Civilization of the Spectacle”, a literary masterpiece that deserves far more recognition than it had received. Dealing with a critical issue of contemporaneity, that of the decline of culture in its pure sense, this is a manifesto against the status quo of our times. The book's main point is that the word “culture” lost its previously high standards interlinked with engaging in literature, philosophy and the arts , and has become something much more semantically ambiguous. The word “culture” is now interlinked with a number of topics unrelated to its original sense, such as Cancel Culture, to name one of them. Subsequently, the previous definition of culture could be called in today’s terms high culture. This cleavage shows the transformation this word had through the decades and thus the greater implications outside semantics this implies. Progress and empowerment always come at a cost, and only through analyzing this cost can one decide whether it is better to reform or to maintain what still exists. For example, when planes were invented and massively produced, that was considered a major leap for humanity since transport became faster than ever before. But this innovation utterly tainted the inviolable and quasi-mystical flight of the dove; if humans manage to fly too, then all “magic” related to such a bird is lost forever. The same could be said about the number of published books. Each year, more and more books are published, thus making it harder for a good book to prevail in a sea of market-oriented books that tackle immediate subjects. That could be an explanation for the fact that almost all the classics we learn about in school are long-dead. This was also the case for the huge empowerment the middle class saw after WWII, especially in Europe. As part of its aftermath, the whole continent saw a drastic change in the quality of life of the average man, with the introduction of modern housing with electricity and sewage systems, more jobs on the market, higher literacy rates, and stronger welfare states. The elitism, both cultural and material, of the ancienne regimes was now eliminated, and workers finally had a voice. But at what price was this accomplished? With this empowerment of the middle class, however historically needed and sought after it might have been, came about the end of the so-called “high culture.” This democratization of society, as in a microrevolution from below against the traditional hierarchies that existed, even in authoritarian regimes such as those in Eastern Europe, was not limited only to the political sphere. Culture was naturally affected as well. The gradual rise of access to television and to newspapers lowered the quality of the produced content to mere entertainment. The worker, after all, wants to relax after his long working hours, and what was an easier way to do so other than through some good old-fashioned, cheap and immediate entertainment? Intellectual depth of any kind is now absent on any major news channel. Journalism, currently, is very much plagued by scandals and gossip, and not on a small scale. There are always people, see Murdoch, who capitalise on these very human needs for entertainment and immediate gratification. Contemporary literature is, similarly, plagued by the law of supply and demand, as I have mentioned above. . Art has become the playground of impostors and also a means to escape taxes. Everything must be immediate and, most importantly, one arm away reachable. The greater threat was not totalitarianism, as Orwell thought, but the irremediable attraction of the immediate and the always reachable, as Huxley proposed in his dystopia, Brave New World . We are definitely not that far from that. On an ending note, the easiest way to actually get a grip on this decline is by analysing how journalism, specifically, evolved. Specifically, because newspapers catch almost perfectly the Zeitgeist of an era. Thus, one could open any mainstream news outlet, such as The Guardian or The New York Times and read any article there and compare it with those of any newspaper from the 20s, 30s, or 40s. A very quick analysis would highlight that les anciennes did not just report on x events—they were not just simple accountants of facts, stern and emotionless. They were active participants in the society they were a part of, fighters for their own ideas and principles, and never afraid to show their opinions on the current events of their world. This tumultuous and never-ending passion, this combativeness that does not settle, this have we forever lost. Photo source: Wikimedia commons

Vivant le monde méditerranéen tous les jours, à travers nos travaux, nos lectures et nos expériences personnelles sur la riviera française, il serait bien temps pour nous de le goûter aussi. < Back Le Régime Méditerranéen: La Clé Pour Une Approche Plus Équilibrée À Notre Existence? Margarita Kopsia September 30, 2024 Entre readings , examens et deadlines de toutes sortes, la vie courante des science pistes mentonnais, soucieux de mieux comprendre le monde méditerannéen et moyen-oriental, peut parfois s’apparenter à un flot continu d’aventures et de responsabilités. Si c’est précisément au sein de cette expérience singulière du temps où réside toute la beauté de la vie mentonnaise, force est de constater qu’une approche plus équilibrée de notre quotidien nous serait fort bénéfique et ne ferait qu’embellir ce ravissant trajet. Vivant le monde méditerranéen tous les jours, à travers nos travaux, nos lectures et nos expériences personnelles sur la riviera française, il serait bien temps pour nous de le goûter aussi. Intéressons-nous aux modes d’alimentation qui sont propres à la Méditerranée et surtout à la manière dont ces principes ont pris forme dans l’espace et dans le temps, reflétant les valeurs et les idéaux véritablement méditerranéens. Qu’est-ce qui fait du régime ou de la diète méditerranéens un mode d’alimentation et d’existence qui mérite d'en parler, si ce n’est d’éventuellement en emprunter certains aspects? Capables de nous inciter à adopter une posture plus harmonieuse vis-à-vis de nos études et de notre quotidien, ces derniers sèment la voie pour une réflexion que nous nous devons à nous-mêmes: comment pouvons-nous tirer profit des ressources dont il est possible de bénéficier ici à Menton, ville qui ouvre sur le bassin méditerannéen et qui est caractérisée par un climat qui lui est propre? Mais, avant d’attaquer tous ces différents points et avant de tenter de discerner ce lien subtil qui peut exister entre ces deux modes de consommation, entre consommation alimentaire et consommation de la vie, il faut s’efforcer de comprendre ce que signifie réellement la notion de « régime méditerranéen » : qu’est-ce qui fait la spécificité et l’intérêt de la diète méditerranéenne? La diète méditerranéenne: une approche singulière à la tradition, à l’histoire et à la culture S’il s’avère que les concepts de régime méditerranéen ou de diète méditerranéenne ne furent eux-mêmes inventés que dans les années 1960 et 1970, ces derniers puisent leurs origines dans des habitudes et des traditions qui remontent bien plus loin dans le temps. Ainsi, parler de régime méditerannéen ou de diète méditerranéenne semble être une affaire relativement contemporaine, ne datant que de quelques décennies, c’est pourquoi il faudrait plutôt s’intéresser à l’histoire et aux principes de l' alimentation méditerranéenne, qui nécessite de changer entièrement d’échelle pour parler en fonction de siècles, voire de millénaires. Entre ses débuts, ses nombreuses redécouvertes et évolutions jusqu’à sa théorisation et sa conceptualisation, l’alimentation méditerranéenne rassemble en elle et à travers le long chemin qu’elle a parcouru la grande majorité des éléments qui caractérisent aujourd’hui ce qui est plus largement désigné comme la « culture » et le mode de vie méditerranéens, dans une optique visant à dépasser les différences entre pays et cherchant précisément à en faire des entités comparables, voire similaires, sur certains points. Ainsi, il n’est possible de parler du régime et de l’alimentation méditerranéens sans faire allusion au rôle déterminant des acteurs qui ont cherché à en acquérir une meilleure connaissance et qui ont examiné leur efficacité, de sorte à avoir éventuellement engendré leur adoption par des populations de plus en plus nombreuses et différentes. Ancel Keys, surnommé « Mister huile d’olive » et « pionnier de la recherche nutritionnelle moderne » selon les auteurs de l’article Histoire de l’alimentation méditerranéenne , participa alors de manière décisive à la redécouverte de l’alimentation méditerranéenne et à « l’invention » du régime méditerannéen. Le terme qui fut alors employé pour caractériser ce mode d’alimentation fut la « Mediterranean Diet », la notion de « régime » ( diet ) étant ici comprise en fonction de ces racines étymologiques pour se référer directement à un ensemble d’habitudes bien ancrées dans les mœurs et dans le temps, conformément à l’origine grecque du mot diaita signifiant « way of life ». Cela nous incite alors à détourner notre attention d’une vision erronée du régime méditerrannén qui serait associée à l’idée de la restriction alimentaire, pour insister directement sur ce qui fait son cœur et sa force, c’est-à-dire le fait qu’il ne soit en fin de compte que le partage de certains motifs répétitifs bien précis, promœuvant la santé et le bien-être général, résistant aux frontières géographiques et incarnant les valeurs du dialogue et de la convivialité. En effet, le régime méditerannéen pourrait et devrait être compris à la lumière du « climat », des « festivals » et des « célébrations » à travers lesquels il se manifeste et qui permettent aux valeurs de la « transmission intergénérationnelle et interculturelle » de prendre forme. Il n’est également possible de traiter de la diète ou du régime méditerranéens dans leur ensemble sans commenter les résultats de la Seven Countries Study , c’est-à-dire l’enquête menée par A. Keys depuis 1957 sur sept pays différents (les États-Unis, l’Italie, la Grèce, la Finlande, les pays qui à l’époque constituaient la Yougoslavie, les Pays-Bas et le Japon), qui s’était fixée pour objectif d’établir une corrélation entre la santé cardiovasculaire, la résistance aux maladies et le mode de vie et d’alimentation. Nous pouvons en effet supposer que cette étude, ayant mis en évidence l’importance de consommer des céréales complètes, des fruits et légumes en abondance et à limiter la consommation de produits transformés et ceux riches en graisses et en sucres, a eu une certaine incidence sur la composition des différents modèles de nutrition qui lui ont succédé, tels que la fameuse pyramide alimentaire qui est elle-même censée refléter un équilibre nutritionnel quasi-parfait. C’est en 2013 que la « diète méditerranéenne » fut inscrite sur la Liste représentative du patrimoine culturel immatériel de l’humanité de l’UNESCO et qu’elle est officiellement définie comme « un ensemble de savoir-faire, de connaissances, de rituels, de symboliques et de traditions qui concernent les cultures, les récoltes, la cueillette, la pêche, l’élevage, la conservation, la transformation, la cuisson et, tout particulièrement, la façon de partager la table et de consommer les aliments. », selon le site officiel de l’UNESCO pour le patrimoine culturel immatériel . Ce n’est pas un hasard: vous l’aurez compris, la diète méditerranéenne constitue bien le reflet d’une approche singulière à la tradition, à l’histoire et à la culture, qui mérite d’être protégée et célébrée. De ce fait, nous lisons qu’ « elle joue un rôle important dans les espaces culturels, les fêtes et les célébrations en rassemblant des populations de tous âges, classes et conditions. » Un regard de plus près sur le lien fondamental entre équilibre et nutrition Mis à part tous ces attributs exceptionnels du régime méditerannéen, « présenté comme un bouclier contre la “westernisation” de l’alimentation, et comme un outil majeur de prévention » , il faudrait également comprendre qu’un tel rapport à la nourriture, marqué par le respect et la qualité, peut avoir des répercussions directes sur notre bien-être général. Ainsi, il est tout à fait possible de tisser des liens entre cette approche alternative à la nourriture et différentes philosophies de vie, telles que celles issues de la Grèce antique. Cette dernière constitue d’ailleurs le berceau de l’alimentation méditerranéenne, sachant que « le style alimentaire méditerranéen s’est très vite cristallisé autour de la triade fondamentale du pain, de l’olivier et de la vigne. » Ainsi, l’éthique épicurienne, qui peut être résumée comme la sagesse qui « consiste à vivre au présent [...] et à atteindre le bonheur en recherchant à satisfaire les désirs naturels et nécessaires [...] de façon à éprouver les plaisirs stables que procure une vie saine , » semble être tout à fait adaptée à un style de vie et d’alimentation qui cherche à concilier le plaisir de bien vivre avec celui de bien manger, d’autant plus que la richesse des goûts et des couleurs qui caractérisent la diète méditerranéenne figure parmi ses plus grandes forces. Mener une vie saine et équilibrée passe aussi par un rapport plus harmonieux à notre environnement: nous constatons alors que de plus en plus d’études n’hésitent pas à faire allusion aux bienfaits environnementaux de la diète méditerranéenne, en expliquant en quoi il est possible de voir dans ce mode de production et de consommation de la nourriture des pratiques prometteuses et plus durables. En effet, l’alimentation méditerranéenne est censée privilégier la production locale, dans le respect de la terre et des ressources qu’elle a à offrir. Ainsi, mener une vie plus équilibrée, c’est aussi assumer une plus grande responsabilité dans notre rôle dans la crise climatique et écologique actuelle, en revisitant des pratiques qui rappellent l’importance de bien produire et de bien consommer. D’ailleurs, c’est dans l’article « Underrated aspects of a true Mediterranean diet: understanding traditional features for worldwide application of a “ Planeterranean ” diet » que ce régime devient un régime « planétaire », en promouvant « une approche respectueuse de l’environnement, contrôlée et inspirée par des procédures plus anciennes et traditionnelles [...]. ». S’il semble qu’aujourd’hui nous soyons de plus en plus réduits en consommateurs cherchant à maximiser leur plaisir individuel et à en tirer profit, essayons du moins à en devenir une meilleure sorte. Engageons-nous en faveur d’idées et de pratiques qui nous permettent d’être plus respectueux envers nous-mêmes, envers les autres et envers l’environnement. Atteignons un meilleur équilibre tant dans nos assiettes que dans nos vies.

The trend of "sassy-man politics" shows a shift in politics, where personality and showmanship often take priority over serious policy discussions. Politicians using humor, boldness, and sarcasm to connect with the public are gaining attention, especially on platforms like TikTok, which favor short, attention-grabbing clips over deeper conversations. < Back Sassy Man in Politics Nil Çelik October 31, 2024 Donald Trump infamously stated in the course of his 2016 presidential campaign: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters.” This audacious assertion explicitly exemplifies what has come to be known as the “sassy-man in politics.” In this approach, male politicians shift away from profound, thoughtful debate and instead depend on arrogance, sarcasm and stage performance, leading to significant social and cultural changes. The rise of media-influenced political leaders is often seen as the root cause, starting with television and later amplified by social media platforms. These platforms award politicians who amuse viewers and provoke controversy instead of concentrating on significant issues with screen time. Political figures such as Trump and British statesman Boris Johnson have evolved into the symbols of this initiative. This transition in political discussion indicates a concerning deviation from established principles of leadership like skill, morality and responsibility. With it, the priority has shifted to politicians who behave in a manner resembling performers who strive to gain “likes” and “shares” instead of the trust of the public. The social media platform TikTok, renowned for its short and entertaining videos, has contributed greatly to this transition. The TikTok phenomenon “ Sassy Man Apocalypse ” is a projection of men who are often referred to as flamboyant and emotional, accepting and celebrating their “sassy” characteristics. The term “sassy” was originally utilized to ridicule men who displayed non-traditional masculine manners. Nevertheless, TikTok creators such as Prayag Mishra have begun to reshape it, shifting being sassy toward a more positive demonstration of self-confidence, and emotionality. These characteristics are now established as acceptable, instead of being seen as a weakness. Although this development has led to crucial debates about toxic masculinity, critics argue that trends alone do not lead to actual social change. Even though the “sassy-man apocalypse” began as a joke on the internet, it has now impacted real-world politics, with male politicians integrating this demeanor to relate to meme-loving younger viewers. A relevant example is Mustafa Sarigul, who is currently serving as the member of parliament in Erzincan, who used a playful and non-traditional style of campaigning during the 2023 elections. Sarigul posted several theatrical and entertaining videos on his TikTok and Instagram, including one where he drove a tractor on the Erzincan fields, addressing local voters while combining political messages with everyday life. His over the top delivery where he humorously, combined with relatable humor led to the videos going viral, allowing him to connect to younger audiences. His social media presence through this approach led to him being erected for parliament. This approach shows Mustafa Sarigul utilizing internet culture to remain relevant in Turkish politics. However, young viewers have also utilized this internet phenomenon to ridicule the bold statements that male politicians make. The result of this change has been consequential. Sassy-man politics decreases the importance of governance, downplaying substantial subjects in the interest of self-centered acts. This action resonates with a public that concentrates more on personality than policy. This produces a series of politicians who must constantly outperform each other with controversial arguments to stay relevant. Since social media platforms gradually change the cultural environment, this manner of politics may continue, drawing concern about whether future leaders will be determined by their skills to lead or by their skills to entertain the public. As politics becomes more about spectacle, there’s a danger that the focus on governance and long-term solutions will be replaced by short-term popularity contests, potentially leading to leaders who lack the necessary expertise to effectively manage public affairs. The 2024 presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump openly displayed the concept of sassy-man politics, characterized by sharp discussions, interruptions and sarcastic remarks. Trump didn’t withhold from delivering sarcastic and offensive statements. At a particular moment, he stated , “Biden doesn't even know that he’s running for president.” This mocked both Biden’s age and cognitive capabilities. Biden retaliated, claiming, “I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been making money off bankruptcies.” These sassy remarks entertained some viewers but transitioned the debate from profound policy discussions to personal insults. This led to viewers seeing viral moments of the debate instead of having a concrete understanding of the candidates plans for governance. The overall result of this “sassy” back-and-forth was a debate that was concentrated more on personal drama instead of real policy issues. Short clips of this debate circulated on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, strengthening the view that sassiness in politics is seen as a main way to achieve the attention of the public. Likewise, the 2024 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala and Former President Trump followed a similar sassy style. Trump stated that “Harris was the worst Vice President in history” and that “she’s so good at being invisible, I forget she’s even on the ticket.” These indicated Trumps’ strategy of attacking Harris by using sharp and repeatedly mocking comments. Although his sassy attitude and remarks resonate with his fan base, it demonstrates the more profound issue of how women, specifically women of color, are treated in political debate. This pattern becomes even more distinct when political figures face attacks that question their competence and authority through demeaning humor or stereotypes. While these tactics may rally Trump's base, they also serve to reinforce harmful gender and racial stereotypes, diminishing the legitimacy of women, particularly women of color, in positions of power. This evolution in Trump's approach signals a broader issue of how women in politics are not only undermined in their capacity as leaders but also weaponized as subjects of ridicule, demonstrating the intersections of misogyny and racism in modern political discourse. Harris rebutted his statements firmly, but it was difficult to overcome Trump’s offensive language. This trend of shifting political discourses into witty interactions is altering American politics, promoting entertainment instead of profound debates, and influencing political norms and gender roles. The trend of “sassy-man politics” has also affected the Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis , who has become a primary target on TikTok after the phenomenon of the “sassy- man apocalypse.” While the TikTok trend didn’t start politically, DeSantis has been the topic of millions of views on TikTok, as users developed and shared content ridiculing his character. Recently videos of an irritated reply from DeSantis concerning a Guantanamo question have led to hundreds of viral contents, gathering over two million views. His aggressive standpoint as a savior of traditional values, especially with the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, has made him a figure of mockery for young progressive Americans. Polls in the beginning of the year showed that DeSantis had one of the most negative ratings among Republican candidates between the voter age group from 18 to 34. The given age group could be said to respect diversity and expression of gender and sexuality more, driving DeSantis to be a primary target for critics due to his policies. As he is known for being defensive and sensitive, this leads to the creation of the “sassy man” and “short king panic” memes that are commented on posts that involve him. However, Ioana Literat, an associate professor at Teachers College Columbia University who studies the civic engagement of young people, stated that these videos indicate a more comprehensive critique on what acceptable actions are in today’s politics. The trend of "sassy-man politics" shows a shift in politics, where personality and showmanship often take priority over serious policy discussions. Politicians using humor, boldness, and sarcasm to connect with the public are gaining attention, especially on platforms like TikTok, which favor short, attention-grabbing clips over deeper conversations. Leaders like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Mustafa Sarigul show how this entertaining style appeals to certain groups, but it can also distract from real issues. This trend has also highlighted stereotypes and, at times, undermined the authority of women and people of color in leadership. Overall, "sassy-man politics" raises concerns about whether leaders are more focused on gaining popularity than effectively addressing important problems, potentially weakening trust in the political system.

Tandis que les élections européennes approchent, l’Union européenne a décidé dans la nuit du 20 mars de réinstaurer des droits de douane sur certains produits agricoles ukrainiens. < Back Terres fertiles et défis amers : L’Union européenne et l’agriculture ukrainienne By Jonathan Smidtas March 30, 2024 Bon sens paysan ou trahison ? Tandis que les élections européennes approchent, l’Union européenne a décidé dans la nuit du 20 mars de réinstaurer des droits de douane sur certains produits agricoles ukrainiens. Le pays, un des principaux producteurs mondiaux, avait vu ses exportations vers l’Union européenne grimper en flèche à la suite de l’invasion du pays par la Russie car les taxes sur les importations agricoles ukrainiennes imposées par l’Union européenne avaient alors été supprimées. Depuis, la colère des agriculteurs européens dénonçant une concurrence insoutenable a marqué l’actualité. Alors que l’invasion à grande échelle de l’Ukraine a commencé il y a plus de deux ans, il semble de plus en plus clair qu’aucun camp n’est en mesure de l’emporter militairement, sauf retournement de situation majeur. L’on parle déjà de l’après-guerre, de la reconstruction de l’Ukraine et de son intégration à l’Union européenne. Alors que pendant des années les capitales européennes se sont opposées à l‘entrée de l’Ukraine au sein de l’UE, généralement en invoquant la faiblesse de l’état de droit et la corruption qui minent ce pays, une autre raison émerge aujourd’hui : l’agriculture. Des terres exceptionnelles Depuis des siècles, l’Ukraine a été surnommée le grenier à blé de l’Europe. Grâce à sa concentration en humus très élevées, les “terres noires” ukrainiennes sont extrêmement fertiles. Aucun pays au monde ne dispose de sols cultivables aussi productifs. Cela constitue un avantage comparatif certain pour ce pays, mais n’a pas été sans tragiques conséquences tout au long de son histoire. L’Ukraine a ainsi été conquise tantôt par les polonais, les autrichiens et les russes souhaitant, entre autres, assurer leur sécurité alimentaire grâce à l’Ukraine. Le pays était avant guerre le premier producteur mondial de tournesol, et dans le top dix pour ce qui est du blé, du maïs, de l’orge et du colza. Des salaires bas En comparaison avec les pays de l’Union européenne, l’Ukraine est un pays très pauvre. En dépit de l’héritage industriel de l’époque soviétique, le salaire moyen y est inférieur à 400 euros, sept fois plus faible qu’en France et encore trois fois moins important qu’en Pologne. Les coûts de la main-d'œuvre très faibles permettent à l’Ukraine de proposer des prix agricoles très intéressants sur le marché mondial. Un potentiel L’intégration de l’Ukraine dans l’UE permettrait d’assurer la sécurité alimentaire de cette dernière. Les capitaux et technologies des pays riches transférés en Ukraine entraîneront une hausse de la productivité des terres en dépit des normes environnementales européennes qui devront s’appliquer. La concurrence accrue sur le marché européen causera une baisse des prix de l’alimentation et augmentera le pouvoir d’achat des consommateurs européens. Les investissements d’entreprises agricoles européennes en Ukraine permettront de relancer l’économie du pays après la guerre et la pression exercée sur le marché de l’emploi poussera les salaires à la hausse. Les craintes Qu’adviendra-t-il des agriculteurs des autres pays européens ? Ils dénoncent déjà une concurrence insoutenable et craignent d’être les grands oubliés de l’entrée de l’Ukraine dans l’Union européenne. Après l’expérience de la désindustrialisation qui a entraîné une hausse du chômage dans les pays de l’Ouest et déstabilisé les sociétés, l’idée de voir le même schéma s’appliquer dans le domaine agricole est effrayante. De plus, concentrer la production agricole en Ukraine, c’est s’exposer à une vulnérabilité si la Russie décidait un jour d’attaquer de nouveau. Espoirs Il faudra donc assurer à l’Ukraine des garanties de sécurité afin de pouvoir sereinement y investir. Une démilitarisation de la Russie semblant irréaliste, l’intégration à l’OTAN et le stationnement de troupes occidentales nombreuses sur le sol ukrainien pourraient être une solution. L’agriculture des autres pays européens devra monter en gamme afin de pouvoir faire face à une nouvelle concurrence. La réduction du nombre d’agriculteurs, dont beaucoup ne parviendront vraisemblablement pas à demeurer compétitifs, implique la nécessité de penser dès maintenant aux solutions politiques afin d’éviter une catastrophe sociale. La formation semble être une des clés, alors que les subventions ne feront que créer une distorsion de concurrence inefficace. L’entrée future de l’Ukraine dans l’Union européenne représente un risque existentiel pour notre modèle agricole actuel. Transformer ce risque en opportunité est possible, mais nécessitera une implication forte des pouvoirs publics afin de repenser l’agriculture européenne. C’est bien plus facile à dire qu’à faire et cela explique pourquoi l’entrée de l’Ukraine dans l’UE ne semble pas être pour demain. Cette entrée soulève de véritables dilemmes. Certains suggèrent d’exclure initialement l’agriculture ukrainienne du libre marché et de progressivement abaisser les droits de douane. Ce serait une façon d’intégrer l’Ukraine dans l’Union en évitant un choc fatal aux agricultures européennes. Néanmoins, assumer de créer une Europe à différents niveaux c’est ouvrir la boîte de pandore. Quant à faire patienter trop longtemps l’Ukraine hors de l’UE, c’est la priver du développement économique qu’a entraîné l’UE pour ses États-membres. Il est dans l’intérêt des démocraties européennes d’avoir une Ukraine développée et prospère à ses frontières afin de contribuer à la stabilité et la paix de la région. Ne ratons pas le coche.

< Back A Guide to Menton’s Places of Religious Worship Stanimir Stoyanov While relatively small in size, our beautiful town of Menton has a significant number of various religious sites. We all know about the picturesque basilica in the old town and we all hear the church bells ringing throughout the day. Have you ever wondered why those bells ring at specific times? What about other religious denominations? This article will look into the world of religion within Menton, providing answers to these questions and adding interesting information about its religious sites. Religion is a multifaceted topic and this article does not have any purpose of discussing different religious practices; its goal is to simply showcase information on different places in Menton affiliating themselves as religious. In France, secularism is a constitutional principle and the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State ensures the freedom of conscience and guarantees the free exercise of religion. While the majority of the population doesn’t identify as religious, the most prevalent religious affiliation in France is Catholic, with a sizable population of people following religions such as Islam, Judaism and others. Our town of Menton also reflects this diversity to an extent and, despite its small size, has a total of ten places of religious worship. These include seven Catholic churches and chapels, an Orthodox church, an Anglican church, a Mosque and a Synagogue. So, what is there to know about them? Basilica of Saint-Michel-Archange Probably Menton’s most famous attraction, the basilica was constructed between 1619 and 1819. At the time, Menton was part of the Principality of Monaco and Prince Honoré II commissioned it in order to affirm the role of the Catholic faith at the time of the Reformation in Europe. The basilica’s baroque architecture was heavily influenced by the Genoese style and is exceptional in its detailed and intricate facade and interior. The church bell, locally known as the “Campanin” was erected in 1701 to serve both a religious and functional purpose, acting as a watchtower over Menton. Until Dec. 31, the basilica is open to the public from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. everyday except Sunday, when it is accessible only for mass at 11 p.m. It is located on Place de l’Eglise in the old town, admission is free and when visiting you even have the possibility to climb up the tower for a one of a kind view over Menton. The Mosquée Taqwa in Menton Located on 113 Avenue de Sospel, Menton’s Mosque offers the Muslim population of Menton a place of worship. It is open five times a day for the different prayers throughout the day, with opening times varying each day according to the changing times of prayer. Even small in size, the mosque has separate praying spaces for men and women. It is associated with the Association Culturelle Mentonnaise and also engages in cultural events and community activities, such as offering guided tours for Europe’s Heritage days on Sep. 21 and Sep. 22. Synagogue de Menton “Centre Altyner” This synagogue, found on 106 Cours du Centenaire, was founded in 1964 by Holocaust survivors who discovered that there was quite a significant Jewish population in Menton. In 1987 they decided to construct this synagogue with the help of donors, whose names are inscribed on a marble plaque in front of the synagogue. One of these names, interestingly, is that of the renown fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who lived nearby at the time and was moved to donate by a friend of his. The synagogue offers regular Shabbat services and observes Jewish holidays, its open hours are Friday, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. and at 5 p.m. and on Sunday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. The synagogue also facilitates cultural events and celebrations, organizing events for the local Jewish community. The Orthodox Church “Our Lady's Church, Joy for the Afflicted and Saint Nicholas the Miracle Maker” This church is located on 12 Rue Paul Morillot and serves as a place of prayer for Christians following the Orthodox denomination. It is operated by the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate and its history spans from 1884 when a Russian duchess found its establishment important, recognizing the expanding Russian presence in the region. Originally, it was housed in a small chapel that can still be found at the old castle cemetery on Mnt du Souvenir. In 1892, the current church was built in an unconventional architectural style blending Eastern and Western designs. During WWII, the church was damaged from bombings and, in 1958, it was renovated. It is frequented by the surprisingly large Orthodox population of Menton and the region as both a place for prayer and cultural exchange. It is still worth a visit by anyone interested due to its unique appearance in contrast with the local architecture. Unfortunately its working hours are not clearly set and vary each month with the specific times for mass being posted at the entrance of the church’s garden. The Saint John's Anglican Church Found on 31 Avenue Carnot, this is the neo-Gothic church that you see when walking near the city center. Established in 1867 to service the growing British community in Menton, this church nowadays serves the Anglican population of the town. It regularly holds Sunday service in English starting at 10:30 a.m. The church also houses the St John's English Library, offering around 4,500 books, open to the public on Wednesday afternoons from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday mornings from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It is also equipped with a pipe organ, used during services and concerts, enhancing the musical experience for congregants and visitors. It is part of the Diocese in Europe, often collaborating with other local churches and organisations for events and celebrations. Its fascinating blend of Gothic elements and Italian influence makes it a unique site worth paying a visit to. Other Catholic churches and chapels Menton also houses another three Catholic churches and three smaller Catholic chapels, more notably the Église Saint-Joseph, Église du Sacré-Cœur, Église Notre-Dame du Borrigo, Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs, Chapelle des Pénitents Noirs, Chapelle Saint-Roch . While the listed chapels do not have working hours and are rarely open to the public, the two churches are often open during mass hours and can be accessed for visits if you have the interest. As we can see, even our quaint Menton has a vast list of places of religious worship and hopefully now you are a bit more familiar with them. If this article has sprung your interest you can feel free to visit and enjoy them so long as you remain respectful to the people who may be practicing their religion there. They all have their unique architectural characteristics and religious significance. As a person who has had the fortune of visiting all of them, I truly recommend the aforementioned places if you want to experience Menton in all its character. Previous Next

< Back A Facebook Reckoning: Revelations from Frances Haugen’s Senate Testimony By Saoirse Aherne November 30, 2021 Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen left the company in May of 2021. She subsequently handed over thousands of pages of incriminating internal documents which she had collected during her time at Facebook to The Wall Street Journal. On September 13 of 2021, the Journal rolled out “The Facebook Files:” a collection of 11 major articles detailing the contents of Haugen’s leak. On October 5, Haugen testified before a United States Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation, and asserted that Facebook harms children, sows division and undermines democracy in pursuit of “astronomical profits.” Who is Frances Haugen Haugen is a 37-year-old computer science and Harvard Business School graduate. She has worked for Google and Pinterest, and co-founded the dating app Hinge. Haugen began working for Facebook as a product manager in 2019, just three years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal when Facebook allowed the British consulting firm to collect data from millions of users without their consent for use in political campaigns. In light of Facebook’s reputation at the time, Haugen reportedly aspired to change the company from the inside. After two years at Facebook, Haugen felt her goal to rectify the ethical issues in the company was going nowhere. She came to realize that Facebook was aware of the harm of its products and was intentionally concealing this knowledge from users and investors. Haugen began to collect evidence of this through Facebook’s internal social network: Workplace. Employees share product research and discuss company strategy on this platform, thus making confidential information available to all company members. As Haugen encountered documents detailing unethical conduct, she took pictures of them and compiled a collection of evidence which exposed the role of Facebook products in aggravating a number of social and political issues across the globe. Haugen released the documents with the hope that they might increase public pressure for Facebook to change. She underlined that Facebook cares more about profits than public safety in an interview with 60 Minutes in spite of its claim that it does not “build services to make money.” Haugen has filed a whistleblower complaint with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If the agency attempts to take civil action against Facebook, Haugen could receive between 10 and 30 percent of any fines Facebook is forced to pay. What did the documents contain? Over a dozen news organizations have reviewed the redacted versions of the documents and identified a number of key takeaways. As reported by CNN, the documents show that Facebook was fundamentally unprepared to deal with the January 6 “Stop the Steal” insurrection movement. This contradicts Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who stated that the company “took down QAnon, Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, anything that was talking about possible violence” in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. capital. In fact, the documents reveal that, leading up to the insurrection, almost all of the fastest growing groups on Facebook were related to the Stop the Steal movement. One of the leaked documents contains a picture of a table labelled “US2020 Levers, previously rolled back,” referring to the guard rails on misinformation and harmful content that Facebook removed before the 2020 presidential election. It is unclear from public statements why Facebook rolled back these measures, and Haugen asserted that the measures were only reimplemented after the insurrection flared up. The Washington Post commented on internal documents surrounding body image, teen mental health and appearance-based social comparison on Instagram, a social media network owned by Facebook. One document found that “social comparison is worse on Instagram,” and that “social comparison journeys mimic the grief cycle.” In response to this, the document said that the company must “engage at each step of the social comparison journey by creating targeted product interventions.” The documents noted that “mental health outcomes related to [social comparison] can be severe,” acknowledging the role of Instagram in prompting or exacerbating eating disorders, body dysmorphia, body dissatisfaction, depression and loneliness. Another document blatantly stated, “we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.” The Atlantic reported on another shocking revelation from the documents. In 2019, a BBC report found that a broad human trafficking network for domestic workers was facilitated by Facebook and Instagram, aided by algorithmically boosted hashtags. The internal documents released by Haugen make clear that this issue was known to Facebook before the BBC inquiry, and that the company only took action when Apple threatened to pull Instagram and Facebook from the App Store. According to the Atlantic report, the documents show that Facebook has the most harmful impact in vulnerable and unstable areas of the world. Facebook is aware that its products “facilitate hate speech in the Middle East, cartels in Mexico, ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia, extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric in India and sex trafficking in Dubai.” In an internal report from March 2021, Facebook admitted, “we frequently observe highly coordinated intentional activity… by problematic actors:” that is, “particularly prevalent… in At-Risk Countries and Contexts,” yet it stated that “current mitigation strategies are not enough.” An internal Facebook report from the winter of 2020 found that only 6 percent of Arabic-language hate content on Instagram was detected by Facebook’s systems. According to the documents, only 13 percent of Facebook’s misinformation-moderation staff hours were devoted to non-U.S. countries in spite of the fact that more than 90 percent of Facebook’s users do not reside in the United States. Despite at least 160 languages being spoken on the platform, Facebook has created AI-detection systems for only a fraction of those languages. Speaking to the Observer about her decision to come forward as a whistleblower, Haugen said, “I did what I thought was necessary to save the lives of people, especially in the global South, who I think are being endangered by Facebook’s prioritization of profits over people.” The Senate Hearing On October 5, Haugen testified to a United States Senate committee. Haugen emphasized that Facebook knows that its algorithm is harmful to users. She stated that Facebook's advertising-based business model needs people to stay on its platform for as long as possible, and the company exploits negative emotion to accomplish this. Lawmakers at the hearing were particularly concerned with the impact of Instagram on children. Subcommittee Chair Richard Blumenthal said, “Facebook exploited teens using powerful algorithms that amplified their insecurities.” Haugen also spoke to the structural issues faced by the company, stating that, “Facebook is stuck in a cycle where it struggles to hire. That causes it to understaff projects, which causes scandals, which then makes it harder to hire.” During her time at Facebook, Haugen “worked on the counter-espionage team, and at any given time… could only handle a third of the cases,” due to lack of manpower. Haugen does not believe Facebook should be broken up, but instead encourages more stringent regulation of the platform. Chair Blumenthal is discussing the proposal to allow private citizens to sue Facebook and other social media companies for harm caused by their algorithms. Currently, a law known as Section 230 immunizes social media companies from being sued over what users post, however Blumenthal is interested in “curtailing that legal shield and immunity so as to give victims… some recourse.” Other legislative responses currently being considered include a national privacy law and stronger safeguards for children online. Lawmakers insist that Haugen’s leak of internal documents and Senate testimony have motivated Capitol Hill to take action against Facebook. In response to the Senate hearing, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said, “we continue to make significant improvements to tackle misinformation and harmful content.” Stone also questioned Haugen’s credibility on matters pertaining teen mental health, stating that “Frances Haugen did not work on child safety or Instagram, or research these issues, and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook.” However, Samidh Chakrabati, the former leader of the Civic Integrity Political Misinformation team at Facebook, said on Twitter, “there are countless other integrity professionals with experience on the issues raised today… who similarly agree with the substantive points shared at the hearing.” Going Forward This leak may inspire other whistleblowers to come forward. According to Haugen’s legal team, inquiries from other potential whistleblowers have been raised, and another SEC complaint was filed in October. The damning evidence brought to light by Frances Haugen has ignited a push to regulate Facebook and other social media giants. Haugen herself has expressed a desire to “start a youth movement,” to restore power among a portion of the population whose lives to date have been unquantifiably influenced by social media. Hopefully, this most recent leak will be enough to actualize Haugen’s desire for large-scale change.

Australia's treatment of children, particularly Indigenous and asylum-seeking children, violates global human rights standards and raises several critical questions: Why are these vulnerable children subjected to such mistreatment, and why does Australia continue to incarcerate and detain them unlawfully? What purpose are these punitive measures serving for Australia as an ongoing colonial project, and why are Australian people allowing such blatant violations of both national and global human rights to be carried out in their name? < Back Australia’s Colonial Logic of Child Imprisonment: How Indigenous Incarceration and Asylum Seeker Detention Violate Human Rights Finn Leary for Amnesty Menton October 31, 2024 Australia is a nation predicated on a fair go for all; a country that prides itself on its multiculturalism. Yet, these mythologies fail to stack up when applied to the First Nations People, who are victims of discrimination and marginalization. The same can be said when one looks at Australia’s vilification and demonization of refugees and asylum seekers. Australia’s carceral and immigration systems—systems designed to uphold and perpetuate a white, Anglo-centric Australia—continue to violate human rights, especially those of children. Indigenous youth are disproportionately affected by hyper-incarceration, facing imprisonment rates that far exceed those of non-Indigenous youth and global averages for youth incarceration. Although only about 5.7% of people aged 10–17 in Australia are First Nations, 63% of the children in detention on an average day in 2023 were First Nations. This means they are 29 times as likely as a non-Indigenous child to be in detention. For children aged 10-13, this figure rises to 46 times. The incarceration and brutal treatment of Indigenous youth in detention is a direct extension of the colonial logic that saw children removed, excluded and missionized in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is the Stolen Generations all over again—a period where Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their families—simply in a new form. It seems inevitable that, like Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 2008 apology , there will be many apologies to come for these concurrent violations of humanity. Despite a promise to eliminate the detention of all children by the end of 2019, asylum-seeking children remain in detention and alternative arrangements. The treatment of these children has been described as highly damaging, cruel, degrading and unlawful. Australia's treatment of children, particularly Indigenous and asylum-seeking children, violates global human rights standards and raises several critical questions: Why are these vulnerable children subjected to such mistreatment, and why does Australia continue to incarcerate and detain them unlawfully? What purpose are these punitive measures serving for Australia as an ongoing colonial project, and why are Australian people allowing such blatant violations of both national and global human rights to be carried out in their name? These questions demand serious reflection on Australia's commitment to justice, equality and human rights, especially as a nation predicated on a “fair go.” The answers shed light on the lasting impacts of colonialism and the twisted ways in which the colonial project continues to be upheld. The following stories are those of children who have been victims of Australia’s disgraceful carceral system and immigration system. These stories should unsettle, disturb and enrage. In February this year, the Queensland government released a report on the deaths of two boys who had spent extensive time in solitary confinement while in youth detention. Both were First Nations children with disabilities. Despite this, they were kept in solitary confinement for prolonged periods, a practice that the United Nations Expert on Torture has consistently urged to be abolished. The first spent 128 nights in detention, with 78% of that time isolated in his cell; the second spent 55 days locked in his cell alone for over 22 hours each day. Both had been repeatedly detained from the ages of 11 and 13. Both boys committed suicide following incarceration. This report arrived at the same time as the Queensland and Northern Territory governments are pushing to reduce the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 years. Queensland has had to suspend its Human Rights Act to rush through legislation to make this possible. The newly elected Northern Territory government is set to pass similar legislation in its first parliamentary session. These practices—of locking up young and vulnerable Indigenous youth—are fundamental to the youth carceral system in Australia. Incarcerating Indigenous youth sustains the prison-industrial complex, notably in remote and rural areas, by employing law enforcement, corrections officers, social workers, legal professionals and support staff. It costs approximately $1.03 million per annum to lock up one child, money that could be diverted into consistent and long-term community care and support services. Incarceration is the bedrock of coloniality in the modern era. It is the tool with which Indigenous sovereignty is denied. It is a continuation of the exclusions, interventions and social controls faced by Indigenous children over the past two centuries, cloaked in the legitimacy of pursuing ‘community safety’. As Matthews & Holden assert, “Whether on a mission or in a cell, Aboriginal movement is contained to prevent the transfer of language, knowledge, ceremony and culture to their descendants.” Asylum-seeking children continue to face a similar fate in Australia, driven by the same underlying logic of exclusion, control and dehumanization. Mandatory offshore detention has deeply damaged many lives over the past two decades, compounding the adversity, trauma and loss of family that many asylum seekers have experienced. Children forced to flee, often unaccompanied, from war, persecution, violence, sexual abuse and forced recruitment have found themselves detained, imprisoned, and isolated in Australian territory rather than receiving the protection and care they desperately needed. The National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention found that some children had spent over five years in detention before their applications were processed—for no reason other than to serve as examples of Australia’s ‘firm stance’ on ‘illegal’ immigration. The impact on the mental and physical health of these children has been severe, with over half of those detained experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harming behaviors and heightened anxiety or depression. A young child on Nauru, the site of one of the offshore detention centers, when asked about her experiences, said , “Of all the bad things that have already happened now, I feel I wish I died at sea instead of dying slowly here.” Another unaccompanied child said , “I don’t care about a visa anymore. I want to finish everything. My life is very difficult. I don’t understand why I am here. I am beginning to feel crazy; my situation is very bad and getting worse. I am alone, no family, nobody here. I’ve been here 15 months; I need to do something.” While no Australian government has officially abandoned mandatory indefinite detention, its application is in significant decline . However, this decline has led to a greater reliance on other punitive measures, such as the Temporary Bridging Visa Scheme. The story of Mano Yogalingam speaks to the failings of this scheme, particularly for asylum-seeking children. On Wednesday, the 28th of August, Tamil asylum seeker Mano Yogalingam self-immolated, setting himself on fire in an eastern suburb of Melbourne. He was a key organizer of protests calling for an end to the temporary visa scheme . Mano had arrived in Australia as a 12-year-old fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka. After spending over a year in detention, Mano was placed on a bridging visa. Ten years later, he remained on that bridging visa—his imprisonment had simply taken on a new form. This temporary bridging visa scheme has been designed to make asylum seekers deportable or re-detainable. By keeping people on this visa indefinitely it destabilizes and undermines their place in the Australian community. Many on the visa scheme are denied education, healthcare, and the right to work—leaving them trapped in poverty and positions of social exclusion, unable to access basic services or opportunities for self-sufficiency. This scheme—underpinned by a harsh regime of surveillance, control, and punishment—lies at the heart of the government's relentless strategy to punish and deter asylum seekers. So, where does the real connection lie between these two issues? Both Indigenous youth and children seeking asylum in Australia have been “othered” to serve as scapegoats, “othered” through being framed discursively as threats to security and community safety. Australia’s systems are rooted in settler-colonial norms and values upheld by racist institutions and political ideology. These systems are inherently designed to prioritize certain groups and "standards" over others while excluding those deemed incompatible with settler-societies norms. In Orientalism (1995), Edward Said asserted that modern colonialism relies entirely on having a knowledge system that separates the colonizer from the colonized. Said infers that those blatant forms of colonial violence—genocide, enslavement and segregation—have gradually been replaced by less visible expressions of coloniality, such as immigration laws, sterilization practices, child welfare apprehensions and an over-reliance on carceral systems. Institutionalized settler colonial norms and ideologies of whiteness have become so normalized that these racial hierarchies are rendered invisible. Australia as a country has been founded upon dangerous myths—myths that today express themselves in the eradication and silencing of certain minorities. These issues will not change without a strong commitment to meaningful truth-telling processes at both the community and national level. The more that history reveals its truths, contradicting the accepted “facts,” the more cracks appear in mythologised colonial narratives. This is the idea Naomi Klein describes in Doppelganger , referencing the discovered mass graves of First Nations children at Canadian missionary schools. In an age of resurging ultra-nationalism and far-right authoritarian governments, it seems these issues will continue to be complex battlegrounds. Given the widespread collapse of the rules-based international order and the erosion of international humanitarian and human rights laws , it is more important than ever that pressure is placed on our governments domestically to uphold commitments to human rights. This must begin with stronger commitments to our children, particularly the most vulnerable among them .