Notes

My interest in politics came to peak after witnessing the effects of colonialism still apparent in present day. This ranges from the education specification, our perception of beauty, and existing maps. The world’s most popular map, the Mercator projection is misleading as it doesn’t project the right shapes of countries as the sizes are in favour of how wealthy the lands are. In the Mercator projection, North America looks larger than Africa. But, in reality Africa is much larger than both. North America could fit into Africa and still have space for India, Argentina, and Tunisia. The Mercator projection shows a euro-centric bias and manipulates the world's perception of developing countries. Also I was interested in the role of corrupt government and foreign intervention. Malala Yousafzai’s book discusses village politics, the culture of Swat, and the Taliban’s role in everyday affairs. It showed the impact corrupt leaders can have and how easily they join external parties for their own benefit against the demise of their country, an approach many world leaders take. My holidays in Bangladesh and India I witnessed the complexities of these lower countries. Michael Wood’s, The Story of India served as a guide to the history and development of the country; I saw the cultures and landscapes, and the links to former empires and remaining monuments, whilst giving me an understanding of the country’s religion and politics. One being the dispute over the division of the Indo-Bangladeshi border and the existence of over 190 enclaves. This made me look further into colonialism and how many new nations were born, many which had not existed within the post-colonial borders.

I also have an interest in European politics alongside British politics. Brexit made me interested in Eastern Europe as one of the main argument for leave was immigration. I read ‘The Political Traditions of Eastern Europe’ by George Schöpflin in which he refers to Eastern Europe as politically backwards. Stalinist Russia allowed communist dominated governments take power over these countries. By 1949, all the governments of Eastern Europe, except Yugoslavia, were Stalinist regimes with no democracy. Now, there is political pluralism in these countries and are independent states since the interwar period with their own ethnic and social identities. In globalised politics, my interests focused on the gender pay gap and the politics of women’s rights. I read Kate Milett’s book ‘Sexual Politics’ in which she claims “sex is deep at the heart of our troubles” as the sexualisation of power is the basis of oppression. My view on this is that the sexualisation of power makes up the political system of inequality and enhances male superiority over all women from the bedroom to the globe. Currently in the UK there are only 191 female MPs, out of a total 650 members of parliament. The lack of female representation has inspired me to take action and encourage change in the political world, as representation is important, even more for our POC and LGBT community.

A seminar at SOAS taught me how influential politics is in changing lives and how it could make a positive difference to ethnic relations in the developing world by the analysis of events in Mozambique. My week at Warwick studying politics and international relations taught me about austerity and its consequences through the publication of the Panama Papers and the collapse of the Doha oil negotiations. Listening to the ‘Axe Files with David Axelrod’ interviewing Bernie Sanders about his views on corporate tax, wages and education and health system, I found political similarities to Corbynomics. His leftist views made me interested in my local left wing politician Stephen Timms’ politics school where I experienced local, national politics and discovered more about the role of media and businesses in politics and their interaction with the public.

My passion for this degree is supported by my other A-Levels. In Classical Civilisation I have seen how a dictatorship can come to power through the studies of Athenian Imperialism. Similarly, in English I have seen how literature is influenced by the politics of the time such as dictatorship by the likes of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. History has taught me to analyse the motives behind laws and Religious Studies has shown the role of philosophy and religion in our secular legal system. I am a well-rounded student and by studying essay-based subjects, it has given me the ability to analyse and think logically about the situation and provide a balanced argument. Besides academia, I am an adaptable person and I have the necessary qualities to shine as a student and a caring person in a community. I believe that my skills and my enthusiasm will be useful for this degree and to achieve my goal of representing minorities in politics.