Through the trees we could hear the jostling and grunts of a successful pickup

Within the darkest part of our minds, we both struggled with admiration for these mythological, sexual hedonists. We live in a society consumed with sex: the way those third year girls (and guys) seductively mince around the ASS library, the shoes we put on in the morning and the way we hold our cigarettes, it’s all meant to ask that timeless question: ‘Wouldn’t you like to mate with me darling?’ Yet for some reason the words seldom leave our lips. So who wouldn’t raise a glass to the cruiser? The gentleman of the night that casts aside the aftershave, says no to grooming and just bloody well gets on with it.

Dogging is the activity, dare-I-say-it lifestyle choice, of watching couples copulate au naturel. You’re also allowed to provide spectators with your own performance if you’re that way inclined. Gay cruising, which occurs in the same area, is when like-minded homosexuals hook up for a night of no-strings-attached tomfoolery in the woods.

There are two main al fresco fornication sites on the Downs. The heterosexual variety tends to be along Ladies Mile, with its homosexual counterpart found along the Circular Road, near the clifftop from which you can see the suspension bridge. Along the Circular Road there is a stretch where cars tend to accumulate and that is where we found ourselves on the first night.
We cautiously tapped upon the window of a parked hatchback; the dogger’s and cruiser’s vehicle of choice it seemed. Inside was a balding middle aged man in a black leather jacket. Was this the uniform of the cruiser? And did our trendy, well-cut threads, despite looking really sexy, make it clear enough that we weren’t there for any trousers-down revelry? This gentleman was, of course, a ‘bird watcher’, who often came for ‘bird watching’ when he found the time, even if it was pitch-black. He interestingly lamented that a great many shrubs and trees had been removed. Was this a tacit nod to the 2008 incident when Bristol City Council was accused of discriminating against homosexual men by pruning the bushes and removing some of the trees from around the edges of the downs? We never did find out.

Our second acquaintance of the night was slightly less friendly and definitely less up for our wannabe-journalist tripe, stating in a somewhat threatening fashion that ‘not much dogging happens here, but other stuff does…’
On the second night we learnt what he meant by this. It is not in fact a dogging site but predominantly a gay cruising site! After five minutes of loitering outside the car a young looking Brazilian man flirtatiously walked by, eyeing us up in the process. After stating that women were the reason we were there, he told us in a crestfallen manner that there were absolutely no females. ‘No’, he said in his rich South American accent, ‘It’s only gays’. Still, we decided to move on into the woods unperturbed, with Lucas – for that was the Brazilian’s name – as our tour guide to the dark world of gay-cruising. Despite its period of decline, Lucas claimed that the cruising was as good as in Brazil, and was eager to show us the ropes.

All we had read about cruising flashed into our minds. The violence that homosexual men suffer at the hands of moronic ‘gay bashers’ was a distant but frightening possibility. We pictured ourselves being held down and whacked around the face whilst proclaiming our adoration of boobs, beer and all things straight.

 Lucas took the opportunity to grab my crotch, no doubt spurred on by the romance of the situation.

As we stumbled over trees in the dark we could see the anonymous shadows of big men at regular intervals. Despite the seedy circumstances, it was clear that these men were not malicious or rapey. There appeared to be a form of etiquette which, much like everything else that evening, was tacitly agreed upon. As we came to a clearing, through the trees we could hear the jostling and grunts of a successful pickup. Lucas took the opportunity to grab my crotch, no doubt spurred on by the romance of the situation. After pleasantly declining the invitation we shook hands and made our separate ways, wishing each other a pleasant Bank Holiday.
As liberal as us English students may be (or may want to be), it’s hard to think of such activities as anything but depraved. Even Lucas, who unusually made a special effort to see his partner’s face to avoid ‘the ugly older men’, was content with probing an absolute stranger. Similar stuff may happen during and after Lounge, but at least there’s an attempt, however half-hearted, at courtship and wooing. The physicality of the initiation process was charmless, animalistic and sordid.
But ultimately, from a students’ point of view, should we worry about crossing the Downs? Will we find ourselves limping back having been gratuitously buggered by Bristol’s cruising community? As common as such jokes may be, they are only jokes. There’s a designated, isolated place for cruising, and those we met there were surprisingly gentle and respectful. After all, it could have been your dad. So if you’re ever crossing the Downs at night don’t be scared. And you see a small Hispanic chap with a naughty look in his eye tell him George and Patrick were asking after him.

For millions of people around the world, running away from war, persecution, or political enemies and into the unknown is a terrifying reality. In 2011, almost 20,000 asylum applications were made to the UK alone.. The bulk of them come from countries with poor human rights records or ongoing conflict; some having faced horrors we can’t even begin to imagine.

Yet, many of us are uncomfortable with people who look different, speak different and act different. To make matters worse, we’re constantly told that these refugees and asylum seekers are a threat to our domestic employment, increase the crime rate, and generally come to our country to sit on their bums and burden the benefit system which is already straining at the seams. Why should we compensate for the failures of other countries?

For a refugee, escaping from immediate danger is only the beginning – the journey to a place of asylum is made under horrific conditions, and those crammed onto boats or overcrowded lorries are often subjected to violence. Traumatised by these events, the millions of men, women and children who seek asylum worldwide are desperate for help when they arrive to a safe country. With no way to fend for themselves, no English and no knowledge of the complicated legislation, the application for asylum can seem as daunting a task as the journey itself.

The most recent introduction to the UKBA is the fast track detention system. Nicknamed ‘fast track to despair’, the short time frame for decisions often compromises on the effectiveness of screening. Asylum seekers experiencing high levels of stress and fear are expected to recount their complete horror stories to a stranger (solicitor) within half an hour. Whatever information gathered is presented to the courts and a decision is made within three days. The detainees have no further access to legal advice. If the UK deems their home country to be safe enough, then they are refused asylum and returned back to it. ‘To be led off to a detention centre – sometimes in handcuffs – as soon as they arrive, is a far from humane way of being treated for persons who did nothing else than ask to be protected,’ says Roland Shilling, UNHCR officer. Why, then, do so many of us see these victims as unwelcome strangers rather than sympathising or offering support? Why is it that so many negative stereotypes of refugees exist?

Refugees are often seen as benefit thieves, freeloaders or even security threats, and yet, according to the Refugee Council, most know nothing about welfare benefits before they arrive and have no expectations of financial support.Here is something to consider the next time you hear someone claim that refugees and asylum seekers get too many perks and handouts: cash support is set at only £36.62 a week. This works out to about £5.23 a day for food, sanitation and clothing. Another common misconception is that asylum seekers jump the queue for council housing – the reality is that they cannot choose where they live, and almost always end up in ‘hard to let’ properties, where others do not want to live. Finally, on the issue of public expenditure, it is noteworthy that refugees make huge contributions to the UK economy. Since 1972, an approximate 30,000 jobs have been created in Leicester by Ugandan Asian refugees. Also, immigrants (including refugees) contribute more towards government revenue than your average Brit. The reason is that they pay a higher rate of income tax but tend to have the same expenditure.

The least we can do, therefore, is to try to empathise with those who are granted asylum; to keep in mind what they have been through and the struggles they still face in day to day life; to remember that if we were in their position, we would appreciate any gesture of kindness or friendship, and a sense of belonging, of finally being home.

Today, however, the advent of Web 2.0 has started to change the way we think about the afterlife, or, more accurately, our digital life-after-death. Social networking profiles, email accounts and online subscriptions have an unnerving propensity to outlive their users, and the reality of our ‘digital legacy’ is one that many of us are now coming to terms with. The average individual in the UK spends 37.3 hours online every month, leaving a data trail of around 45 gigabytes glittering in their wake: a ‘digital footprint’ that constitutes everything from online photo libraries to reading habits, and everything in between. How much of this material might come back to haunt us? ‘People are only just starting to talk about this’, says Joshy Thomas, an intellectual property lawyer, ‘for example, what happens to our Facebook page when we die? Or our email archive?’

It’s a good question, and one that many registered companies have taken their time clearing up. Facebook now allow for a wall to be ‘memorialised’ which removes features like status updates and permits only confirmed friends to view the profile and post comments on it, whilst Hotmail allows relatives to order a CD of all the messages in a deceased user’s account if they provide a death certificate and proof of power of attorney.

The rapid digitalisation of our day-to-day lives has also created a number of other issues for internet users across the board, from the average Joe to the Hollywood A-lister. Last year it was reported that Bruce Willis was allegedly planning an open-assault on the Apple tower after learning he wasn’t legally entitled to bequeath his digital music collection, held on his ‘many, many iPods’ to his children when he died. ‘iHard!’ screamed the tabloids, although they quickly simmered down after Willis’s wife quashed the rumours on Twitter. Nevertheless, the episode helped switched a lot of people on to the inconvenient truths surrounding legal downloads. ‘A lot of people will get a similar shock when they realise this is the situation,’said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for digital rights. ‘There will soon be a lot of upset customers, not just for Apple, but also for Amazon and all the other companies selling digital content, such as books, which operate these licence agreements. We have no rights over the digital goods we buy.’

The problem of who-owns-what on the internet has therefore become a peculiar anomaly for those putting their reputation online and on the line: things that we don’t want to stick around on our digital legacy prove almost impossible to get rid of, whilst those prized record collections we’d like to pass on are summarily snapped back into the ether. Ashes to data caches, and vice versa. Thankfully, new European social media privacy laws are seeking to redress this imbalance, championing citizens’ ‘right to be forgotten’, which would return control of personal data to the user. Viviane Reding, the EU justice commissioner, said: ‘at present a citizen can request deletion only if [data is] incomplete or incorrect. We want to extend this right to make it stronger in this internet world. The burden of proof shall be on the companies. They will have to show that data is needed.’ Bureaucratic wheels tend to turn slowly, and in the meantime the Guardian have taken it upon themselves to publish a nine point guide on ‘How to delete your digital life’. Eyes front, Paris Brown.

For some social networkers, the end is no longer even an imposition. App tools such as If I Die and DeadSocial allow the more moribund technophiles among us to manage their Facebook and Twitter accounts from beyond the grave. Unnervingly, the posthumous Twitter service LivesOn aims to replicate users’ tweets by learning their ‘likes, tastes, [and] syntax’ to continue posting similar messages after they’ve passed on, promising: ‘when your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting’ It’s all a little ghoulish, but it’s also good fun. How many years before #itoldyouiwasill starts trending?

For those unaware of the exact history of the Genocide, here goes. Several Armenians resided within the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the 19th century. The nationalist Sultan targeted Armenians by raising their taxes and creating religious animosity between the Islamic portion of the country and the Christian Armenians. This repressive violence silenced rebellious Armenians, to allow the creation of ‘Turkey for Turks’; the best way to stay alive was to conform to Ottoman Turkish values.

The massacre began on 24th April 1915, when 250 intellectuals were killed. This resulted in the Sultan’s emergency decree obliging ‘all Armenians to leave the country’, followed by the systematic deportation of all villages. Rape was prolific throughout the process, with victims as young as six years old. Most were killed through forced labour in camps or on death marches through Syrian deserts in perishable conditions. Maria Jacobsen, a survivor, saw that ‘not even animals were found in this situation’, they were ‘food for the dogs’. The death toll is estimated at 1.5m Armenians; the Ottoman soldier’s mantra was ‘if you kill a certain number of Armenians, the door to hell will become the door to heaven’.

Nevertheless, numerous first-hand accounts and statistics are not enough, as the refusal to accept the term ‘Genocide’ is widespread. Instead, euphemisms have been created such as ‘Medz Yeghern’ (Armenian for Great Crime), used by President Obama during a 2011 commemorative speech. The United Nations defines genocide as ‘any act committed with intent to destroy a racial or religious group’. Indeed, prominent scholars such as Niall Ferguson acknowledge that 1915 saw the first of the modern genocides. Yet, to this day, Turkish officials fiercely reject these claims. Gunduz Aktan, former Turkish ambassador, said in 2000 that ‘Turkey believes that what happened to the Armenians was not genocide [but] relocation to other parts of the Ottoman Empire’. So why does Turkey not accept their part in the Genocide? Acceptance would mean the same Nazi stain would envelop Turkey just as it begins to emerge as a major international player. Political worker Christine Maydossian interprets the controversy as a failure of ‘protection of human life’ because ‘as long as the necessity for retribution is overlooked, the path toward a righteous world remains skewed’.

Despite the animosity created by the controversy, most Armenians do not place any blame on the new Turkish generation. Jeanette Haritounian, a participant of the annual London marches, merely asks ‘why [one] would falsify history with such ignorance?’ The real tragedy lies in the fact that only 20 countries and 42 American states have recognized the Armenian Genocide. Similarly, the average person on the street is oblivious to Armenian genocide: the forgotten holocaust these atrocities. Arguably, the closest Armenians got to receiving closure were with France’s 2011 bill making Genocide denial illegal. Yet, Turkey successfully pressured France to withdraw this.

If nothing else comes from reading this article, other than being informed of another pivotal moment in history then so be it. Armenians around the world patiently wait for the time when this subject can be discussed alongside other questions of scholarly truth. Just for one moment, imagine that over half the world did not accept the Jewish Holocaust as the methodical mass killings of 6 million people; imagine that denying this event was not illegal. This is what the Armenians suffer from: incomplete mourning. As the 100-year anniversary approaches, Armenians hope that Hitler’s chilling words will not be upheld. The Armenians have certainly not forgotten the human tragedy of 1915, the story will be passed onto generations – exemplified by the poetry of William Saroyan – ‘when two Armenians meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia’ – until one day they are given the respect of it being an internationally recognized moment in history.

For many international academics this search has led them away from the brutal myopia of their respective regimes but ultimately towards persecution and in too many cases, assassination. The challenges facing academics and students living in oppressive and violent political climates often seem insurmountable, but with support from various organisations such as CARA (Council for Assisting Refugee Academics) and SAR (Scholars at Risk Network), many disenfranchised academics are able to continue their work overseas to the benefit of all.

One particularly pressing example of the struggle for academic freedom is the Syrian conflict. Whilst their home nation is in the grips of a bloody civil war, over 600 Syrian students and academics have come to work in the UK Bristol University is part of the Scholars At Risk UK Universities Network which aims to deflect some of the difficulties that arise from being a disenfranchised academic in exile. Many are female academics – for whom the challenges are often far greater. The network helps with various issues such as the acquisition of visas, fee waivers and living costs.
British universities are considered to be among the best in the world and we have a duty within our academic community to protect and export academic freedom, which will help achieve an ultimate goal of spreading valuable knowledge throughout the world.

In Syria, each university is controlled by the Ba’ath Party, which appoints all deans and chairmen as well as having security units within each university that interrogate students and professors who carry out ‘suspicious activities.’ With 75,000 deaths so far, one million refuges and 2.5m internally displaced citizens, the Syrian crisis is a human catastrophe and their needs are abundant. Establishing academic norms within Syria should indeed be a goal, but it is hard to know how to begin in light of the January bombing which killed nearly 100 students and staff at Aleppo University and the struggle for survival that Syrian nationals are facing every day. Leading journalists on Syria such as Charles Glass and Jonathan Steele argue that western military intervention could make the Syrian crisis worse. Perhaps instead we can offer an intellectual safe-haven in which to foster the belief and acumen in the young (and old) minds of Syrians who must play an integral part in establishing the future of Syria if it is to emerge from the ongoing horrors with any semblance of freedom and ambition.

Syria is not the only troubled nation; there are other ongoing threats to academic freedom worldwide, with over 400 murdered Iraqi academics since the beginning of the war as just one example. CARA and SAR are trying to provide international hope, hope that mankind can protect one of its most valued assets in the face of adversity. In 1933 at one of the first meetings of CARA in the Royal Albert Hall, Albert Einstein implored his audience to ‘resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom.’ It’s clear that they have done a pretty brilliant job; a project that began 80 years ago in response to Nazi policy has helped its members go on to win 16 Nobel Prizes, 18 knighthoods and well over a hundred were elected as fellows of The Royal Society and The British Academy. With all the intellectual freedom and wealth that we enjoy here in the UK, it’s reassuring to know that there are still some people intent on sharing it around.

If you want to read about the organisation’s astonishing successes and ongoing efforts go to: http://www.academic-refugees.org/about-cara.asp