:00:00. > :00:09.Iceland's Prime Minister quits
:00:10. > :00:12.after revelations in the Panama Papers.
:00:13. > :00:16.Our Prime minister insists he's tough on corruption,
:00:17. > :00:18.so is it time to impose direct rule
:00:19. > :00:22.on the tax havens who answer to Britain?
:00:23. > :00:24.As trouble brews in paradise, we'll put that
:00:25. > :00:33.Companies in Bermuda pay taxes, I am the taxman, I am the finance
:00:34. > :00:36.minister, I can tell you, that we pay taxes.
:00:37. > :00:38.And the former foreign office minister who took
:00:39. > :00:52.back control of the Turks and Caicos tells us how he would do it now.
:00:53. > :00:56.One week on from news that Port Talbot is up for sale, ministers are
:00:57. > :00:58.to consider loaning money for a new power plant to bring down its huge
:00:59. > :01:01.energy bills. How much our energy costs and the government energy
:01:02. > :01:04.policy really to blame for the problems. And will anyone pay up for
:01:05. > :01:06.its multi-billion pound pension burden? We will ask the former
:01:07. > :01:13.pensions Minister for his view. the new prince of pop is under
:01:14. > :01:18.attack for his hair style. Are Justin Bieber's white
:01:19. > :01:19.dreadlocks an insult The Panama Papers have
:01:20. > :01:40.claimed their first scalp. A big one, the Prime Minister
:01:41. > :01:42.of Iceland, Sigmundur Gunnauggson, who, the papers revealed,
:01:43. > :01:44.set up a company in the British Virgin Islands
:01:45. > :01:47.with his wife and then, when he entered parliament,
:01:48. > :01:49.failed to declare it. Our own Prime minister who had been
:01:50. > :01:52.under pressure over the revelation of his late father's involvement
:01:53. > :01:55.in a Panama based fund for investors, today insisted he had
:01:56. > :01:57.no shares, no offshore trusts
:01:58. > :01:58.and no offshore funds. It is the central role which British
:01:59. > :02:01.dependencies have played in what Jeremy Corbyn today called
:02:02. > :02:03.the encouragement of tax avoidance on an industrial scale that led him
:02:04. > :02:07.to echo the call made by the former Business Secretary Vince Cable
:02:08. > :02:09.on Newsnight last night for the imposition of direct rule
:02:10. > :02:28.on British overseas territories VOICEOVER: The Panama papers have
:02:29. > :02:34.claimed their first big scalp. CHEERING
:02:35. > :02:36.A crowd here in Reykjavik have been demanding the resignation of
:02:37. > :02:40.Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, the prime on a stir of Iceland, if you days ago
:02:41. > :02:47.he was dismissing claims that he had hidden wealth offshore in Panama and
:02:48. > :02:51.today he quit over the scandal, his finance minister also implicated is
:02:52. > :02:56.still hanging on. David Cameron has come in for some heat as well, his
:02:57. > :03:02.late father, who worked in finance, used Panama as well. I own no
:03:03. > :03:06.shares, I have a salary as Prime Minister, and I have some savings,
:03:07. > :03:11.which I get some interest from, and I have a house which we used to live
:03:12. > :03:16.in, which we now let out while we are living in Downing Street, that
:03:17. > :03:20.is all I have. No shares, no offshore trust, no offshore funds,
:03:21. > :03:25.nothing like that. The Labour leader focused today not an Panama but on
:03:26. > :03:28.some of the British Overseas Territories, 14 of them, former
:03:29. > :03:34.crown Colonies, still dependent on the UK. Many, like Montserrat and
:03:35. > :03:38.the Falklands, have not become financial centres, others, have made
:03:39. > :03:42.their way onto lists of tax havens. There is particular attention on bee
:03:43. > :03:46.media, in the Atlantic, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman
:03:47. > :03:50.Islands in the Caribbean, and Gibraltar, in Europe. These
:03:51. > :03:52.territories are accused of enabling excessive secrecy, of the sort that
:03:53. > :03:58.allow the Icelandic Prime Minister to keep his investments hidden in
:03:59. > :04:01.Panama. You can go through the British Virgin Islands, classic
:04:02. > :04:07.case, you can incorporate a company very cheaply there, and then you
:04:08. > :04:10.can, that company can own assets, and even though you, the rich
:04:11. > :04:15.person, are the beneficial owner of the company, you can put nominees in
:04:16. > :04:18.the way. If you go to the British Virgin Islands and try to find out
:04:19. > :04:22.more about the company, and I have done that myself, you bang your head
:04:23. > :04:25.against a brick wall. To give you a sense of what this secrecy means on
:04:26. > :04:32.the ground, this is a company filing from the British Virgin Islands, LW
:04:33. > :04:36.group Limited, 350578. It tells you the number of the lawyers who set up
:04:37. > :04:40.the company and their address, the company current lawyers, and their
:04:41. > :04:45.address. What it does not tell you is that this company is the owner of
:04:46. > :04:50.a number of large British companies, namely, yodel, the delivery company,
:04:51. > :04:53.and Littlewoods, the shop, it is not tell you who the shareholders are,
:04:54. > :04:57.it is the Barclay brothers in this case. We can work out from filings
:04:58. > :05:00.elsewhere what the Barclay brothers company is but other owners have
:05:01. > :05:06.stayed off the radar. What can the Foreign Office do? Jeremy Corbyn
:05:07. > :05:11.alluded to the fact that in 2009, London imposed a wrecked role on the
:05:12. > :05:14.Turks and Caicos Islands because of local corruption, he suggested the
:05:15. > :05:18.Foreign Office to do the same for overseas Territories who do not play
:05:19. > :05:22.ball on secrecy. Actually it is more likely they would use another power.
:05:23. > :05:29.The Foreign Office's final big lever is legal, it can pass laws or order
:05:30. > :05:32.council through the Privy Council Office the territories into line,
:05:33. > :05:37.that relies upon the overseas territories doing as they are told,
:05:38. > :05:40.and not declaring independence. Some of the bigger overseas territories,
:05:41. > :05:45.like Bermuda, may be tempted by that path. The Foreign Office considers
:05:46. > :05:51.this a nuclear option, they would prefer to chivvy and encourage but
:05:52. > :05:58.use little bargaining chips. The dramatic pressure is there preferred
:05:59. > :06:02.weapon. It is seen as a bunch of banana republics, people can dismiss
:06:03. > :06:05.that, what we are intimately involved in this issue, in this
:06:06. > :06:10.problem, we in Britain, and in Europe. European tax savings, the
:06:11. > :06:14.United States as well, the rich world is part of the problem, that
:06:15. > :06:18.is where the tax havens are, you are not going to stash money into
:06:19. > :06:22.Nigeria, you will stash it somewhere rich and developed. One thing has
:06:23. > :06:24.become clear, Ireland's tax havens are only one corner of the
:06:25. > :06:36.controversy around tax. -- island. STUDIO: Earlier I spoke
:06:37. > :06:39.to the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister
:06:40. > :06:40.of Bermuda Bob Richards and asked him what he says
:06:41. > :06:43.to Jeremy Corbyn's suggestion that places like Bermuda should be
:06:44. > :06:48.brought under direct rule. I would say that the need is a
:06:49. > :06:52.country that has its own constitution.
:06:53. > :06:57.We have a democratically elected government that operates under the
:06:58. > :07:00.rule of law under the Constitution, and the Constitution is an agreed
:07:01. > :07:08.document with the United Kingdom government. We would not expect the
:07:09. > :07:16.United Kingdom, a government that has great respect for the rule of
:07:17. > :07:21.law, to breach their own covenants. How do you justify to British
:07:22. > :07:25.taxpayers that you provide a place for people to hide the they are due
:07:26. > :07:33.to pay in the countries where they are based? That is a question based
:07:34. > :07:38.on a full is assumption. We have our own laws, our own taxes. Every
:07:39. > :07:45.company that incorporates in Bermuda has two provide the government
:07:46. > :07:49.agency, the bemused and monetary authority, the names of the
:07:50. > :07:57.beneficial owners of those companies. -- the Bermudan monetary
:07:58. > :08:00.authority. That includes trusts. It is a beneficial ownership register.
:08:01. > :08:04.You provide the information but you do not deny that they are not paying
:08:05. > :08:10.the taxes they are due to pay in their own country, for example,
:08:11. > :08:13.Britain. If the British authorities think that some Britain has a
:08:14. > :08:19.company in Bermuda, and they are not paying their taxes, we will assist
:08:20. > :08:25.the UK Government, your government's laws around taxes, are for them.
:08:26. > :08:29.Anything that we can do, the only thing we can do, is cooperate and
:08:30. > :08:34.assist with you when asked through the proper channels. Why do you
:08:35. > :08:41.think that in 2013, David Cameron said to Bermuda that you had to get
:08:42. > :08:47.your house in order? I think that he misspoke, quite frankly, because
:08:48. > :08:53.insofar as a business concern, the United Kingdom is planning to
:08:54. > :08:58.construct a beneficial ownership registry. So that you know that. --
:08:59. > :09:04.I'm sure that you know that. The media has had such a registry for 70
:09:05. > :09:12.years, 70... It does not mean that you are not a tax haven. Yes it
:09:13. > :09:15.does? Yes, it does, the people of Bermuda pay taxes, companies pay
:09:16. > :09:20.taxes, I am the taxman, I am the finance minister, I can tell you,
:09:21. > :09:27.the taxes come to about 18% of GDP. We pay taxes. Every time I put up
:09:28. > :09:32.taxes I get howls of from residents, as I did in this budget session. The
:09:33. > :09:36.notion that we can run a country, run a government, without taxes, is
:09:37. > :09:41.not really realistic. Do you put yourself in a different bracket from
:09:42. > :09:45.the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands? I'm not going to
:09:46. > :09:52.comment on overseas territories, the only thing I can say to you is this:
:09:53. > :09:56.there seems to be a tendency on the part of not just the UK but the UK
:09:57. > :10:02.included and other countries to treat all overseas territories the
:10:03. > :10:07.same. One size fits all. I continue categorically, one size does not fit
:10:08. > :10:12.all. The constitutions of those islands that you mention are
:10:13. > :10:16.different from Bermuda, we have a higher level of self-government,
:10:17. > :10:22.than they do. From the beginning, from 1947, our forebears had the
:10:23. > :10:26.notion that we did not want just anybody doing business in Bermuda,
:10:27. > :10:31.we would screen them and we would approve them, and discard the ones
:10:32. > :10:35.that did not meet our standards. That is the reason that you do not
:10:36. > :10:41.see the new dimensions in those Panama papers. By the way, I must
:10:42. > :10:43.remind you, the UK is mentioned in the Panama papers! But, not Bermuda.
:10:44. > :10:50.Thank you for joining us. STUDIO: Joining me now from Cardiff
:10:51. > :10:53.is Chris Bryant Labour MP who was the minister responsible
:10:54. > :10:56.for the last time we took powers imposed direct rule on the Turks
:10:57. > :11:01.and Caicos Islands in March 2009, though in that instance it was to do
:11:02. > :11:09.with a corruption scandal. Wait a minute, what a load of
:11:10. > :11:14.baloney you have heard, Bermuda certainly has no income tax, no
:11:15. > :11:20.property tax, no sales tax, no inheritance tax! It is a tax haven!
:11:21. > :11:22.The whole point of the way some overseas territories have
:11:23. > :11:28.constructed their tax regime is not just to be competitive, but is to
:11:29. > :11:34.attract people to try to hide their international assets there. Do you
:11:35. > :11:37.agree with Jeremy Corbyn that direct rule should be imposed on the
:11:38. > :11:41.territories and dependencies? The one thing that was said that was
:11:42. > :11:45.right, we should not treat them all exactly the same way. You have
:11:46. > :11:50.criticised Bermuda, could there be direct rule? Not tomorrow, no there
:11:51. > :11:55.should not, there are plenty of other powers that the UK Government
:11:56. > :11:59.already has, which it has, for some reason for the last six years it has
:12:00. > :12:03.been choosing not to exercise. Sorry to enter, let me clarify the
:12:04. > :12:08.position, is Jeremy Corbyn wrong to lump them together? He has not lump
:12:09. > :12:12.them together, we are not saying that we should suddenly install
:12:13. > :12:16.direct rule over the Falkland Islands, Pitcairn, the British
:12:17. > :12:21.Indian Ocean Territory! The point is really important, in Turks and
:12:22. > :12:26.Caicos, the cavernous is still chaired by the British governor. --
:12:27. > :12:29.the cabinet. All legislation must receive Royal assent, because they
:12:30. > :12:33.are part of the British Crown. There are plenty of powers that the
:12:34. > :12:39.government has. Let me give you one instance, when I was Foreign Office
:12:40. > :12:41.minister, in 2009/10, several of the financial services overseas
:12:42. > :12:45.territories, which Jeremy Peace writes 2.2, they were insignificant
:12:46. > :12:56.financial problems and they needed to borrow a lot of money. -- which
:12:57. > :13:01.is right to point to. I refuse to allow them to borrow more money,
:13:02. > :13:06.until such time as they brought in some broader tax basis, because it
:13:07. > :13:10.is one thing to try to have a competitive tax regime, I understand
:13:11. > :13:15.that, but it is another to have a set of rules which means that you
:13:16. > :13:18.can hide the beneficial ownership of significant assets from the rest of
:13:19. > :13:23.the world. It is worth bearing in mind that 8% of the worlds wealth is
:13:24. > :13:29.hidden. Let's be clear, a lot of what is being revealed and will
:13:30. > :13:36.still be revealed and is yet to be revealed was during Labour's watch.
:13:37. > :13:40.This is a long-standing problem. I agree.
:13:41. > :13:50.It is not one-sided fits all but is there an argument for taking Turks
:13:51. > :13:57.and Caicos under direct control and how would you do it? You would have
:13:58. > :14:02.two order in Council, a pretty straightforward process. But it is
:14:03. > :14:07.the implications of it. Of doing that, what would they be? They would
:14:08. > :14:13.be dramatic. That would be the nuclear option. I would say you need
:14:14. > :14:16.to use all the other powers and I'm mystified why why the Conservative
:14:17. > :14:22.government in 2010 or Coalition Government, decided to allow all bad
:14:23. > :14:25.are linked to go forward for all those other countries without
:14:26. > :14:30.requiring them to move forward on transparency. The one point in
:14:31. > :14:34.relation to Bermuda, which is key, it is all very well to gather
:14:35. > :14:38.information within Bermuda, on beneficial ownership, but you need
:14:39. > :14:44.to share that between all the different dependencies, overseas
:14:45. > :14:49.territories and the UK Government, to make sure you're doing it
:14:50. > :14:53.properly. And in the end, my constituents spit with fury when
:14:54. > :14:57.they hear that there is one set of rules for the ultra rich and another
:14:58. > :15:01.set of rules for everyone else. Everyone else has got to pay their
:15:02. > :15:07.fair share of tax and why should these big corporations not. Why
:15:08. > :15:13.should wash and go or kitten able to hide ownership of properties through
:15:14. > :15:17.companies in BBI or why should we in the UK not be able to know that the
:15:18. > :15:22.president of the United Arab Emirates owns vast chunks of the
:15:23. > :15:24.London property market. Thank you very much for that, Chris Bryant.
:15:25. > :15:27.There are two big imepdiments to a potential sale of Tata Steel,
:15:28. > :15:29.we'll deal with the massive pension burden in a moment,
:15:30. > :15:34.but the other is the cost of energy, twice what Germany pays.
:15:35. > :15:36.Industry, and not just the steel industry,
:15:37. > :15:40.But is there an inventive way to tempt a buyer in,
:15:41. > :15:45.through an energy deal, or is energy a red herring?
:15:46. > :15:47.Here's the FT's energy correspondent Kiran Stacey,
:15:48. > :15:56.who we asked to shed some light on the issue.
:15:57. > :15:59.Among the attempts to save steel-making at Port Talbot,
:16:00. > :16:02.one intriguing idea sits on the table.
:16:03. > :16:09.Supposing the government could lend the money
:16:10. > :16:11.for a buyer to build their own gas power station
:16:12. > :16:14.The cripplingly high energy costs, about which Tata has
:16:15. > :16:16.repeatedly complained, would no longer be an impediment.
:16:17. > :16:24.But how much are energy costs and the government energy
:16:25. > :16:26.policy really to blame for the company's problems?
:16:27. > :16:31.When steel companies are put under pressure and profit
:16:32. > :16:35.margins are squeezed, or even wiped out completely,
:16:36. > :16:38.those fixed costs and costs with reasonable variations,
:16:39. > :16:40.like electricity, become a much bigger issue.
:16:41. > :16:44.And that is what we have seen over the last two or three years.
:16:45. > :16:46.There is no question that electricity prices for heavy
:16:47. > :16:50.Higher in fact than any other country in the EU.
:16:51. > :16:57.One explanation is the subsidies given to renewables such as wind
:16:58. > :17:05.Like us, their subsidies are paid for by putting levies
:17:06. > :17:09.But unlike us, the German government has given large industrial users
:17:10. > :17:14.9 billion euros back on their bills since 2013.
:17:15. > :17:22.In that time the UK has paid out just ?160 million.
:17:23. > :17:24.Melting steel at temperatures of almost 1300 Celsius
:17:25. > :17:30.But how much of an impact do energy prices and green subsidies actually
:17:31. > :17:37.Of that 9.5p per kilowatt hour of electricity that UK heavy
:17:38. > :17:41.industry paid in 2014, this is how it broke down.
:17:42. > :17:46.The raw electricity accounts for 55% of the cost.
:17:47. > :17:49.Delivering it accounts for another 27%.
:17:50. > :17:58.And energy and climate change policies account for 15%.
:17:59. > :18:00.Of the overall costs of running a blast furnace such
:18:01. > :18:05.as those at Port Talbot, electricity accounts for about 6%.
:18:06. > :18:08.Altogether therefore, green policy accounts for around 1%
:18:09. > :18:12.of what it costs to melt steel at the South Wales site.
:18:13. > :18:17.The figures you have seen are about electricity.
:18:18. > :18:20.We are talking in Port Talbot largely about gas.
:18:21. > :18:25.And gas is not affected by this at all.
:18:26. > :18:34.And British Gas prices are about medium for the whole of Europe.
:18:35. > :18:37.So it cannot be this, i.e., green taxes, which has affected
:18:38. > :18:39.the closure or the threat of closure of Port Talbot.
:18:40. > :18:43.There are lots of other things that could have done it, but above all,
:18:44. > :18:45.it is the international price of steel which has
:18:46. > :18:52.The government could of course remove green levies altogether.
:18:53. > :18:54.It could, in the words attributed to David Cameron,
:18:55. > :18:59.That would give you your one, maybe 2% saving on the cost
:19:00. > :19:05.But compared to the 30% drop in the price of some steel products
:19:06. > :19:08.worldwide in the last year, I'm not sure that that is going
:19:09. > :19:18.to make the difference needed to save the British steel industry.
:19:19. > :19:21.It is possible that generous government subsidies could pull
:19:22. > :19:23.companies on the cusp of going under back from the brink.
:19:24. > :19:26.But it seems that in the case of Tata, their problems
:19:27. > :19:37.The other huge issue surrounding Tata or any other potential buyer is
:19:38. > :19:38.pensions. With me now in the studio
:19:39. > :19:41.is Steve Webb, who was Pensions Minister for the five years
:19:42. > :19:49.of the coalition government. In your view is any potential buyer
:19:50. > :19:54.going to take on the pension burden? It looks pretty toxic to me. You
:19:55. > :19:57.have enough trouble making money selling steel but if you're worried
:19:58. > :20:01.also about the cost of pension promises already made but the fact
:20:02. > :20:08.that the pension deficit could blow up again in the future, you just
:20:09. > :20:11.never knew a pension fund deficit and any purchaser would not want
:20:12. > :20:14.that level of uncertainty. What would the most likely outcome be
:20:15. > :20:20.question mark in a normal situation, if a business is running and become
:20:21. > :20:28.insolvent, the pension fund if it is short of money as this is, and it
:20:29. > :20:35.changes by the day. Potentially it runs into billions by some measures.
:20:36. > :20:38.140,000 people involved, not just the workers working for Tata at the
:20:39. > :20:43.moment. Yes, the people actively working, and another 30,000 who have
:20:44. > :20:48.not yet retired, a round 80,000 to have retired. If the money goes into
:20:49. > :20:57.the Pension Protection Fund, would you think is most likely, they will
:20:58. > :21:01.not get 100% of their action. -- pension. It will not replace every
:21:02. > :21:06.penny of the pension you're going to get. So men and women would lose
:21:07. > :21:14.their pension. And the hardest-hit would be the longest serving. Just
:21:15. > :21:17.explain why that is. No one is getting a full pay-out. If you have
:21:18. > :21:22.not yet reached pension age you get 90% of something, that something is
:21:23. > :21:26.capped. If you've worked in the industry man and boy all your life,
:21:27. > :21:31.you could build up a pension or perhaps 60,000 a year but the cap
:21:32. > :21:35.would take you down to around 30. You could lose potentially up to
:21:36. > :21:42.half your pension. There is also an issue over whether it was index
:21:43. > :21:46.linked. Again that would be the long serving workers who lose out. You
:21:47. > :21:54.have brought in something to try to amend this, but it was not passed. I
:21:55. > :21:57.thought it was wrong to cap long-term workers. If you have a
:21:58. > :22:02.decent pension because you worked in a scheme of your life, it is not
:22:03. > :22:08.their that it is capped so hard. So last year, I legislated for a bigger
:22:09. > :22:13.cap for longer workers but that has not been implemented. It is that cap
:22:14. > :22:18.plus 3%. And why has it not been implemented? I guess it has not been
:22:19. > :22:22.a priority, to be fair to the new government, they have been doing
:22:23. > :22:27.other things, but it ought to be a priority. Long serving workers need
:22:28. > :22:31.this. And there is no impediment to David Cameron for example doing this
:22:32. > :22:37.tomorrow. Detailed regulations could be done in a matter of months. So
:22:38. > :22:42.before all this happens, it could be done. One of the other ideas being
:22:43. > :22:45.floated is the idea that the government as it did with Royal
:22:46. > :22:51.Mail, would take on the pension burden. And you rules would preclude
:22:52. > :22:58.that, do you think, or not? It would be challenging to say the industry
:22:59. > :23:03.is a special case. And the government would be worried that the
:23:04. > :23:06.car industry, defence, aerospace, they would be worried about the
:23:07. > :23:11.president. Not that they could not afford to, today they would not be a
:23:12. > :23:14.problem but promises would need to be kept for decades to come. I think
:23:15. > :23:18.the worried would be the president. Anti-EU? You're not allowed to
:23:19. > :23:24.subsidise your own industries where the complete with other people. So
:23:25. > :23:27.the EU takes the view there is too much steel capacity so that is hard
:23:28. > :23:28.to see that working for the government.
:23:29. > :23:30.The Canadian singer songwriter Justin Bieber has been accused
:23:31. > :23:32.of cultural appropriation for wearing his blond
:23:33. > :23:37.As someone who in the past defended US reality TV star Kylie Jenner's
:23:38. > :23:40.right to style her hair in corn rows,
:23:41. > :23:43.he is not unaware of the implications of his new hairstyle.
:23:44. > :23:46.But are the Rolling Stones guilty because they appropriated soul blues
:23:47. > :23:51.What is cultural appropriation and what is cultural appreciation?
:23:52. > :24:10.This programme, the proud boast would be meaningless first with
:24:11. > :24:16.Justin Bieber news if we were not all over his latest hairstyle.
:24:17. > :24:20.The Canadian pop star has been dividing opinion with his new
:24:21. > :24:25.hairdo. Are these dreadlocks and if so is it cultural appropriation as
:24:26. > :24:31.some have claimed? Another man got into trouble on a San Francisco
:24:32. > :24:43.campus for his haircut. You say I cannot have the hairstyle because of
:24:44. > :24:49.your culture? Are you Egyptian? I have certainly been told, made aware
:24:50. > :24:53.in no uncertain terms that the hairstyle I have had have been
:24:54. > :24:58.deemed too black or not appropriate for that situation. So again of
:24:59. > :25:02.white person is able to just kind of experiment with these hairstyles as
:25:03. > :25:08.though there some of costume and is not subject to any of the same
:25:09. > :25:17.stigma that a black person might be. It is frustrating.
:25:18. > :25:23.At this busy mixed barbershop in London this evening the reaction to
:25:24. > :25:29.the Justin Bieber Barnet Fair Rory seemed to be, keep your hair on. I
:25:30. > :25:35.wish I had that amount of hair! Why not. If you've got the hair, you can
:25:36. > :25:44.do whatever you want with it. I think they look nice. I do. The
:25:45. > :25:51.crossover between cultures, it is predominately known as an
:25:52. > :26:02.Afro-Caribbean type of thing. It looks a bit like punk. Not raster or
:26:03. > :26:08.anything. That does not look very good! He is copying the black spiral
:26:09. > :26:14.of dreadlocks I suppose. But he has changed it up a bit. It is like Mick
:26:15. > :26:19.Hucknall and boy George, they tried to do something like that. If he had
:26:20. > :26:23.come to you what would you have said this remark he would be in the chair
:26:24. > :26:26.right there! I would ask one customer to get up and get him
:26:27. > :26:28.straight in the chair, Justin Bieber!
:26:29. > :26:31.Joining me in the studio to discuss this further is Ian Dunt the Editor
:26:32. > :26:33.of "politics.co.uk", Emma Dabri an academic and writer.
:26:34. > :26:37.And from our BBC studios in New York writer Chimene Suleyman.
:26:38. > :26:44.Good evening. It is a particular debate in the United States. Do you
:26:45. > :26:51.think that Justin Bieber has done something wrong? I think we should
:26:52. > :27:01.not necessarily hold celebrities to a higher status than the rest of us.
:27:02. > :27:04.The issue really, he is allowed to do what he wants to do with his own
:27:05. > :27:08.hairstyle. But we have a responsibility to each other and
:27:09. > :27:13.responsibility to marginalised communities to listen to why this
:27:14. > :27:19.had them or if there is something we are doing is harmful. What might be
:27:20. > :27:22.harmful about that. And then make an informed decision. In your opinion
:27:23. > :27:26.what is harmful? I think there is a fine line between cultural
:27:27. > :27:33.appropriation and cultural appreciation. It is a fine line. But
:27:34. > :27:36.a line nonetheless. Appropriation I think, there has been a lot of
:27:37. > :27:42.miscommunication about what the word means. It is not about necessarily
:27:43. > :27:48.enjoying someone else's cultural aesthetic. It is about taking an
:27:49. > :27:52.aspect of something that belongs to someone else, without their
:27:53. > :27:58.permission, and profiting from it. Let me put that to Ian Durrant. It
:27:59. > :28:05.is someone taking something from another culture, taking advantage
:28:06. > :28:11.for example of a marginalised culture. Like chicken tikka masala
:28:12. > :28:16.or Elvis Presley and the blues, which basically created rock 'n'
:28:17. > :28:20.roll. Exactly that. We are people, we mix cultures and we mix
:28:21. > :28:24.artistically. And bank god we do because if we do not we are
:28:25. > :28:27.functioning in an almost identical way to the way the far right has
:28:28. > :28:32.always asked us to in our little identity ghettos. That seems more
:28:33. > :28:38.severe than the haircut of Justin Bieber. Does it matter? I think
:28:39. > :28:43.saying that Elvis began rock 'n' roll is typical of what happens when
:28:44. > :28:48.we see cultural appropriation at its finest. One generally of white
:28:49. > :28:52.artist discredited and history will credit this person as being
:28:53. > :28:58.responsible for something that has been born often out of black
:28:59. > :29:02.struggle. You say that about the Rolling Stones as well? If you are
:29:03. > :29:08.going to save the invented rock 'n' roll, that is a problem. Two said
:29:09. > :29:14.they invented it, it is spurious. It is inaccurate. And it is crucial as
:29:15. > :29:21.well the idea that the question was, is it an insult to African culture.
:29:22. > :29:27.I think when we live in a time when African culture is diverse, is it
:29:28. > :29:34.still routinely stigmatised and presented as letter, as primitive
:29:35. > :29:36.and underdeveloped. But at the same time there is a systematic
:29:37. > :29:42.extraction of African resources, physical, material and cultural.
:29:43. > :29:46.That is when it gets into appropriation. It is not
:29:47. > :29:48.appreciation, we do not actually appreciate African culture when
:29:49. > :29:51.black people are participating in that. But only when a white person
:29:52. > :30:06.starts to take ownership. Was Elvis taking the blues and doing
:30:07. > :30:09.something with it, was that an act of cultural appropriation? The fact
:30:10. > :30:14.that he is now known as the king of rock and roll... It speaks to the
:30:15. > :30:20.fact that a white person will always end up with being predicted with an
:30:21. > :30:24.innovation that has come from black struggle and creativity. So that was
:30:25. > :30:33.a bad thing, most people would say that started a rich cultural
:30:34. > :30:41.heritage we have all enjoyed. Often when something is taken, in the
:30:42. > :30:46.past, they get the credit for it? And we live in a racist society,
:30:47. > :31:00.unfair, but this is not a sensible way of dealing with that.
:31:01. > :31:06.What would you regard as being an act of cultural appreciation? It
:31:07. > :31:11.tends to happen more organically, I grew up in London, there is a
:31:12. > :31:15.diverse community there, often what happens is that subcultures are
:31:16. > :31:21.formed through that process. It has the be an organic thing. To go back
:31:22. > :31:23.to what has been said about erasure, in the last week, with the debate
:31:24. > :31:28.that was happening around Rory Goldstein, who was wearing
:31:29. > :31:33.dreadlocks at a San Francisco University, there was a lot of real
:31:34. > :31:36.commitment to the history behind the dreadlocks, how may people wanted to
:31:37. > :31:42.mention that the Celts also wore dreadlocks. And Vikings. What
:31:43. > :31:46.happened in that conversation, even in that debate was that the
:31:47. > :31:49.African-American community, the black community, the Rastafarian
:31:50. > :31:53.community, were deleted from the discussion. -- Corey Goldstein. To
:31:54. > :31:58.favour a group of people that has not existed for the last thousand
:31:59. > :32:02.years. It is... It is this level of erasure that we are talking about. A
:32:03. > :32:09.different type of erasure, as you might call it, if you look at John
:32:10. > :32:12.Cena walls, who got a lot of flak for taking a Bollywood theme in
:32:13. > :32:18.India as part of a cold play music video. Was she guilty of cultural
:32:19. > :32:22.appropriation? -- Beyonce Knowles. Cultural appropriation is not just
:32:23. > :32:28.about taking the signifiers of a different cultural group and wearing
:32:29. > :32:32.them and using them, it is about power dynamics, as far as I'm aware,
:32:33. > :32:35.there is not such a discrepancy of power dynamics between
:32:36. > :32:42.African-Americans and Indians, there is not a systematic use of Indian
:32:43. > :32:47.culture by African-Americans for their own material and cultural
:32:48. > :32:51.gain, in the same way that global popular culture takes and takes and
:32:52. > :32:58.takes from black culture, lack people are rarely credited. Do you
:32:59. > :33:04.accept the difference, Ian, that if Beyonce Knowles, for instance,
:33:05. > :33:09.because there is similarity in terms of power, between African-American
:33:10. > :33:15.culture and England's culture, is it OK for her to wear dreadlocks? --
:33:16. > :33:21.and Indian culture. You are saying there is a difference, yes. Power
:33:22. > :33:28.dynamic start important that does not mean that one thing is immoral
:33:29. > :33:32.one and moral another, we should not do some assessment of relative
:33:33. > :33:36.levels of the scrum and nation. Is there a danger that this will lead
:33:37. > :33:42.to more division, the more this has been emphasised. I think that there
:33:43. > :33:46.is an organic exchange of cultures that happen, that kind of
:33:47. > :33:51.contributes to London culture and too many manifestations of
:33:52. > :33:54.contemporary culture. There is actually a far more... There is a
:33:55. > :33:59.far more raw and cynical use of, within popular culture, really of
:34:00. > :34:05.things that come from blackness, bearing in mind, blackness and
:34:06. > :34:12.African this is still routinely subjected to this concept of being
:34:13. > :34:14.inferior and lesser. And yet at the same time every blue seems to be
:34:15. > :34:20.obsessed with the cultural output. -- Africaness. The calculation on
:34:21. > :34:24.this, when I look at someone, I need to look at the race when I make an
:34:25. > :34:27.evaluation of whether they are culturally appropriating or not...
:34:28. > :34:30.Anti-racist teaching has been to look at what some things rather than
:34:31. > :34:34.how they look, this runs against that. Thank you all very much
:34:35. > :34:42.indeed. Riad Sattouf is a Franco-Syrian
:34:43. > :34:44.graphic novelist who worked on Charlie Hebdo for a decade,
:34:45. > :34:47.before the attack, won a Cesar for his first film and has now
:34:48. > :34:50.put his own nomadic childhood between France, Libya and Syria
:34:51. > :34:53.into a graphic novel memoir. It's a best seller in France,
:34:54. > :34:55.has been translated into 15 languages,
:34:56. > :34:57.and is about to be published here. The title of the memoir,
:34:58. > :35:00.The Arab of the Future, refers to his father's belief that
:35:01. > :35:02.Arab nationalism, as evinced by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi,
:35:03. > :35:06.would transform the Arab world. And so in 1980 he takes his French
:35:07. > :35:11.wife, whom he met at the Sorbonne in Paris, and toddler Riad off,
:35:12. > :35:14.first to Libya and then to his family village near Homs
:35:15. > :35:17.in Syria where comically nothing ever appears to go right for this
:35:18. > :35:21.idealist bombastic man. We witness all this
:35:22. > :35:24.through the the sensory the urine smell from
:35:25. > :35:31.Libyan men and the sharp
:35:32. > :35:33.and spicy air in France. But the book doesn't shy away
:35:34. > :35:45.from his Syrian family's First of all, why have you begun
:35:46. > :35:51.this odyssey, this is only the first part of what will eventually be your
:35:52. > :35:59.life in the graphic novel. In 2011I had to help a part of my family that
:36:00. > :36:01.were still living in Homs to come to France and I had difficulty
:36:02. > :36:08.obtaining authorisation in France for them. So I wanted to tell, buy
:36:09. > :36:13.comics, what was happening in the French administration. To tell the
:36:14. > :36:20.story, I had to tell it from the beginning. So I started this
:36:21. > :36:24.project. Early on the cartoon, you allude to your own ability as a
:36:25. > :36:28.draw. -- in the cartoon. When other kids are drawing pictures, you are
:36:29. > :36:34.drawing pictures of the French president! I tell the story of my
:36:35. > :36:45.future, with my father, who was Syrian, my mother, French, I tell
:36:46. > :36:51.the story, the birth of the ambition to become a cartoonist. Sometimes
:36:52. > :36:55.people say that you are gifted to music, to drawing, I was very
:36:56. > :37:00.interested to show that I think it does not exist! For me, for example,
:37:01. > :37:07.one day, I had drawn a character like that, my grandmother, she
:37:08. > :37:13.thought that it was the president, Pompidou, so in her eyes, I was a
:37:14. > :37:19.genius. But then, you scribble, and you are rude and so forth, it is
:37:20. > :37:26.more that you are controversial, as you are as a cartoonist. I was very
:37:27. > :37:34.good at drawing when I was a child. To be like other people, I faked it!
:37:35. > :37:38.One of your earliest memories is seeing Colonel Gaddafi, when you go
:37:39. > :37:42.to Libya, your father idealises what he stands for, you see him
:37:43. > :37:47.everywhere, you see him in the school, on the billboards. This idea
:37:48. > :37:52.that dictators, early on in your life, become a very big thing for
:37:53. > :37:58.you. My father was an educated man but from a very poor family, he was
:37:59. > :38:04.for education, modernity, he was against religion. He had very strong
:38:05. > :38:07.paradox, for example, he was admiring Colonel Gaddafi, he was
:38:08. > :38:13.admiring Bashar al-Assad, he was dreaming of making one day a coup.
:38:14. > :38:21.He wanted to execute everybody! He was obsessed... He wanted to become
:38:22. > :38:25.somebody powerful. As a boy, it is what I am telling in the book, I
:38:26. > :38:32.admired my father, and I thought that everything he was telling me
:38:33. > :38:35.was the truth. Actually, difficult and dark elements in the book, what
:38:36. > :38:41.happens when you go to the village, near Homs, where your father was
:38:42. > :38:44.raised, you meet, first of all, children that you play with and your
:38:45. > :38:48.cousins. Children are playing with plastic soldiers, and saying that
:38:49. > :38:54.these are is really soldiers, cut off their heads, they are Jewish. My
:38:55. > :39:02.father was from a Syrian family, he became a doctor. He had been offered
:39:03. > :39:09.to become a teacher at Oxford. He preferred to go back to the Arabic
:39:10. > :39:14.world and Syria, we went to live in his village, to this small peasant
:39:15. > :39:20.village. Near Homs. In the village, a very rude life. Syria was obsessed
:39:21. > :39:24.with Israel, all of the children... You were inculcated at an early age,
:39:25. > :39:28.your cousins thought you looked Jewish, they beat you up. They did
:39:29. > :39:34.not think I looked Jewish, but it was because I was French origin, so
:39:35. > :39:38.when you are from foreign origin, it was analysed that France was an ally
:39:39. > :39:42.of the United States, the United States is an ally of Israel! When
:39:43. > :39:47.you were French, you were Israelis! LAUGHTER
:39:48. > :39:53.They were telling me that I was a Jewish! The first Arabic word I
:39:54. > :39:58.heard was the word who Jewish. You produced this book am which has been
:39:59. > :40:04.fated by both the left and the right in France, very good response to it.
:40:05. > :40:08.-- feted. I wonder if some in the Arabic world think you have been
:40:09. > :40:12.disrespectful, you are very funny about what you see as a medieval
:40:13. > :40:18.view, actually... LAUGHTER ... Of the village near Homs, you
:40:19. > :40:22.would presumably say on the other side, your grandmother was French. I
:40:23. > :40:27.am telling the story of my family and my life. My family in Syria,
:40:28. > :40:35.some of them read that there was a book, they said, it was like that.
:40:36. > :40:42.It is very known. I'm just telling the point of view of the children in
:40:43. > :40:46.a small village, near Homs, and I let the reader make their own
:40:47. > :40:50.judgment on it. Thank you very much for joining us.
:40:51. > :40:53.Before we go, let's take a look out of the windows.
:40:54. > :40:55.Well, this studio doesn't have any, but the artist Gillian Wearing,
:40:56. > :40:58.in a collaborative project with people all round the world,
:40:59. > :41:00.has created a new artwork that celebrates the very different
:41:01. > :41:02.views that people enjoy from their windows.
:41:03. > :41:04.Your Views will premiere at the University of Brighton Gallery
:41:05. > :41:07.from 30 April to 29 May as part of the 50th anniversary edition
:41:08. > :41:12.of Brighton Festival and HOUSE festival.
:41:13. > :42:08.Here are a few windows. Goodnight.
:42:09. > :42:15.Good evening to you, looks like the weather is going to be very
:42:16. > :42:16.changeable across the UK during Wednesday, and so from our two hour