Karen Bartlett is a writer, journalist and film maker.
Karen writes for The Times, The Sunday Times,The Guardian, WIRED and Newsweek. In broadcast Karen has made documentaries for the BBC World Service, and directed a series on the economic meltdown.
Karen’s book 'Architects of Death' about Topf and Sons will be published in March 2018. She is also the author of 'After Auschwitz', a critically acclaimed biography about Dusty Springfield, and a book about disease eradication in the Twentieth Century.
Growing Up X
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn't written out of history Half way down a winding country road in New York’s wealthy Westchester County, one of America’s most famous revolutionaries lies buried under three feet of crisp white snow. I...
Newsweek
How one man gave Congo’s women hope
Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps survivors to build a future Why are the lives of African women worthless? It’s a question that Denis Mukwege asks every day that he works with the raped and mutilated women of the Democratic Republic...
The Times - World
‘If they gave me a house, I’d take it tomorrow’
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Reader’s Digest, has returned to the area where he grew up. Now retired, he likes to remember the old days; he can point out his school — “it was tough” — the mosque where his family prayed and the spot...
The Times - World
Momma D: Dionne Warwick, the Grande Dame of Divas
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and P. Diddy Dionne Warwick opens up her arms in a stage bow: “I’m looking pretty good, don’t you think,” she says. The singer seems slightly surprised to be turning 70, and, with pearly white teeth a...
The Times - Arts
India's Barefoot Revolution
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening If all revolutions begin in unlikely locations, few could be as unpromising as Borda. It’s a poor village in the poorest district of one of the poorest states in India. Only the blasting from a nearby ...
The Times - World
It’s murder on your mobile, says The Killing’s Sarah Lund
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone forensics with actress Sofie Gråbøl Detective Sarah Lund is a Luddite. The loner heroine of Denmark’s hit crime drama The Killing is as much of a 70s relic as her Faroe sweaters: She makes notes by h...
Technology
Skateistan: How skateboarding took off with Afghan kids
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation, and no adults. “This country has more restrictions than just about any other,” Oliver Percovich says, explaining how his own passion for freedom and fun led to groups of boys and girls flying acros...
The Times - World
Life and Love with 'The Greatest': Muhammad Ali
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville, Kentucky, and saw an energetic young man holding court to a wide-eyed gaggle of neighbourhood boys, including her brother. “Who’s that big man?” she asked her mother, not knowing that the answer wo...
The Times - Arts
Polio's Last Stand
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential When 40-year-old Liberian civil servant Patrick Sawyer died of Ebola earlier this year in hospital in Lagos, having carried the disease from his home country to Nigeria, global health workers feared the epidemic would spread in West Af...
Newsweek
Bringing Anne Frank Home – to Germany
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing – clearing out the attic and getting rid of several generations’ worth of papers, clutter and possessions from their family home in Basel, Switzerland. Unlike most other pensioners, however, Elias is ...
Newsweek
A Race Apart: the beauty queens of the apartheid era
The Miss World finalists are now at the World Cup, but the women who represented South Africa in its past have divided memories So far the game has not been beautiful for the World Cup’s “33rd official team”. They have gone largely unnoticed in South Africa’s impressive new stadiums, despite d...
The Times - World
Maki Mandela: “As Nelson's child, I can say I am proud of him”
In the week that London marks the statesman's 90th birthday, his daughter reveals how she overcame her resentment that he was a father to the world, but not to her Nelson Mandela arrives in London today for what is likely to be his last major public appearance; a 90th birthday charity concert ...
The Times - World
The Vagina Monologues turns ten
Eve Ensler transformed the New Orleans Superdome into ‘Superlove' for a celebrity-studded event to campaign against violence towards women Few people know that New Orleans is the vagina of America. Few would suggest it. “It is fertile. It's a delta. And everyone wants to party there,” explains...
The Times - Arts
China’s new president must make his country an attractive place for young people to live, and that includes a space for free expression
“Legalizing all pornography would be wrong; it would lead to more rape and unnatural sex. I commend this measure to the house.” Zeng is an undergraduate at Sichuan University, taking part with 300 others in a debating championship in the thriving port city of Qinhuangdao in northeast China.
Nearby is the seaside resort of Beidaihe, the official summer holiday haunt of communist leaders from Chairman Mao onwards. But this is the new China, where students don’t shy away from topics like: Should the children of government officials be banned from public jobs? Would Chinese universities be more competitive if they were privatized? Should China stop subsidizing labor-intensive industry? Put condom machines in schools? And yes, should China legalize porn?
It’s fair to say that when Mao infamously commanded “Let a hundred flowers blossom, and let a hundred schools of thought contend” this was not what he had in mind. But China’s new generation is finding ways around Internet censorship, hooking up on Facebook and Twitter despite the government’s best efforts to stop them. “This is a critical moment for China, and we have to develop critical thinking,” says a young law student. “Only controversial topics are meaningful now,” says a marketing undergraduate, “because only debating controversial topics will push China to develop as a society.”
China’s new President, Xi Jinping, is drawn from China’s modern, well-educated ‘fifth generation’ leadership—supposedly a less technocratic group born post-1945 with a higher proportion of entrepreneurs and financiers—and he allegedly likes such straight talk. While former French President Jacques Chirac learned the finer points of U.S. geopoliticals during a term at Harvard, Xi imbibed his Americana during a long hot summer of hog-raising in Muscatine, Iowa. Supposedly no “waxwork mandarin”, his 1985 exchange trip left him with a love of basketball, Hollywood action movies—and calling a spade a spade.
In other respects Xi can claim to be part of China’s new generation, too. He made his name as Fujian party chief in the 1980s by supporting a desert management ecological program, and then went on to burnish his business credentials in Zhejiang by promoting new innovative industries over old labour-intensive manufacturing. This bodes well for a country intent on breaking new scientific and technological ground, but does it make Xi a political reformer?
The president surely understands the suffering caused by political repression; he was arrested several times during the Cultural Revolution, when his high-ranking father fell out favour with Mao. This is still China, however, where meetings of the Politburo are dedicated to discussing the “correct handling of contradictions among the people,” an increasing issue since the number of what China terms “mass incidents” (demonstrations) has risen from 8,700 in 1993 to 87,000 in 2005 and 180,000 in 2010, according to the China Leadership Monitor.
One of Xi’s first tests will be how well he connects with his 1.3 billion countrymen during a decade in which the People’s Republic will be subject to unprecedented economic and social strains—and so far the message in confused.
In January authorities moved quickly when the liberal Guangzhou Southern Weekly newspaper stood up to censorship laws by refusing to print a pro-Communist front-page editorial. Debate about the issue was quickly restricted, but word spread and other journalists around the country made gestures of support. The protest was a further attempt at “pushing at the edges” according to Chinese politics expert Rana Mitter who told the Guardian: “I think it shows a leadership that is unconfident in a significant way.”
And, despite Xi’s love of Hollywood, international entertainment companies are increasingly bowing to Beijing’s demands for censored products too. The movie Cloud Atlas was recently cut by 38 minutes for Chinese audiences.
The Chinese themselves are accelerating demands for political and social freedoms, just as economic growth slows. The surging demand for luxury goods demonstrates that the Chinese are getting richer, but that has also brought a host of issues familiar to much of the developed world: personal debt, office politics, and what to do with a growing number of aging relatives.
To support an explosion in China’s elderly population, Xi Jinping must ensure, above all, that the country remains an attractive place to live for young people who, according to a report in the New York Times, are leaving in ever greater numbers, seeking a less competitive lifestyle with fewer working hours (and better air quality) overseas.
Part of that package, as demonstrated by the students at the Qinhuangdao debating tournament prove, will be living in a country with greater freedom of expression. In part the government hopes to maintain a balance—and keep control—by allowing a mixture of individual criticism, while cracking down hard on anything likely to stir mass action. As the spread of the dispute over the Southern Weekly showed, however, that sounds far easier in theory than it is in practice. Keeping the lid on the pressure cooker will be Xi’s biggest challenge.
Welcome to my website. I hope these pages give you a flavour of some of my work in books, print, onl…
Last week I was in Istanbul attending a Youth Forum for teenagers from around the world. But not eve…
When Nelson Mandela retired after serving one five-year term as President of South Africa in 1999 he…
I’ve just returned from China, after a gap of about 16 years, and I met these undergraduates – comin…
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential
When 40-year-old Liberian civil servan…
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville,…
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and …
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening
If…
*Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps surv…
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Rea…
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone foren…
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation…
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn’t writt…
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing –…