Downstream: China, AI and the West’s Free Speech Crackdown w/ Ai Weiwei

How does it feel to be an artist who's bigger than any of their pieces of art, largely because an authoritarian state arrested and interrogated you? To try and silence your voice. Today I'm joined by artist and dissident Iwewear to talk about censorship. But we talk about so much more than just the Chinese state. We talk about Gaza, we talk about Israel, we talk about TikTok, AI.

And weirdly, it turns out that I'm the first journalist to actually ask what his political philosophy is. I hope you enjoy the interview. Aiweiwei, welcome to Downstream. It's really nice to be with you. Thank you for joining us. I read your book about censorship and one of the things I was really interested in is that you talked about internet censorship. Just this week. TikTok's been taken over by a close Trump ally, Larry Ellison. He's in charge of the recommendation algorithm.

And I suppose I wanted to get your thoughts about the roles that corporations play in censoring free expression. Yes, normally we talk about censorship, we always point fingers to, you know, some kinda classic uh authoritarian state. Uh you know, they point fingers to China, to uh North Korea or other places maybe uh Iran or you know whatever. But uh actually I think the censorship is just as much in the West, in authority uh in the so called democratic society.

because this society are heavily controlled by the uh media platform. And uh yeah, recent example is uh TikTok, you know, why US have to make such effort to cut off the Chinese uh connection, but to have their own TikToks only because uh the narrative they want to control. They think uh uh what TikTok did is um is stronger than the traditional media combined. So they want uh really inf to be influential on youngsters uh thinking and behaving.

And uh it's crazy when the uh I just see the news when the the CO and uh clearly announced uh certain things which uh is uh is really troublesome. You know, uh yeah, this is the s the typical um example.

I read an interview where you said to the journalist, It's not only in China where your phone is listening to you. Our phones are listening to us all the time. And I thought about the fact that I take my phone everywhere. I take it into the bathroom. I'm looking at a camera when I go to the bathroom. Is it weird for you as somebody who has been surveilled, you've had listening devices planted in your studios?

ordinary citizens have become so casual about privacy. We don't seem to care about privacy anymore. Yeah, the privacy would be a word uh people later would check. What does that mean? You have privacy in the modern society, especially with today's technology. I don't think anybody can claim uh privacy. privacy anymore because we are basically as a like a nude person under this kind of surveillance.

they know not just uh uh you know what we are eating, they know who we associate with, what kind of product we are buying, and what kind of private uh chat we are with our lovers or even you know the most heightened behaving still you know it's no longer like that and it's going to be more like that it's so sophisticated And if they wanna get anybody, they'll just just uh take a second. But is there something about how it's changed us, you know?

Twenty years ago, if you said to someone, when you go to the toilet, there will be a camera looking at you, they would have gone, You're crazy. Whereas now all of us are just going I think you make a great point because uh what is privacy? How that uh relate to humanity, uh relate to our mind and how it uh affects our you know, uh our way of behaving. Do we still have a space for for exercise our mind or even to make some mistakes?

So those psychologically would change our mind. And uh this is very, very uh fundamental problem with uh when we lost lost the so-called uh privacy and uh I don't know how much we still have as individual. Because uh we are being clearly smoothed out when we uh we don't have that little difference. And uh that's a true problem.

You use a great phrase in the book which is kill the chicken to scare the monkey. So there is something about yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r Yeah, the authority in the old time they have to they of course they cannot control everybody. The technique is not so So broadly being used or applied, so they used to take take a few and uh to scare the most uh the rest. Like my father was a poet and uh f well very well known poet, so they just um exiled him.

So the many the teaches all the writers to say, Hey Just look at him. If he can be touched then e everybody can be touched. When I got arrested m all the people who was actively online in China would say Come on, if I will we can get arrest, then we all can get arrested because uh you know this is uh obvious.

So that's very the best tactics for authority always uh to pick out the individuals as uh a sample for for the broader uh opinion or So that is a very powerful act and uh it's very efficient. The problem is that is uh make the whole society become a salad. you know, not just uh the one who wants to be active, even the one who just learning how to speak or in the high school or in the universities or in any environment

They will learn. They will say this will make your life unsafe, uneasy, and you can never achieve your goal if you make this kind of mistake. So we can easily see it's very profound tactic to make people have a self uh to be sense self-censored. Do you see that happening in the West, for example, the treatment of pro Gaza protesters in the US and the UK? Huh. Uh well, it it seems we are we are

We're trying to illustrate the very open uh conditions. We can see people who openly speak about Gaza, even just questioning that, not on any side, just questioning, you know, white children or innocent children. a woman has to be killed, why Gaza can be restored as a tourist uh uh you know, like a distant land. You know, all those questions can be really harmful for anybody.

We see uh students or professors or or uh dean of a school has been dismissed uh in in in US in you know in the most famous universities and of course those actors or or editors. they're all being affected if they they're so called not on the right right side, but you know, the right side is the wrong side. So and uh yeah that's very harmful. that uh would uh really redefine our society to say what kind of society is this? And uh

That's very polluted or deeply polluted and a poisoning. You've spent a lot of time living in Germany. Have you been shocked by the authoritarian crackdown on pro-Palestine? speech from them or did it not really surprise you? Uh it did surprise me, but also uh bring me to uh uh area uh for to really examine why they have to do that. you know, why society like Germany would allow people to really beat up people with this kind of brutal tactics and it's very peaceful

and um uh demonstration and uh they are all they want is to to free Gaza, you know, or to stop the genocide. You know, so for Germany always trying to say they are They are how do you say regret of the historical mistake But uh I think uh they are doing what they have they they did in the nineteen thirties if you look at those police. They are just uh so blindly and uh brutal. And uh the society seems to uh allow them to do so. So it's the same fascist impulse, just a different target.

I I think so. I think uh all those kinda police act uh on the states as uh hip it behaves defining a society. You know, when when we see how they're dealing with uh protesters, basically normal uh but often they just define what kind of state they are in. Sorry to interrupt your downstream with more downstream news, but myself and Aaron Bastani will be live and in the flesh at Earth Hackney.

on the 16th of February. We'll be talking about the paperback launch of my book Minority Rule, which has a brand spanking new afterwards. And Michael Walker will be helming the undercard, interviewing Dan Evans and Shanice McBean. If you want tickets or simply just want to complain about how much they cost, go to DICE and there will be a link in the description. Hope to see you there.

I wanna ask about your own experiences in China and also your father's experiences in China. In the eyes of the Chinese state, what was the threat that you posed to them? What was the threat that your father posed to them? It's uh good question. Um my father is a poet, is most uh kind and soft in the daily life, but of course his mind can be brilliant and can be sharp. And uh he speaks the truth.

And my uh I think my act is also always asking for truth, always demand for truth. Uh it's very much like uh As an artist or as a poet truth is a very essential nutrients for our thinking, you know, without a truth is uh it's I don't know how how can we define artist or writer without seeking for truth. So it's like a nature of uh this this kind of profession or individual. So when author authority They cannot accept it.

they think this would somehow shaking their way of control or so I think that Only tells why seeking for truth and the speak out of truth and the freedoms which are so relevant and so important. uh because it touches the foundation of authoritarian state because they avoid to reveal what really happened. And um My experience is even even you're not just defending uh defending for truth or f uh justice, you know, truth is uh uh fundamental uh

principle for the justice, right? So even you don't do that, even just your attitude. would make them very nervous because uh your attitude is somehow arrogant. You think yes they do have a power. They can make you disappear. They can exile you or they can put you in jail. But still they cannot shake your attitude. You still look at them, you think uh you're more powerful than them because you're on the side of truth.

Why did you become an artist and not a journalist? It sort of sounds to me that you could have been a journalist, and the work that you did um naming the children who died in the Sichuan earthquake to me sounds more like journalism than art. That's uh authoritarian um interrogator told me, said a way way you are artist, but you did what journalists should do or what lawyers should do. Why don't you just be a artist and you know you but uh for me Uh artist is a journalist because we are always

trying to get the right answer about uh the facts. And also, we are also lawyers. We try to protect the basic rights of individuals. So in in my sense and I I think it's one per one thing, you know, my artists always relate to humanity, um justice in the society and uh Yeah, that'll make my art different. That sounds like a very socialist view of art, if you don't mind me saying.

I would say so. I would say uh my voice relates to m the people I don't know. They they have no voice and they're uh they don't even not even conscious the voice can help them. So When you were arrested and interrogated, what was the experience of that like? Were you shocked that it had happened or had you been prepared for it? You knew it was coming one day. Uh I was prepared because my father was exiled uh uh was in in the prison eighty years ago.

And he did nothing. He just as an artist uh organized some uh leftist organization in art. So he was sentenced for six years. So I always think, oh The only thing I would be jealous is my father because when he was in the early twenties he was sentenced and I would never had that chance to be in jail.

That uh originally I said I cannot match him because it's impossible. But uh later I realized they can put me in jail anytime but what surprised me is The kind of style they put me in jail is not give me a chance to explain, but rather put a you know, black hook on my face and uh drive me to a uh secret location and uh n illegally detain me. It's like a kidnapping. But I was kidnapped by a state. So that uh surprised me.

why they have to use that kind of tactic? They can just knock on my door to say, Oh, we want to talk to you so I'm r I'm ready, you know? I w I'm ready to talk to anybody. or explain my position and have a discussion. But the secretly detaining me Later I realized it's just trying to scare me to say, you know, you're vulnerable. Nobody can protect you. And the state certainly can do some something which beyond your imagination.

When you were being interrogated, Or at least the way you've described it and recreated it in your own work since, you've sort of highlighted the absurdity of some of the questions and some of the things they were saying. When that was happening, was there a part of you which felt a bit superior to the people who were asking you stupid questions, or were you frightened of them in the moment?

Well, gradually I realized people in front of me, you know, there are different levels of a police person or public security person or, you know, all kinda people. They are representing certain ideology of the state. So definitely I'm a offender of uh, you know, their principles. But at the same time, as individual, they're human beings. And I talk to them. They are also emotionally involved. They also tell Normally you don't think that way, but they do tell what in the bottom of their heart.

So that also impressed me because I have two possibilities. One is give a zero conversation to them because I'm I'm not even arrested. But uh I decide to take the second option to have communication, to talk whatever they want to know, and to explain my positions. I think that is very successful. Because you ha always have to say we're all human. You know, we all can uh if my what I defend or what I try to uh make effort if I cannot convince the people in front of me I'm total a failure.

You know, but I do think uh we achieved a lot. We. I said we is uh you know, me and uh the one uh as uh somewhat against me.

And so Can I ask a question which might annoy you? There's no question can annoy me. I really eager to hear anything kinda uh you know, annoying me. Um so the question is this. Your arrest and interrogation enhanced your status as an artist in the West, and you became, Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident. Do you feel in some way that You, the man, has become more celebrated and has had more impact than any of your pieces of art.

Um it's not uh uh it's uh it's a very normal question. I give you the answer of my interrogator after eighty one days they very sincerely ask me so. Do you think if without all pressure or what we we really made you or like this kind of hardship or di difficulty life, you still can be so famous in the West? I said impossible. I said only take a strong enemy, make me a hero.

So they said, Yeah, that's what we think. I said, Yeah, don't push me too hard. And uh which is true, but it's only why it's true because when people are hungry, like in the West, they are thinking it's such a real quality to be brave and to really stand up in defending those very valuable rights, so I become some kinda Uh some kind of hero, but qu I don't like use of words, but I still it's like

When people are are very hungry, you provide them um, you know, bread and uh butter so they feel happy. But uh if they are very hungry you don't pr provide their that, you only give them vitamins, maybe they're not as You know. So I think uh that's why people uh in the broader sense they think uh you know well they appreciate what I do rather than who I am. I'm an artist. What I do is have a more aesthetic and moral foundation rather than just act. It's not an act.

It's not performance. It's rather what I believe and that belief make my art different. But people, of course, uh would have less Uh sensitivities about art but rather about social justice. So of course I think I'm being very broadly uh misunderstood, but which is fine. Something that you wrote in the book was that when a work of thought or expression gains widespread public acceptance or adoration, it often signals a lack of depth or a fundamental misunderstanding of its purpose.

Do you think that your work has been received in that way in the West and people have misunderstood it or missed something because they're seeing you as Ai Weiwei the hero? Um I think Maybe 80% is like that. But uh very often I walk on the street, someone would say, Well, can we take a source?

I said yeah, why not? She said I will give to my daughter because she will not believe I met you. I said that yes. Then sh then very often they will say, please keep what you're doing. It means so much to us. Almost all of them were saying that. I would say how could they tell artists what they're doing as means so much to them? You know, I don't know them. What's their life? Uh uh I don't know the background. But that sentence are very touching me.

You know, I think very a few artists would get that kind of response. Uh people, you know, people think artist is Famous? Famous of what? You know, because uh But what? Because they can have a higher social status or make more money or stuff like that? I don't think people admire that that much about artists in that aspect. So I feel if my work can really encourage people to say.

I'm defending social justice. I'm defending basic human rights, freedom of speech. I don't care about my work that much. I don't care about the value of my work carries. And do you judge the value of your work by its political meaning for other people? Actually I've been forced in that direction, you know. Um but I really fully appreciate I have the opportunity to use my humble work to carry this. some light, you know, s uh and uh to to speak out for majority.

What's the difference between how you've been censored in the West versus how you were censored in China? Because you're in the strange position of having had your work cancelled in in both settings. Well, that's really complicated. I almost had the no exhibition. and uh on social uh media my name uh can be deleted even you ask a Chinese uh uh so-called uh AI called deep sea I tested, I said that.

then after it's a quick response is after but uh a little bit longer than they should answer this kind of question, right? It should take one second, but for them maybe keep rolling and for four or five seconds Let's talk about something else.

It's so funny. And uh it's just it's AI, deep sick. And uh So I think uh with this successful censorship Fewer people know me in China Of course, people study art may know me, but uh the answer can be t completely polluted, think I'm some kind of Western ideologies agent, you know, to try and to to how do you say to put dirt on China or something yeah. So it can be like that. But in the West also uh

And can be you know, I talked about Gaza, I talked about uh Israel, I talked about uh you know, different matters in Ukraine and in different situations. And uh still my show can be cancelled. And uh And blindly they can be cancelled at the same time or four or five locations. So you can you can sense how powerful or at the same time how fragile. They are. You know, you you touch their nerves and they are so scared.

So that makes me have a little joy on my side. What you like to prod at the weakness? You know, I find the point. Look, while I've got your attention, why not sign up to the downstream newsletter? In it, you can find some reflections on the interview or how I prepped for it, and some quickfire questions that don't make it to the final cut. So, if you want to know what Iwewear's favourite Portuguese dish is or what Anne Petifer's nickname is, sign up now.

I'm I'm interested in how shaming can be an act of censorship. So being condemned, being shamed, being called anti-Semitic, something like that. Where does the line Between censorship and the use of shame to censor, and the use of shame to make a moral judgment. w where is that line? So for instance, if you're being called anti Semitic because you've stood up for Gaza

That might be an example of censorship by smearing you, presenting you as dangerous and a racist. Someone else might say, well, no, that's someone making a moral judgment. They're expressing a moral judgment. So where is the line between censorship and making the kinds of moral judgments that we all make socially all the t all the time? I think the the line should be It can be very simple and very deep. So the ultimate answer is we have to answer who am I?

We were li we are living in a very um complex society with different history, language and religion and all those kinda issues. and the politics, but still we have to come to individuals' judgment. You know, we we just have to say, today I wake up And uh do I want my daughter to be hurt? Or do we think the very essential human rights or the very essential uh individual quality has to be protected. So that answer will be very simple, very clear.

I don't know why people being completely confused and not to make a the direct response about uh right or wrong. I suppose someone would say that they are being honest when they say, I think you're being motivated by anti-Semitism or You know, anti-Chinese sentiment or whatever else it is, they would say, Well, I'm being honest. To me, that is a fact. Well Honest is a questionable uh questionable words. You know, I I I never uh doubt they have a sincerity to come out a wrong conclusion.

And uh very often people would think I'm honest or hey, I feel that way. I said that yes, could be the mistake because you're honest and you feel that way. We have to learn. We have to put our judgment in more historical uh thinking or or more human uh response. So It's almost no need of so uh sophistication on this.

Moving away just a little bit from censorship. I've been thinking about the way in which being surrounded by information, bombarded by information all the time, is also doing something to us. So I don't know if you saw there was that climber, Alex Honnold, who climbed the Taipei Tower without any ropes and it was being live streamed on Netflix. And I thought, oh my God, are we going to see a guy fall to his death on a live stream? Um The opposite of censorship sometimes is...

seeing the wrong thing. And I do feel sometimes I'm seeing things I'm not supposed to and it's doing something to my humanity. Do you ever get that feeling? I think you're you're leading to a very uh proponed question. Uh Are we saying too much or we we're we we know more than we can digest? It's almost like in the supermarket. You go to there with like ocean

uh like of the food. But often I standing there, I couldn't come up a mind what I want to pick up, you know, because you same kind of food, you have two hundred different types. And uh under crazy, even just with any product. It completely confuses you. So what really happens in that is destroy your intuition for to pick up the one which is right. No very often is wrong.

But you know, often people will tell us what you have been eating, you're behaving, is harmful. And this information is the same. But we cannot stop it because we have technology, we have uh people. hungry for this kind of shocking uh sense under those shocking sense uh are really blind us to see something uh really matters when Ukrainians have to see those dead bodies being sent back. Or you know, or or or Gas already become uh some kind of uh resort planning being presented in the

in the Davos. Can you believe this is not secret plan? It's represent two world leaders in Davos. with a a kinda shameless, but shameless not right words even. I think it's completely brutal and uh blind way. You know, I'm not uh Uh surprised you would do so, but um what I'm surprised is the public response to this kind of presentation is much less than to see someone climb up the the the tower.

That is uh frightening. So that means uh humanity can be twisted and manipulated in any way they want to. And all those powerful people know. They completely sink.

We we are, you know, the the voiceless or the public or the mass uh lost the chance. No way you can challenge them. Do you think it's possible to recover a sense of social morality and a sense of I'm being distracted by this, I'm gonna focus on this? Or are we too far gone? We are too far gone. And uh I think uh as Lenin and you know, Vladimir Ilych Lenin, you know, this revolutionary from uh um Russian.

once said that you can never form a revolution. A revolution will be formed by itself. So it's about the weather. It's about the you know, we are in the period of time. We have a seventy years of uh peace or eighty years and a three generation four generation of peaceful time. Then our mentality, our way and our judgment, or vision are so much being formed by By I don't know, by this kind of mor moral moral condition or

And uh it's impossible to to m to make a change. Um yeah. I mean to use a very Maoist term is the problem that we don't struggle enough. We haven't had enough. I think freedom, the only meaning about freedom is a struggle. If you think you're not struggle, you're being given a freedom condition. That is wrong. You don't have any freedom if you don't struggle. If your inheritage

Freedom. You can hurr inherit money or well-being or comfort or but you cannot inherit freedom. Nobody can give to you except you have to fight. but who want to fight. It sounds like a permanent revolution. I think individuals uh seeking for freedom is a permanent revolution. And without that The life is not worth it. You've lived in Europe, you've lived in America, you've lived in China.

I feel that I live in a country which has no sense of purpose. We have no shared sense of purpose. You have individual ambitions, priorities, and drives, but nothing that's shared. If I lived in Beijing, would I feel different and would I feel less depressed? Yeah, you talk about individualism in a so-called free society. If everyone behaves the same way, there's no individual. If everybody are formed by same kind of ideology, that means they're unified.

And uh so but when you in if you compare it to China, yes I do have uh experience in China. Um They have very high um power in trying to establish some kind of um propaganda or narrative from state. But uh China do have a long history. So that history only means the water is deeper and there's a lot of mud on the at the bottom, uh thousands of years of mud there. So there will be very different interpretation about uh uh about uh almost every concept.

Because we when we talk about civilization, we are talking about uh how we name everything. And even we name the same thing for different culture, I mean it's very different. So... you don't there's not much mystery in there I suppose one of the things I'm suggesting is that to be so individualized, to have so many individual rights, and to have very few

collective rights or ways to express yourself politically collectively in this country, that that is itself a form of powerlessness. I can say what I want, as long as I don't say it in a group. Well, it's uh it's a complicated issue when you see a lot of individual uh s it's very often you go to a bar or a restaurant, everybody

they are challenged, they make the voice very very loud, but you couldn't hear anything because everybody is uh is doing that, right? But even in a society basically controlled, which is like a grey colour And if you have a little color there, or or even light up a candle, then that would be so obvious. So it's all really uh you know, our way of understanding ourselves or under society, uh you you don't have the clear standard. It really relates to the environment.

I think w the way you're presented in Western media, they want to present you as a sort of Western liberal individualist. And in our conversation, you talk about individual rights and individual expression as being very important. You also talk about the sort of deep water, deep mud of history and shared purpose. And you also talk about things like ongoing struggle, a sort of permanent revolution for individual rights.

How do you describe your political philosophy? Do you describe your political philosophy? You the first one asked me that question. So let me think a little bit deeper on that. We only have one life, which is very short actually. You know, now they talk about it, can extend it to certain you know, a few more months or years. But still the life is giving us a mystery and uh of course if you talk of human life on the planet, it's it's almost unthinkable, you know.

How much we know about ourselves seems we know everything, but the same s at the same time seems we are so ignorant because we can never give the clear answer of where we really come from and why we have to to end this uh so called civilization. So all the worries and all the happiness is It's completely short. Even a insects would have maybe more ex uh how do you say excitement than than us. Major excitement because we are s behaving so so called civilized. Or you know.

And uh but still we are blindly moving to a area we cannot control. Look look at uh technology today it pushes us and most of the people will certainly will be abandoned. by their scale and uh, you know, i it's just uh impossible to even to match how this technology being pushed for only a few people can control the mess, uh you know, in every way.

So I don't have much political, how do you say, profound uh uh there but I always trying to maintain the minimal uh humanity to see even we don't get anything but what is left for So we still like to see We are imperfect. We are we would have uh housey. uh infirminal life, short life. During that time we would have some temperature and we can still have a little expansion.

And we can share those uh sense in a better way rather than create a war or w or make uh people have less skill to to survive. And uh y yeah, it's um it's very I mean maybe it's simple. It doesn't sound simple to me because on the one hand you're saying, okay, there's a minimum minimal level here, which is my belief in humanity and my re regard for humanity. And on the other hand, you talk about your art yn ysgrifennu, yn ysgrifennu, yn ysgrifennu.

Um there is a politics there even if you don't have a name for yourself. Is it maybe just easier to say, I'm I'm against whatever the people in power are for, wherever I am. Only because I if I compare myself like a a piece of a leaf come from a tree.

falling down, but not on land, but on a stream. So the stream carries me to very dramatic conditions. I keep changing my angle to look at uh what happens on the you know on the land and it changes all the time and uh I try to hold on, you know, it's not uh easy.

Are you suspicious of ideology and ideological thinking? Yeah, I'm very suspicious about that because um we're all conditioned. I suppose Some people would say, I might say, that it's given me a structure to my thinking and a way of looking at things. It's not the Bible. It doesn't tell me what to think, but it gives me a shape for my own. Analysis. But uh it can come from study or learning, but also come can come from your

your experience. But in modern society, even our experiences are too much the same. So that could be less interesting. I've got um One final question for you, because the thing I was most interested in in the book was when you were writing about AI and you were writing about the way in which AI is not in if a form of intelligence. It's just a load of assumptions packed into a system. And I was wondering whether you thought it was possible

for artists to use AI in a way which has integrity? First AI is the highest form of a midarch uh uh thinking because i it's uh it's a powerful uh collecting of all the information has been there. You know, they they tend to not make mistakes, try to get the best out of it, but it's really mediocre because they don't have uh Uh they avoid to make mistakes. They want to be perfect. So that's their how do you see the the the dead end of AI.

But artists if we talk about artists, artists is uh trying to find something never being established. So if it's real artist, but uh of course we see most artists it's not like the Uh but uh r real one or or what really interests me is I trying to find uh something Which is so rare and never been really established by language. So you have to control language to illustrate your emotion. That means you come out so called freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is not you can just Express what you want to see, but rather what you want to see if that is real enough to to be speak of. I mean, I read somewhere that you became very interested in Andy Warhol's work when you were in New York. And he obviously was very famous for using images that already existed, repurposing them in a way which was new. Is there a way for artists to do that with AI?

I think we'll be too late. Andy Warhol did it um half a century ago without uh his uh pioneer for social media, did magazine, did uh television, did uh Andy Warhol's film and writing and the party, you know, he organized parties and the you know, and the Worldhouse studio is all half a century ahead of time. Today, those things are very banal everybody's

And it's not really interesting anymore. Aiwe, thank you so much for joining us on Downstream. Thank you. Support independent journalism and set up a regular donation to Navara Media from just one pound a month. Head to Navara.media forward slash support or face the consequences.