Ahmad Nawaz’s presidency of the Oxford Union has come to an end following a special vote that was brought before the chamber tonight. 251 members voted in favour of forcing his resignation, with 164 voting against. This came after he failed to attend successive meetings of the access committee. Last Wednesday, multiple officers and other senior members of committee spoke out against his leadership in this paper.
The vote was done by secret ballot at the front of the room, directly in front of the president and presided over by appointed officials of the society. Due to the popularity of the event, non-members were told to leave the chamber prior to the debate, in order to make space for voting members. Results were announced after the main debate of the night, titled ‘This House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far’.
Nawaz’s presidency was imperiled over the course of the previous week when the access committee voted to reject Nawaz’s explanation of absence for missing the previous meetings, triggering an automatic resignation. Under rule 23(e)(i)(1), any member absent from three ordinary meetings without good reason during a full term is auto-resigned. The motion on Thursday was brought by Chief of Staff, Israr Khan, to overturn the decision of the Access Committee. During his floor speech, Khan claimed that the president has many committee meetings to attend, and his duties were made all the more difficult due to illness, physical as well as mental health struggles. Khan commented on the nature of the vote, telling the chamber the vote was a “political ploy to cornerthe president on the basis of small technicalities when there are only two weeks left of his presidency,” and that “he should not lose to dirty politics.”
Later, he urged members to vote against an access committee that he painted as highly partisan, stating “this house should pass the motion because this house is better than the access committee.”
A state school, St Charles Sixth Form College, from Ladbroke Grove was due to be in attendance at tonight’s debate on an access trip. The school only had one student admitted to Oxford in 2021, and one to Cambridge University in 2022. The school left before the debate started.
Throughout the debate numerous points of information were raised. Members frequently shouted over each other while trying to adjourn the motion. At one point, one member yelled “stop the steal” as the vote procedure was being explained. Once the vote began, the members running the event struggled to keep the chamber in order and frequently demanded that all those not in the act of voting remained seated.
After Khan, Tim Green spoke in support of the Access Committee’s decision. Other members of committees have been auto-resigned on similar grounds and Green urged members to hold the President to the same standard. On top of dereliction of duties, Green alleges that frequent absences from access committee meetings undermine the accessibility of the Union itself. If Nawaz remained president at the end of the night, Green vowed to resign. “I wouldn’t feel safe working on this committee under this current president”, he said.
Nawaz’s removal is effective immediately. HT23 President-Elect Charlie Mackintosh has taken over as acting president for the remainder of the term.
Serving since January 2016, Professor Louise Richardson’s term as Vice-Chancellor comes to an end this year. The first female vice-chancellor, presiding over a significant increase in state-school access, leading the programme that led to the AstraZeneca vaccine programme — Richardson’s tenure was marked by memorable events. To mark the end of her time at Oxford, she sat down with Cherwell, discussing everything from free speech and statues of Cromwell to AstraZeneca and access.
Cherwell: What were some highlights from your time as Vice-Chancellor?
Prof Louise Richardson: The day the vaccine was approved by the MHRA would be an absolute highlight. So was the day when we were told the results of the efficacy trials. The whole experience of the Oxford vaccine, and that we effectively managed to find a pharma company or a company that was willing to manufacture at risk and distribute at cost, was very significant.
How directly involved were you in that process?
Very. I was not involved at all in the science, but I was there when we were all told, together with the scientists, what the efficacy results were. I helped negotiate the deal with AstraZeneca. I was very closely involved in all of that. Also, of course, I chaired the Silver Group, which is the group which made decisions about how the university was going to respond to the pandemic. I think the university came into its own when you had the colleges looking after their students, I think better than students in almost all the other universities in the country, were looked after. You had the central University, with the engagement of colleges, interacting with the government, making the decisions, interacting with the local community and all the rest of it. So that was definitely a highlight. Other highlights, of course, are bringing in huge gifts, £185 million for Humanities, £100 million for microbial resistance and £88 million for Reuben College.
What were challenging moments and experiences, as Vice Chancellor?
There’s been a few of those … which ones would I want to mention? It’s just a complicated institution to lead. Sometimes it’s hard to get the message about Oxford out, the fact that we are, I believe, a true meritocracy. Yet the public don’t perceive us as such. It’s quite a challenge, to get that message out. And of course, it was challenging, once the reality of the pandemic became clear, when we realised that we were going to have to lock down; that was a major challenge.
What, in your eyes, is the role of a university such as Oxford? What is the mission that combines both leading this kind of world-beating research and developing a vaccine and teaching first-year undergraduates?
I actually don’t think our mission has changed in eight- or nine-hundred years, or however long we’ve been here. It’s been three parts. It’s been pushing the frontiers of knowledge. That’s the research that we do, whether it’s a pandemic, or antimicrobial resistance, or English literature. It’s educating the next generation, and it’s contributing to the world around us. I think all three of those came into play during the pandemic. I think we’re doing all three more effectively than we have historically.
There is this perception of undergraduate education as this old-fashioned public-school boy who comes here and has his three years of fun. Did you feel that those debates around undergraduate education detract from this other mission, producing research?
Well, seven years ago, we were being criticised in the press constantly for being inaccessible to poor kids. Now, we’re getting criticism for the fact that it’s harder — it is alleged to be harder — for privately educated kids to get in. And so yes, I think those criticisms are a distraction. They’re deeply unfortunate, because if you’re constantly described in these terms, then it becomes much harder for us to recruit the very best kids from every part of the country, irrespective of their background.
Oxford has a unique governance structure: the decentralised collegiate system. What has it meant for you as Vice-Chancellor? If you could press a button which would swap the governance structure of Oxford for that of Harvard, where the central administration runs the show, would you do so?
[Laughs] I don’t think I’m going to answer that … I do think this system we have is deeply inefficient. But I don’t think it’s really understood from the outside. When I talk to people on the outside, they describe it constantly as a central administration versus the colleges. Actually, it’s more complex than that. It’s much more of a tripartite system with departments, colleges, and the central administration.
We’re in an institution where you’ve got an awful lot of very, very talented people. And I worry that we are so parsimonious when it comes to spending money. But when it comes to the resource that I value most, which is time, we’re completely profligate in how we use it by having people spend time on many committees that duplicate one another. I don’t actually think it helps good governance particularly. The argument in its favour is that everybody has views that can be heard, but actually, representative democracies by and large work pretty well. So, it doesn’t have to be a kind of universal representation.
So, would you, if you could, replace the collegiate system with a structure similar to an American university?
Well, I’m not going to annoy all the college heads by saying I would eliminate the autonomy of colleges. But I would say that if we were setting out to create a world-leading university we would not structure it this way.
Following up on governance. As a Vice-Chancellor, what lessons can be drawn from the long-running dispute between Christ Church and their former Dean? They received a formal reprimand from the Charity Commission last week.
One of the problems, of course, is that people outside the institution do not distinguish between Christ Church, or Jesus, or St. Peter’s and the University. They assume both are one and the same. You have to be of the place to appreciate the differences.
I was called upon by people, large numbers of people, alumni, the government, you name it, to resolve this dispute. I was closely involved for many years encouraging both sides to reach an agreement – you can see how successful that was. There’s no denying the fact that the dispute was damaging to the university. People did not understand the difference between college and University; we are intimately linked in that way.
…
Frankly — whenever something happens in a college it rebounds on the University, and vice versa, there’s no avoiding that. But on most issues, I think there’s less tension in the relationship between colleges and University today than there’s been in many, many years. I think we work very closely together. I’ve worked very closely with the last three chairs of conferences. We were all very closely connected as we were dealing with the pandemic. The one area where there can be tension is on the whole issue of fundraising, where colleges own, for want of a better word, their alumni.
Now, in my case, I decided rather than having a fight about that, I was just going to pursue non-alumni. And in fact, all the major gifts we brought in, the very big gifts: £185 mn Schwarzman, £100 mn from Jim Ratcliffe, £88 mn from the Reubens, they’ve all been from non-alumni, which is pretty fantastic. So I’ve actually tried to make a virtue of necessity in that area. The other area, undergraduate education, that’s where the colleges really come into their own. That’s where there is a huge amount of interaction between university and college as the people doing the teaching in the colleges are often joint appointees. So, I actually think for the most part, it’s gone pretty well.
During one of your orations, you had a quote: “Education is not about being comfortable. I’m interested in making you uncomfortable.” Do you believe students have become too comfortable? What do you think the state of academic free speech looks like today?
I would say the state of freedom of speech in Oxford is pretty robust. Every student who matriculates hears me on the subject. In my matriculation speech, I say to every incoming student that this is a place where you can expect to hear views that you don’t like, and I exhort them to follow the Augustinian precept of Audi alteram partem — hear the other side. If you hear views you don’t like, engage with them, and be open to having your own mind changed. I think we need to keep pushing that message.
Have students become too comfortable?
I wouldn’t say students are too comfortable, but there is a view amongst some students — and it’s not all students — there is a right not to be offended. I think that’s unfortunate. I’d like to persuade them that that’s not a healthy approach to take. Education is all about being uncomfortable, about being challenged with views that you hadn’t considered or encountered before and figuring out your position vis-a-vis those points of view.
We both know that the press – or some parts of the press – likes to use the issue of freedom of speech as a stick with which to beat certain universities. But I think we’re pretty robust on the issue, even if not every student or every staff member would agree with me precisely on where to draw the lines. My own view is that all legal speech should be welcomed at universities.
With the invasion of Ukraine, there has been a reassessment of money from Russia. When it comes to fundraising, how should we trade off the usefulness of this money for increasing the stock of knowledge in the world with the fact that money often comes from more questionable sources, and may be used to launder reputations in a way which we find undesirable?
Well, first of all, we have a very robust process, we have a committee to review donations made up of academics from across the university and externals, who decide whether or not to accept funding. We have some firm rules such as: No money from proceeds of crime, or from tobacco. Often, it’s a question of judgment and these things aren’t black and white. But I’m pretty comfortable with the funding that we take. I will defend every gift we’ve taken on my watch, even though, ultimately, it was the Committee’s approval that mattered.
I think we can be a little too pure about all of this. I worry sometimes about what people 100 years from now are going to think about us. They could look back at us and say, well, they sat on their hands in the face of unbelievable inequality. Or we sat on our hands while the evidence of climate change was overwhelming. We ate animals: I suspect 100 years from now, that may be seen as completely morally reprehensible. So, one has to make judgment calls here, based on the values we hold today.
To what degree are traditions which form Oxford valuable for their own sake? And how should we deal with the legacies of oppression in the past?
Well, there’s a whole bunch of questions in that. With the business surrounding gowns and so on, I know that every time this has been put to a vote, the students have voted to retain them. On that, I would say that these traditions are part of our conversation with our past and give people a sense of community and students seem to want them. I would see that as quite a separate issue.
I think we have to be very careful, precisely because we are such a historic University. How do we decide who meets our ethical standards? Again, I think we need to confront our past. I’ll give you an example. I grew up in Ireland — rural Ireland. When I was growing up Oliver Cromwell was the devil incarnate. He was to me what Voldemort was to my kids. Then growing up, going to London, and seeing this big statue outside the House of Commons and going to see who it was. And I thought: “Oh my gosh, that’s Cromwell. Well, isn’t that fascinating? Here we are, a few hundred miles away, and this man who I was brought up to see as an evil butcher has been lionised. Isn’t that fascinating?”. And I thought: “What is it about this guy?” I wanted to learn more and more about him. It never occurred to me that his statue should be ripped down because he did terrible things in Ireland. I’d love us to educate ourselves on our history to understand more. But to hold people to values that we hold today? I just don’t have the confidence in our own moral purity to think that we really have got a right to do that. Because how we live our lives now could well be questioned.
At a national level, there has been a shift toward STEM education. Oxford, traditionally perceived as more of a humanities-orientated institution, is now the premier university for the life sciences. How should we understand that shift? How, if at all, must we trade off the value between a STEM and Humanities degree?
So, I don’t think there’s a conflict between the two. I think there has been a shift nationally, and not just nationally, I think it’s true in many other countries as well. I take great pride in the fact that historically, we were known as the humanities place and Cambridge as the science place, and that’s no longer true. I think Oxford is pre-eminent both in the humanities and the sciences. And that’s where I want to keep it.
The medics will figure out how to prolong our lives but its the humanities that will make those longer lives worth living. How do you attribute value to a poem to a piece of music? They are essential to what it means to be human. I’m delighted to be in an institution which values humanities so much, and it’s why I really wanted to get a major gift for the humanities. I wanted to really make an assertion that Oxford, this powerful institution, really cared about the humanities by securing the best and biggest gift since the Renaissance for the Humanities. I felt that to be of huge symbolic importance, and I’m really proud of that.
What would your parting message be to students?
Just enjoy your time here. It is an extraordinary privilege. Enjoy it and make the most of it. Try things out, engage, and don’t let an opportunity pass you by. Just jump at everyone that comes your way. You have to enjoy this time.
For a while, Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy had been sitting on my Letterboxd watchlist, but I’d never quite gotten around to watching it. That was until a few weeks ago when I put the first one on, on a whim. Then the second. Then the third. Quickly all three ended up on my list of all-time favourite films (even if my housemate doesn’t entirely share my opinion on them all).
The trilogy follows the relationship between Jesse and Celine, who meet on a train to Vienna. What, to them, seems like it’s only going to be one romantic night (with vague promises to meet again) turns into something more, something life-changing, as they reconnect nine years later at a book signing in Paris. These two chance encounters lead us to the trilogy’s conclusion, Before Midnight, where we re-join Jesse and Celine nine years later once again, as they holiday in Greece with their children.
Fair warning to anyone going into this film expecting the seemingly perfect romanticism of the first two: you will be sorely disappointed. Perhaps the greatest description of how these films differ comes from Ethan Hawke himself, who plays Jesse and was Oscar-nominated for his writing alongside Linklater and Julie Delpy for the last two films. According to Hawke, “the first film is about what could be, the second is about what should have been. Before Midnight is about what it is.”
And, I will admit, it is easy to see why this could be people’s least favourite of the trilogy. It lacks the same level of romantic escapism as the first two, and for the first half contains a much bigger cast of characters than expected; as a result, much of the film lacks the level of intimacy felt in the first two. Not to mention that a large proportion of the film is based around the growing tension between Jesse and Celine, as they grapple with the difficulties of divorce and parenthood. Furthermore, some of the choices made in how the characters are written in Before Midnight can also feel somewhat jarring, or even downright odd. The problems in their marriage seem to almost be reduced down to the question of gender; such as Jesse’s perceived disinterest in much of the everyday aspects of raising a family, being expected of him as a man. And that certainly feels very old-fashioned to say the least. Furthermore, Celine’s characterisation definitely feels like a downgrade – she seems less self-assured than in the first two.
However, I think the film still holds up, and works as an excellent conclusion to the trilogy – even if we hope that maybe one day, the characters will re-join for a fourth film. Because this is what the film’s strength is; as the closing act of a wider piece of cinema that serves as a reflection on love and the passage of time. The decision not to have a typical fairytale ending may seem frustrating, and even surprising, but it fits. After all, Linklater has never really tried to present them as a picture-perfect relationship, especially in Before Sunset where we find out not only that they didn’t meet in Vienna again as they had promised, but that both were in relationships of their own.
And sure, maybe some of the points that are put forward by Jesse and Celine in their arguments don’t necessarily sit quite right with us; it can even feel as if they have tried to simplify the concept of marriage down into a few nice soundbites. Yet is that not part of the magic of Linklater’s films? The appeal, at least to me, of this film is how it reflects on the development of their relationship over time. We get to see them change, from the slight naivety of the first night to them raising a family together. No one is making any ground-breaking statements about marriage, nor particularly exciting declarations of their feelings towards each other. It’s an argument that has probably been replicated in countless relationships. Because this is what makes Linklater such a fantastic writer and director. It’s his ability to capture so perfectly the dynamics between people and how time changes these; how people are changed by their experiences, and how this shapes the way in which they move through their lives.
The choice to have the film, and the trilogy as a whole, end in a messy, ambiguous way, is I think a great choice. It’s very easy for a film about romance to have a happy ending, or one devastatingly sad. And I’m certainly not disparaging films that do end in those ways. However, life doesn’t necessarily work in such a dichotomy. As much as we might like to dream about meeting our own Jesse or Celine on the train somewhere, this idealised version of love cannot last. And, really, there’s nothing wrong with that. Linklater manages to paint a picture of love that feels real, without sacrificing any sense of beauty or magic. It’s not rooted in the grand gestures, it’s in the little things (cliché, I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true). It’s in the way both of them, from early on, feel at ease around each other; they virtually skip the small talk in favour of deeper conversations. It’s in the way that it’s Celine singing that confirms Jesse’s desire to stay. And it’s even in how they fight, and how Jesse tries to make things better, remarking that “if you want true love, this is it.” Watching their relationship blossom over the trilogy, it’s difficult to argue otherwise.
Thinking about the Before trilogy naturally brings my mind to Boyhood, another Linklater and Hawke collaboration. An epic coming-of-age filmed over the span of twelve years, at its heart it’s telling us the same things explored in these films. Boyhood doesn’t meander through major milestones, dwelling on birthdays, and new school years. It explores growing up through different vignettes over the years. Those big moments are important, sure, but they’re not what makes a person, they’re what makes a life. Sometimes it’s so easy to focus on what we think are going to be life-changing events, that we miss the little things. Linklater reminds us otherwise.
Before Midnight, then, beautifully and honestly draws Linklater’s Before trilogy to a fitting conclusion. As a meditation on love and relationships it reminds us that it’s not always plain sailing, but that this doesn’t erase or dampen our past experiences. One of the trilogy’s moments that has stayed with us the most is Celine’s monologue on when she’ll know she’s in love: “I think I can fall in love when I know everything about him”. This is what is at the heart of Linklater’s work; that to love someone is to know them. After all, is that not what we’re all looking for?
It seemed like a particularly busy Saturday morning as I weaved through the crowds on Cornmarket street. Extinction Rebellion were out banging drums and passing around leaflets. There were buskers on every corner; great gaggles of smartly dressed teenagers with official looking lanyards, perhaps on school trips from overseas; and socialist protesters handing out newspapers. Eventually I arrived at Westgate where I waited to meet my friends, fresh from the train for a weekend visit. The sun was shining in a clear sky, and the golden Oxford stone glowed, splintered as I looked upwards by dark skeletons of bare winter trees lining the streets.
As we approach the final weeks of term the beginning of Michaelmas already seems so far away, and the majority of us have been bouncing about inside the Oxford bubble for at least five, if not six straight weeks now. It is surprising how easily you get used to this historic city, the pretty cobbled streets and the cows grazing in Christ Church meadow. It becomes normal, and the busyness of everyday life often distracts us from where we are.
But the bubble burst somewhat as I showed my friends around, pointing out the old libraries, the cosy cafes and taking them down narrow side streets. Suddenly Oxford changed for me: the place that photo-hungry tourists travel miles to see unveiled itself. As I chatted with my friends about my term so far, I became aware once more of all the things that made my experience of university so distinctly ‘Oxford’ – I found myself translating ‘bops’ as college parties, explaining that ‘scaf’ was informal hall here at Catz and that ‘sub fusc’ was basically just that funny Oxford outfit with a gown. “We’ve made it to Sixth Week now,” I would tell them, forgetting that the statement had very little relevance to students who are accustomed to terms that stretch beyond eight weeks. I felt as though I were in a book, speaking a fantasy language like that which Tolkein created for The Lord of the Rings.
The weather was perfect for a weekend visit. I firmly believe that the best way to see a city is to wander its streets, and what better time for it than a bright, clear skied November day? A bumpy stroll along the cobbles of Merton Street, a drink in the Turf and a perfectly timed walk in Christ Church meadows just as the rowing was beginning all made for a rather picturesque and romantic Saturday afternoon.
It was strange when I turned away from the station, heading back up George Street as my friends caught their train home. Those faces that I had seen everyday at the school gates, those voices I had heard each lunchtime, belonged to people who I now saw much less frequently. Whilst there was something sad about the passage of time that I had noticed so starkly with their coming to visit, after some time to mull things over it was equally apparent to me how wonderful it was that the four of us could be scattered across the country, myself a student, my friends with jobs – different routines, different lives – and yet we could still meet up for the weekend and share smiles and laughs.
A lot might have changed, but we were still the same girls who had dressed up after school and played JustDance together on the Wii. There are certain things that will always be true.
As President of the Oxford Union, Ahmad Nawaz, faces a vote on the future of his presidency, multiple senior members of his committee, including the Secretary, Librarian-elect, Treasurer-elect, and Chair of Consultative Committee, have spoken out against his leadership.
Last week Cherwell reported that Nawaz’s lack of attendance at three meetings of the Union’s Access committee would trigger an automatic resignation unless he could provide a valid reason and collect enough signatures to bring the matter to the house. While successfully gathering the signatures, Nawaz argued that his absence from the meetings was due to “infectious or debilitating disease”. However, on one day when he claimed to have missed a meeting because of illness, he was later seen attending a dinner and speaking at a debate. Tim Green, the Union’s Senior Access Officer, said: “If [his disease] was infectious, then the president was knowingly endangering those around him. If it was disabling, then the speed of his recovery was remarkable given that just a few hours later he was able to make a 10-minute speech to a packed house.”
Daniel Dipper, the Oxford Union’s Librarian (vice-president) provided Cherwell with an on-record statement on the President’s absences, before requesting its retraction.
Ahmad Nawaz told Cherwell: “The role of President is extremely time-consuming, often with multiple speaker meetings, events and internal meetings in the same day which is why I have had to miss parts of earlier internal meetings this term. It is clearly absurd that illness is not deemed an acceptable reason for an absence with a grossly disproportionate penalty.
“It was an oversight that I had not passed earlier due to the fact that this term has been extremely busy. I did then bring my absences to the Access Committee and it was here that a member objected. This same individual had passed her own absence on the very same grounds, the previous week. This level of hypocrisy is completely unacceptable in any setting but is certainly not what members should expect from an elected committee.”
Following objections to Nawaz’s illness excuse, a vote on whether to accept his explanation and thus cease the automatic resignation will take place by secret ballot on Thursday. All Union members will be able to vote, although some of the committee have said it will only be open to those issued with voter tokens on the door of the chamber debate at 8:30pm.
Nawaz, meanwhile, claimed in a Facebook post that individuals from the committee are choosing to enact “nasty political ploys” against him. However, many members of the committee maintain that their complaints go beyond the failure to attend meetings and are a result of Nawaz’s leadership style as a whole.
The Union’s Secretary, Matthew Dick, said: “There have been countless times when he has failed to turn up to some of the more manual jobs such as moving benches or termcards, leaving Junior Committee demoralised and showing a disregard for the people who make his term and ultimately the glory he receives happen.”
The Librarian-Elect, Disha Hegde, said: “The President has shown a repeated failure to do the job that he was elected to do. From missing several meetings – without providing any reason, a failure to provide budgets when required to do so, and a failure to work a single shift during the membership drive. He has, however, shown up to every free debate dinner and drinks reception – which are all financed from the members’ money”.
Nawaz said in response that the claim about his failure to work a single shift during the membership drive is “false” and that under Rule 14(b)(i) it is the responsibility of the President-Elect to organise the membership drive. He added that under Standing Order C1, “the Sitting Junior Offices are obliged to attend each Presidential Dinner and shall dine free of charge.”
As previously reported by Cherwell, the The Union’s Access Committee meets every Thursday and the President is obliged to attend. Failure to turn up on three occasions triggers an automatic resignation unless a valid reason for absence can be given. Under Union rule 23 (c)(ii)(2), “Any member of any Committee… having missed three ordinary meetings of that Committee without good reason in the same term, shall be deemed to have submitted his resignation from that Committee.”
The Chair of the Consultative Committee (a senior position within the organisation), Chloe Glynn, also told Cherwell: “It’s embarrassing for a President who is supposed to represent so many, to care so little about one of our most diverse committees. … There are many who have worked hard for him on different occasions and felt they did not receive the praise and rewards they deserved whilst a select few continuously seem to be at debate dinners.”
Committee members told Cherwell that Nawaz has given a group of personal friends (“the Donnies”) a high number of privileges inside the Union.
Image from the Michaelmas Term 2022 termcard of the Oxford Union.
Beau Boka-Batesa, an elected member of the Secretary’s committee, said: “The peer nepotism is quite blatant, which meant tensions were present in Union premises.”
Nawaz told Cherwell: “All appointments were made on merits through interviews and were ratified by the standing committee as per Rule 31 (e)(vi) without any objections from any member of the standing committee.”
Danial Hussain, a member of Nawaz’s college, Lady Margaret Hall, was appointed Director of Research. As the committee member responsible for researching questions to ask speakers, he was criticised by Standing Committee member Hannah Edwards in the 5th week Committee meeting for “asking people to write questions, when the point of this job is to write these questions”. Hegde claimed that she was asked to write questions for Nawaz’s guest AJ Tracey – a highlight of the term’s speaker schedule – the day before the talk.
Confronted with this claim, Nawaz told Cherwell: “I would refer you to the minutes of Standing Committee in 5th week where Danial’s efforts were praised by the Librarian who said he felt “quite prepared” and cited the “performance improvement” in the Union because he “always had the questions 24 hours in advance”.”
Two friends of Nawaz were specifically invited by Nawaz to the meet and greet with tennis legend Billie Jean King on Tuesday. When Cherwell reporters asked how they had procured an invite, one of them simply replied “a bit of nepotism”.
An elected member of the Secretary’s committee who resigned early in term, Kajaanan Vijitharan, told Cherwell: “The main reason [for my resignation] was that I could not justify serving under a President whom I believed to be morally reprehensible. One example that comes to mind is, when the motion ‘This House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far’ was proposed, multiple members of committee … raised to the President’s attention that the motion pandered to a right-wing ideology. Similar sentiments were shared by invited guests who refused to speak on the motion for this very reason …. In response, the President only cared about the media attention such a debate would receive, for narcissistic reasons, and not about the quality of debate at the Oxford Union.”
These sentiments were echoed by the Standing Committee member Spencer Shia, who said: “I have seen the President not take disagreement and criticism very well, often assuming a very litigious posture and not seeking to understand the opposing party’s position or to explain his own. … It is my view that the President’s authoritarian and impulsive management style has led to a breakdown in committee morale and cohesion.”
Nawaz disputes these claims, telling Cherwell that “No members of the committee raised concerns about this motion to me. The debate motions for this term were voted on by the entire committee and all the debate speakers for the term were sent to the Standing Committee for approval. This was received with no objections. The purpose of the Oxford Union Society is the advancement of education and upholding freedom of speech which naturally entail debating complex and challenging motions.”
Disha Hegde added that “a repeated failure to care about access within the Society, or the basic requirements of the job you have rusticated to do is an insult to the rest of committee and to the members.”
Asked about the vote, Nawaz told Cherwell: “I care deeply about this society. I believe that my committee and I have delivered a solid lineup of events and ask the members to consider the effort that goes into a line up of speakers and debates such as this. I would also ask for the members’ understanding that this role can be extremely demanding and exhausting. I do regret that I had to miss occasional meetings but assure members that this was indeed due to illness and ask for their understanding when debating whether or not to consider this as a reasonable excuse. Thank you.”
The Union’s 6th Week debate motion will be “This House Believes Woke Culture has gone too far”. The vote on whether Nawaz is fit to carry out the remainder of his term as President will take place that same evening.
Image credit: Meghana Geetha / US Department of State.
Families eagerly ate hot dogs, and red, white and blue banners were festooned all around as giddy fans tossed American footballs between them. When the spectators had finally taken their seats, they were greeted with two national anthems: “The Star-Spangled Banner”, followed by “God Save the King”. Such were the scenes at Wembley Stadium on 30th October as the NFL concluded the latest instalment of its 15-year-running foray into the British market before a record crowd.
The growing interest in the US’s idiosyncratic take on football is not the only way in which the world’s largest economy has come to influence British culture. Increasingly, Britain’s political elite, as well as broader society, have looked west to determine both the policy and battlegrounds of British politics.
America’s behemoth status forces other nations to pay it some regard, but Britain goes above this basic requirement. The intricacies of American party conventions, legislative developments and public opinion are all given much more national coverage (and indeed sustain more national interest) than the affairs of other nations. The results of the US’s midterm elections are set to dominate the week’s headlines. Interest alone is not a problem, but often fascination results in emulation and that is how Westminster has come to adopt Washington chic.
The obsession with the US brings real impacts. In the 2016 Brexit Referendum, a key plank of the Leave camp’s economic pitch was a putative trade deal with the US. During the campaign and the following years every concern over the UK’s severing from its largest trading partner was shooed away with assurances that a sweeping deal with the US would allow Britain to move away from the stagnant growth of the continent towards the dynamism, opportunity and lax food-safety standards of its former colony.
No sweeping deal has been arranged and the benefits thus far remain minimal. In 2020 the UK signed a bilateral agreement with Indiana, a US state, and in October, British lamb was exported to the US for the first time in twenty years. In real terms, US-UK trade has fallen since Brexit, and the prospect of a deal remains dim. Unfortunately for the UK’s economy, the political obsession with America is decidedly unrequited.
Americanisation also pervades the political discourse across society. Social media—especially Twitter, with which the political elite are so deeply enamoured—provides a direct Atlantic connection that inevitably displays an Americentric viewpoint. Transatlantic trade of goods might remain low, but trade of buzzwords and ideas has flourished. Following the right-wing in America, the Conservatives have made the fight against ‘wokeness’, especially on university campuses, a major concern, despite the relative dearth of militant social campaigners in Britain. Oliver Dowden, former chairman of the Conservative party and now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told an American crowd in February that “painful woke psychodrama” was now “ in our universities…in social science faculties, but also in the hard sciences”. His remarks drew praise from the Washington DC crowd but seem incongruent with the state of British campuses.
Britain’s discourse around social issues is where America’s cultural grip has been the tightest. The US’s culture wars around abortion, race and religion make for compelling viewing, and in situations like this summer’s overturning of Roe v Wade elicit worthy solidarity. But the obsession with cultural issues in America sucks oxygen away from more pressing issues at home. It is important to note the horrors of police brutality in the US, and to castigate the American government as a catalyst for change. But it is just as important to understand the differences between the two countries’ policing systems so that we do not end up trying to fix American problems in Britain, while leaving the actual issues with UK policing unaddressed.
America is an important ally for Britain in many respects, and it is helpful to take interest in relevant political developments. Issues arise when the interest becomes uncritical, and an assumption emerges that whatever is in vogue in America, ought to come to Britain too. Britons may watch American football, but they should not let it replace the real thing.
‘Pan-Asian’ is a term that always raises suspicion for me with restaurants. I’m a strong believer in places that pick a clear focus, keeping their menus small and specialised. Often, the alternative is a hodgepodge of overs-sauced dishes trying far too hard to represent their origin. Although Banana Tree inevitably falls into this trap in places, it is a restaurant defined by a series of star dishes, a unique setting, and brilliant staff, that mean I can definitely see myself returning.
We kicked things off with an eclectic range of starters. The crispy gyoza were distinguished by their hard outer shell but the freshness of the vegetables inside still managed to punch through nicely. The chicken satay set is certainly a good choice for those wanting to share, and the slightly bland seasoning on the chicken itself, is more than made up for by the peanut dip. However, the spring rolls and Thai calamari unfortunately both fell into the same trap — too much batter. The inside of the rolls was a great pickle mix but the flavours were lost in the heavy pastry coating. The calamari suffered a similar fate with even the superb accompanying tamarind dip able to make up for the quantity of breadcrumbs masking any potential hint of squid.
And so on to the main courses, starting with the Rendang beef curry. The menu calls it ‘legendary’ and to be fair it lives up to the title. The beef falls apart beautifully into a coconut-based sauce full of flavour, that manager Markusz tells us, has been cooking in for four hours. The tamarind crispy fish followed up with similar success. Here, unlike the starters, the batter is a perfect light dusting topped with tamarind, lime, chilli, garlic, and peanuts. The combination of flavours is brilliantly well thought out and still allows the tilapia room to shine. Drawing a contrast between it and the blackened chilli beef is quite something. The latter was so tough that cutting into it was an effort, never mind chewing, and completely lacked any flavour. A side dish of papaya salad saved its graces slightly but it definitely isn’t a dish to head back for.
Beef Rending.Crispy tamarind fish.
Laksa is a Singaporean staple and Banana Tree’s seafood offering largely delivered. A rich, creamy sauce is accompanied by the traditional rice noodles and a large variety of fish and shellfish. The wok-tossed noodles come with a similarly generous helping of seafood and vegetables. Although delicious their only drawback could be a black sauce that at times overpowers. The sweetcorn fritters that come alongside were mainly dough and not worth ordering as a starter on their own.
Seafood laksa.Wok tossed noodles.
Finally, the yum yum duck salad sees a return to a brilliantly constructed mains dish. The meat on its own is good but really comes alive when eaten together with the pickles, herbs, and mixed salad.
Yum yum duck salad.Very blackened chilli beef.
Before heading to the desert options, it’s worth giving a nod to the cocktail menu at Banana Tree. Incredibly diverse and unique it has something for everyone with two standing out for us: the lychee mojito and the Rangoon zombie. Both are very easy to drink and the first a great twist on the reliable classic. The zombie benefits from a partnership with Dead Man’s Fingers to deliver its spiced rum with pineapple and a secret ‘Zombie Juice’ mix in a very pleasing novelty cup.
Rangoon Zombie. Lychee mojito.
On the desert front, the so-called ‘banana frotiteroles’ drizzled in chocolate and caramel are an easy win alongside vanilla ice cream. Elsewhere, the Thai green coconut stuffed pancakes are fairly dry on the outside but filled with a delicious mix of cinnamon, coconut, and brown sugar that would work just as well on its own.
‘Banana frotiteroles’.Thai pancakes.
Overall, Banana Tree is a pleasant surprise. Despite the occasional missteps that are somewhat inevitable when trying to deliver a menu covering an entire continent, it is defined by a selection of star dishes and reliable classics. The staff star across the board with their passion and friendliness to make this a lovely place to spend an afternoon or evening.
My parents used to tell me that, back in the 1970s when they were growing up, everyone had a pet tortoise. Coming to Oxford, I didn’t realise how common they would be among colleges, even to the extent that, every year, Corpus Christi hosts a Tortoise Fair. Tortoises from across the University descend on Corpus to take part in the yearly tortoise race, with Lincoln College’s Tortilla winning the 2022 race. It is clear, therefore, that college tortoises, like other pets, are a huge part of college and university life.
In no college has this been made clearer to me than in Regent’s Park, with the late tortoise Emmanuelle. Though Emmanuelle sadly passed away in early October this year, she was an inspiration behind this column and a true presence in the college’s everyday life. She was purchased from the Covered Market in 1976, and though at the time the college was told that she was around seventy years old, estimates now suggest that when she passed she was around ninety to one hundred years old. Nonetheless, this made her Oxford’s oldest tortoise prior to her passing, and her yearly birthday party was a key event in the college’s calendar. The college were also initially told she was male, meaning she lived the first 50 years of her life as ‘Emmanuel’, before they realised she was a female and renamed her Emmanuelle.
Image credit: Kate Andison
Regents’ Tortoise Keeper, Kate, described Emmanuelle, or ‘Manny’ as she was known throughout the college, as ‘friendly, speedy, and old.’ Whilst Manny certainly lived a long life, she was also able to prove the other two. Though I didn’t personally see her on my many visits to Regents until Trinity 2022, leading me initially to question her friendly nature, many at the college recall fond memories of feeding her her favourite foods, including bananas, strawberries, and lettuce. Her favourite place to hide in Regents’ front quad was outside my friend’s first year room, so she enjoyed being around students and involved in everyday life.
Emmanuelle also certainly lived up to being speedy in her earlier years. She won many victories for Regents in the annual Corpus Tortoise Fair during the 1970s to 1990s, seeing her eat her way through a circle of lettuce faster than her competitors. Her successes in these races are reflected in the college archive as the ‘Emmanuelle Cup’. Whilst she did not win the 2022 race, it saw her grand return to Oxford after temporarily leaving during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Emmanuelle became a true fixture of the college during her time there, being elected an honourary member of the JCR and even honoured in the college’s new stained glass windows. She was a welcome break from the stress of academic life, with students coming together to meet her and making friends through looking after her. With her birthday party in 2014 raising £700 for charity, she also helped the college give back to the community. It is clear that her loss has been felt in the college’s community given how much she brought to it.
Regents has recently announced that, in February, they will be welcoming Emmanuelle’s successor, Truffle, to the college. Truffle is 13 years old, and so will undoubtedly be at the college for a long time as Emmanuelle was. Whilst the loss of Emmanuelle has been sorely felt, the college is excited to welcome a new pet for members of the college to make memories with. Even non-furry college pets can, therefore, bring a huge sense of community to a college, and I am excited to meet Regents’ new tortoise in Hilary term!
I am by no means stating that people with happy, functioning parents have unfulfilling and bland bonds with them, I am merely contemplating the notion. No conclusions have yet been drawn – it would be premature to do so two lines in.
All I am saying is that affection isn’t limitless, and I am fairly certain that the birth of my brother and me divided the love my dad received in three. So, if my mum loved my dad at a rate of, say, 6/10 before us, since 2001 (moi), it became 4/10, and from 2004 (the brother) onwards it was 2/10. My mum since had to replace one big love bucket with three mini buckets to fill (and indeed over time she replaced mine and my brother’s buckets with two significantly larger ones, and my dad’s with an even smaller one). I can see why this may frustrate the poor Italian man who is so full of passion, infatuation and zeal. “Wai you two come-a and took-a away-a my-a wife-a??!” This is just the way the buckets in my family crumbled. However, I am unfortunately not the only quirky and troubled kid who suffered the high tensions of a mental-health riddled home. In fact, I stupidly seem to have surrounded myself with people who actually steal this special quality of mine and even put my “my dad went to Italy for a month because my mum exiled him for locking us in the house all day as I was wearing a miniskirt that could be a belt” story to shame, as my close friends yawn and sigh when I promise them that this time it really is going to happen, my parents will divorce next month. I can feel myself slowly metamorphose into a boy who cried “divorce!”. But I guess a parent in prison will always take the cake. “Oh my dad is in prison, I’m so cool” – she always feels the need to whip that one out. That’s easy too, the law got involved. No personal credit can be taken there. Whereas I (and my brother) am the sole reason for my parents’ ruination. Now that’s honourable stuff.
I tell my mum everything. Not everything, but everything. When my dad and I aren’t ripping each other’s eyeballs out, we lie for hours on the sofa as he plays everything from an indie Italian punk band called something like The Grungy Faecal Matters to ‘Nowhere Man’ by the Beatles. The only reason both my parents have so much time for me is because they don’t have time for each other. Well, my dad does for my mum but, unfortunately for him, in this day and age, reciprocity is an important thing. An unreciprocated hug over the table – nearly tipping over the red wine, whilst there are guests, as the blonde woman you are seizing is grimacing and pushing you away – is regrettably deemed pitiful to the modern spaghetti-slurping audience. Ultimately, people chortle it off because he is-a Italian-a and passionate. He has cooked them what they’d usually pay £80 for at a Michelin-star restaurant. I have to admit, however, seeing my dad constantly get rejected is a sorry sight. Sometimes I try to give him a surrogate charity hug but my efforts go unappreciated because, ‘tis true, I am not his beautiful, blonde, “stupenda” wife.
As I said, I seem to loiter in circles where everyone’s parents are unhappily married or divorced. Almost all my best friends’ parents have got something going on. Whether it’s a nasty divorce; two people living together but leading two completely separate lives; two people co-existing in hatred; bipolar disorder in one or both parties; or even one party openly cheating. All my friends have one extremely close bond with one of their two parental nutjobs. I am convinced it is this non-dedication between the spouses that allows for more dedication for the child. If you take me for example (me me me), my mum is not just my mum, she’s my manager. She does everything for me. And I mean everything. Picture a helicopter with my mum’s face on it. She knows all of my awkward encounters with the silent pork noodle-cooking girl who seems to be unaware we actually get the privilege of personal fairy-lit caves and lives in the kitchen. Mum even asks for updates: “did pork-girl glare at you again today?”. To top it off, I went on a girls’ trip to Cape Verde with my mum on my parents’ 20th anniversary. I am officially a leach.
One of my best friend’s parents would smother her in attention and devotion, making us the most delicious spinach and chicken ravioli in the hopes we would then hate the dad, who only got us frozen margherita pizzas. As much as I love pizza, the creamy ravioli took the amore. She would then egg us on to tell us all of the latest ridiculous things the man had done that week, whipping out a banana bread from the oven that tasted as though it was from the Garden of Eden. She is but one of many examples of such parental dynamics.
The people I know who have happy, functioning parents tend to not be anything to write home about. My nutjob friends, who have nutjob parents, however, make for a good story. Most of the time they also happen to be better company. Sorry, I said it. I guess what I am saying is, if you regrettably had the misfortune of waking up in a home of co-made, smiling pancakes, and you were left with sulking babysitters whilst your parents went on romantic dates, you can still fix this and make sure of your close bond with one or both your parents. There are many ways you can ensure destruction. You can either do the classic, and squish red thongs on the side of your dad’s bed frame – although if they’re truly happy, their honeymoon trust will cut through that. Alternatively, buy your dad a guitar and tell him you’d love him to play ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door.’ After the fourth month of the same four chords, he will definitely be knocking at your front door. And in the mean time you can snuggle up to your mum and tell her you’d love to go shopping with her because you need her fashionable opinions.
The servant Delio (Riya Banerjee) enters the stage, a tense, static figure, and cloaks the Michael Pilch Studio in an uncomfortably long silence. Rhapsody Productions’ version of John Webster’s tragedy The Duchess of Malfi begins as it means to go on, encapsulating the moment of quiet before disaster, in a minimalist production in which the performances of a talented cast carry this tension throughout.
Webster’s play paints a brutal picture of political corruption in 16th-century Italy, through the lens of a recently widowed young woman and her ambitious brothers, and stagings of the text often live and die on the strength of the interactions and rapport between members of the cast. There is a complex web of relationships, between the powerful and the power-hungry, the lovers and the ambitious courtiers, to be established in a series of vignettes before the escalation to violence in the final acts. While Rhapsody Productions have slightly slimmed down the cast and removed some scenes, the complexity remains, and has been well navigated.
None of the cast members ended up defaulting to the well-worn stereotype associated with their role. The performance of Nathan Crewe (who also directs the production) performance granted the disgraced spy Bosola a degree of emotional depth, while losing none of the character’s innate sliminess; Alex Bridges as lovelorn steward Antonio knew when to rein in the nervous energy in favour of a more authentic tenderness. Jules Upson was deliciously unhinged as the Duchess’ brother Ferdinand, although one sometimes felt as though he amped up the volume of his dialogue at the expense of emotional expression. Disha Kashyap’s eponymous Duchess was the sun around which the rest of the play revolves, the character acting as a fittingly blank canvas onto which the men around her can project, though later in the play a degree of tenacity on her part does shine through.
Elspeth Knight’s costumes were another highlight, with Crewe’s corset and mesh shirt ensemble and the touches of androgyny in Bridges’ look being especially memorable. However, given the strength of the cast’s acting performances, it is a shame that the production wasn’t more impressive aesthetically. The minimalist set design by Ruby Sayer did not necessarily correspond with the lavishness of either the costumes or the sordid decadence on display in Webster’s script.The production seemed to occupy a strange grey area between a modern adaptation of the themes of The Duchess of Malfi and an attempt at authentically capturing the play’s setting. The only real element of set design were a few translucent white curtains hanging off-centre at the back of the stage, which are not utilised as seamlessly as they could have been in facilitating various actors’ entries, exits and, in one case, imprisonment.
The staging of certain scenes was also awkward — with the space at times too crowded and in other moments underutilised. The visceral onstage murders, revolutionary when the play was first staged, were well performed, but the production had not sufficiently thought through how to get around the placement of several corpses centre stage halfway through the show, so the later scenes sometimes felt claustrophobic. Moreover, the staging of some of the play’s dialogues felt very static, and as a result one became keenly aware of how often that space wasn’t being filled, despite the modest size of the Pilch.
Rhapsody Production’s version of ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ had some teething issues, but these do not ultimately detract too significantly from the production’s merit. The cast and crew demonstrated a strong ability to convey the play’s themes to a contemporary audience through evocative performances, despite a convoluted script and limited visual resources.
