Tuesday, May 13, 2025
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Do Student VCs Make Sound Bets?

Emma Toner
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Do Student VCs Make Sound Bets?

Innovation and Invention. One look at the popular press will show you the powerful grip each has on the nation’s collective imagination and the UK economy. Modern media is filled with the stories of entrepreneurs that defy the odds to attain phenomenal success. The entrepreneur has become a modern-day cowboy, exploring new industrial frontiers much the same way that renegades once explored the Wild West. By their side sits the venture capitalist, who funds their vision and in exchange, they get a piece of the action. Venture capitalists (VCs) are private equity investors that provide capital to nascent, high-growth potential companies in exchange for an equity stake. Notable examples of VCs include Sir Michael Moritz KBE, the co-founder of the Moritz-Heynman Scholarship as well as Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder who was also Facebook’s first investor. 

Some funds are aware that the next “unicorn” (a startup company with at least a $1 billion dollar valuation)  may well be found on a university campus – Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are all examples of businesses that had their roots in such places. Increasingly, these funds are hiring students to scout for them.

One such fund at Oxford is Creator Fund. Founded by alum Jamie Macfarlane in 2019, it is now spread across 28 universities in the UK. In 2020, the fund raised £1.5 million from Founders Factory and Schmidt Futures. This enabled its student analysts and investment partners, consisting of undergraduates, MBAs and PhDs, to invest up to £150K in promising seed to pre-Series A student-run tech startups. In April 2021 Creator Fund led a £685 K seed investment round for Baseimmune, a Jenner Institute startup using machine learning algorithms to develop variant-prone vaccines.  

Another such fund at Oxford is REMUS Capital. Founded by Krishna Gupta in his MIT dorm room in 2008, it maintains a presence at universities in Boston, Silicon Valley, London, Cambridge, and Oxford. Its campus analysts seek to invest in seed to early Series B startups “with a special interest in vertical technology and research-driven companies at the intersection of humans and machines”, according to its London associate Marc Felske. REMUS has invested in a handful of successful Cambridge-based research-driven ventures such as Cambridge Cancer Genomics, which was acquired by Dante Labs in 2021. Last year, REMUS’ first ever portfolio investment, Presto, announced its intentions to go public via a $1 billion merger with the SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) Ventoux.

So why students? For the same reason that Nathan Rothschild made a fortune from the Battle of Waterloo: early information. Jack Chong, an Oxford campus scout for REMUS, suggests that the unique selling point is their ability to tap into the Gen-Z and student ecosystems. Students are far better connected within their university communities, more than any external scout or VC could dream of being. They have one-of-a-kind access to student start-up support, but also student societies, or friends and acquaintances who are on the prowl for investment. As Chong adds, ‘in VC, presence leads to deals. Deals lead to some limited success. Success begets success.’’

The second reason is demand for students; venture capital is perceived to be difficult to enter for university graduates without ample experience in the financial industry, discouraging people from joining. Student VC experiences offer a tangible edge for future career prospects. Marc Moesser, an investment partner of Creator Fund, elaborates on these benefits: “Our analysts and new investment partners get an in-depth training in every aspect of VC, from finance, business strategy to negotiation and investment term sheet legals. You already know investors from other VC funds. Many of our student alumni joined top VC funds straight out of undergrad or grad school, which is normally almost impossible.”

Like their more established counterparts, whether student-run VC firms make sound bets or not depends on their available capital, networks, and the extent by which the businesses they invest in generate returns. Taking chances on startups is risky, as more than 90% fail and 1 out of 5 of these within their first year. In another sense, VC schemes can be a sound bet because they offer participants unique skills and experience conducive for entering the investment profession or becoming entrepreneurs themselves. 

Image Credit: REMUS Capital (left); Creator Fund (right)

‘They might just murder each other first’: A Review of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter

Neily Raymond
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‘They might just murder each other first’: A Review of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter

It’s hard to be a hitman. The hours are unpredictable, the people are seedy, and sometimes you can’t even get a decent cup of tea.

In Harold Pinter’s 1960 play The Dumb Waiter, which opened at the Michael Pilch Studio in Week 6 of Hilary term, we see just how poorly our criminal brethren are treated on the job. Disgusting basement? Check. No gas for the kettle? Check. Cryptic instructions from a mysteriously absent boss? Double check. The lack of workplace protection laws is appalling.

The new production, directed by Alex Foster and Alex Hopkins-McQuillan, runs for a tense 50 minutes. Two hitmen, Ben (Noah Radcliffe-Adams) and Gus (Henry Calcutt) lounge on beds in a basement in Birmingham, waiting for their victim to arrive. Each has a revolver under his pillow. They are restless. Ben tries to ignore Gus’s steady stream of jabber, which ranges through everything from football to dishware. But the two men aren’t alone for long. They begin to receive strange messages through the basement dumbwaiter – scraps of paper demanding, oddly enough, Greek food. And steak and chips, and tea, and scampi, which, of course, Ben and Gus haven’t got. As the two men try to make sense of their situation, and claustrophobia sets in, it seems less and less likely that Ben and Gus will ever slay their victim. They might just murder each other first.

This is a black-box production, with audience members seated on three sides. The set is sparse, with only a couple of beds, a chair, and the omnipresent dumbwaiter, looming at the back of the basement like a vulture. Meanwhile, as the show proceeds, Ben and Gus litter the set with all sorts of detritus. It’s fun to watch (in the way that chaos is always fun to watch): food wrappers and cigarette boxes, newspaper pages, and Eccles-cake crumbs are scattered like confetti. It’s an effective stage image. The set gets messy as Ben and Gus get antsy.

This is my first time witnessing the directorial duo of Foster and Hopkins-McQuillan, having missed out on Quartet last term. Their style in The Dumb Waiter is by turns understated and overwhelming. If you’ve ever seen one cat grooming another, then inexplicably baring his teeth and trying to rip his buddy’s ear off, you have a good idea of how quickly the emotional stakes change in this play. Sometimes Ben and Gus glare at each other wordlessly for minutes. Moments later, they’re shouting, and nearby audience members seem in danger of catching a fist to the face. The rapid back-and-forth between these extremes is exhausting; yet it’s also magnetic, tracing Pinter’s script in all its weirdness.

And this is a difficult script to work with. Pinter is a master of dialect, drawing attention to the linguistic quirks of each character – Ben and Gus have a heated debate about whether one “lights the kettle” or “puts on the kettle” – but it’s never easy for an actor to adopt a language he’s unfamiliar with. It’s all the more impressive, then, that these actors never skip a beat. Radcliffe-Adams as Ben is vaguely cockney, hunching over his newspaper and exclaiming “cor!” at intervals. He’s a master of body language; even as he quietly lurches around the stage, the tension in his shoulders speaks to Ben’s muted anxieties. Meanwhile, Calcutt as Gus is all fluttery hands and nervous laughs, a very unlikely hitman. He’s effete, but Calcutt doesn’t make him a caricature; instead, we witness the very real moral qualms of a brutal killer who doesn’t see himself as, well, a brutal killer.

The Dumb Waiter is a wild ride. From a script that is basically Waiting for Godot meets The Odd Couple, this team has sculpted a tight production that will leave you thinking, even as you flee the small theatre with something like relief. You get to leave the cramped basement room, but Ben and Gus? They don’t have the option. It makes you wonder if – were you held in a musty basement, fed impossible instructions, and forced to wait, and wait, and wait – you’d start acting dumb too. And dumb, as we learn, can be dangerous.

Hundreds in Oxford protest Russian invasion of Ukraine

Charlie Hancock, Estelle Atkinson, and Hope Philpott
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Hundreds in Oxford protest Russian invasion of Ukraine

Hundreds of people from across Oxford turned out to protest the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The protest was held after Kyiv and other major cities spent another night under attack.

In response, the Oxford University Ukrainian Society organised a protest in solidarity with Ukraine. Several hundreds of protestors showed up in Radcliffe Square for the event, which commenced at 13:00 today. The majority of the crowd donned yellow and blue for the Ukrainian flag, with some protesters drawing parallels with the blue sky and yellow cotswold sandstone of the city.

A craft station was opened an hour before the protest was due to begin for attendants to create posters, in addition to receiving yellow-blue ribbons and face paint of the Ukrainian flag. Members of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society sewed a dozen Ukrainian flags the night before the protest as many shops had run out of stock. 

Alongside Ukrainian flags, protesters waved flags from across Europe, especially Eastern Europe. One protester waved the red and white flag used by pro-democracy activists in Belarus, the country from which the invasion force was launched from the north.

The red and white flag used by the Belarusian opposition. Credit: Charlie Hancock

Kateryna Marina, President of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society, helped arrange the protest. She told Cherwell that the support the Ukrainian Community had received in Oxford had been “incredible”. “We organised our Thursday protest in a matter of two hours and had about a hundred people turned up.”

On the situation in Ukraine, she said “To be honest at this point it doesn’t really matter how I feel about the situation personally, it’s what we can do to help Ukraine and help our loved ones there.

“This is a gross violation of international law and human rights. I am honestly speechless about how somebody decided that they could be doing this and how they can go just completely without any repercussions. Everything that’s been done, not even in the past couple of days or weeks or months, but since 2014 in Ukraine is just horrific, and I cannot wrap my mind around it”

Oleh Stupak, a final year DPhil student reading for cybersecurity, said that his feelings at the moment, as a Ukrainian, were very mixed: “I’m from Kyiv, and part of my family is still in Kyiv. Some of them fled to the West, but some of them stayed together, fighting.” 

“On the one side, […] I feel lucky that I didn’t wake up at 3am a couple days ago from a bomb shell, but rather from a phone call. It’s probably a very different experience – I don’t know what my family felt when something had just blown up basically above their roof, so I don’t know exactly what I feel.”

One protestor, Ben Jackson, was there with his two daughters. Jackson told Cherwell he was there “to protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” and “to defend the sovereign democratic rights of the Ukrainian people to govern themselves as they want to be governed.” He discussed the difficulty of explaining the invasion to his young children at home: “their mother is from Poland, […] so they’ve talked a lot about it at home, about the fact that it is happening close to Poland, and that it is an act of aggression that the Russians are undertaking.” While he did not want to share the details with his children, he wanted to “paint the broad strokes” of what is happening in Ukraine. 

Another member of the crowd, Beatrice Pinati, told Cherwell that she has “great concern for what is happening in Ukraine, and [has] great respect for the Russian citizens who are protesting. […] I’m here both for the Ukrainians, and also people I know in Russia, who do not like this war and do not have much opportunity of making their voice heard.” 

Speakers included the leader of Oxford City Council Susan Brown, who also spoke on behalf of the Member of Parliament for Oxford East, Annalise Dodds. Students who spoke included the President of the Oxford University Czech and Slovak Society.

The protest concluded with the singing of the Ukrainian National Anthem, known in English as ‘Glory and Freedom of Ukraine has not yet Perished.’ The words to the anthem were distributed throughout the crowd, with the lyrics written in Ukrainian, phonetic English, and as translated into English. The lyric sheet also contained links to donate to the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the National Bank of Ukraine, and various other charities. 

One of the speakers, Sasha Mills, a student at St Hugh’s who grew up visiting family in Kyiv, has spent the past few days organising a fundraising drive for the British Red Cross’ Ukraine Crisis Appeal. She is also encouraging JCRs to pass an emergency action motion to publicly express support for Ukrainians and members of the European Diaspora by flying the Ukrainian flag and donating to the appeal.

Sasha Mills told Cherwell: “I’m really hoping to see traction with the motion in the next few days, and we’ve seen amazing support already. The motion and fundraiser is designed to make it easy for JCRs and MCRs to contribute to humanitarian aid, and for colleges to show solidarity with those affected by the crisis. If your college isn’t in the process of passing the motion already, this is your chance to get involved!”

Featured Image Credit: Charlie Hancock

This article was updated at 19:07 on 27/2/22 to clarify that Annalise Dodds did not speak. Councillor Susan Brown spoke on her behalf.

Oxford University Russian Club abstains from issuing statement on Ukraine invasion

Estelle Atkinson
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Oxford University Russian Club abstains from issuing statement on Ukraine invasion

The Oxford University Russian Club has decided neither to make a statement nor take an official position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In communications seen by Cherwell, when approached by a student, a representative from the club deemed it not appropriate to take a position as the club does not ‘represent’ either party. The communications from the club consistently refer to the invasion as a ‘conflict,’ while both NATO and the United Nations are calling the situation an ‘invasion’ or ‘attack’. 

The club has a ‘political non-alignment doctrine,’ which was first officially declared by then-President Michael Glenny in 1951. According to the club’s website, “this doctrine remains as resolute today as it was in 1951; our sole aim being the promotion of Russian culture and language within the University, and the fostering of ties between our members and Russia.” 

The club recently announced their intention to form a speaker panel to discuss the ‘unfolding situation,’ saying, “following recent events in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet republics, we are trying to put together an emergency specialist speaker panel […] to discuss the unfolding situation as well as the response by the international community.” In the communications seen by Cherwell, the representative said that “due to the timing of current events vs the dates of full term,” the club may struggle to arrange the speaker panel. 

The decision not to issue a statement on the invasion has caused outrage from students on social media, with one student saying they were “utterly disappointed that the Oxford University Russian Society […] decided not to make a statement.”

“What is happening at the moment is not a conflict of two parties, it’s not as they call it an ‘unfolding situation’. It is a war in which innocent people are killed. Staying silent is not the same as being apolitical or impartial. Instead, silence in the face of wrongdoing is acceptance; yes, even a form of support.” 

“If the Oxford Russian Society decides to stay silent today and not to speak up while their country is invading another country – when will they ever?” 

The Oxford Russian Club told Cherwell: “The Russian Club is not making a comment on the ongoing situation and finds it inappropriate to do so or to be asked to do so.”

“However, if you want a comment on the war from Russians and Ukrainians who live in the UK, we are more than welcome to facilitate that (including offering the opinion of committee members), but all these opinions will be offered in a personal capacity, not representing the organisation.”

“As a private members’ club the executive committee cannot express a collective opinion on behalf of all members, especially considering that the private lives of many of them are affected by the war.”

“In contrast with many other student organisations, the Russian Club (reasonably) finds itself unable to compare a private members’ club to the United Nations or NATO.”

“We are trying to put up a panel of speakers with regards to the ongoing situation. We have contacted a government minister a couple of FCDO civil servants as speakers. However we are told that their schedules are understandably packed and that we might struggle to sort out a date for such an event within the two weeks of full term we have remaining.”

Image Credit: Kyivcity.gov.ua

‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You’, Big Thief Album Review

Sophia Zu
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‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You’, Big Thief Album Review

In the midst of the pandemic, Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief’s lead singer) ventured into the wilderness, fresh from heartbreak, and released two new solo albums, songs and instrumentals. “Dragon in the new warm mountain,” she sings on the track ‘anything’, “didn’t you believe in me?” 

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, Big Thief’s latest album, is a ninety-minute meditation and answer. An album about cosmic timings and earthly connections, weaving deftly between the themes explored in their twin albums U.F.O.F. and Two Hands released in 2019. More than any other band, Big Thief’s music represents an ecosystem. Written by Lenker and produced by their drummer James Krivchenia, the songs of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You are the physical manifestation of proximity in music creation, resulting in a rich and tapestry-like oeuvre that is held and tugged together by invisible, woven strings.

At its heart, this is an album about love. The first track, ‘Change’, is a quietly contemplative piece on the nature of aftermaths —on darkness, the stillness after cacophonous laughter.  With all the “beauty of the moon rising” or the “secret of the quiet night”, the shift from being sunbathed and light-soaked is filled with despair. “Could I feel happy for you when I hear you talking with her like we used to?” Lenker asks, “could I set everything free, when I watch you holding her the way you once held me?”  

Even though Big Thief oftentimes weaves the macroscopic universe through their writing, their music is inherently earthen, teeming with microbes of guitar licks and held together by a mycorrhizal network of lush instrumentation. Even in ‘Time Escaping’, a discordant and dissonant track featuring deadened guitars laced with wallet debris, an undercurrent of life is breathed through the track by Lenker’s deft characterization of nature (in this case, weeds). Likewise, ’Sparrow’ features a simple, repeated melodic motif  whilst still managing to paint a subtle  renaissance portrait of reclaimed womanhood. Brush strokes of colour are added in the form of layered voices, distortion, and the underlying thistle of dense instrumentation that expands and contracts alongside Lenker’s voice. She sings about Eve, “breasts bound and burdened with fiber.” She sings about snakes, who “talk to and guide her.” She sings about Adam, who “trembles” besides this all and warns Eve of the “poison inside her.” She sings, and perhaps the sparrow listens. While some rock music can sound stagnant, standing firmly in an ethos built through just chord progressions, this is never the case for Big Thief. Their organismal approach to music ensures that, like us, their music breathes and caresses. 

Lenker’s lyrical prowess is a highlight of all her projects, oftentimes paying  homage to lush forests and still air. In this new album, she embraces a wilder, more carefree approach to poetry, rhyming “finish” with “potato knish” on ‘Spud Infinity’ or rhyming “apple” with itself in four consecutive lines on ‘Sparrow’. A country-twanged track that deviates from the indie folk crater Big Thief inhabits, ‘Spud Infinity’ is a raucous, fun track offering a celebration of life and acceptance. Lenker wanders from the exogenous to the endogenous, from the planets to human organs.  “One peculiar organism aren’t we all together,” Lenker sings, “when I say celestial, I mean extra-terrestrial, I mean accepting the alien you’ve rejected in your own heart.” 

The most heart-wrenching Big Thief songs are those that explore the intimacy of human spaces—the corner of the kitchen where the radio sings, unmade beds, green shades on lamps, a drive along to a favourite song—and how they can amplify and colour our emotions. These vestiges of comfort are peppered throughout DWMIBIY, and Big Thief uses a microscopic focus to distill and condense these moments into greater themes of memory and loss. Loss, like “a fallen eyelash.” Love, like “dark steeping coffee.”  

On ‘Little Things’, an endorphin-charged track about infatuation, Lenker sings about “seeing out that needle eye” so much so that she “lose[s] sight of every other face.” The needle-eyed lens is a major theme throughout the album. On ‘Promise is a Pendulum’, Lenker weaves through familiar characters in the Big Thief lore (red oaks and red smoke, winters of white birches) but delves especially deeply into scenes of infatuation—the shadow between the cheek and the eye, canopies of lashes, a singular freckle. And after heartbreak, she sings to herself: “I’ve been listening to the memory…listening to the echo of whys and because, listening to the echo telling me to let go.”  While this particular track shows an impressive amount of self-awareness and resignation, this is not true throughout the album. “I’m scared to die alone,” Lenker admits, and warns on ‘Love Love Love’: “Watch me bleed your love.”  

The titular track, ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You’, is a dreamy, hazy soundscape interjected with trills of flute, chime and Lenker’s climbing, wispy voice. When she sings “it’s a little bit magic,” one wonders as to what she refers to.  The chanting weeds, or the morning geese? In ‘Promise is a Pendulum’, Lenker admits: “When all the material scatters and ashes amplify, the only place that matters is by your side.” Even with all the cosmos, all the universe, all the white birches and red oaks of the world, there is no place more magical nor grander than in the neck of love, wrestled in the shadows between the cheek and the eye.  

Image credit: Martin Schumann//Wikipedia 

‘It leaves you in awe’, Ants From Up There – Black Country, New Road Album Review

Louis Hill
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‘It leaves you in awe’, Ants From Up There – Black Country, New Road Album Review

Ants From Up There is the sophomore album from acclaimed experimental rock outfit Black Country, New Road – equal parts anthemic and introspective, the album deals with grief and heartbreak, all the more poignant after the departure of frontman Isaac Wood. 

Black Country, New Road broke onto the indie and post rock scene with an exciting sound on their 2021 debut and high expectations for a follow-up album. Ants From Up There is in many ways a continuation of the hyper-specific angsty poetry and intricate arrangements of For the first time – albeit with a greater focus on song structure rather than atmosphere. The band quoted their sophomore effort as being “sad, epic and possibly more universally likeable”. 

The album opens with an energetic string and sax overture that coasts effortlessly into the conceptually chamber-pop single ‘Chaos Space Marine’. It’s a peppy number, bright with staccato piano and unpredictable tempo changes, narrating escapism through its Warhammer theme whilst alluding to personal heartbreak. References to pop culture are numerous throughout the record – notably “Billie Eilish style” – rooting the album in a current realism. ‘Concorde’ is more of a slow-burner and in many ways, the conceptual heart of the album. The track is nothing short of a masterpiece. It juxtaposes the fine delicacy of Wood’s hushed vocals and Ellery’s meandering mandolin in the verses with an almost raucous emotional crescendo, and a circular chord progression, undulating like the narrator’s unwavering, self-destructive love for the subject, as embodied in ‘Concorde’. 

Emotional potency continues throughout the record. ‘Bread Song’ is rooted in the everyday – “this place is not for any man nor particles of bread” sings Wood with devastating wit – another track that masterfully builds tension whilst maintaining tenderness with bleating saxophone and carefully-placed percussion. Next is the Kurt Vile inspired ‘Good Will Hunting’ — infectious and melodramatic, marked by jaunty rhythms and yet more  sharp, percussive elements – here Wood gives his most impassioned vocal performance.

Tender moments are frequently positioned beside cacophony – ‘Haldern’ is a good example of this, and was born from an improvisational session. The song flows like a river. It begins soft and ends with eruptive dissonant violin and saxophone. ‘Mark’s Theme’ is a touching tribute to saxophonist Lewis Evans’ uncle who passed away a year before the album’s release. Evans’ solo glides beautifully over twinkling piano and murky bass. The track simultaneously sounds like a film score and a spontaneous, informal expression of grief. 

The tail end of the album sees the band take a more impressionistic approach. ‘The Place Where He Inserted the Blade’ is richly emotive. Wood narrates a feeling of codependency over an exquisite waltz of soft woodwinds, guitar licks and the camaraderie of chorus vocals. Ending tracks ‘Snow Globes’ and ‘Basketball Shoes’ are much longer and instrumental-focused. The former has an arresting repetition and builds gradually over its fugal-inspired nine  minutes featuring an explosive drum solo. In many ways, the closing track is the ribbon that ties the album together, with lyrical and musical references to earlier tracks. ‘Basketball Shoes’ features various movements, some more hushed, but all lead to the grand finale of crashing drums and blaring guitars. Lyrical content here is cryptic but we see Wood reference the failed relationship, or Concorde, and even allude to the Oedipus complex in the latter part of the song. 

Ants From Up There is devastatingly beautiful. It leaves you in awe. Never have I heard a current band create an album so arrestingly produced and emotionally overwhelming. Ants From Up There is perhaps more than a Gen-Z Funeral. It is a fusion of post-rock, jazz and klezmer and a near-perfect outpouring of anger, sorrow and wit. Thank you for the music Isaac (and friends). 

Image credit: Paul Hudson//Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Oxford professor named Hungarian opposition presidential candidate

Maggie Wilcox
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Oxford professor named Hungarian opposition presidential candidate

A Blackfriars Hall fellow, Professor Peter Róna, has accepted the nomination to run as the Hungarian united opposition’s presidential candidate. 

Professor Róna was born in Hungary but fled to America following the Soviet crackdown in 1956. The former president of Schroders Bank, CEO of the First Hungary fund and later a board member of the Central Bank of Hungary, Róna has a wealth of experience in the public and private sectors. He has also worked extensively in academia as a lecturer of International Law at Eötvös Loránd University and was a member of the University of Pecs, both in Hungary. Currently, he is one of the research leaders of the Las Casas Institute and specializes in the philosophical foundations of the social sciences, especially economics. 

His qualifications will likely have little bearing on his performance in the election on March 10. Under the Hungarian Constitution, the President performs a largely ceremonial role and is chosen by the National Assembly. This legislative body is currently dominated by Victor Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party, who occupy 133 of the parliament’s 199 seats. Elections for the next National Assembly won’t be held until April 3. Róna’s opponent, Katalin Novak, is a former vice-president of Fidesz and that party’s nominee. Although less popular and more divisive than outgoing president Janos Adler, another Fidesz member, the social conservative and ally of Orban is overwhelmingly favored to win in a legislature controlled by her own party.

Still, opposition parties acknowledge the symbolic importance of putting forward a viable presidential candidate, especially since Professor Róna will be able to deliver a 15-minute televised address as part of the electoral process. He highlights this appearance as a chance to voice opposition in a country where that is often difficult and hopes “that what [he has] to say could influence the outcome of the general election”.

At the same time, the opposition is also focused on reforming the Hungarian constitution so that such a position can be elected directly by Hungarian citizens. The leader of this united opposition and its candidate for Prime Minister, Péter Márki-Zay, firmly backs Róna and his values. But, Márki-Zay, would have also supported the opposition not nominating anyone in order to advance their goal of constitutional reform.

Professor Róna has criticized Orban’s handling of crises, especially his handling of environmental degradation, as well as his “flirt” with authoritarian regimes in Russia and China. Above all, he is worried by divisions and repression in the country and told Cherwell that he wants “to bring the Hungarian people closer together”. Calling the office of the president the embodiment of “the unity of the nation”, Márki-Zay is also trying to emphasize Professor Róna’s broad appeal and counter the divisive rhetoric of Fiedsz. The results of such unifying rhetoric are unlikely to be seen until the National Assembly elections, where polls indicate that the opposition is closer to toppling Orbán than in any previous election.

Image Credit: Ervin Lukacs

What’s happening in the chapel: The memory of COVID-19

Alice Main
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What’s happening in the chapel: The memory of COVID-19

“At least things are sort of normal now”.

This seems to be the constant refrain of students, fellows and staff in the university as a whole, and hopefully this will continue. However, when thinking about the impact of COVID-19 on the college chapel communities it is impossible not to look back on the previous year, which incidentally was my first year here. For most of my time as a fresher, the college chapel was my main way of socialising (outside of eating in hall) so the time I spent at services and after is particularly special to me. The strangeness of last year seemed to be magnified within the chapel, so I thought I would take you back through some of the ways in which Lincoln chapel adapted to COVID-19.

Michaelmas ’20

The COVID secure one. All services were conducted in masks and socially distanced, as in line with government guidelines and with maximum caution. Chapel breakfast involved us standing fairly far apart in Chapel Quad with various pastries bought by the chaplain, which caused problems when it was raining (as it often does in Michaelmas!). The marquee also made an appearance after evensong, which was either slightly alarming during high winds or very warm due to the large heaters. Another unwelcome guest was the evensong booking system, which I frequently forgot and ended up sitting in my room with my windows open (a terrible idea in December, but I really wanted to hear the choir). At various points in the term we had to go online, and this led to snacks being pidged on an almost industrial scale, so we could still enjoy chapel breakfast. Virtual carol service was a particularly odd spectacle, especially for those with memories of an Oxford without COVID, and the christmas dinner (staggered across a few days) was left feeling rather hollow. We left our last (virtual) eucharist of the term wondering if we would be able to return to Oxford for Hilary…

Hilary ’21

The term that never was. Or rather, the Teams/Zoom term that everyone would rather forget. Like the majority of University activities, chapel was also on Zoom for the entirety of the term- with evensong streamed on Facebook. The majority of us were very familiar with zoom church from the previous lockdown and the various new rules surrounding worship (mute whilst singing and praying please!), but it was still a strange shift considering the relative freedom we were allowed in Michaelmas. The service itself had to alter in order to accommodate the fact that we were all spread out across the country. Holy communion became rather more symbolic, with our chaplain holding the bread and wine up to the camera of his phone (which I believe was propped up on the lectern). Tea and coffee afterwards also gained a new dimension, and it morphed into a way of keeping in contact with new friends- without the luxury of bumping into them on Turl Street or in the library. Live Streamed evensong was a surprise hit, with the choir recording solo or duet performances and readers being pre recorded and edited into the service. There was the odd glitch, but overall it did work well. Being away from the chapel for a whole term made me realise just how much I valued the communal aspects of worship which only really work when the congregation are all under one roof. But, there were some lighter moments, which included comparing snack preferences and discussions of Oxford in the snow (a phenomena that I have only seen via a Zoom call!) and I am grateful that the services continued during our time away from each other.

Trinity ’21

The ‘normal, but not quite’ term. In the chapel, Trinity was essentially identical to Michaelmas, with one key difference. The weather. Our chapel’s heating pipes are from the 1950’s (or thereabouts, I’m not a heating expert), and they decided to run on the highest temperature for some of the hottest days. I (embarrassingly) nearly fainted, but the one advantage of the warmer weather was that breakfast could be enjoyed outside without worrying about being drenched or blown away. The appearance of the chaplains puppy was Alalso welcome, as discussed in a previous column, the little puppy was so keen to be involved in chapel life that a few cardigans, tights, flowerpots and hands became casualties. The evensong booking system was abandoned, and things began to feel more relaxed in the chapel as we hurtled towards prelims. Sadly, towards the end of term we ended up back on Zoom, but this really couldn’t have been avoided. We left for the Long Vac feeling rather deflated, but optimistic that the next year would be different, and we would get to experience what a ‘real’ Oxford chapel service was like.

The New Normal

With less restrictions, it was time to get back to ‘normal’ in the chapel. But what was normal? One of the things I am struck by when I speak to older students or fellows, is how many traditions seem to have either been forgotten or fallen by the wayside. Institutional memory can be characterised as “the stored knowledge within an organisation”, and I have heard it argued that Oxford and its chapels are currently experiencing some form of ‘Institutional amnesia’. We are very conscious that there are traditions and practices that should be upheld, but those who would usually remember have either left or had their studies disrupted by COVID. The quest for ‘a new normal’ is a society wide concern, but as a chapel community, how do we find this ‘normal’ when we have no knowledge of what it was to begin with? Some well loved elements of chapel life have returned, such as chapel breakfast and a full evensong, but I worry that some parts of religious life at Oxford will just wither away. In writing this column I have been able to share some of ‘the new normal’ in chapel, and I hope you have enjoyed coming on this adventure with me.

Image Credit: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0

South Asian upbringing: Bollywood as propaganda

Krisha Hirani
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South Asian upbringing: Bollywood as propaganda

CW: Violence, discussions of Nazism

Under the supervision of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany produced 1,200 feature films both before and during the Second World War. The German National Socialist propaganda films are now understood to be blatant propaganda, designed for effect on the public.

The Allied powers also produced propaganda films for home and foreign viewing to boost morale in the war effort.

Cinema has been at the heart of propaganda efforts since its invention, being used effectively as a tool of intense influence in dictatorships and democracies alike. Its immediate effect in modelling mass perceptions allows film to be used as a method to advocate for national causes and to oppress dissidents.

The Indian film scene – of which Bollywood is the biggest part – has not escaped political agendas. The BJP and their Hindutva agenda takes deep interest in the Hindi film industry with clear intention of manipulating it as effectively as the likes of Goebbels have in the past in the influx of nationalist movies being produced since the party have been in power.

These movies claim to be dramatised historical accounts of India’s efforts to defend against its many invaders – focusing disproportionally on the Muslim Mughal Empire and pitting them against a seemingly honourable Hindu protagonist, fighting to save his land, religion, and people. Patriotism and des bhakti (devotion to the country) are becoming increasingly – and uncomfortably – prevalent in Bollywood.

The trailer for Tanhaji (2020) describes the defence as a ‘surgical strike’ – re-appropriating the phrase from the 2016 surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army after 20 soldiers were killed in Uri by terrorists. The strike itself had its own movie called Uri: Surgical Strike (2019), painstakingly detailing the decisions and tactics used by the army and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sanctioned it. The expression is now thrown around by politicians to push the nationalist narrative and refer to Modi’s so-called ‘successes’ as Prime Minister.

Tanhaji should have told the story of a Maratha victory over a section of the Mughal Army that was led by a Rajput fort keeper. All the immediate characters in the story are Hindu – despite the association to the largely Muslim Mughals invaders. In the movie, the main antagonist is dressed in a Pathani turban (disregarding historical accuracy of his being from Rajput), with eyes lined with surma (eyeliner commonly used amongst Muslim men) and dark costume sets. His dress leaves audiences to associate him with Bollywood’s previous portrayals of Islam and does nothing to tell them of his Hindu identity, almost definitely because he is the antagonist of the film. Islam then becomes synonymous with the enemy – not far at all from the BJP’s political narrative, especially considering the recent hijab ban.

The protagonist is heavily associated with Hinduism – the non-secular depiction of the Maratha force is historically inaccurate. Directors decided to use the ‘Om’ (the most prevalent Hindu symbol) on the saffron flag. The saffron flag is historically the Maratha flag and a is a colour with intense meaning in Hindu and Buddhist culture. It has also been re-appropriated by the BJP and their Hindutva agenda. The placement of the ‘Om’ is an aggressive move to push the Hindu narrative behind the film and is fundamentally not true of the historical account of the flag or the Maratha battle against the Mughals.

What’s more is that the film also subscribes to the BJP’s concern with caste, entirely re-writing the protagonist to raise him from a lower Koli class to become a Bhramin (the highest caste). The narrative becomes one that pushes the Hindutva agenda at a multi-level basis, from the supremacy of Hinduism, the criminality of Islam and, finally, the superiority of some castes over others.

In placing these socially-constructed ideals in the basic narrative of the film – irrelevant of how historically accurate it is – Bollywood and the BJP work hand in hand to push the narrative of Hindu nationalism into the consciousness of the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora. The strength of the grip and its incredible global reach is terrifying.

Other movies that have been accused of distorting history include: Mohenjo Daro (2016), Manikarnika (2019) and Padmavat (2018).

In fact, the controversy surrounding the release of Padmavat is evidence in itself of the control the BJP’s politics have had over the Indian public. Based on alleged rumours of an intimate scene between a Muslim Mughal king and the Rajasthani queen, lead actress Deepika Padukone faced death threats from extremist groups as well as the distinct threat to cut of her nose should the film be released. Protests took India into a chokehold over the production, with the Supreme Court banning the film in the four states of most intense resistance – Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh – and I am deeply ashamed to say – my own Gujarat. It feels important to state here that Modi was the longest serving chief minister of Gujarat between 2001 and 2014. The rumoured scene that caused the backlash was not part of the film.

Amongst the shame and anger and outrage that I feel around the politicisation of Bollywood into a tool of Hindutva propaganda, disproportionally targeting the Muslim community, is a deep-set terror. Hindi is the 3rd most spoken language in the world with 615 million speakers – that is 615 million people who are a potential audience for this Islamophobic and neo-nationalist narrative. That is not counting all the people who will watch these films dubbed or with subtitles. Over 615 million people who have the potential to subscribe to this quasi-Nazi ideology.

Image Credit: Flexfxproductions, CC BY-SA 3.0

Oxford University students flee Ukraine after travelling day before invasion

Isaac Ettinghausen
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Oxford University students flee Ukraine after travelling day before invasion

Three Oxford University students, including two first-years, found themselves stranded after entering Ukraine almost two weeks after the Foreign Office told Britons to evacuate the country. They told Cherwell they were filming a documentary.

Anas Dayeh and Leo Buckley – who, at age 11, appeared on the Channel 4 show “Child Genius” – travelled to the country on Wednesday 23rd February alongside another student to make a film on “conflict resolution and self determination”. The Foreign Office advised UK nationals to leave Ukraine “immediately” on the 11th of February, almost two weeks before the trip. Only a few hours after their arrival, Russian troops invaded the country, with locations around the country being targeted by airstrikes and ballistic missiles.

On Thursday morning, Dayeh tweeted “early on Wednesday morning, 2 other UK citizens and I have decided to go to #Kyiv, #Ukraine [Ukrainian flag emoji] Looking back at it, it may not have been the wisest decision. But we have so much love for the country and it’s [sic] people. The situation currently is very scary.” 

In a follow up to the now-deleted tweet, Dayeh wrote “I was in Ukraine on Wednesday on a planned trip to assist with the filming of a documentary on conflict resolution and self determination.”

“Those who know me will know how important this was to me. […] I was due to leave Ukraine on Thursday morning. We are leaving independently via our planned route and not using an evacuation service. I am safe. […] We are not back in the UK. All I ask is for some time, thank you.” He offered to answer any questions that people had.

Dayeh’s tweets were met with outrage, with one user quote-tweeting “absolutely baffles me that people would be so contrary as to go into a literal war zone to **film a documentary** when people stuck there are unable to flee and UK nationals were told to LEAVE the country.”

This evening, videos emerged online of citizens of Kharkiv, which has been subject to Russian air strikes, hiding in metro stations. Russian forces continue to make territorial gains near Kherson in the south, Kharkiv in the north-east and around the Kiev district. European leaders will gather tonight to design a sanctions package as Ukrainians face another night of shelling and attacks. 

Update: The students have since arrived in Romania.

Anas Dayeh told Cherwell: “It’s true we did travel against the advice of the government, and we take full responsibility for that.”

“Some of the backlash was quite abusive and did/does not help anyone. Every time I tried to concentrate on our plans, I get a notification of a new insult.” 

“Two things to make clear: the trip was already planned for days. We did not use a single evacuation service or in any way take another person’s place.”

“The trip was really about filming the mini-doc and showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”

Buckley told Cherwell: “I and two other Oxford students traveled on Wednesday to Kiev to film for a short film and article about the lived experiences of ordinary people in a warzone, and the wider political situation. We were supposed to be in Ukraine for a day and leave Thursday, however due to the Russian invasion, and the cancellation of our flight, in the early hours of Thursday deceived we would have to leave Ukraine by land, and left Kiev while it was being rocked by explosions. Over the course of the day we made it, without using any emergency services, or consular support, to Romania.”

“To find out more I would urge readers to tune into BBC breakfast at 843 GMT to see my segment on the Crisis.”

The Foreign Office has been approached for comment.

Image Credit: Ilya Cher

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