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Magdalen President received at least £134,000 for role in anti-gay marriage case

Cherwell News
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Magdalen President received at least £134,000 for role in anti-gay marriage case

An investigation by the Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society has found that Dinah Rose, QC, President of Magdalen College, received at least £134,000 for advocating against same-sex marriage on behalf of the government of the Cayman Islands.

The case was brought to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Counsel in February 2021 by Chantelle Day and Vicky Bush, a lesbian couple who wished to marry in the Cayman Islands. The couple had previously been granted the right to marriage by a Court in the Cayman Islands, but this decision was overturned by the Caymanian Government in the Court of Appeal, with Ms Rose acting on behalf of the government.

A Freedom of Information request filed in July by Colours Cayman and the OULGBTQ+ Society revealed that Ms Rose was paid CI$152,197.28 (£134,340.73) to represent the Caymanian government. Jeffrey Jowell QC and Tim Parker, who also acted on behalf of the government in these cases, received a further £322,000. OULGBTQ+ described these payments as “extortionate”, contrasting them with the £2000 that Day and Bush had to fight their case.

Ms Rose told Cherwell the OULGBTQ+ Society’s presentation of the fee she received was “inaccurate and misleading”, since the fee relates to “the entirety of [her] work on the case over a two year period, including all the proceedings in the Court of Appeal”. She added that the “substantial majority” of the fee was paid before she was appointed President of Magdalen College.

Ms Rose was criticised by students and societies at Oxford for representing the Caymanian government in their attempt to oppose the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Much of the criticism centred around a perceived conflict of interest between her role as President of a College which includes LGBTQ+ students, and her professional obligations as a barrister.

In response to criticism and pressure to drop the case, Ms Rose said: “As a barrister, I am subject to professional obligations enforced by the Bar Standards Board. These include a duty to accept briefs without regard to the acceptability of the views or positions of my clients, and to represent clients without regard to external pressure. I also have a duty not to withdraw from cases that I have already accepted, and always to put the best interests of my clients first.”

Following the controversy surrounding Ms Rose’s involvement in the case, Magdalen’s JCR passed a vote affirming it’s support for her as College President. However, an anonymous LGBTQ+ student at Magdalen claimed that “the motion… was largely directed by straight white men” and described the experience as “dehumanising”.

Cherwell’s initial reporting on the controversy can be found here. 

In response to these events, OULGBTQ+ Society compiled a report examining the policies colleges have in place to prevent a College Head’s work outside the College conflicting with their pastoral responsibilities to students.

OULGBTQ+ Society contacted the Heads of the 44 other Oxford colleges and PPHs and received 23 replies. The report notes that “all College Heads who responded disclosed that they require permission from the Governing Body prior to accepting external work to ensure there is no incompatibility between positions.” However, most colleges did not take student welfare into account in their definition of ‘incompatibility’. According to the report, the Society received  “only one response that outlines sufficient due diligence in the appointment and tenure of a College Head” with regard to student welfare.

The report concludes that “existing policies do not go far enough to protect members of the student body, especially those most vulnerable.” Only one college, suggests the report, provided an exemplary response that demonstrated “best practice”. While OULGBTQ+ Society notes that it is unreasonable to expect Heads to give up their professional lives, it recommends the adoption of formal measures at all colleges to ensure that student welfare is considered during the application process.

OULGBTQ+ Society’s report recommends that both existing and new professional obligations for College Heads are examined with regard to their impact on student welfare, particularly with regard to minority student groups. The report argues that the Conference of Colleges should implement this appropriately, and that college Conflict of Interest policies should be freely available to the public for the sake of transparency.

In a statement, the OULGBTQ+ Society said: “[They are] shocked and disappointed to discover the significant amount that the President of Magdalen received to represent a foreign government furthering a homophobic cause. Ms. Rose is already receiving a substantial salary for her primary role as President and so we implore her to donate her fee to LGBTQ+ advocacy organisations and charities in the Cayman Islands who are working tirelessly to support vulnerable LGBTQ+ people in the area.

The Society finds Magdalen College’s aim of eliminating discrimination to be incompatible with prosecuting a case on behalf of a foreign government that is denying the equal right to marriage on the basis of sexual orientation. Our concern does not stem from Ms. Rose’s duties or professional entitlements as a barrister, but instead from the conflict these duties created with her primary and overriding responsibility to protect the LGBTQ+ members of Magdalen. It is inconceivable, to us, that as an acting College Head with pastoral duties, Ms. Rose may simultaneously fulfil an external role actively harming the same community she has a duty to protect.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Dinah Rose QC said: “As you know, I have already commented in detail on this case. All I would add is that the argument that there is a conflict of interest between my discharge of my professional obligations as a barrister and my role as President is wrong. It can only be founded on the assumption that a barrister may be taken to share the views of their client. I have explained before why this assumption is false, and dangerous to the fair and effective administration of justice. In any event, the issue in this case is not whether same sex marriage should be available in the Cayman Islands, but whether that is a matter which should properly be decided by the courts or by the Cayman Parliament. Arguing this question of constitutional interpretation and democratic accountability does not amount to “furthering a homophobic cause”. 

“I remain fully committed to safeguarding the welfare of all members of the Magdalen community, including our LGBTQ+ community, and fully committed to supporting LGBTQ+ rights, including the right to equal marriage.  

“My availability to deal with queries over the next week is very limited, because I am currently preparing to argue an appeal commencing on Monday before the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in which I represent appellants who have been refused permission to change their birth-assigned gender on their identity cards. For the avoidance of doubt, my fees in that case will be covered by Legal Aid. It is a matter of great sadness to me that the OULGBTQ+ Society is seeking to renew a public attack on me, with all the stress that this entails, at a time when I am seeking to focus my professional attention on the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights.”

Oxford University has been approached for comment.

This article was updated at 11:24 on September 9th to include a comment from Dinah Rose QC.

Image: Ed Webster/CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

University College seeks name for new kitten

Charlie Hancock
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University College seeks name for new kitten

While waiting to welcome students back through their heavy front doors, University College has welcomed their “smallest fresher” – a little white kitten with a pink nose, pink toe-beans, and tabby splotches. But there’s a problem: she doesn’t have a name!

The kitten exploring one of University College’s quadrangles. Image: University College

The kitten vaguely resembles Clement Cattlee, University College’s previous cat, who was adopted by the College in December 2020 after he made his home in the Lodge. Unfortunately, Clement passed away a couple of weeks later.

The kitten provided a statement, which was translated by Domestic Bursar Angela Unsworth, which has been published on the College’s website. The statement shows the kitten seems a little unsure of her new surroundings, but is settling in well: “She [Angela Unsworth] did say it was beautiful here, and She was right about that. She said the people in the Lodge were really lovely and I would have a lovely bed of my own and nice food and toys and someone to talk to whenever I wanted to talk, and she was right about that too. She also said though, that there would be a welcoming committee; so where is it? Where is the adoring public I was promised?”

The kitten continued: “I do understand though that I am a very lucky kitten indeed to be coming to such a place and I undertake to be the best College cat that I can be and grow up in the best Univ traditions.”

Simpkin IV of Hertford College, Walter of Exeter College, and Admiral Flapjack and Professor Biscuit of St Hugh’s College have been approached for comment.

The kitten shows-off her pink toe-beans while rolling on the floor of the lodge. Image: University College

The kitten has also made clear that it will not cause any trouble in the College, and will be available to provide company to students. She said: “So, if anything gets broken, I will not have been there at the time, if there is sick in the quad it will not be mine and I will have been curled up in my bed all night (well, unless there’s grass in it and then I suppose I am caught red handed), but if anyone is sad or upset and in need of the very best feline company I will be there whenever I am needed. I’m already grateful to our lovely old members who have set me up with enough kitten food to get me by for a considerable period without even knowing me, She says I can count myself very fortunate to be the Univ cat; I’m sure she knows what she’s talking about on this. I look forward to reading all about me on the various social media Univ Cat adoration pages which are now certain to pop up all over!”

Students and University College staff are invited to help choose a name on the College website. Suggestions can be made until Monday September 13th. The College will then compile a shortlist of names, which will be put to a vote.

Kitten-fanciers are advised to keep an eye on the College website and social media to stay updated.

Image: University College

Review: ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’: The Good, The Bad And The Amateur

Wang Sum Luk
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Review: ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’: The Good, The Bad And The Amateur

Content Warnings: mentions of rape, sexual assault, and violence.

Quentin Tarantino’s novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is pretty good. It’s also pretty bad. But above all, it is, for want of a better word, supremely Tarantino-y.

Just as his films reflect his fascination with both high and low cinema, the novel’s narration veers off constantly to comment on cinema and culture. A brief scene of one character asking another on a date melds into a lengthy exegesis on post-war international cinema and the political themes of Vilgot Sjöman’s erotic drama film I Am Curious (Yellow). Equally, the judgments that Tarantino makes in these exegeses are often startling. His narration declares that Francois Truffaut’s acclaimed movie The 400 Blows is thematically unsuccessful, and that the equally acclaimed director Michelangelo Antonioni was “a fraud”. You might not agree with all of these opinions but these offbeat critiques, infused with Tarantino’s profane, provocative enthusiasm, enliven the history of cinema in a way that a serious scholarly analysis never could.

The novel also indulges in other, less pleasant, eccentricities. Much ink has been spilled over the accuracy of Tarantino’s portrayal of Bruce Lee, which Lee’s daughter has criticized as insulting and reductive. The novel also includes two passages describing a fifteen-year-old girl in an unsettlingly sexualized manner, with the narration commenting on her nude body and sexual history. While these scenes do serve to depict how the girl was abused by Charles Manson and his cult, they also read as being exploitative and disturbing in their own right. The novel thus lurches between observing the flaws and immorality of 60’s Hollywood, and indulging in similarly unpleasant and exploitative rhetoric.

A less disturbing but similarly noteworthy element of the novel is Tarantino’s writing style. In place of “saying” dialogues, his characters “exclaim”, “interject”, “blaspheme” and (in a memorably awkward turn of phrase that kills the mood of an otherwise tense scene) “animatedly [express]”. While replacing “he said, she said” with these more colourful descriptors is not necessarily a poor decision, they are often distracting, or a means for an inexperienced author to add emotion to a dull conversation. However, given how compelling Tarantino’s dialogue is, these markers appear to be an unnecessary and almost amateurish addition by a writer more accustomed to writing screenplays.

In fact, the entire novel feels like an experiment, or an unfinished train of thought, showcasing scenes that almost made it into the movie, not all of which are quite polished. In the movie, the question as to whether one of the protagonists, Cliff Booth, killed his wife intentionally or accidentally is left unanswered. The brief flashback depicting the murder leaves it ambiguous, but the novel shows that Cliff in fact did murder her. However, instead of a cold-blooded killing, Tarantino gives us a glimpse of how he immediately regretted the act, and how the two shared a tender moment before her death. It’s an intriguing and unusually heartfelt scene, which makes it a pity that it’s two pages long. By contrast, a scene of Cliff considering being a pimp and killing two gangsters takes up a full, very boring chapter.

Some of the novel’s scenes are fascinating — I would even argue that the novel’s concluding scene is better than the film’s actual ending — while I can see why others didn’t make the cut for the film, such as the aforementioned gangster-killing scene. The unedited, occasionally messy nature of the story certainly makes it drag at points, but while a more adroitly edited novel would be tidier and more coherent, the novel’s rough edges are what make it compelling.

In Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, a young and inexperienced writer is described as writing stories which are “inept, but hauntingly so”. Far be it from me to call Tarantino “inept”, but the disjointed style of the novel is certainly haunting and fascinating. It’s a rough draft, a miscellany of film trivia, an experiment in novel-writing by a man more familiar with screenplay. Tarantino shows off his knowledge (often to the detriment of things like pacing and narrative coherence), testing out new material and seeing what works. Perhaps Tarantino will become a better novelist as time goes on, but there’s a charm to how this book is a behind-the-scenes look at a story still in construction, full of blind alleys and experiments.

It’s weird, self-indulgent, sometimes problematic, occasionally brilliant, often messy. But I can’t help but love how it’s so idiosyncratic and untidy — in a word, how Tarantino-y it is.

Image credit: Wang Sum Luk

Summer Heat on the Tip of the Tongue

Irene Zhang
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Summer Heat on the Tip of the Tongue

Readers, your quest towards Hot Girl Summer is incomplete without capsaicin.

Run-of-the-mill summer recipes are heavy on sugar, acid, and ice, dominated by freezer-ready desserts, light salads, and a shocking amount of mayonnaise. Certainly the choice is instinctive, but all that cream and raw leaves surely gets sickening.

Enter the chilli pepper: an appetite-inducing, nerve-buzzing, aromatic, bond-forming, and chemically addictive accomplice to your culinary escapades.

Contrary to popular belief, eating spicy food in a heatwave won’t make you melt from the inside out. In fact, this kind of literal fight-fire-with-fire combat in the digestive tract cools the body. From a Chinese medicine perspective, different foods have warming or cooling properties affecting bodily ‘heat’ (irrespective of the temperatures they’re served at) and though excessive consumption of ‘warming’ foods like chillies is discouraged in the summer, a healthy amount of spice is thought to drive sluggish dampness out of the body. Capsaicin, a phytochemical compound found in chilli peppers, stimulates the same skin receptors that respond to heat, causing sweating and the loss of body heat through evaporation. For example, hotpot enthusiasts in the humid valley city of Chongqing enjoy fresh meats, vegetables, and noodles in rolling boils filled with broth and dried red chillies every summer, braving 40℃ outdoor evenings and slightly scandalising a New York Times journalist back in 1997. The most memorable spicy summer meals aren’t half-hungry expensive-restaurant affairs, but rather involve copious volumes of sweat and cries of pain, best indulged in the company of close friends and loved ones.

Nature herself leaves subtle clues, encouraging you to tingle your tastebuds during the scorching season: the hotter the summer, the higher seasonal chillies climb up the Scoville scale. These colourful jewels of heat effectively kill microbes when used as food preservatives, which partly explains their popularity in warm climates like the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. However, science and tradition aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of spice consumption. While tropical cuisines are known to delight in flaming flavours, there is insufficient data to show that this cultural preference is purely due to climate adaptation. These places and cuisines are simply too vast to have one motivation for liberal capsaicin usage. Instead, we must consider pleasure and agricultural patterns. From southern Italy to Ethiopia and from Sichuan to the Mexican coast, peppers come into season in July and bear fruit all the way into the fall, giving us ample time to put away those sad cayenne shakers and embrace their juicy-fresh, rainbow-coloured cousins. Summer is the perfect time to enjoy peppers in their height of glory: they’re at their boldest when raw, but they soak up other flavours beautifully in grills, pans, soup pots, and anywhere else.

Barring inoffensive bell peppers, the jalapeño is likely the most popular pepper in the West, but the world of sweet, fresh summer heat is incredibly wide. A family favourite is the Chinese screw pepper, a brightly green variety whose tender skin and mouth-watering heat make it a perfect vegetable for stir-frying. These are harder to access without nearby Asian markets, but in their absence any soft-skinned pepper can be eye-popping when splashed with sizzling hot oil and soy sauce. Alternatively, mince a few birds-eye chillies into your salad dressing for a thrilling kick to the throat, or top your pizza with some beautiful habaneros. Pickling your local chilli variety brings on a whole new dimension and lets you chomp into briny, juicy heat any time of the year, while packaged kimchi, Calabrian chilis, and Lao Gan Ma serve up convenient, concentrated flavours to pair with your main dishes.

Or simply embrace chaos and drizzle chilli oil over your sundae. Any path you choose, a delectable summer awaits.

Vice-Chancellor “embarrassed” Michael Gove studied at Oxford

Charlie Hancock
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Vice-Chancellor “embarrassed” Michael Gove studied at Oxford

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, has said she is “embarrassed” that Michael Gove studied at the University. She made the remarks during a panel of university Vice-Chancellors from across the world, held at the Times Higher Education World Summit.

Mr Gove studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, graduating in 1988. He was President of the Oxford Union during the Hilary Term of 1988. He is currently Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Her comments were a criticism of Mr Gove’s infamous remark that “people in this country have had enough of experts” after the journalist Faisel Islam told him that the Bank of England, IMF, and the Chief Executive of the NHS, among others, were opposed to Britain leaving the European Union. The remark was made three weeks before the public voted in the referendum.

Professor Richardson juxtaposed his comment with the public reception of scientists during the pandemic, saying: “Michael Gove, the British cabinet minister who I am embarrassed to confess we educated, famously said after it was pointed out to him by a journalist that all the experts opposed Brexit, he said: ‘Oh we’ve had enough of experts.’

“With the vaccine, it seems like the public can’t get enough of experts. Many of our scientists have become household names. “We have demonstrated through the vaccine work and the development of therapeutics and so on just how much universities can contribute and that’s enormously helpful to our cause.”

Mr Gove later claimed that his comment was taken out of context, saying he said: “people have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms that have got things so wrong in the past”.

Professor Richardson’s remark has been seized upon by The Express as risking “opening up the University of Oxford to criticism for supporting the EU”, adding, “supporters of Brexit have consistently accused the UK’s top universities of being too closely linked to Brussels.”

An analysis by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that The Express was the newspaper which published the second highest number of pro-Brexit articles during the first two months of the referendum campaign. The Daily Mail published the highest number.

During the panel, Professor Richardson also addressed the threat the so-called “war on wokeness” posed to institutions. She warned that a perception that universities were “bastions of snowflakes” were “deliberately being fanned” by sections of the media, populists, and some politicians.

She also argued that in order to earn more support from the public, universities would need to host more “ideological diversity” and debates on controversial subjects.

Professor Richardson said:”Increasingly people are seeing that they haven’t gone to university and yet their taxes are paying for these utterly over privileged students who want all kinds of protections that they never had and I think we have to take this seriously.

“I think we need more ideological diversity. We need to foster more open debate of controversial subjects. We need to teach our students how to engage civilly in reasoned debate with people with whom you disagree because, unless we do that, we are going to lose the public argument.”

The University of Oxford has been approached for comment.

Image: Richard Townshend/CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Oxford University top of world rankings for sixth year running

Edward Vowell
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Oxford University top of world rankings for sixth year running

The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings sees the University retain pole position on the global stage.

The University of Oxford has topped the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for the sixth successive year after its release on Thursday.

The result of the annual publication placed Oxford above the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University, both sharing second place. The following places are similarly dominated by American institutions, entirely comprising the top ten except for the University of Cambridge in sixth.

Times Higher Education magazine uses thirteen different performance indicators as criteria for the rankings, centred around three main areas: research, impact and teaching. As a reflection of a year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, many institutions saw a rise in citation scores, a calculation of global research influence.

Oxford finished first in the Research category, with Cambridge in second place, while Harvard received the highest score for Teaching. Macau University of Science and Technology topped the International Outlook bracket. For the first time, two Chinese institutions have broken into the top twenty, and its share of institutions in the top 200 is increasing, as American representation is falling.

In response to the release of this year’s rankings, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said: “This past year has demonstrated to our publics, our governments, and even to ourselves just how much universities can contribute to society…Together our universities have made the strongest possible case for renewed public investment in research universities.”

Overall, the magazine ranked 1,662 universities, having analysed more than 108 million citations. The rigorous methodology of the research means that it has built up the trust of students, universities, governments and experts.

Image: ChungkwanShin via Pixabay.com


BREAKING: English faculty to hold finals online

Sasha Mills
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BREAKING: English faculty to hold finals online

The Oxford University English faculty have announced today that they will be holding the 2022 finals in an open book format for most exams, with eight hour online papers like students were given this year. Only one set of papers, Course II Paper 6 Language papers, will be held in-person. 

In an email to students, the English faculty acknowledged that “we could have chosen to aim to return to three-hour, closed book, in-person exams.” They cited the cancellation of Prelims and online collections as one of the central reasons behind their decision: “a fair mode of assessment needs to be in tune with the educational experience that you have had, including the opportunities that you have had to practice being assessed.” 

The faculty went on to state that by committing to online assessment now, they will be prepared to examine students even if social distancing measures are re-imposed, giving students more time to prepare with certainty as to what their finals will be. 

The faculty acknowledged, however, that “some of you will not be pleased by this decision, and we recognise that when you began your degree here, you expected to sit your final exams as three-hour in-person exams in the Exam Schools.”

However, some students were relieved at the announcement. Abigail, a finalist studying English at Magdalen College, told Cherwell: “I’m happy that the English Faculty have considered the impact of the pandemic across all years of our degree, rather than assuming we’d be prepared for standard conditions in summer. It’s great to have confirmation in such a timely matter and I really hope other departments are similarly understanding of their students’ concerns.”

Image: Oliver Mallinson Lewis/CC BY-SA 2.0 via flickr.com

“There are lives at stake”: Students and colleges at Oxford University respond to Afghanistan Crisis

Joshua Low and Yan Chen
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“There are lives at stake”: Students and colleges at Oxford University respond to Afghanistan Crisis

The shockwaves from the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban takeover since 15th August have been keenly felt across the University of Oxford. They have hit Oxford Afghan students, led to safety concerns for academics in Afghanistan from Oxford Colleges, and resulted in discussions about how the University and members of its community can help. 

Summia Tora, an Afghan Oxford student currently pursuing a Master of Public Policy, spoke to Cherwell about her experiences of the past two weeks.

“I don’t think I’ve had a chance to process any of this yet,” Ms Tora expressed, referring to how she has been working day and night to get her father, uncle, and other families safely out of Afghanistan. “I’ve just been in crisis and problem-solving mode.”

Summia Tora in front of the Radcliffe Camera
Image: Summia Tora

As the crisis in Afghanistan was unfolding, with the Taliban takeover imminent, Ms Tora launched an emergency GoFundMe campaign to pool resources to get her father and uncle to safety. Through a whirlwind of efforts, both family members have now been safely evacuated and are awaiting resettlement. Now, she is directing her care and attention to other families trying to leave Afghanistan.

Ms Tora grew up in northwest Pakistan, where her family fled to in the 1990s to escape the Taliban. She was awarded a United World Colleges Scholarship to attend high school in the United States and later a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.

“The crisis that unfolded over the past two weeks in Afghanistan has only reinforced the need for the University to provide financial, emotional, and academic support to students who come from conflict zones and displaced backgrounds.” Tora underlined.

When asked about the number of families she is currently helping, Ms Tora opened an Excel Sheet of names and details, before giving a rough estimate of eight families comprising over forty people. “The list is growing,” she added. “There are lives at stake.”

When asked about how Oxford students can help, Ms Tora said: “I am creating a formal group that is long-term and sustainable where volunteers could pool resources, time, networks, and energy to directly help Afghan families.”

“Volunteers would dedicate two or three hours a week to help out with mundane but important tasks like researching or drafting documents for visa purposes,” Ms Tora explained, mentioning how the Taliban has recently announced that Afghans can leave after 31st August only if they have the proper visas. 

Ms Tora is actively seeking dedicated volunteers for her group, and she can be contacted at [email protected].

Colleges: supporting Afghan students and protecting academics in Afghanistan

Somerville and Mansfield Colleges, both recognised as Sanctuary Colleges by UK charity City of Sanctuary earlier this year, have expressed their commitment to defend the right to education for women and girls in Afghanistan and protect vulnerable academics in Afghanistan.  

A Sanctuary College is a college recognised as a place that fosters “a culture of welcome and safety” for those seeking sanctuary, including asylum-seekers, refugee families, and unaccompanied minors. The way such a culture manifests itself “varies greatly”, states the City of Sanctuary website.

Both Colleges have a refugee scholarship for persons with fragile immigration status. Under the current crisis, both are stressing the importance of support for academics in Afghanistan and working with British charity the Committee for At-Risk Academics (CARA) to “develop a coordinated collegiate response” on the level of “the University as a whole”.

Yalda Hakim speaking at the World Economic Forum. Image:World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via flickr.com

Oriel College has announced that it will expand the number of places offered to women from Afghanistan with a scholarship from the Yalda Hakim Foundation. Ms Yakim, a prominent BBC journalist who was born in Kabul, has said she hopes the number of places will be expanded from one to five.

On 18th August, Somerville College Principal and Labour and Co-Operative Party politician Jan Royall spoke in the House of Lords emergency debate. Principal Royall requested that the Government accept more Afghan refugees, urged protection for women and girls who had been on cultural exchanges to the UK, called for academics to become eligible for the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP), and recommended that Afghan students in the UK be granted refugee status. 

Call for universities to house Afghan refugees

A Statement on the Afghanistan Crisis and Oxfordshire’s Response, signed by six County and City Councillors in addition to sixteen organisations supporting refugees, has called both Oxford universities “to help identify and make available possible accommodation and support” for Afghan refugees, as was done “effectively to house homeless people during Covid”.

The Oxford Mail has also published a similar suggestion made by representatives of charities that support refugees and asylum-seekers, including KAMA, Asylum Welcome and STAR Oxford. These charities have urged Oxford University and other universities across Oxfordshire to use their “massive” accommodation resources to help Afghan newcomers.  The Mail also published responses from its readers, which include a significant portion of skeptical voices stressing, “Charity begins at home” and “think about our homeless first”. 

Oxford’s local authorities and educational institutions have been taking steps to address these concerns. Last year, Oxfordshire’s county and district councils, supported by homelessness charities  Crisis, St Mungo’s, Aspire, and the Oxford Homeless Movement, collaborated with Nuffield College, University College, and Oxford Brookes University to start providing long-term housing for people experiencing rough sleeping in Oxford. These efforts were based on the council’s housing-led approach to homelessness, the first of its kind in the country.

Nuffield provided 16 spaces for two years, University College 12 bed spaces on a rolling license, and Oxford Brookes University’s Canterbury House 76 rooms for a year. Due to these efforts, in March 2021, homelessness in Oxfordshire nearly halved from an estimated 83 people in 2019 to 45 people in 2021, as reported previously by Cherwell.

Student Groups: “What brings students together is their heart and brain for human rights”

Student organisations such as the Oxford Student Union have called for College and departmental support for current and future Afghan students at Oxford, and offered wellbeing support from the SU and the University Counselling Service. 

Afghan refugees fleeing Kabul on a US C-17 Globemaster III. Image: Public Domain

A statement from the SU said: “Today is not the first difficult day for the people of Afghanistan but our Student Union recognizes [sic] that the ongoing events will leave the hearts of many heavy. As your elected representatives, we want to ensure all students feel supported by the SU and offer our solidarity with Oxford’s Afghan students and students who may be personally affected by recent events in Afghanistan.We recognise the trying and unjust situations this will put some of our students in and the SU is committed to making sure that affected students are given all the support and resources they need and the opportunities they deserve.We want to remind students that they are not alone, and someone is always here to listen and offer wellbeing support.”

The Oxford SU Women’s Campaign has also expressed its solidarity, provided links for donations to Afghan refugees and charities, and condemned the repression faced by “women*, children, religious minorities, journalists and members of the LGBTQ+ community”.

Almas Farzi, Services Director at local refugee charity Asylum Welcome, urged students and student groups across Oxfordshire to “come forward and do their bit” at a community meeting attended by more than fifty organisations on 20th August. 

“Asylum rights should be at the heart of human rights,” appealed Farzi, “and student unions and students have always, always played a major role in terms of more public awareness, in terms of standing up for human rights, for refugees’ rights, and particularly for asylum rights.” 

Farzi encouraged students interested in helping Afghan asylum seekers and refugees to get in touch with Asylum Welcome and similar organisations. He also highlighted the opportunity for students to serve as “a bridge between Afghan communities, refugee organisations and the public” and “depict what is happening” in Afghanistan and within Afghan communities.

“[Students and student groups] can participate in reflecting the society that we ought to be in terms of solidarity, support, and togetherness. Regardless of different opinions, what brings students together is their heart and brain for human rights.” 

Image: Public Domain

Oriel College to expand Yalda Hakim scholarship for Afghan women

Charlie Hancock
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Oriel College to expand Yalda Hakim scholarship for Afghan women

The Provost of Oriel College has announced that the number of Afghan women able to study at the College will increase after the Taliban took control of the country.

Oriel College partnered with the Yalda Hakim Foundation in March 2021 to offer a fully-funded scholarship “on the basis of academic potential and merit” for a woman from Afghanistan to study a one-year Master’s course in any subject. The first scholarship-holder is scheduled to matriculate in the 2022-23 academic year.

Yalda Hakim is a prominent journalist who was born in Afghanistan. Her family fled for Australia following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. She recently received praise for her coverage for the BBC of the Taliban’s 2021 advance across Afghanistan, and the fall of Kabul. This included conducting an impromptu in-depth interview with Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen, after he called her while she was on air covering the fall of Kabul.

She founded the Yalda Hakim Foundation to support the “educational and professional advancement of exceptionally talented young women in Afghanistan through scholarships, internships, and mentoring”. To be eligible for a scholarship, students must be Afghan nationals. Selection for scholarship-holders originally took place across Afghanistan. But in recognition of the changing security situation in the country, and the large number of Afghans living outside Afghanistan, the Foundation is extending its search to Afghan women in other countries.

The Telegraph reported that Ms Hakim is seeking to expand the number of places available under the scholarship from one to five.

Ms Hakim said: “We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the current brain drain, and the exodus that we’re seeing in the country doesn’t mean that these people are lost. They are the best and brightest of the last 20 years, and they are the quintessential 9/11 generation.

“These are people who have not lived under the Taliban. They’ve had a lack of security, because of bomb blasts and things like that in the capital and elsewhere. But they’ve had relative freedom; freedom to study, freedom to travel, and freedom to dream.”

The Provost of Oriel College, Lord Mendoza, of King’s Reach in the City of London, said: “I admire the vital work of the Yalda Hakim Foundation to advance women’s education in Afghanistan. Oriel is delighted to be able to partner with them for this important scholarship. At the time the scholarship was conceived, the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan was already beginning to deteriorate. Oriel wanted to play a part in helping to provide a safe environment for a talented female Afghan student to come to the best university in the world, and to benefit from the educational experiences here.

“Watching the situation currently unfolding in Afghanistan is heart-breaking. We hope the scholarship will go ahead as planned. We also hope to expand the programme in the future to provide more women the same opportunity. This is more important now than ever.”

Image: Yalda Hakim. Credit: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via flickr.com

Review – Zola

Jessica Moore
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Review – Zola

It’s 2015. You’re leaning into the dizzying realm of the internet as it swells with dissonance, gossip, and a clamour of intrigue – it twinkles and itself becomes embodied. 

On 27th October 2015, Twitter was held in a frenzy over a 148-tweet thread by Aziah “Zola” Wells that recounted her road trip to Florida with a girl named Jessica, Jessica’s lachrymose boyfriend, and a pimp named “X”. As if emerging from the archetypes of pulpy noir or a sleazy B-movie, Zola weaved together an odyssey, carved up into 140-character episodes, to an audience of thousands. It became synonymous with its own hashtag – #TheStory.

#TheStory splits down the middle; it hangs between discordant versions of the same narrative. Indeed, upon the viral exposure this story received, Jessica counteracted Zola’s saga with her own version. Soon after the infamous thread was published, Rolling Stone reached out and conducted an interview with Zola: “When [Zola] posted the story on Twitter, she was caught up in the moment, she explains, riffing on the reactions of her followers who were responding in real-time. She had posted and removed the story twice before and no one cared. To garner more interest this time, she made it darkly funny while preserving the gist of what happened. And she has no regrets.” This context envelops an already alluring premise into something enticingly mythic.

It’s 2020. A24 have just released Zola, Janicza Bravo’s bold adaptation of Zola’s twitterstorm. It opens with a whimsical air; two women, Zola (Taylour Paige) and Stefani (based on Jessica, played by Riley Keough) stand before a mirror applying lip gloss. If you’ve seen HBO’s Euphoria, this image is reminiscent of Maddy and Cassie sauntering around a carnival house of mirrors high on MDMA, stroking their egos.

Flashback to Zola and Stefani’s actual meeting: a diner. Zola is Stefani and X’s waitress, where she piques Stefani’s curiosity. “You wanna go somewhere with me?” These words hang in the air as delicious fruit. Zola is lured by the gesture. 

The two women work at the same strip club as exotic dancers, quickly bonding. ‘Follow 4 follow,’ one of the women rejoices. They exchange their handles across multiple platforms – Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook – each represents a different annal of their identity. This exchange functions as its own intimate transaction.

Hari Nef was right to coin and apply the term “instamacy” to Bravo’s film. There exists a feminine, specifically feminine-digital, sensibility within a tale so fervently dictated by masculine violence. This feminisation is most obvious inside the strip club’s dressing room, paying homage to the glittering hyperreality of Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Bravo swaps Verhoeven’s camp surrealism with digital mystique, sabotage with selfies. It is as if the film itself, blending imagination and adaptation, materialised from inside a woman’s iPhone, from her camera roll, her apps, her texts—bound together to form one spectral persona.

Bravo transcends the disturbing premise (the girls eventually end up embroiled in dangerous, unsolicited sex work) by making clear her film’s rich aesthetic potential. Perhaps there has yet to be a film so authentically referential to the digital age. One small example of Bravo’s representation of this is the use of subtitles. Though understated, subtitles appear to offer alternate meanings to what is said in live-action. Picture the head and speech bubble meme. Similarly, texts between the girls are read aloud with such obnoxious performativity it feels like face-to-face dialogue. Its theatricality departs from the purely expositional tropes of on-screen texting. Zola and Stefani vocalising their texts aloud so conversationally, as if they are in the same room, demonstrates Bravo’s awareness that texting no longer aims to strictly emulate speech, but speech emulates texting – how we live inside our keyboards, how we collectively occupy the same digital spaces. Bravo recognises that cinema is the most flexible medium to play with the limits of how we coexist in this semi-digital realm; she sees where precisely our on-screen personas meet each other and our inner selves.

There is something historically referential in how Bravo constructs her film. Much like silent era films contain title cards that situate audiences either in dialogue or plot, in Zola, Bravo frames specific sequences inside a lock screen, audibly punctuated by a recognisable shutter, to mark our time and place. These all-too-recognisable haptics orient our viewing experience along the course of action as it unfolds. That shutter sound is a familiar music, as is the whistle of a sent tweet that chimes at frantic intervals – as if an invisible figure is live-tweeting overhead. 

Zola may well receive a mixture of reviews as it continues to circulate, though to judge Bravo’s film solely against the criteria of a dark comedy is to misunderstand its cinematic faculty. Melding literary mystique with a sugary, hyper-digital aesthetic, Bravo plays within a territory of cinema yet to be charted. Zola limns the digital age as an ever-personal trance. 

Fact or fiction, the story of Zola and Jessica is passed along as tantalising gossip. This is not to suggest the events themselves were fabricated nor unharmful, but that the mythology that surrounds the girls has taken on a life of its own. It has been immortalised in our phones, as a speculative discourse between far-flung strangers.

We immerse ourselves in Zola as we immersed ourselves in its source material: both the Twitter thread and this adaptation are stories guided by perceptive, though perhaps unreliable, narration. Drifting in and out of a haze, somewhat numbed to the depravity, we pore over the details as detached, bewildered spectators. We scroll on; we leave the cinema; we wait for the next sensational tale.

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