A petition demanding the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes on an Oriel College building on the High Street has hit 80,000 signatures after 5 days. This is ahead of the Rhodes Must Fall protest at 5pm today.
It was combined with a furtherpetition, started 2 days ago, which had hit 10,000 signatures. This petition is co-sponsored by Rhodes Must Fall Oxford, the campaign to remove this statue of Cecil Rhodes. Together, the petitions have over 105,000 signatures.
26 Oxford City Councillors have signed a letter to Oriel College saying they support demands to remove the Cecil Rhodes statue from the High Street because it is “incompatible with our city’s… commitment to anti-racism”.
The Leader of Oxford City Council has stated that she has written to Oriel College to “invite them to apply for planning permission to remove the statue”.
“Typically such actions are only allowed in the most exceptional of circumstances. But these are exceptional circumstances, and as a City Council we are keen to work with Oriel to help them find the right balance between the laws that protect our historic buildings and the moral obligation to reflect on the malign symbolism of this statue.”
Oriel College today released a statement on its stance on racism and the presence of Cecil Rhodes within the college. The statement does not specifically mention the statue of Cecil Rhodes facing the High Street or the campaign for its removal.
The college says it continues to “debate and discuss the issues raised by the presence on our site of examples of contested heritage relating to Cecil Rhodes”.
The college also states: “The power of education is a catalyst for equality and inclusiveness. We understand that we are, and we want to be, a part of the public conversation about the relationship between the study of history, public commemoration, social justice, and educational equality.”
The full statement from the Oriel College Governing Body reads: “Oriel College abhors racism and discrimination in all its forms. The Governing Body are deeply committed to equality within our community at Oriel, the University of Oxford and the wider world.
“As an academic institution we aim to fight prejudice and champion equal opportunities for everyone regardless of race, gender, sexuality or faith. We believe Black Lives Matter and support the right to peaceful protest.
“The power of education is a catalyst for equality and inclusiveness. We understand that we are, and we want to be, a part of the public conversation about the relationship between the study of history, public commemoration, social justice, and educational equality. As a college, we continue to debate and discuss the issues raised by the presence on our site of examples of contested heritage relating to Cecil Rhodes.
“Speaking out against injustice and discrimination is vital and we are committed to doing so. We will continue to examine our practices and strive to improve them to ensure that Oriel is open to students and staff of all backgrounds, and we are determined to build a more equal and inclusive community and society.”
The renewed pressure on Oxford University and Oriel College comes after a statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was pulled down by demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter protest yesterday. The Rhodes Must Fall Oxford campaign restarted last week, alongside calls on the University to decolonise and tackle systemic racism.
In the wake of protests following the killing of George Floyd and an upsurge of anti-racist movement across the UK and within Oxford, there have been renewed calls for Oriel College to remove the statue commemorating Cecil Rhodes that currently stands above the city’s high street.
A petition calling for Oriel College to take down the statue currently has – at the time of this article’s publication – over 3,900 signatures. A protest is planned for Tuesday, organised by Rhodes Must Fall Oxford as well as Oxford student groups and Oxford community members. The Facebook event page states it will be peaceful and socially distanced.
This comes after a statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into a harbour during protests on Saturday. The day after, a banner stating “Rhodes, You’re Next” was put up on University Church, opposite Oriel College where the statue currently stands.
Rhodes was a student at Oriel in the 1870s, and left money to the college on his death in 1902. A prominent imperialist, Rhodes explicitly believed in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and advocated vigorous settler colonialism. A scholarship programme in his name has been awarded to more than 8,000 overseas students.
The Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford (RMF) campaign began in 2016, with university students calling for the statue to be removed, as well as for better representation of non-white culture in the curriculum and improved measures to combat racial discrimination. The campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, with the college deciding to maintain the statue after alumni threatened to withdraw millions if it was removed. At the time, Oriel stated that the figure is “a reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism”.
A press release by RMF published on Monday stated that Oxford continues to “venerate its racist past” via the maintenance of “colonial iconography and a predominantly white curriculum”. The movement currently describes itself as one “determined to decolonise the space, the curriculum, and the institutional memory at, and to fight intersectional oppression within, Oxford”. As well as the removal of the statue, the movement’s current aims as detailed on their website are tackling broader colonial iconography, reforming the Eurocentric curriculum and addressing the underrepresentation and lack of welfare provision for Black and minority ethnic students and staff.
Oriel College released a statement 9th June, saying: “Oriel College abhors racism and discrimination in all its forms. The Governing Body are deeply committed to equality within our community at Oriel, the University of Oxford and the wider world.
“As an academic institution we aim to fight prejudice and champion equal opportunities for everyone regardless of race, gender, sexuality or faith. We believe Black Lives Matter and support the right to peaceful protest.
“The power of education is a catalyst for equality and inclusiveness. We understand that we are, and we want to be, a part of the public conversation about the relationship between the study of history, public commemoration, social justice, and educational equality. As a college, we continue to debate and discuss the issues raised by the presence on our site of examples of contested heritage relating to Cecil Rhodes.
“Speaking out against injustice and discrimination is vital and we are committed to doing so. We will continue to examine our practices and strive to improve them to ensure that Oriel is open to students and staff of all backgrounds, and we are determined to build a more equal and inclusive community and society.”
The Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, has donated £1 million to fund Oxford Department of Psychiatry research on the mental health effects of COVID-19 and lockdown. This is part of the Westminster Foundation’s £10 million fund set up for coronavirus, and it comes in addition to an initial £2.5 million donation providing food for children who qualify for free school meals but were unable to access them due to lockdown. The remainder of the funding is being provided to NHS Charities Together and other research groups.
The Department of Psychiatry has welcomed the donation. Professor John Geddes, who heads the department, said: “We are enormously grateful for this generous gift which will enable us to scale up our research projects, especially into how COVID-19 is affecting young people’s mental health. I’m delighted how quickly and expertly our researchers have responded to this global threat. The pace of development means that funding them has been a challenge, and this donation is critically important.”
Research specifically centres on young people’s mental health and stress points that can cause deterioration. An Oxford team is involved in tracking thousands of families through the course of the pandemic to identify what can trigger a mental health crisis.
Other research focuses include helping practitioners cope with making difficult decisions, understanding how best to communicate illness and death to children, and the uses of digital media to improve health through the pandemic.
Previous studies have investigated the effects of the pandemic on single parents, as well as the impacts of school closures on education gaps.
Image credit to Michael D Beckwith/ Wikimedia Commons.
The protests in the US spurred on
by repeated institutional injustices against black bodies have opened up
numerous conversations about race across the globe. I, as a non-black person,
understand that that these protests and conversations are centred on the
negative experiences of black people at the hands of systemic racism. This
movement has also led to other non-black ethnic minorities being more open
about their own experiences. While I am cautious as to not detract from the
struggles faced by black people in multiple countries, the topic of those from
Asian diasporas feeling unattractive because of their skin colour has
consistently appeared on the Oxfess Facebook page. It should be noted that I am
in no way comparing the institutional violence inflicted on black bodies to
Asian people feeling inherently unattractive. Instead, I am writing this
article as the conversations on Oxfess personally resonated with me as it is
something which I have personally experienced. Throughout my formative years, I questioned the ‘beauty’
of my brown skin. However, it is only recently that I have fully
reflected on these experiences.
My first memory of this form of
self-doubt occurred around the age of nine. At this time, I was engrossed in
the many shows produced by Disney which portrayed a stereotypical high school
setting. While the story lines in these respective shows were different, there
were similarities in how they framed certain characters. The attractive,
desirable characters were often white, blonde, and blue-eyed. In contrast,
Asian characters, whether from the sub-continent, the Far East, or elsewhere,
were usually represented as hyper intellectual, but ultimately unattractive
characters (if represented at all). This valorisation of a small set of
European features, while seemingly harmless, chipped away at my self-esteem as
a young child. I distinctly remember looking at myself in the mirror, cursing
my brown skin for making me inherently unattractive.
This process of being alienated
from my own skin continued throughout my school years, although sometimes less
subtly than the racial signalling underlying the 2000s Disney television shows.
Perhaps the most blatant case of this was during an online conversation with a
group of school friends pertaining to race and attractiveness. One person stated
that his friends, who all happen to be white, said that they ‘just couldn’t go
there with black or Asian [people]’ because they were not attractive. This
followed other comments made to one of my Asian friends, such as ‘you’d be way
more attractive if you were white’. At the time, I knew that these comments
were both wrong and damaging. Yet, after years of the normalisation of the
desexualisation of Asian bodies, I internalised these comments. Much like my
9-year-old self, at sixteen years old I fundamentally questioned whether
anybody would find me attractive because of my skin tone. Ironically, despite
the numerous racial issues which plague the University of Oxford, I have become
the most comfortable with my skin tone at the university. I no longer look at
myself and loath the pigmentation of my skin, but instead celebrate it; I am
proud to be brown.
This is not to say that this is no
longer a problem; rather, I was incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by family
and friends who themselves are confident in their heritage. However, many
others are not so lucky. This trend of self-loathing and alienation within
non-white bodies will continue if structural changes do not occur, and,
unfortunately, these problematic representations are still prevalent. Take the winter
2019/20 series of Love Island as an example. The only contestant from
the sub-continental diaspora, Nas, was consistently represented in a desexualised
manner, leading to him constantly being overlooked by the other contestants.
Another example is the criticism which followed the removal of Apu from The
Simpsons. While denounced as another instance of ‘PC gone mad’ or the
accommodation of ‘snowflakes’, the decision was, in my opinion, a correct one;
the inclusion of Apu and his family, as the only consistent representation of
brown bodies within the series, created and normalised myriad harmful
stereotypes of brown peoples which contributed to brown skin being equated with
unattractiveness.
While I have drawn on my personal
experiences here, this phenomenon is by no means limited to those with brown
skin. Harmful representations and stereotypes abound about all ethnic
minorities. What can be done to mitigate other people of colour feeling like I
and countless others have? I suggest that there should be both a top-down and
bottom-up response. From the top-down, media productions should make a more
concerted effort to stray from lazy stereotypes about ethnic minorities, while
the bottom-up approach is more concerned with calling out harmful rhetoric
which acts to alienate people of colour from their own skin. While this is not
a guaranteed path to success, I do believe that action in these forms will go a
long way in helping people of colour continue to love the pigmentation of their
skin.
In search of a distraction in the gloom of mid-April, I sorted through my bookshelves, where half-read prelims texts obscured teen fiction and discarded notebooks. Right at the back, alongside a One Direction annual hidden long ago, were my childhood picture books. Finally, I thought, something I can get rid of. But when the front page of My First Encyclopaedia fell open as I removed it, I was stopped in my tracks. Written in the front page, in my mum’s handwriting, was: ‘To Sophie, Happy Christmas 2005, Love Mummy and Daddy xxx,’, writing unchanged in the fifteen years that have since passed. While I see my mum’s handwriting every day, on shopping lists or the kitchen calendar, I was strangely moved to see it there, inscribed in a long-forgotten book.
I could trace a similar inscription, be it physical or
emotional, on almost every book I pulled from this back shelf. The memory of
blowing out candles on my sixth birthday, on the copy of Harry Potter and
the Half-blood Prince, my favourite gift that year. One of the last
memories of my grandad, on the Roald Dahl collection given to me by my
grandparents. Maybe I am too sentimental, but I could only bring myself to
throw out the annual and some dog-eared leaflets, the rest occupying a place too close to my heart.
Finding an inscription in a second-hand book has always
startled me. Whenever I find a dedication scrawled inside a book’s front cover,
or a letter tucked inside its pages, I wonder how the previous owner came to
throw it away, given I myself can never bear to do so. In a second-hand copy of
a book on food waste (Waste, by Tristram Stuart – more gripping than it
sounds) I found this note. ‘For my darling on your Birthday! I am so proud of
you for working so hard on your MSc…I love you with all my heart. Pauline xxx.’
Was Pauline the mother or partner of the book’s owner? The ‘all my heart’
implies an amorous relationship; had they since broken up? The note was dated
2015; how much longer did their relationship last?
In my local charity bookshop, the wall is decorated with
similar notes, letters, and pictures that have fallen out of donated books. Seeing
these heartfelt notes and family pictures has almost put me off giving books as
gifts. What if the next time I go to the bookshop, I find my own handwriting
(or worst of all, face) staring back at me when I open the fiction ‘pick of the
day’?
A book is, after all, one of the more intimate presents you
can give to someone, for in doing so, you end up revealing as much about
yourself as you do about the person that you’re giving it to. Giving someone a
book implies you think it’ll be good, and that they’ll find it interesting. If
they find the book terribly written and boring, your good taste and your knowledge
of their interests are quickly called into question. Finding your carefully
selected gift in the charity shop bargain bin is therefore a greater insult
than it might appear, however entitled your recipient is to do what they like
with it.
When buying a book for the majority of my friends and
family, I’ve learnt to play it safe. My tactic is usually as follows: get them
another book by an author I know they like and who never fails to please. I make
a note when they mention a book they enjoyed, then before the birthday give it
a quick google, and the next William Boyd novel will drop through the
letterbox, just in time for Grandad’s birthday. Ultimately, a gift is for the
recipient’s enjoyment, so why not go with something they’re guaranteed to like?
A riskier tactic is a quick perusal of Waterstones’s best-sellers section;
whilst this might come up trumps, more likely your lucky recipient will receive
copies of the same book from three different people.
You’re onto more dangerous territory when you give someone a
book you yourself love. Whilst it can
feel self-centred to give a personal favourite as a gift, there is something
very intimate in the sharing of a much-loved book with a friend or loved one,
that perhaps makes this the best gift of all. When someone lends me one of their favourite books, I find myself
almost in conversation with them whilst I read it, trying to work out which
bits they liked especially. My boyfriend recently gave me a book, telling me I
would find one part especially funny. Reading it through, knowing he had read
it before me, felt almost like he was there with me; when I got to the part, I
knew at once. And I would be secretly upset if a recipient didn’t have a
similar reaction to a book that I gave them, although I would want them to have
their own opinion.
All in all, the gifting of a book becomes more complicated
the more I think about it. With so much room for insult and personal revelation
on both sides, there are times when it is tempting just to stick a book voucher
in a card. Yet the risk is worth taking, in return for the reward of sharing
such an intimate experience.
Improvisation is a strange topic to think about. On the surface, it seems to be fairly simple: know the chord progression to follow, choose notes from the chord and construct an appropriate melody. Add in fast scales and difficult harmonies if you’re feeling up to the task; if you want to round it all off, make the improvisation memorable and fitting with the rest of the performance. While complex, this approach seems methodical – methodical enough that any worthy musician should be able to take it on. But this isn’t the case. Improvisation is a completely different beast to playing composed music, one that relies on creativity, raw talent, communication with both the band and the audience, and unparalleled skill with the instrument. Through improvisation, some of the greatest works of music have been born.
Jazz is the medium that comes to mind when the word improvisation is thrown about, and rightly so. Performing a great solo is one of the cornerstones of the genre and is one of the mountains that must be climbed to become a master. Moreover, jazz improvisation stands out from improvisation in other genres like classical and folk in the sheer complexity of the medium, especially in terms of harmony. The style grew with the genre itself. With the dawn of the swing era, it was simply variations on main melodies – a nod to the influence of classical music. Bebop introduced more complex chord progressions, and by the time of the pinnacle of jazz in the 50s and 60s, soloists were improvising over extended chords, tritone substitutions, rapid modulation, modal harmony, helmed by the likes of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. If you’re looking for an introduction into this era, Davis’ Kind of Blue, widely considered as his masterpiece and one of the greatest jazz albums of all time, is an excellent starting point.
Improvisation was surprisingly also prevalent in classical music. Even as far back as the medieval and renaissance eras, the ability to play a melody instantly over a background harmony was essential for all aspiring musicians. Many baroque concertos had the soloist improvise virtuosic melodies on the spot from a set of chords. And while this is not true improvisation, Musikalisches Würfelspiel is an 18th– and 19th-century concept where each side of a die is assigned to a short passage of music – roll the dice and piece together a new melody every time. Not exactly John Coltrane but interesting, nevertheless.
Despite this last example being a bit feeble, the idea of aleatory, or chance, music has led to some landmark works. If you haven’t heard In C by Terry Riley, I’d recommend you stop reading this and go listen to a performance immediately. Or multiple. Or perform your own (https://teropa.info/in-c/). The piece sounds very different every time it’s performed: Brian Eno said the score is ‘more like a packet of seeds, and every time those seeds are opened, something new and unique grows”. The idea of this 1962 piece revolves around a sheet which details 53 short separated musical phrases; you must play them in order, but you can repeat the phrases as many times as you wish and move on to the next phrase as you wish. Every musician does this independently, creating a hypnotic mosaic of sound, all joining in harmony but clashing and syncopating in rhythm and texture. Instruments are not specified, meaning that many versions – from 120-piece orchestras to electronic instruments to traditional instruments from around the world – have been played. In many performances, it is standard for the piano to hold a constant pulse of Cs throughout the piece – an idea given to Riley than none other than Steve Reich, another minimalist composer whose work was incredibly innovative in its day.
But while a fascinating and revolutionary side piece into modern art music that deserves much more focus, I doubt it can be considered to be true improvisation. Arguments can be made for and against whether the individuality and creativity of the musicians shine through, and if it allows musical expression. I believe this to be the crux of the issue: improvisation is the expression of the artist, calling forth the talent, imagination and virtuosity to make a unique piece. This is why jazz became the mainstay for this method – the genre is focused on the artist and their originality. And this is why classical music didn’t have a true improvised piece for the first half of the last century; pieces that do have this technique might not be able to be considered classical music (a notoriously difficult genre to define).
In the contemporary age, where music is a free-for-all and every artist and composer is set apart from the rest, improvisation still holds an important place. As to be expected, it is essential in the new waves of jazz, but also is becoming more prevalent in rock, electronic, classical and film. Improvisation has been relevant in our society for hundreds if not thousands of years and will always be a route of artistic expression. I know that many people are excited about where this route can take us.
A banner stating ‘Rhodes, You’re Next’ has been put up on University Church, opposite the statue of Cecil Rhodes, following the pulling down of a statue of Edward Colston in Bristol on Sunday.
The statue of Rhodes, an imperialist in the 19th century who annexed much of southern Africa and restricted the rights of black Africans, has been the subject of much controversy.
In 2016, Oriel College stated it would not take down the statue, citing “widespread support” for the statue, despite the #RhodesMustFall campaign by students. The decision was made after threats from alumnae to withdraw about £100m in gifts if the statue were taken down.
Edward Colston was a slave trader in the 17th and 18th century, who is believed to have transported over 80 000 people from West Africa. Demonstrators at the Black Lives Matter protest today pulled the statue down and threw it into Bristol Harbour.
The Oxford #RhodesMustFall campaign has recently been restarted, with a new video published on the Facebook by students and alumni against anti-Blackness. 600 people have signed a Rhodes Must Fall Oxford petition over the course of Sunday night, which has since been closed. A new petition was set up on Monday morning.
In a ridiculous but not unsurprising turn of events, Oxford University has delayed its annual access report.
The reasoning for delaying the report was given in a university statement:
“In fact, some headline admissions figures have already been published, in January this year, and revealed that the University is now attracting more ethnic minority students, including Black students, than ever. Having already shared this core information, it felt deeply inappropriate to publish content that could distract from the important challenges and debate facing our society at this time and try to draw attention to our own progress on the figures. The report will therefore appear later this month.”
The tone of their statement is very much ‘we’ve done enough, we showed you that we have ‘more ethnic minority students than ever’ – what else do you want?’ The university is foolish to make this decision. It is inappropriate to use the Black Lives Matter movement and current debates around racism as reasoning to not release access data. Oxford is not being intersectional here; yes, the access report would also give information unrelated to race: class, gender, disability. But this information is all related. It would not distract from the current conversation, but it would give more information with which to analyse the university’s response to racism. Of course the university is halting their report; why would they want to give their critics more reason to criticise?
The interconnected nature of inequality across Oxford is magnified by their failure here to support their students. It is systematic. I would equally not be surprised if the university has delayed their report because they want it to be the main news item in the week it is published. Look at us, we can imagine university officials saying, Look how good we are doing, weeks after failing their Black students who they are so vocal about when it suits the university. Where was the energy of your January press release: ‘More Black British students than ever choosing Oxford’, which was thrusted towards the media, when you were tweeting about Black Lives Matter?
We're committed to supporting our community in opposing racism in all its forms, including upholding anti-racist values.
— University of Oxford (@UniofOxford) June 2, 2020
When I went to find the tweet to embed it here, the following notification appeared:
Oxford are hiding responses to their racism statement on Twitter. All this university seems to do is hide. In attempting to hide, Oxford is only making its prejudice, inequality and privilege more visible.
So, why the sudden turn around, Oxford? You know as well as we do that the report is ready, as emails earlier this week show. The sudden decision to halt its publication is embarrassing. We need to see the data now more than ever. If Oxford is going to continue letting their students down – and right now, Oxford is letting down its black students the most, of course – they should be transparent in the fact that they have failed.
Because a failure to meet access targets could surely be a reason for delaying the report too?
Whilst this is all purely speculation, it makes no sense at all to not publish the report right now. The decision is in the same vein as the UK Government’s decision to delay their BAME + Covid-19 review. Unsurprisingly, when the Public Health England review was finally published it revealed that ‘People of Bangladeshi heritage in England are twice as likely to die if they contract the virus than white people,’ and that ‘other BAME groups face an increased risk of up to 50%.’ The report was initially delayed out of fears it could stoke already present ‘racial tensions’. Is this the same reasoning behind Oxford’s decision to delay their access report? What are they hiding? Earlier this year Oxford were vocal in releasing their BAME specific access data: The 2019 intake of students from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds was more than 22%, with 560 students overall. The university’s decision to delay their report is confusing. To put it bluntly, I just don’t get it.
Oxford needs to put its money where its mouth is. And that’s a lot of money and an even bigger mouth. But the mouthpiece is only used when Oxford decides they’ve done something good; press releases will be sent out for the smallest measures of progress, but Oxford’s Twitter account will stay firmly vanilla and bland when confronted with racism – both worldwide and within its own community. If Oxford wish to centre themselves as a worldwide leader for education, they must be actively anti-racist. This isn’t a radical comment at all. To be anti-racist is the least Oxford – an institution built on white privilege and colonialism – could do. But they are yet to do this. And it’s embarrassing. Oxford is an overwhelmingly racist university:
To release their access report right now would have shown that Oxford University was at least willing to confront its access and inequality problems. It could have been a step forward. They could have taken some responsibility. But instead they’re hiding.
As last term’s editor of Cherwell, we often asked the university for certain statistics and information. We wanted more information related to their BAME data. They chose to only release BAME data in January when they will have already compiled all their access data. Why? Who knows. We were always told we would have to wait for the access report to be published in full. At the time, this felt like a bit of a cop out. A way for the university to deflect important, and timely, information to the end of Trinity term. And here we are: it is Trinity term, the access report should have been published this week…and now it hasn’t been.
It is important to remember too, that the access report is a fairly new thing for the university. The commitment to releasing the data began in 2018. It hasn’t been broken, but it has been bent to suit the university. No surprises there.
The email, leaked to the HuffPost, stated: “After careful consideration of the current world events and also learning that Cambridge will not be publishing its admissions data until late June, the decision to postpone the release of the annual admissions statistical report has been taken.”
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, Oxford holds up Cambridge as a further reason for the delay. Why delay in line with Cambridge? A cynic may be led to believe that Oxford is hoping that Cambridge’s access data was worse than theirs for the last admissions round…and therefore Oxford can deflect (again) any responsibility. ‘But look! Cambridge is worse!’ This is entirely speculation at this point too. Again, it makes no sense.
There are no firm conclusions to be made here, other than to state again that the university is letting us all down. Oxford has proved, again, that it will shy away from responsibility. We don’t get an access report right now, but what we do get is: a short, uncontroversial statement and a university that doesn’t support its Black students. Added to that, we have a ridiculous collegiate system that is supporting racist structures in the university, as shown this week with Christ Church’s inability to support one of their own students being racially abused. Stop hiding, Oxford – we can see through you anyway.
It is fascinating to me that nostalgia, coined in the 17th century, was originally treated as a physical disease. Nostalgia was used to describe the condition of Swiss Mercenaries who, in the plains of lowland France or Italy, were pining for their native mountain landscapes. Military physicians hypothesised that the malady was due to damage to the victims’ brain cells and ear drums by the constant clanging of cowbells in the pastures of Switzerland. I feel that there is no greater comfort than home and the wave of nostalgia which floods over me whenever I watch my favourite childhood film, Agnieszka Holland’s The Secret Garden,is medicinal, not melancholic. Whenever I hear Zbigniew Preisner’s mellifluous ‘Awakening of Spring’, I am transported back to the warm glow of my grandparents’ sitting room, huddled around the crackling recorded tape: these are my cowbells, my home pastures.
When I was seven, my mum caught me making a bolt for the front door after lights out, armed with a wheelie bag and sunhat – I’d had enough and was setting off for India apparently. Sadly, I never quite made it over the threshold, but I’m convinced that my grandiose ideas of adventure were inspired by my early viewing (as was my sudden desperation to own a beret). I was utterly mesmerised by that opening scene: the majesty of the Taj Mahal rippling like a mirage in the heat of the amber desert; the festooned elephants and the eddying movement of shimmering dancers. But the film, quite cleverly, provides a glimpse into the dark underbelly which lurks below the opulence of the British Raj: spoilt Mary Lennox waits sourly to be dressed by her Indian ayahs whilst her parents curry favour with the maharaja. What follows is one of Holland’s most shrewd adaptations of Burnett’s novel: a devastating earthquake replaces the original cholera plot. Mary’s childhood home is obliterated in a horrifying cacophony of elephants’ trumpeting and the screams of the entourage. It has an intensity which the 1987 adaptation, in its loyalty to the original plot of the pandemic, just doesn’t quite manage. “Doesn’t sound particularly comforting”, you might muse, and, it’s true, much of the film felt unsettling, dramatising the childhood nightmare of the world crashing around you. In fact, one of my recurring childhood nightmares was a direct imitation of one of Mary’s in which, after her parents’ deaths, she dreams of her mother reaching towards her in the garden before running away. But I think much of the comfort of the film derives from the redemption and recovery plot, that the very discomfort of Mary’s childhood tragedy is healed by the flourishing of the garden and the relationships she cultivates there.
In spite of her brattish petulance and surly glare, I think there is something universally appealing and comforting to a child about ‘contrary Mary.’ Regardless of how cherished one is, I think that all children nurse a strange but persistent complex of feeling somehow neglected or overlooked and the figure of the forsaken child, even the orphan, speaks to the child psyche. Every time I watched my parents don their glad rags as they managed to get away for a much-deserved childfree evening, I distinctly remember dramatically imagining myself as Mary, watching as her glamorous mother strings her neck in pearls and her father straightens his mess dress. It is, after all, the reason why so many children fall in love with Harry Potter, Annie and Oliver Twist: these are the children who must learn to define their own fate, to fashion their own identity. I remember the agony of watching Mary, submitted to the derision of the other children upon docking in Liverpool, left to watch as the others are greeted with the warm embrace of their relatives whilst Maggie Smith’s Mrs Medlock observes that she has not inherited much of her mother’s beauty. There was something shocking too about Mary’s rages and hostility – I always remember making a concerted effort to be extra agreeable after a viewing. But Mary who ‘doesn’t know how to cry’ finds her icy heart melted by the warmth of Dicken and Martha and by receiving a dose of her own medicine from the sickly Colin, they learn and grow together. By unearthing long buried pains, she rediscovers her roots and heals broken ties, finds hope and vitality where all seemed barren. The final scene where Mary and Colin are reunited with Mr Craven after a game of blind man’s bluff and when Colin walks for the first time in the garden are breathtakingly beautiful.
Misselthwaite Manor, which Mary rattles around, is eerie and shadowy – entirely comfortless – but the howling winds and dramatic landscape always fill with me with the nostalgic comfort of my own childhood holidays spent in Yorkshire. Whenever I watch The Secret Garden, I feel a deep empathy with the hankering of Swiss Mercenaries as I am washed over with reminisces of rugged moors and lush dales. There is nothing more rejuvenating to me than watching Mary rip open Colin’s bedroom window and allowing it to be flooded with light or unlock the garden, allowing it to bloom as it once did. In my most recent viewing, I felt especially wistful watching the jettisoning of the face masks once worn in the presence of Colin (a prophecy for a corona-free future I hope!).
A new adaptation of The Secret Garden is set to come out in August this year and, watching the trailer, it has clearly received a radical updating: gone is Preisner’s ethereal soundtrack, the muted realism of the scenes and the simplicity of Holland’s direction. This is blockbuster stuff: fast paced, razor sharp precision, intensely vivid colour – dramatic on an epic scale, and I can’t help but feel wistful for the humble 1993 version. But then again, Marc Munden’s adaptation isn’t my home comfort or my childhood nostalgia – I’ll leave that to someone else.
As a POC (British Indian), I have had my fair share of racist comments.
Luckily for me, most of them have been pretty trivial, reflecting ignorance
rather than malicious intent but nevertheless, not easily forgotten. I know
that discrimination faced by members of the black community is so many times
worse.
Across the world, many people, including South Asians, have been raising
awareness, protesting, donating and fundraising in support of Black Lives in
response to the appalling murders of George Floyd and others. High profile,
influential Bollywood celebrities have tweeted their support for BLM,
encouraging other South Asians to follow in their footsteps. We have seen the
pain inflicted on Black Lives for too long and need to stand together in
solidarity, exposing and overcoming white privilege.
Yet, how can we claim to sufficiently support BLM when many of our cultural attitudes are inherently racist and indirectly propagate anti-black sentiments? Most notably is the South Asian obsession with fair skin- which is often seen as a prerequisite for beauty. Skin colour bias is commonly thought to be derived from the Hindu caste system- with lighter skin associated with more superior castes. Although the idea of castes predates colonialism, it is likely that associations with colorism were exacerbated during the double-century long British Raj. People would cater to and strive to be more similar to white people with the hope of accessing better opportunities. Fair skin was seen as a desirable characteristic when seeking out marital partners and this is still the case today (although arranged marriages are less common).
Today, South Asian fair skin obsessions are largely driven by the film
industry. Actors with lighter skin are more likely to be seen in more prominent
roles, and “brownfacing” is common practice to reflect characters of poorer
origins. A recent example is the 2019 “super-hit” Bollywood movie Bala,
in which the actress Bhumi Pednekar was brownfaced when playing Latika, a
talented girl who is rejected by several marriage proposals solely due to her
dark skin. It is disgustingly ironic that a lighter skinned actress was
brownfaced over casting a darker skinned actress, when the very moral of the movie
is the beauty of different complexions.
These attitudes towards preferring lighter complexions are propagated by the thriving South Asian market of skin lightening products and skin bleaching. When I was just 10, excited about my first pedicure before a wedding in India, I was painted with bleach up and down my legs. I remember thinking it was moisturiser; it was only when my skin started burning that I realised otherwise. Safe to say I have never had a pedicure since. Somewhat hypocritically, Karan Johar, Dishi Patani and Priyanka Chopra, all Bollywood celebrities who tweeted their support for BLM, have all also advertised skin lightening products. In response to criticism, Priyanka Chopra deleted her tweet. This is not enough. We need statements from these influential celebrities condemning the pursuit of fair skin. South Asians who have been emotionally alienated and even physically harmed by these attitudes deserve an apology. Crucially, this warped perception of beauty results in colourist sentiments towards darker skinned individuals and hence members of the Black community. This is frankly unacceptable.
Furthermore, following the US 1965 Immigration Act, people from Asia
were permitted to immigrate to the USA; Asians were portrayed via the “model
minority myth”. This stereotyping favoured their success, whilst simultaneously
expanding the gap between Black Americans and Southern Asian Americans. The
systemic racist oppression faced by Black people is reflected by statistics-
according to the US 2018 consensus, the median household income of Black
American houses was 41,400 USD, almost half that of white people (70,600 USD)
and under half that of Asian households (87,200 USD). Similarly, in the UK,
data from 2015-2018 showed that the 42% of the Indian British population earnt
over £1000 per week, whereas this was only true for 19% of the Black British
population. It is evident
that South Asians have also benefited from white privilege at the expense of
Black People. It is about time that we addressed these disparities.
It is crucial that South Asians continue to support BLM by donating money, fundraising, protesting, signing petitions, increasing our understanding of the hardships faced by the black community and raising awareness. However, although we may not be white ourselves, unless we address our cultural racist ideologies, we become complicit with white supremacist ideologies. We need to educate ourselves on the history of casteism, colourist attitudes, colonialism and slavery so that we are better able to recognise and call out racial insults within our own community as well as elsewhere. We need to stamp out South Asian obsession with lightening skin and finding fairer skin attractive. Interracial relationships and friendships with black people need to be supported and accepted, not stigmatised.
In order for many of these measures to be successful in the long-term,
it means challenging the ideals of those in our close community circles and
family. These difficult conversations can be approached via discussions about
how peaceful BLM protests are being met with violence by the police and how
black people have wrongfully been facing such a threat of police violence for
decades. Highlight the positive role South Asians have been playing to support
the cause, including how the owners of the Gandhi Mahal Restaurant in
Minneapolis used the restaurant as a base for protestors and medics, and how
Rahul Dubey welcomed over 70 protestors into his house in New York for refuge. Emphasise
how small changes in attitudes can have extremely rewarding consequences.
Fundamentally, encourage support for the lives and wellbeing of our
fellow black ethnic minorities. Black Lives Matter.
