Thursday, May 8, 2025
Blog Page 462

Diversity, waste, and travel: what globalisation means for food

Shreya Banerjee
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Diversity, waste, and travel: what globalisation means for food

For many people, being at home during lockdown means that there is an abundance of time to spend preparing, eating, and thinking about food. Combined with the population’s increased dependence on home cooking due to the closure of restaurants, it seems there is no better time to consider where the products we label as essential originate from, the extent to which our diets have become international and the effects of this.

Food trade has played a significant role in the history of globalisation, as it has allowed for cultural exchange for thousands of years. From the transporting of spices along the Silk Road, to the potatoes being imported from the Andes to Ireland in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, one could argue that humanity has been sharing and adapting to new crops for a very long time ­– after all, it took only 16 years for the potato to become widely farmed throughout Europe. But even if our swift adoption of and fascination for foreign crops dates back to Charles II being presented with a pineapple, the last century has undeniably ushered in a new age of consumption.

Where produce from far-off lands may once have radiated mystique, in today’s world, over two thirds of the crops that underpin national diets are originally grown somewhere else. This is a trend that has accelerated dramatically over the last 50 years: whether it’s sushi you’re searching for in Addis Ababa or McDonald’s in Honolulu, globalisation has made a wide range of cuisines more accessible than ever, while also aiding multinational fast food companies to exploit our modern need for convenience. It has not only transformed the produce that we eat and where it is grown, but also redefined our tastes internationally – interactions between different cultures as a result of immigration have led to an expectation of an Indian take-away in most British towns, and culinary phenomena such as Korean-Mexican fusion in Los Angeles and Japanese-Brazilian hybrid restaurants in London. Moreover, the popularity of cooking shows such as MasterChef, where contestants are encouraged to explore different cuisines, reflects how our society is more open to experimentation than ever before. Though this is of less relevance to communities that are dependent on livestock and backyard farming, urbanisation and immigration have created melting pots of cuisine and culture across the globe, which form perfect subjects for an inquiry into globalised diets.

Aside from being a vehicle for cultural metamorphosis, globalisation within the food industry has had major environmental effects, often inextricably bound to the politics of agriculture and trade, which are exacerbated by the ever-growing demand for food in an ever-growing population. The demand for meat across the globe has never been higher, with countries such as Australia and the US consuming an average of over 300 grams per person, per day, and the largest increase has been for pork and chicken in Asia. This has led to expansion of pig meat farming that has raised currently pertinent concerns about public health and viruses, especially if farming is not regulated effectively.

Alongside the growth in demand for meat, the last decade has proven that wheat, soya beans and palm oil are ‘megacrops’: superpowers within agriculture with the potential to overhaul the productivity and value of land. In Brazil’s Matopiba (the savannah region formed by several states which is the country’s agricultural frontier) 14,000 sq km of native vegetation were cleared for soya cultivation from 2016-17 in order to satisfy the Chinese demand for soya beans – only to be left uncultivated by the U.S. because of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. The illegal deforestation and environmental endangerment that has resulted from a huge international demand for soya as well as palm oil is not dissimilar to what Mexico is experiencing from the avocado boom throughout the late 2010s, when the security of domestic produce was undermined by unparalleled Western demand for the incredibly Instagrammable toast-topper.

Clearly, the globalisation of our diets has had positive and negative effects – whilst many of us have access to a balanced diet that our ancestors could never have dreamt of and can taste delicious indigenous and fusion foods from around the world, there is an environmental cost. Having said this, it has also led to the increased accessibility and popularisation of veganism through new meat-free alternatives and the wide sharing of information on social media. A vegan diet can drastically reduce one’s carbon footprint, but it is worth considering that most diets within a globally interdependent food supply chain quickly accumulate ‘food miles’,which is one factor used to measure the environmental impact of getting food from the farm to your fork.

Today, due to our growing consciousness of the impact that demand can have on an environment and its inhabitants, as well as the pandemic having caused a large portion of our food supply chain to grind to a halt, food security seems to be higher on the agenda and more in the spotlight than ever. The rush to stockpile essential products has also provoked analysis of what we consider basic necessities, and it has become clear that although thousands of different foods are imported and exported every year, our global diet is starting to converge due to our dependence on a handful of megacrops, as well as the explosion of fast food culture in the last 50 years. Monocrop plantations of these megacrops such as corn, wheat and soya beans are more vulnerable to viruses and pests than plantations with biodiversity. However, in a world where cities have huge demand for key products and we are growing our own produce less, it may seem like there is no alternative to monocropping on a large scale.

Although the pandemic has propelled us into uncertain times, it can be comforting to satisfy our culinary curiosity by means of new recipes or the variety of restaurants still delivering food. Even when confined to our homes, globalisation has made it easier than ever to travel the world from our plates.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen: 50 years on

Gabriel Coleman
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen: 50 years on

In the spring of 1970, 50 years ago, a collection of musicians underwent the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which came to be immortalised in a live album and a concert film. This tour fell on the cusp of a dramatic change in the way that music and musicians were viewed. It was the last hurrah of the idealistic Woodstock generation and an introduction to an increasingly dark and commercial world of music.

On the 11th March 1970, an exhausted Joe Cocker arrived in LA after a non-stop tour of the States with ‘The Grease Band’. Joe was a humble mechanic from Sheffield who was suddenly shot into superstardom by his timeless cover of the Beatles’ ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ and his subsequent performance at Woodstock in 1969. The day after his return from tour (12th March), Joe’s manager, Dee Anthony, announced that he had been booked for a seven-week tour of the States. The Grease Band had just been dissolved, yet Joe had only a few days before he had to begin a gruelling 48-show tour of the US.

Cocker looked to his friends Leon Russell and Denny Cordell for help. Russell was the Mark Ronson of early 1970s Rock and Roll; he played with everyone who was anyone, and Elton John regularly calls him his greatest influence. Leon’s honky-tonk piano, southern twang, and incredible musical experience, along with his silent demeanour and crazy wizard-like look earned him the title ‘the master of Space and Time’. He had been part of The Wrecking Crew in the 1960s, a prolific collection of session musicians who, often in place of the actual bands, played on albums for giants such as the Everley Brothers, Sammy Davis Jr,  Frank and Nancy, the Byrds, the Monkees, the Mamas and Pappas, and many more. As a result, by the early 1970s Russell was one of the most sought-after musicians in the world, though relatively unknown by the general public. He was at the centre of an extensive web of highly talented, countercultural musicians that split their time between Laurel Canyon in LA and Tulsa in Oklahoma.

Russell called on his friends and within a week he had got together somewhere between 30 and 40 musicians all keen to help Cocker out. Most had a similar session background to Leon or had been involved with the folk giants of LA, Delaney and Bonnie. All of them were highly accomplished and would continue to dominate the music industry for the following decade, working with the likes of the Stones, Buffalo Springfield, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and George Harrison.

In addition to the core band, there were numerous backup singers, ranging from Denny Cordell, the record producer, to Rita Coleridge – ‘the undying queen of Rock and Roll’ – as well as the kids, wives and friends of everyone involved.

The Band only had 6 days’ rehearsal. They moved between Leon’s house and ‘The Plantation’ – the home of Delaney, Bonnie, and Taj Mahal. People came and went, and music was played day and night. Only one recording of the rehearsals made it onto the live album, ‘Warm up Jam/ Under My Thumb’, in a great example of the loose and experimental process that fuelled the development of most of the tracks on the album. Delaney and Bonnie’s album Motel Shot, which was recorded in one evening in the living room of The Plantation and features most of the artists on the Mad Dog’s Tour, runs in a similar vein and gives an idea of the spontaneous genius of this group.

When the tour finally kicked off, there were so many people involved that A&M Records had to buy a 1940s transcontinental airliner – ‘Cocker Power’. It was filled with musicians, hangers-on, a film crew, kids, and dogs. The tour manager was a Shakespearean actor called Smitty. He can be seen in the concert film reciting Shakespeare and addressing middle-American hotel staff as if he were an 18th Century gentlemen. Even at the time, it was considered to be an absurd circus, let alone in retrospect.

I won’t analyse the all twenty tracks on the album, but it is worth picking out a few highlights:

A cover of the Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Women’

The song, and the concert, quite literally begins with a circus theme tune. Joe dances onto the stage. Leon, looking like the mad hatter, pulls off riffs that put Keith Richards to shame, and the band pulsates with an inescapable swinging rhythm.  Dancers can be seen lining the back of the stage, before halfway through the song a dancing woman dressed from head to toe in white, Leon’s best friend from Tulsa, Emily, bursts onto the scene smashing a tambourine and kisses Leon. The whole thing is completely mad but amid this chaotic looseness we get our first sense of just how talented everyone is. 

A cover of The Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’

Leon sits at the piano with his characteristic deadpan composure, looking half bored and somewhat otherworldly. He showcases his honky-tonk style, dominating the song and establishing himself as the heart of the band.  Bobby Keys’ saxophone solo similarly shines through. He rolls along, keeping perfect time with the rhythm section and reminding us why he was considered to be the very best at what he did.

‘Space Captain’

Whilst Joe was the main act, Leon was the one really in charge. In the words of the photographer Linda Wolf, who accompanied the tour: “Leon was clearly the master of Space and Time: he was the conductor of the music and the energy.” Nowhere does this come across better than on ‘Space Captain’. Joe’s voice roars over the top and the backup singers provide us with amusing ‘woos’ throughout, but once again Leon’s piano stands out. And it’s when, about halfway through, he stands up and begins to conduct the 30-something people as if they were an orchestra that we realise just how important Leon is. Joe was the heart and soul, but Leon was the brains.

‘I’ll drown in my own tears/ When Something is Wrong with My Baby/ I’ve Been Loving You Too Long’

Although no footage survives, this 12-minute blues medley is Joe’s magnum opus. Joe was first and foremost a soul singer, and it’s when he covers the likes of Otis Redding that he seems most truly at home. His voice is incredibly powerful, emotional, and raw; it’s velvet sandpaper. Even without seeing a live performance, you can tell that Joe feels every part of these songs. He captures the very essence of ‘blues’ better than anyone else from this period of music. It’s no surprise that Ray Charles deemed him to be the only white guy who could sing soul music.

‘With A Little Help from My Friends’

The song that made Joe famous and the one that we always have to come back to is the one with which he ends. Chris Stainton is on the organ, Leon on guitar, and the backup singers are in full swing. The band unleashes a beautiful cacophony of sound becoming more an orchestra than anything else. This song defined the collective spirit of the whole tour and indeed the whole era. It rolls on for nine minutes, and Joe is at the centre. He leads the audience and the band along an emotional rollercoaster, revving them up, calming them down, and ending with pure unleashed ecstasy. For me, the highlight is Joe’s scream about 4 minutes in; it’s wild and a little bit scary but shows just how passionate and raw a talent Joe was.  In the film, you can see one backup singer’s reaction to Joe’s scream. She smiles and leans back, shaking her head with pure excitement. Chris Stainton struggles to keep up at times, the rhythm section is somewhat confused, and Leon and Joe are quite clearly very high, but despite (or, perhaps, because of) all this there is a really special feeling to the performance. Everyone involved, including the audience we see in brief glimpses, is completely immersed. Even when watching it 50 years on, for a brief moment everything else fades into limbo and is replaced by a sense of simple and pure bliss.

This article wouldn’t be true to itself without acknowledging a somewhat sad reality. Looking back on this album, tour, and film 50 years later, it is easy to idealise what these musicians accomplished. Despite the incredible talent on display, the tour wasn’t without its downfalls. The shows were relentless, people became addicted to drugs, Joe and Leon fell out badly, and despite the overwhelming success of the album and the film most of the band, including Joe, never saw a penny. Above all, Joe was a wreck by the end of the tour and it started a downward spiral into drink and drugs that lasted the best part of 10 years. He was never quite the same afterwards, the witty flare that characterised him extinguished. Though he did manage to survive and have a resurgence in the 80s, when watching the concert film today it is almost painful to see the brief moments of Joe backstage. He is always drunk or high, pale-faced, and looking out of sorts: quite literally an English gentleman in a world of mad dogs.

Where, then, does that leave our relationship with Mad Dogs and Englishmen? In an age of Super Bowl half-time shows and million-dollar concert tours that are dominated by auto-tuned backing tracks, perfect choreography, light shows, outfit changes, and make-up, Joe and his band are a relic of a golden age when a genuine love of music was more important than all the trappings that come with it. It was chaotic, decadent, and far from pretty, but that’s exactly what made this group of hopelessly idealistic and enormously talented musicians so special.

Liberalism’s Moment of Truth

Sea-Yun Joung and Jonathan Nicoll
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Liberalism’s Moment of Truth

The night overtaketh the day, the four horsemen draw near, and pestilence approacheth. The apocalypse is at hand, and the state, in shining armour, riding a white stallion, quickly and silently moveth to seize all the power it can to save people from plague… and from themselves. And the citizen sloucheth idly and watcheth only Netflix as power is seizéd. This is, after all, the only way… Right?

Humankind is at present going through what the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, describes as “the most challenging crisis since World War II” and what Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist at the IMF, calls a “crisis like no other”. In light of this, governments around the world have responded with sweeping draconian measures unlike anything we – in the Western and liberal world – have witnessed or experienced in our living memories. These measures – which include restrictions to the freedom of movement and assembly, increased police power, and enhanced surveillance – are disconcerting, and have something of a sinister aftertaste, despite their immediate necessity.

At some level, it is certainly true that a trade-off between liberty and security exists. It is also true that times of crisis – such as that which we at present find ourselves in – justify the curtailment of certain civil liberties in the name of promoting security and saving lives. It is not, however, the case that times such as these justify a blanket surrender of power and total handover of liberty to the government. Indeed, a government’s exercise of power is legitimate and justifiable only insofar as it is consented to by the nation’s constituents. And whilst people would, for the most part, consent to the temporary sacrifice of a limited number of liberties in the name of protecting themselves and their loved ones, they would not consent to giving up any more freedoms than they must, nor for any longer than they must. Thus – as John Henry Newman, the Oriel theologian, argued – “those political institutions are the best, which subtract as little as possible from a people’s natural independence as the price of their protection”.

Yet historically, during – and after – crises, governments have tended to stray from such political ideals of balance, instead pursuing only security at the expense of our natural independence. In light of the crisis we find ourselves in, we now stand before the same historical threat. Yet, as this crisis is more severe than those we have gone through in the past, the threat to our natural independence is direr than ever.

This threat to our liberty can be broken up into two principal components. The first is that those curtailments to liberty that we accept temporarily lurk, persist, and outstay their welcome. The second, and arguably more worrying, is that the crisis may present power-hungry leaders an irresistible opportunity to sweep in and grow authoritarian powers that they will hold onto long after the end of the crisis.

“Temporary” measures:

Laws and measures enacted in response to specific crises have a nasty habit of remaining in place long after they are intended to have ceased – and often, in fact, long after they are necessary for any other reason than empowering the state.

Consider, for example, the Patriot Act: legislation enacted to prevent the recurrence of the tragedies of September 11th. Originally, it intended to serve as a temporary four-year-long measure. Yet, as provisions of the Act have been constantly renewed, the NSA, to this day, maintains the right to monitor communications without a court order and to compile – and share with the FBI – data on citizens. Is the current carryout of these surveillance practices, which the 2015 Snowden leak shed light on, really what people in 2001 agreed to – and what people would now consent to?

Alternatively, consider the “temporary” measures instituted by Israel after it declared a state of emergency during its War of Independence. In spite of the fact that the war ended over 70 years ago, some measures – including press censorship and land confiscation rights – remain implemented to this day. Did the Israeli people of 1948 who accepted these measures at the time really consent to their continuation to this day?

Those powers and those liberties we forego in the present crisis – in the name of protecting ourselves and our loved ones – will, in a similar fashion, persist and linger if we are not vigilant. They are sinking deep into the belly of the Leviathan – and soon they’ll be at a depth we can no longer reach.

Opportunistic leaders:

While in ordinary times acquiring power – at least in democracies – involves the arduous process of succumbing to the desires and wills of the electorate, the current crisis provides an opportunity like no-other for a swift and effortless power grab by leaders who have long coveted it.

We have already witnessed Hungary suffer this fate after their leader, Viktor Orbán, appropriated the right to rule by decree indefinitely – making the nation, in effect, a dictatorship. This ought to act as a precautionary tale of what could be to come in other fragile democracies that, like Hungary, have weak, if at all existent, democratic safeguards in place.

It is not only fragile democracies for whom we ought to worry, however. Liberalism is at grave risk, and facing its hour of reckoning, even in nations that supposedly embody and even exemplify it, such as Britain and the United States. These nations find themselves at a tipping point in history where people have, amidst the immediate and temporary pains of the pandemic, lost hope in liberalism and saw it instead in the – mind you, very dangerous – notion of collectivism. This is demonstrated no better than by the fact that few, if any, of us – judges, politicians, civilians – expressed dissent or attempted to challenge what would normally be considered despotic measures. Thus spake the Leviathan, and we accepted.

And while this is fine, as it is true that the temporary loss of our liberties is necessary to fight the pandemic, we must ensure that we do not allow governments to abuse the precedent that has been set. Going forwards, if we do not remain vigilant, who is to stop them exercising arbitrary power over us, and curtailing our freedoms, in the name of some other ‘emergency’?

Defending our liberty:

To defend ourselves from the grave threat against liberty we face, it is perhaps first useful to remember that – as Aristotle pointed out –we are, by nature, zoon politikon – that is, political animals. We are capable of speech and of moral reasoning – of lógos. And it is necessary – especially, at times like these – that we exercise these capabilities. Specifically, we must actively engage in scrutiny of the policies enacted in haste, and in expressing political dissent with those we do not agree with. We ought, by similar virtue, to scrutinise and express dissent with any future appeals to the ‘emergency’ precedent set by this crisis which our leaders may invoke.

You might, however, quite rightly, suggest that devoting a significant portion of your life to political activism is not viable. After all, life is already hectic enough. Well, fear not, for there is a solution. And that is strengthening the constitutional mechanisms that check power in government. Through such measures, that would, of course, include provisions for legitimate emergencies, we would be able to ensure that not only is the state prevented from arbitrarily interfering in our liberties today or tomorrow, but that it is prevented from doing so ad infinitum.

Defending liberalism:

Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary – the Leviathan – as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

You might, in the background, be thinking – why is this ‘liberty’ at all desirable? Why do we ought to promote and protect it in the first place? Such thoughts are indeed tempting. Liberalism has, after all, failed us at our hour of need. Yet we must remember that the upholding of liberal values has brought us much virtue and much good. It has enriched us, given us equal voices, and protected us from evils of tyranny. These virtues and these goods, ultimately, far outweigh the shortcomings of it that this crisis has made us aware of.

We, therefore, cannot allow ourselves to fall for the trap – the forbidden fruit – of handing over our power to the Leviathan, as tempting as it may be. For once we do, we can never take it back. And while the Leviathan, at this time, may well be benevolent, he needn’t remain such. By handing over our power, and accepting the Leviathan into our lives, we set ourselves onto a one-way path to despotism and destitution – onto the ‘Road to Serfdom’.

In 1683, although for a very different set of reasons, Hobbes’ books, including the Leviathan, were publicly burnt in the quadrangle of the Bodleian. To stand up for and defend our liberal principles, we must, metaphorically, do the same. We must burn the Hobbesian Leviathan out of our minds, out of our souls, and out of our constitutions. For whilst it is true that during times like these, life would be ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ without the heavy hand of the Leviathan, we seldom live in such times. And during ordinary times, it is hard to deny that liberalism, absent the heavy hand, has done us well.

In Conversation with Countess Alexandra Tolstoy

Alexander Haveron-Jones
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In Conversation with Countess Alexandra Tolstoy

Countess Alexandra Tolstoy is the daughter of Count Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky, the current head of the noble House of Tolstoy, distantly related to Leo Tolstoy, and the former partner of Sergei Pugachev, a Russian oligarch who was once worth $15 billion and was amongst Putin’s inner circle. Nicknamed ‘Putin’s Banker’, Pugachev owned a coal mine, shipyards, designer brands and one of Russia’s largest private banks before a catastrophic fall from favour placed him at number 3 on the Kremlin hit list. 

A superficial browse of Alexandra’s delightfully aesthetic Instagram page evokes the traditional rural cottage idyll; her three young children in shorts and little leather shoes reading or playing outside; carrying a roast goose to a carefully-decorated table for supper in a candle-lit dining room; nursing a cup of tea on a rocking chair beside the aga. Before this, she was quite the adventurer, having made documentaries with the BBC about her horseback expeditions, and trekking 8,000 kilometres on horse and camel across the Silk Road in 1999. 

But, Alexandra’s presently unassuming country lifestyle, or, indeed, the life of adventure in her earlier years, is miles from the shrouded world of Russian high society, and from the 200-acre estate in Hertfordshire and $40 million beach-front Caribbean villa she recently enjoyed with her husband, whose fortune went from $15 billion to $70 million – and now refuses to give her and the children even a penny. 

In 2008 Alexandra met Sergei, then one of Russia’s most influential men, who had bankrolled the Russian government; but, following Putin’s eradication of the oligarchy, and the disappearance of a $1 billion loan from the State to his bank which went under a year later, Sergei had to flee Russia in fear of his life, allegedly receiving death threats to himself and their children. In 2015, the Russians pursued Pugachev in the British courts to reclaim the missing $1 billion, for which he was found liable, and his passport was seized and his assets worldwide were frozen: he fled illegally to France, for which he was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the UK – meaning he couldn’t return to be with Alexandra and the children. 

After visiting Sergei at their château in France, where he was physically violent towards her, locked their passports in a safe and smashed her mobile phone, Alexandra managed to return with the children to the UK and now lives between her small country cottage in Oxfordshire and their London townhouse, which she was forced to sell in a deal with the Russian authorities (though thankfully can remain in residence each month until it sells). 

Alexandra’s confidence and safety were worn by years of threats and continual surveillance from the Russian authorities, alleged harassment from the British legal system, and, indeed, later by the cruelty and intimidation by her very husband. Having momentarily enjoyed the luxuries of a billionaire lifestyle, she’s now entirely without financial support from Sergei, retains no luxuries from their relationship, and has sold all of the designer clothes, bags and shoes she’d once owned: but she says she’s all the happier because of it. 

I telephone Alexandra on a sunny afternoon during lockdown, which she is spending at her parents’ house with the children; suffering from asthma, she thinks it safer to be with other adults, just in case. She picks up the telephone, and I can hear the excited chatter of the children who are going into the sitting room to be read a Just William story by their grandfather. 

Alexandra is cheerfully conversational, and I congratulate her on the release of the recent BBC documentary about her and her husband’s complex relationship (‘The Countess and the Russian Billionaire’); it’s hard not to be compelled by the remarkable situation of her marriage to one of the world’s richest men, and we soon discuss the astonishing details: 

While living in London with Sergei, the couple became aware of surveillance placed upon them by the Russian state; Sergei’s security company found GPS trackers planted under their cars (which were initially suspected to be explosive devices), including the car used exclusively by Alexandra and the children. Indeed, after the breakdown of her relationship, it was Sergei himself who began monitoring Alexandra, placing individuals outside her London house every day to intimidate her. I was fascinated to know whether, in a contrary sense, this had prepared her and the children for lockdown, as she’d already become so accustomed to feeling great isolation, especially in their French château, “which was sort of isolation anyway”. 

“I think what’s prepared me has been all those adventures I did, like riding the silk road, riding through Mongolia; I went for months when it was pre-mobile phone – we had no connection with the world outside … When I was eighteen I lived in Moscow for six months and really did nothing but read books and learn Russian. I think those prepared me more than anything, really.” 

But, when Alexandra had first met Sergei, she’d recently ended an unhappy marriage and fell very much in love with the oligarch, despite the potential risk involved with someone so closely linked to the elite levels of Russian politics: “I was obviously a thrill-seeker; I loved an adventure and I loved the feeling of adrenaline and excitement. It was the love story of my life, and it did feel dangerous … he was this very powerful person, and he did turn on me sometimes in the early days, but there was this drama of winning him back round; I didn’t realise that this was all very dangerous abusive pattern.” 

Alexandra believes Sergei spun a false narrative to malign her and distract from his own culpability for the disastrous failure of his business interests; particularly, Sergei blames his downfall on the fact that Putin supposedly disliked his marriage to a foreigner, which she frustratedly contests: “It’s a very narcissistic thing to do; he made up this whole narrative [in the documentary] which suited… it’s all about belittling me, and by saying that – particularly to his close family – it gave them a narrative that it was my fault that everything had gone wrong for him; he blamed it on me, saying that Putin didn’t like me. But it’s absurd … Putin just wouldn’t care about that.” Having once enjoyed an intensely close friendship, even spending many holidays together, by the time Alexandra met Sergei, he had only seen Putin “once, in all those years.” 

Alexandra asks if I’ve watched ‘Dirty John’ on Netflix, and compares theirs to the romance underpinned by the manipulation of the sociopathic significant other: “I just find the psychology of being a sociopath – or narcissism – so fascinating; this creating of narratives that are literally just complete lies, but I think they end up half-believing them…” She later asks if I’ve read And Quiet Flows the Don, saying that “the relationship at the beginning is very, very similar; it just feels so full of danger and it’s very raw, and often angry, but then very passionate … to me, it felt really like I was so in love.” Reflecting on their relationship, and his moments of physical violence and control over her, she says that “there were signs there,” but she “just didn’t know how to read or understand them.” 

“I think the real truth was that, yes, he wasn’t bowing down to Putin, but he also had a business partner who he was very close to for years, and that business partner left… [and it was at this point that Sergei began having business difficulties]; Sergei himself was no kind of businessman. It was shocking how he had absolutely no clue about finances, about running a company; it was shocking … basic accounting, he didn’t even understand. I think that probably this business partner had been the brains, and Sergei had been the ‘power broker’…” 

Despite the tumult of threats, financial loss, and romantic decline, complicated with the duty of raising small children, Alexandra seems at harmony with her present situation, and this is thanks to her newly unostentatious lifestyle – that of ‘the billionaire’s wife’ just didn’t suit her: “My whole confidence got so smashed when I was with him; he was so very manipulative, very denigrating about my riding, my exhibitions, my travel… and so, I began to focus on all these things which a ‘normal’ kind of oligarch’s girlfriend would focus on. I suppose that I was not very confident anyway, and I felt I needed to live-up to these very ‘shiny’, perfect girls and I was a bit Bridget Jones-like in comparison to them, so felt probably a bit inadequate … I should’ve just carried on the way I was … I didn’t realise, but it accentuated how lost I’d become, and it also made me much more dependent on him, so I think he liked it, because it isolated me from my family.” 

She now considers the trappings of her private-jet-chic “vulgar”, and has since sold almost all that which she’s kept, realising “bogged down” the luxurious tokens of her billionaire lifestyle: “The really cathartic moment was last summer … I thought ‘I have to sell these ridiculous handbags, I have to sell them’… because they’re actually quite liquid – it’s money that I can use to pay school fees and I can educate the children… I suddenly managed to make myself look at them and think it’s not really me anyway.” 

“I think it’s difficult for anybody in those circumstances to be creative; how can you be original? Some people don’t care about aesthetics, but for me, to be creative is really part of my DNA.” Alexandra tells me how her appreciation for books and visual arts were “completely crushed: I couldn’t do anything”; the luxury afforded to her nevertheless impeded her fundamental desire to be productive and freedom to explore creatively. I note how impossible it must be to represent oneself in a society where value and status is projected through selfsame designer clothes and modern houses, which is entirely different to the way she represents herself now. 

In the autumn, she held a sale at her house and gave proceeds to a charity which supports underprivileged children and adults with autism living in St. Petersburg, who she says are completely unsupported by the state. Selling her designer clothes and handbags allowed her to “start again”, and to “be herself”. Just that morning, she’d been contacted by a friend who was a yacht broker, who was sad to see the couple’s old yacht on the charter market, but Alexandra felt no loss: “I thought to myself ‘it’s amazing’… I literally miss nothing about that lifestyle … planes, boats, trains, automobiles, houses: nothing.” 

Now, Alexandra has reclaimed her creative autonomy and a certain intellectual freedom which was repressed during her years spent with the billionaire: “We all have different tastes, but if our taste isn’t reflecting who we are or where we are in life, that lack of harmony can make you feel not very happy.” Her Instagram page has allowed her to present her own image to the world, one which she finds to be truly representative, unlike that of the media which is seemingly always speculating. 

Talking about her pursuit of an exquisitely domestic lifestyle, Alexandra says that “it’s not just aesthetic, it does also go with a kind of freedom of thought, doesn’t it? If I look at my children, they’re incredibly curious about a lot of things I’m not sure their peers would be curious about – my oldest son is obsessed with carnivorous plants, and the middle one is making things all the time … I think that, somehow, that aesthetic – they sort of go hand-in-hand. When I was with Sergei, I stopped reading so much of that 19th-century literature which I’m so passionate about … With the life I live now, emotionally and mentally I can romantically dream and escape – whereas then, it was so stultifying.” 

I wonder if, like her fashion sense, her interior design interests were affected during her time with Sergei, as one might imagine they would be, but she says that they weren’t: “Weirdly, the interior decorating never changed… I could afford more things, but [Sergei] didn’t really give me the opportunity to do very much … the taste never changed there at all. When I was in Sergei’s château, he wouldn’t really let me do anything anyway”. I say how I find so much more satisfaction in accumulating individuals pieces and creating one’s own eclectic aesthetic, which she certainly concurs: “I totally agree! It completely goes when you can buy it all… and who doesn’t love a bargain?” Earlier that day, she proudly tells me, she’d found wonderful vintage Hungarian fabrics and embroidery to re-use for the children’s little wooden caravan, making curtains: “that’s just so rewarding”. She tells me that Sergei did have “really good taste”, but, I was surprised to learn, collected artwork for its style, “rather than for the sake of them being expensive pieces.” 

Alexandra seems to be regaining her confidence since the ending of her relationship and peak surveillance a few years ago – in the documentary, there’s recent footage of her and her children riding scooters to school in the morning, something she never could have done a few years ago. She says that “every day is difficult, and I often don’t sleep at night … it’s that philosophy of ‘dust yourself down’, and carry on trying … I don’t ever stop putting myself out there and trying.” 

In the past year, Alexandra’s rebuilt her travel company, which she founded before the marriage, built a fashion business, which I’m told is going well, and been writing for lots of magazines; she’s even made amicable progress with the Russian state, and has since returned without threat… But it seems to me that her greatest solace in the idyll she’s struggled to provide for her children: “they’ve got this big pond, and a rowing boat, and a little caravan, and a wigwam,” and is rescued by the stillness of the country. Now free to raise them in a lifestyle similar to that of her own childhood, they won’t be familiar with the world of Russian high-society which had caused such anguish for their mother: though it remains that their father, who they haven’t seen in four years since his escape to France, remains in the top three of the Kremlin hit list…

This article was emended on 10/05/2024 to correct information about Tolstoy and Pugachev’s relationship.

Reading ‘Neurotribes’ in Autism Acceptance Month

Catherine de Guise
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Reading ‘Neurotribes’ in Autism Acceptance Month

This Autism Awareness Month, I decided to become more aware of the history of the condition I’ve lived with my entire life but was only diagnosed with a year ago. Steve Silberman’s 592 page book on autism, written in 2015, seemed a logical place to start. 

Neurotribes is a history of attitudes, research and responses to autism as well as a personalised account of autistic individuals. Silberman recounts shifting understandings of autism, taking us from when it was once labelled as ‘childhood psychosis’ to what we now understand as ‘autistic spectrum disorder’. Diagnostic criteria has come to recognise the variety of forms autism can take, while still being linked by a few key factors - difficulties with social interaction and communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviour. 

The sociability of autistic people is something that can vary greatly, though most will experience a degree of social isolation. This seems a particularly pertinent issue at the moment, when social isolation is being enforced and many neurotypicals (non-autistic people) are discovering what it feels like. For some autistic people, their isolation, caused mainly by difficulty with social interaction and anxiety nurtured by countless negative interactions, is unwelcome. However, solitude can also be comforting and safe. 

A quote in Neurotribes from Tony Attwood, a psychologist who specialises in Asperger’s, describes how the difficulties of autism can disappear when one is alone: ‘You cannot have a social deficit when you are alone, you cannot have a communication problem when you are alone, your repetitive behaviour does not annoy anyone when you are alone. All the diagnostic criteria dissolve in solitude…The signs of autism and the degrees of stress and withdrawal are proportional to the number of people present.’ 

People like Attwood, who have stressed that the difficulties of autism are largely caused by the outside world, have helped to combat the view that it is autistic people that need to change. The focus shifts to the fight for accommodation. Silberman highlights the need for this in his description of ways of ‘curing’ autism. One such way is Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), which is still in use today. It was created by Ole Ivar Lovaas, and involved trying to rid children of obvious autistic traits through hitting them, starving them and administering electric shocks. Lovaas also went on to apply ABA to effeminate boys to ‘cure’ them of homosexuality and gender non-conformity. His defense in the face of the growing gay rights movement was that it was still easier to change a child than society. 

In sections like this, Neurotribes was an immensely difficult book to read. Silberman discusses the fear of ‘an epidemic of autism’ and the way in which many parents responded by trying to defeat autism through invasive therapy and alternative medicine. Parents mourned for the loss of a child that they came to see as damaged after the diagnosis, and tried desperately to ‘regain’ their child. At times, Silberman tries to show some sympathy for these parents, who were often forced to turn to alternative means as mainstream medicine was offering so little in terms of autism research.  

It was painful to read anyway. The belief that autistic people are incapable of empathy is still widely held, but it is increasingly recognised that we do experience empathy, and are in fact prone to hyper-empathy, which was certainly the case as I read about the suffering of autistic children. Hyper-empathy means that the suffering of another can cause an intense emotional, psychological and physical pain. It hurts to hear about the children who were forced to submit to ‘holding therapy’ – where a parent would grip their child and force them to look into their eyes, while telling the children how bad they made them feel. 

The backlash against vaccinations was another upsetting part of the book, particularly at the moment, as we watch numerous people dying from a disease that we don’t have a vaccine for. Already, I’ve seen some forums discussing whether or not it would be wise to receive a coronavirus vaccination, should one come to exist. Astounding, that some people might be more worried about autism than the possibility of their child dying, but that’s the illogical neurotypical mind for you. 

The book is not simply a traipse through decades of poor research and the mistreatment of autistic people – interspersed through this is hope. Silberman stresses the achievements of autistic people in science and technology and art. He combats misinformation. He reveals decades of fighting for increased recognition and support. The end section is particularly moving, as it describes autism activism that is increasingly led by autistic people themselves.  

In Neurotribes, Silberman is hopeful about the future of autism advocacy, but five years on, the tribe of neurodiverse people is still not a united one. This is perhaps indicated by Autism Awareness Month itself, a name that is disliked by many in the autistic community for its association with Autism Speaks, an organisation that aims to ‘cure autism’. Autism Acceptance has gained ground instead, prioritising the self-advocacy of autistic people.

It goes beyond simply recognising autistic people as different, and looks to accept and accommodate those differences. Perhaps there is still hope for a united tribe of neurodiverse people. 

“I am together”: Love and loneliness in the work of Wim Wenders

Leone Van den Schrieck
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“I am together”: Love and loneliness in the work of Wim Wenders

In the quasi-apocalyptic gloom of these days, we desperately seek ways to pass the time, to numb our loneliness, to move on. The German filmmaker Wim Wenders, however, provides us with a better alternative: his atemporal and comforting creations do not merely let us escape the present void, but more importantly, they wrap us up in its very beauty.   

Wings of Desire (1987), for instance, one of his early works, grants us a unique perspective on what it means to love and be lonely at once. In a world where invisible angels support mortals in bearing their thoughts and cares, being alone means their hand on your back, their head on your shoulder: love and loneliness fuse in these instants of tender touch. Through the speech of his characters, too, Wenders offers us telling insights into the nature of these feelings. “Loneliness is: I am whole at last,” one says, intimately connecting it to love. The words “I am together,” as a result, are no grammatical violation anymore, but powerfully epitomise this intersection between love and loneliness so relevant today.

Wenders also artfully brings the small things that define the human condition to the front of his narrative: “it would be rather nice coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe, to have a fever and blackended fingers from the newspaper, to be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal, by the line of a neck by an ear. To lie! Through one’s teeth. As you’re walking, to feel your bones moving along. At last to guess, instead of always knowing. To be able to say “ah” and “oh” and “hey” instead of “yea” and “amen,” says Damiel when explaining his desire to be mortal to his companion angel. 

In contrast, other metaphors make us consider being human in terms of humanity as a whole, on its widest scale. The Alekan circus, one of the central stages of the movie, symbolises life, for example. Wenders’ choices here pick up, in an innovative manner, on this universal mirror that is circus, something which artists like Pablo Picasso and Fernand Leger, among others, had understood some decades prior. Another image given significant prominence is that of the bard, Homer: in the body of a tired old man, he is at loss in modern society and yet intent on writing an epic of peace. “Must I give up now? If I do give up, then mankind will lose its storyteller. And if mankind once loses its storyteller, then it will lose its childhood,” he says in thought. 

Picasso’s depiction of a circus.

In giving us such a simple yet meaningful lens – the repetition of « when the child was a child…» still rings in my ears – on the small and the universal, Wenders becomes our bard, as it were: he is handing us our precarious childhood, our epic of peace on a film roll ; he brings us back to what truly matters. This is what the protagonists mean when writing « I know now what no angel knows. » Therefore, it becomes almost impossible to leave off watching the film without feeling grateful. And especially in the present circumstances, we must re-learn gratitude. 

The movie further lulls us with its poetic character. Watching it is a comparable experience to reading Anne Carson, or Ocean Vuong: there’s almost too much simple, raw beauty to take in. The film’s deliberate slow pace gives us the time to truly absorb these moments in all their flavour. The soft texture of voices and different languages complements this aim: words resound and linger in our heads as we take in the meaning they are escorting. Yet the true poetic signature is Bruno Ganz’ smile, one of the most beautiful and sincere ones I have ever seen. Watching Wings of Desire feels like warmth finding its way through a body.  

In this light, it is hardly surprising that Wenders later in his career produced a documentary about and for the German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, called Pina (2011). Both artists stemmed from the same generation, and shared values of realistic, beautiful simplicity in their creations. The blend of their work, as a result, is like a stunning breath of fresh air.    

Loneliness and its intersection with other core emotions is again at the heart of the message of Pina. “All of her pieces were about love and pain and beauty and sorrow and loneliness,” one of her dancers testifies. In choosing to set many of her creations around the city of Wuppertal, where her dance company was located, she brings out the inevitable singularity of the individual within a vast landscape, most of the time deserted. Simple, vigorous movements become a means to express the joys and pains sheltered within this inherent loneliness. There is a certain cathartic quality to her dances, too: movement implies expression, and expression can imply letting go, which is all we need, really.

Wim Wenders standing beside a painting by Edward Hopper, also exemplifying loneliness.

In Pina, just as in Wings of Desire, the eyes through which we look – those of both Wenders and Bausch – are child-like, penetrating straight through to the essential emotions of the human condition. These emotions take the form of touching energies emanating from Pina’s creations and are carefully rendered on film: repeated cycles of movement, prominence of the hands, presence of the breath – a general flow. In Café Muller, for instance, the dancers put so much character into their peculiar, compulsive motion that they become potent summaries of societal behaviour. Whenever words are added, it completes the whole with exactitude, as for example this phrase from « Vollmond »: “I am young; my ears hear promises; my mind is power; my eyes see dreams; my thoughts are high, and my body is strong.” 

Wenders does Pina’s work full justice in his presentation of it. Not only does he take on the challenge of 3D filming in order to capture the dance in all dimensions, he also sequences them thoughtfully, creating juxtapositions of emotions and lending them further strength. The choreographies, moreover, are punctuated with testimonies of the various dancers in their respective languages. Some of them just look at the camera for a single instant– just enough to bring out their character and respect for Pina. We thus get as all-encompassing a glimpse of Pina’s angelic personality and her genius,  as well as Wender’s own.

All in all, these two movies bring out the better sides of loneliness, time and strong emotions, and this is an insight that can soothe and heal us during social isolation. To borrow some words from Wings of Desire, these films can bring back to the center that “feeling of well-being, as if inside of my body a hand was gently closing.”

Department choices show unequal application of safety net policy

Tilly Walters
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Department choices show unequal application of safety net policy

It has been revealed that departments have implemented the University’s ‘Safety Net’ policy with significantly varying approaches.

The policy, released on the University’s website on 20 April, provided a framework in which individual departments could apply their own safety net.

Departments have chosen individual policies within the wider safety net based on their examination structure, particularly whether assessments have been ‘banked’ (submitted) before March 14. Those with 50% banked have the ‘no detriment’ policy applied. 

Policies which will apply across all subjects include:

  • Determining performance on a case by case basis, and taking into account individual mitigating circumstances.
  • Aligning grade distribution with averages from previous years such that the number of Firsts and 2.iis will not go down, and the number of fails will not go up. 

Other policies have been less evenly applied by departments. 

Policies surrounding grade classification include: 

  • Reducing, or eliminating preponderance (number of papers scoring 70 or higher needed to achieve a first). 
  • Changing specific marks required to achieve a certain grade or achieve a pass. 

Policies surrounding exams and marking include:

  • Reducing the number of papers. 
  • Scaling papers where there is a systematic lower average performance. 

Policies surrounding coursework and ‘banked’ assessments include: 

  • Using ‘banked’ papers to identify lower performance. 
  • Preventing students from attaining scores lower than their banked assessments, conditional on 50% of work already being banked.

Classics has limited their safety net just to proportional grade distribution and identifying papers “whose mark-runs are significantly out of line with the recent average”. They will have eight exams all contributing to the final mark. Candidates taking a second classical language will have to take these papers under closed book conditions. 

History and English are among the subjects relying on ‘banked’ assessments in their implementation of the safety net. English reduced their exams from 4 to 2, and increased the value of banked assessments to 60%, however will not be implementing the ‘no detriment policy’, as banked assessments had originally accounted for 43% of the final grade, below the 50% required. 

Laura Ashe, the Chair of English FHS stated: “In English we’ve halved the number of exams (and hence exam essays) required, to make the remote examinations manageable, and we’ve reduced their weighting in the overall marks profile, from 57% to 40%. On top of that we can undertake further ‘scaling’ of runs of marks if they turn out to be significantly out of line with normal expectations. Our intention is to make sure that we are giving grades within the normal expected range for proportions of firsts, 2.1s, etc. 

“Beyond all that work across the board, we’re also of course going to look carefully at every candidate’s individual self-assessment, and all Mitigating Circumstances statements, and the Board will have discretion to make small adjustments to candidates’ marks and classes in response to these. Beyond that, where candidates’ performance in the remote exams has been seriously impacted by their circumstances, and their marks greatly and disproportionately affected, we can use the mathematical ‘safety net’ mechanism to directly adjust their marks.

“One substantial minority of students who have been contacting me with concerns, actually, is those who historically do better in exams than in coursework: these students have been very concerned about the push to give coursework vastly more weight in final profiles, and I have been concerned to reassure them that in cases where students’ performance is weighted the other way, the Exam Board will equally have discretion to respond to that.

“Overall, we’re very confident that we can give a fair result that retains the credibility of the classification while attending carefully to all individual circumstances.”

Similarly, History finalists would traditionally take four papers which would make up four-sevenths of their final degree classification, with the remaining three-sevenths made up from coursework. In response to the coronavirus one paper has now been cancelled, meaning that the Trinity examinations will now make up 50% of their degree classification. Despite this, the History faculty has announced that it will not follow the University’s ‘no-detriment’ policy since Trinity examinations would normally make up a larger percentage of students’ degree.

PPE and Economics and Management will both discount the lowest scoring two papers – these will not count in the average mark. For a First in PPE, preponderance has been eliminated and only the average will apply. For a First in E&M, preponderance will be reduced from two papers scoring over 70 to one. The Economics Department chose not to comment. 

MML has reduced the total number of papers from ten to six, one of which is banked. Oriental Studies have not released a specific policy, but stated that the faculty would “follow the safety-net policy developed by the University.”

Law has not cancelled exams as their Core papers are required for a qualifying law degree, but have adjusted some grade specifications. For a First: four marks of 70+ and nothing below 55 in Core or 50 in Options and/or Jurisprudence OR five 70+ and nothing below 45 in core with no more than two marks below 60 and nothing below 40 in Options and/or Jurisprudence. 

For a pass: five marks of 40, no more than three marks below 35. For Law Moderations, a Distinction requires two marks of 70 and above, with a third mark of 60 and above for Criminal or Constitutional Law or 55 for Roman Law. 

Experimental psychology will have the no detriment policy apply, its finalists having completed over 55% of their degree. PPL will discount the lowest scoring paper, or treat each banked assessment as two units, whatever is higher. The Head of Department, Professor Kia Nobre stated: “We are working hard at applying/adapting the University safety-net guidance in the context of the particular requirements of our degree to ensure a no-detriment policy and to support our students as best we can.”

Music has reduced the number of papers from eight to five or six, dependent on papers and have given a ‘variety of options’ for performance assessments including Solo Performance, which would usually be held in Trinity. 

Alongside the exam arrangements, the University has developed the ‘Safety Net’ policy after an extensive SU consultation of students, results from which showed that students viewed ‘open-book’ exams negatively.

Over 1600 finalists signed an open letter asking for predicted grades as a ‘guaranteed minimum’. Speaking to Cherwell, Ferdinand Otter-Sharp, the author of the open letter, stated: “The main issue with the University’s ‘safety net policy’ is that it isn’t a safety net policy.  

“For the large majority of students, it is a marginal reduction in pressure which should have already been policy to reflect the general effects of the pandemic on students. At best, the University has failed to understand the problems of its students most disadvantaged by home study during a pandemic, and at worst the University has shown a complete apathy towards them. 

“Oxford’s priority should have been protecting its most vulnerable students at all costs, not protecting the rigour of Oxford degrees.”

Cambridge announced their safety net policy on the 31 March. According to Varsity, “as long as they pass their assessments, their result will “only confirm the class awarded in their second year or improve it”. This will not apply for students taking a fourth-year integrated Master’s.”

When contacted for comment, the University stated: “The Safety Net policy aims to reduce the risk of students being disadvantaged by coronavirus, or circumstances surrounding the outbreak that are beyond their control.

“Given the diversity of Oxford assessment regimes, it’s been necessary to give subjects local autonomy to provide a solution that works for the specific conditions related to their courses.

“In instances where no formal assessments have yet been completed we have encouraged subjects to put in place a variety of measures to support students to achieve the outcomes they deserve.

“As we continue to respond to the developing pandemic situation our priority remains ensuring the University functions as smoothly as possible and that the vast majority of students can finish the academic year to their highest ability, and be proud of their achievements regardless of the circumstances.”

Departments were contacted for comment. 

Image: Ellie Wilkins

Refugees in the Time of Corona: How We Fail Those Most In Need

Sofia Cotterill
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Refugees in the Time of Corona: How We Fail Those Most In Need

We are in a time of unprecedented crisis, that is undeniable. In times such as these, it is all too easy to retreat into our own private worlds, build up the walls and bury ourselves away in our own problems. However, it is during the times when it is hardest to do so that it is most vital for us to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are protected. We must not leave them to fend for themselves against injustice.

Refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are routinely the most vulnerable groups within society, yet there are also few groups to whom society and our government displays such intense levels of animosity and indifference. Indeed, it often appears that the sentiments and prejudices underpinning the hostile environment established under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition have become entangled threads, inseparably woven into the sinews of our political landscape, clouding and obscuring us from truly seeing the suffering of these people.

On the 13th March, Médecins Sans Frontières wrote to the Home Secretary Priti Patel to request that, in light of the Covid-19 crisis, Britain ‘facilitated the urgent evacuation’ of child refugees with complex underlying health conditions, as well as increasing the acceptance rate of unaccompanied minors stuck in the intensely overcrowded and squalid refugee camps of the Greek Islands.

The foreign office replied on the 31st March, asserting that rather than heeding to these requests they would instead continue to support the EU-Turkey deal reached in March 2016. The EU-Turkey deal is an agreement that aims to return refugees arriving in Greece to Turkey in exchange for measures such as financial support and the resettlement of some refugees in Europe. However, the arrangement has led to dire consequences including severe overcrowding in Greek detention centres and camps, to the extent to which camps such as Moria contain 20,000 refugees ‘penned’ into a settlement with a capacity for 3000. The filthy and overcrowded conditions mean that, as noted by Martin Baldwin-Edwards of the Mediterranean Migration Observatory, if or when Covid-19 takes hold in refugee camps “it’s going to be a death sentence” for those who have already suffered so much.

One must appreciate the irony. Our government has, and continues to, repeatedly distance the United Kingdom from all the benefits that came with our past EU membership (including the potential to secure much-needed PPE for the UK), yet they continue to defend a degrading EU treaty that violates human rights and condemns refugees, migrants and asylum seekers to such heinous conditions.

Furthermore, the EU-Turkey deal rests upon the ability to be able to return refugees (and many asylum seekers) to Turkey (supposedly a safe country). Yet even putting morals aside, it is clearly ludicrous to pretend that this is possible when the border between Turkey and Greece is currently closed due to COVID-19. We are led to the inevitable conclusion that it appears that the government is planning on doing precisely zero to help those in need.

However, it is not just refugees, migrants and asylum seekers abroad who are suffering needlessly due to the inaction of the British government and international community; it is also clear that ‘adequate steps have not been taken to protect migrant populations at risk of COVID-19’ in the UK, as noted by a group of thirty human rights and migrants’ rights groups who wrote to Patel on the 16th March to express their concerns.

Currently, the NHS data of patients with medical debts worth over £500 can be retrieved and accessed by the Home Office for immigration-related purposes. Although the Government has introduced an exemption to the NHS charging and data sharing practices with regards to COVID-19 diagnostic tests and treatment, the aura of hostility runs deep, likely preventing many vulnerable individuals from seeking treatment when necessary, putting both themselves and wider society at risk.  Consequently, the group have called for ‘a public information campaign designed to reassure people that accessing care is safe’ and commitments to end all data sharing, which the government appeared to claim they were abolishing in 2018. This was shown to be false in January 2019 in a report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.

In addition, many migrants within the UK have been left extremely vulnerable by the government’s maintenance of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ policy. This policy means that groups ‘subject to immigration control’ (including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and individuals on spousal or student visas) are unable to access the majority of welfare benefits which are so vital during these unstable times. This has not gone unnoticed, with 98 MPs writing to the government in March stressing the ‘serious challenges and potentially far-reaching, fatal consequences’ of self-isolation on these individuals who are unable to access the lifelines that so many of us take for granted.

The renowned ethicist Joseph Fletcher once wrote that the ‘true opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Hate, bad as it is, at least treats the neighbour as a thou, whereas indifference turns the neighbour into an it, a thing. This is why we may say that there is actually one thing worse than evil itself and that is indifference to evil.’ Apathy is contagious. It is far too simple and easy for us to dehumanise refugees, migrants and asylum seekers by distancing ourselves from the suffering that plays out on the global, national and local stages around us. But we must care, we must hold our government to account for failing to protect the most vulnerable. If we don’t, who will?

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/patel-refuses-to-take-children-from-greek-camps-threatened-by-covid-19

https://www.jcwi.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=a135b52c-e9d0-469c-aad8-3dde31aec7a1

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18/eu-turkey-statement

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-latest-deaths-refugee-camps-greece-moria-a9459446.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/uk-missed-three-chances-to-join-eu-scheme-to-bulk-buy-ppe

Why Tiger King is the antithesis, not the antidote, to the Coronavirus

Noorie Abbas
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Why Tiger King is the antithesis, not the antidote, to the Coronavirus

There are under 3500 tigers remaining in the wild globally. There are anywhere between 5000-10,000 tigers currently in captivity in the United States. This stunning fact ends the docu-series that has taken the world by a storm. In Netflix’s Tiger King, we are introduced to the deranged world of exotic pet ownership in rural America. For just $5000 you can be the owner of a real, snarling, 600-pound tiger –  which is comparatively cheap even within the market of American exotic pets (as Louis Theroux tells us on his ‘suburban safari’, a baby chimpanzee sets you back $60,000). 

The big cats are an aphrodisiac: the roars of the tigers, lions and ligers (crossbred lion-tigers) pull in a menagerie of husband-killing hippies, gun-toting gays, polyamorous cult leaders, and innocently trapped social-distancers looking for something else to kill the newfound time they have. Yet, as directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin soon discovered, those roars and growls seem to beat on like a repetitive background track to the crazy lives of those at the centre of the big cat world – only to be paused when Joe Exotic’s literal soundtrack makes a feature.

Tiger King – and I cannot stress this enough – has literally everything you could imagine and more. If you haven’t seen it already, you have to watch it as soon as physically possible. At every twist and turn your jaw is left hanging on the floor: you don’t think anything crazier could happen until it does. Michael Jackson’s incinerated alligators, genetic experiments to recreate a prehistoric sabretooth tiger, and a GoFundMe for fake prostate cancer are just some of the wild detours the show couldn’t fit in seven episodes. It appears that Tiger King is exactly what we all needed – an unbelievable, blazing fire in our very own houses that we cannot ignore– a fire big enough to distract from the scarier, more absurd inferno that blazes right outside our window in the form of a global pandemic. 

Many have called Tiger King the perfect antidote for anyone in need of a diversion from present reality. Except, make no mistake, Tiger King is not the answer to Corona– it is blatantly its antithesis. In a time of isolation, Tiger King has offered us communal distraction: pulling the world together with an endless supply of memes about ‘that bitch Carole Baskin’. While hundreds of ‘What To Watch During Isolation’ lists populate the internet, the only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that you have to watch Tiger King. Much like Tik Tok, banana bread and risky haircuts, it’s a cultural phenomenon defining the unique moment that we find ourselves in.

However, what sets Tiger King apart from all of these trends is that it is not a product of the Corona era, but instead an unapologetic middle finger to everything that has come to define the last few weeks. While we preach cleanliness, Tiger King advertises expired truck meat pizzas. While the world accesses new levels of selflessness and charity, Tiger King fills our screens with egotistical maniacs who embezzle money from their own mothers. While our freedoms are increasingly restricted, Tiger King’s protagonists exercise unfettered liberty, the sort where owning a striped predator is a god-given, unimpeachable right. Whatever we are told to aspire to, Tiger King is glaringly, brazenly, and often disgustingly the opposite.

Only in America: a graphic representation of the “unfettered liberty” that characterizes the documentary subjects in Tiger King.

Currently, individualized worries have been put on hold while a more pressing concern dominates public consciousness. Yet, in the world of Tiger King, Joe Exotic is almost comically absorbed in a petty personal feud with his nemesis Caroline Baskin. There are not many of us that can say that we truly have an arch-rival, yet the construction of Joe’s ‘Tiger King’ persona requires a villain to give him purpose. From nicking her diary, to stealing her business’s name and rallying his fans to harass her, Joe’s battle with Carole is almost reminiscent of a playground rivalry, that is, until you add the murder, the dildos, and the Carole Baskin sex-doll. Joe is entirely transfixed with the destruction of ‘that bitch Carole Baskin’, so much so that it ultimately leads to his own downfall. 

As many of us find ourselves reconnecting with family or reaching out virtually to maintain our friendships, we appreciate real connections that much more. Conversely, genuine connection in Tiger King is notably lacking. The only glimpses at real endearment – perhaps in Joe Exotic’s marriages or within his zookeeping team –  are undercut by their manipulative and coercive nature, wherein Joe’s supply of meth and demand for money seem to be the only things that keep them going. Even after the tragedy they experience, the dark undertones of the friendship that develops between Joe and Walmart-manager-come-campaign-director Joshua Dial surface in Dial’s lost teeth (a common byproduct of meth usage) and his disheveled demeanour during later interviews. 

Social distancing and increased hygiene measures are now so aggressively ingrained within me that I have started to feel uncomfortable whenever I see individuals behaving as normally as one used to on screen. Handshakes and face-touches set off little alarm bells inside my head, but Tiger King takes my heightened sensitivity to a new level. It cuts straight through any discomfort we might feel as the world is desperately trying to sanitise every environment: it shoves sad animals in tiny cages with visible fleas and puts their keepers’ rat-ridden living conditions right in your face. As one reviewer put it, ‘ask yourself bluntly how badly you felt you needed a shower after watching just one episode, let alone the whole series? Thought so.’

While the internet, newspapers, and your mother are telling you to find things that will make you happy during isolation, Tiger King is a sure way to make yourself feel lousy. If Harry Potter and Friends are your ‘guilty pleasure’ viewings during isolation then Tiger King gives a new more literal meaning to the term. ‘Guilt’ is as good a word as any to name the feeling you have after realizing how excited and entertained you’ve just been by the atrocious behaviour and awful consequences on screen. 

And, the saddest contrast of all: while we are all told that everyone can be a hero by thinking of others and remaining at home, Tiger King ends without a good guy. No one serves a redemptive role: not Bhagavan Doc Antle, the calculating cult-leader who collects young women and hands out breast implants, not the ‘true neutral’ Rick Kirkham whose past involves domestic abuse and a documentary-worthy crack addiction, and not Carole Baskin, who even without Netflix’s assertion of husband-killing would be an insincere woman who knows too much about sardine oil and still keeps big cats behind bars. And, of course, it is certainly not Joe Exotic, who despite Cardi B’s support, remains a narcissistic, selfish individual who coerced men with meth and money and probably abused loads more animals along the way. Everyone in the big cat world is as self-centered at the end of the documentary as they were when it started. 

As The Atlantic put it, the whole show is truly an ‘ethical train-wreck’. It’s hard to say for sure that we would have been able to look away if Tiger King wasn’t providing such a striking contrast to the current situation we find ourselves in. However, I think it is pretty telling that as we all watch it from the confines of our homes with no end to lockdown in sight, many of us fell prey to feeling sympathy for the person who has his freedom taken away.

Friday Favourite: A Month in the Country

Kavya Deshpande
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Friday Favourite: A Month in the Country

Sometimes you reread a book because it is beautiful; sometimes you do it because a mysterious benefactor on your flight gave you a concerning level of exposure to Covid-19, and you are now a high-risk contact who must be sealed in a bedroom where the only other source of entertainment is staring at the Guardian’s coronavirus live blog as it describes hourly the laughably low probability of your loved ones ever accessing a ventilator. I have read J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country three times this week, and can confirm that it is indeed beautiful. 

A Month in the Country does exactly what it says on the epigraph, announcing itself via Dr Johnson as “a small tale, generally of love”. Carr gives a little over a hundred pages to the story of Tom Birkin, a shell-shocked veteran who spends the summer of 1920 in the village of Oxgodby, where he has been hired to uncover a medieval wall-painting in the local chapel. It is a gentle exploration of recovery, craft, and the secret project of finding companionship that quietly occupies everyone. It is also a guide to isolation. 

Oxgodby is small and far from London, where Birkin has temporarily left behind a fraying marriage and nightmares of Passchendaele. It is unsurprising that he approaches his job in search of respite; Carr’s descriptions of early-modern art restoration would convince the most resolved of undergraduates to rip off their tie and escape through the window of their investment banking assessment centre. Birkin’s work is near sacred. He is engaged in the slow, meticulous revelation of beauty and detail, in the surfacing of histories so particular that they need him to imbue them with humanity so that they hold together. He resurrects the personality of the original artist by studying his flourishes, imagines the community that gathered under the mural through the decades of candle-grime they left on it. “You put that bit extra into the job, you go at it with emotion as well as diluted hydrochloric”, he says. Despite the solitary nature of his business, Birkin’s love of art and its effort means that people have a way of keeping him company even when they are not necessarily present. 

And then there are the curious villagers who drop by to watch him work, gradually drawing him into conversation and their own lives. The friendships that burgeon from these interactions are felt with an understanding of their impermanence. Birkin knows that he will soon leave Oxgodby and is unlikely to return. There is a kindness to Carr’s writing, a generosity he extends even to the closest thing the novel has to an antagonist: a bad-tempered vicar who eventually admits sadness over his unpopularity (“People one doesn’t care for, even dislikes, make most of us feel uneasy when they appeal against their sentence,” thinks Birkin). Not much goes wrong; not much reaches a conclusion that allows for that distinction. Love is unconfessed and unregretted. The end of summer is occasionally anticipated, but until then, the narrative remains suspended in the heat and light and high-noon colour of the Yorkshire Wolds in August. 

In lonely times, A Month in the Country offers an assurance that people are people through other people, even in distance and stillness. This past month’s parade of apocalyptic news has made it feel long; at the very least, Carr gives us hope that summer, whenever it arrives, will be better and longer. Pick a warm day, and read this slowly.

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