Wednesday, May 14, 2025
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Blood and Beauty: Kashmir in Crisis

Rayvanth Zama
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Blood and Beauty: Kashmir in Crisis

“From time to time in modern history, certain subsidiary situations stand out, apart from the general theme of international controversy”. These words were once used to describe a region that had become the focus of the geopolitical tension in Asia. Lord Birdwood’s words were penned almost 75 years ago in an attempt to bring Western attention to the significance of the situation unfolding in Kashmir, a border ‘state’ in the northern reaches of the Indian subcontinent. These words are just as relevant when writing an article for the same purpose at the turn of 2020.

A quick Google search of Kashmir returns a confusing cross of sublime mountainous beauty and gut-wrenching images of soldiers, barriers and weaponry that one would only expect to see in a country shocked by civil war.  But even this would only appear if you were lucky enough to not be suffering the life of the millions in Kashmir, who are currently facing the longest internet shutdown in Indian history. To describe the cause for the drama occurring in Kashmir is to enter a quagmire of politically sensitive terminology and to open oneself up to a multitude of nationalistic interpretations that have both tainted writing on this region and its place in world politics. Nonetheless, the simple fact of why the Kashmiri situation became so prevalent and politically charged following the 1947 partition of India is that Kashmir borders India, China and Pakistan, all of whom claim at least part ownership of it.

The aforementioned partition was the British settlement for the end of Crown dominion over India. The reckless haste with which it was carried out has precipitated much of the disruption that has plagued the Indian subcontinent since independence. Enacted as an attempt to ease the religious tension that had arisen – partly due to colonial policies – across India, the partition divided the nation into two countries, India and what was then styled the Dominion of Pakistan. The creation of Pakistan gave Muslims a state in which they would be the majority, as opposed to in India where they remain a religious minority. The partition was carried out with an almost incomprehensible indifference to the impact that it would have on border states. It was drawn up by a British civil servant who had never been to India before he ultimately divided the nation along lines of the religious majority within each district.

Kashmir (formally Jammu and Kashmir), being a semi-autonomous princely state in what was then northern India, was seemingly overlooked by the colonial administration and not placed in either country. Within months of the British departure, a pro-Muslim rebellion broke out in Kashmir, encouraging the Pakistani prime minister to declare an invasion of the contested province, an act that led the King of Kashmir to agree to formally join India in return for promises of defence (as well as certain constitutional privileges), sparking the First Kashmir War, between India and Pakistan. This was where the first blood was spilt in what has seemingly become an unending conflict between the two states that still rages today.  

The United Nations mediated a ceasefire in 1949 and negotiated a new border that would divide Kashmir in two, with roughly 1/3rd of it falling in Pakistan and the remaining in India. The subsequent two decades saw a standoff between the two nations until 1965, when the Pakistani government supported 30,000 men, comprising both soldiers and jihadis affiliated with their army, in infiltrating Indian administered Kashmir and attempting to incite a popular rebellion. The attempts were rebuked by those Indians administering Kashmir who largely didn’t support the attempted insurrection and the operation resulted in the outbreak of another Indo-Pakistani war.

The 2nd Indo-Pakistani war ended with no territorial changes, meaning that the underlying issues were not resolved and as such, the late 80s, for Kashmiri citizens, were a period marred by terrorism and the harsh military crackdown that it elicited from the Indian government. Since this point there hasn’t been much in the way of a de-escalation of tensions and the people of Kashmir have endured, and continue to endure, state-sanctioned violence and oppression from both nations.

In October of 2019 India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, fresh from his second consecutive electoral victory declared, “that it won’t take more than four months to normalise the abnormal situation that has persisted [in Jammu and Kashmir] for 40 years.” This shows the confidence of a populist politician who has obtained a working majority of over 170 seats in the Indian equivalent of the House of Commons. 

Modi had just previously revoked article 370 of the Indian constitution in August as per his manifesto pledge. The article had, since 1954, provided the region of Jammu and Kashmir with separate laws regarding property rights and citizenship claims, amongst others, for its permanent residents. In practical terms, it prohibited citizens from other Indian states from buying Kashmiri land and hence preserved the limited autonomy and sense of identity of the people of Kashmir. The article’s revocation, however, did not result in an instantaneous cessation of tensions nor allow for the provision of the fundamental civil liberties one would expect to find in the world’s largest democracy. What followed was the E-Organisation Act which resulted in the loss of state status for Jammu and Kashmir which has now been made into a ‘Union Territory’; in other words, a territory that has no local representation and instead is ruled directly from Delhi. This has resulted in more power being put in the hands of a government famed for using divisive pro-Hindu polemic which has been willing to escalate tensions with neighbouring Pakistan.

The quote from Modi on the Kashmiri issue comes from a speech he made at a rally in Maharashtra, a politically secure state for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This ultimately highlights the depths of the issue regarding the lives of Kashmiri citizens. The BJP, having included the revocation of Article 370 in their 2019 election manifesto has shown that to much of the Indian political elite, and their Pakistani equivalents, the crisis of Kashmir is just another tool for political gain. This political jostling has led to a rise in popular demand from both sides for extreme action to be taken in Kashmir to wipe out any threat of terrorism or insurrection. The result has been social media blockades and nearly 4000 arrested since the removal of Kashmir’s special status.

Returning to the quote with which I began, Lord Birdwood’s message was one that should be taken to heart. There are certain circumstances in which the overarching political issues become subsidiary to the violence and harm that they create. The nationalistic interpretations surrounding the decades-long conflict have numbed us, outside of this trouble-stricken region, to the plight of the 12 million Kashmiri citizens who have and to have to endure grief and fear day in and day out. Perhaps they will never know the Kashmir that the 17th Century Indian emperor Jehangir saw and instantly proclaimed:

Gar Firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast.

If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.

Local libraries: do we still need them?

Kristina Fox
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Local libraries: do we still need them?

What is a library? Most of us would describe them as a place to study (or at least pretend to), or somewhere to find the books we need for our next essay. On the public scale, they are a place in which to find books, CDs or DVDs to use in our free time. But with companies like Netflix and Amazon replacing these traditional (and some would say “outdated”) media, do libraries really serve a purpose anymore?

In short: yes.

Libraries, in the first instance, are host to an incredibly wide selection of books and other media that can be accessed for free. In a time where it feels like everything is becoming part of a paid-for subscription, this is nothing to sniff at. Not only that, but with these books comes a body of staff or volunteers with the knowledge to give you recommendations on your next read, or just advice on where to find a book on the shelf! Many libraries have also branched out into a digital lending service to address the rise of the e-book. Far from falling helplessly at an e-book’s (metaphorical) feet, libraries are taking any opportunity there is, physical or not, to encourage people to read, whoever and wherever they are.

Moreover, a library can act as the first port of call when trying to find out about events in the local community, or when researching the different services that a local council has to offer. For example, my local library service in England will play host to the ‘Norfolk Makers’ Festival’ in February 2020. This event is a chance for creative, like-minded people to get together and well, make things, in a communal space where they can offer each other advice, encouragement and feedback. On the other hand, the library in the centre of Oxford (just inside the Westgate Centre) offers help with council services like getting a free bus pass, applying for a Blue Badge or sorting out a resident’s parking permit. If you don’t have internet access at home, like many older people, it could be the only way for you to access the services to which you’re entitled. Of course, it’s sometimes too easy to dismiss these kinds of things if they’re not explicitly applicable to us, but it’s important to remember the difference that their availability in a public space such as a library does make to those who do.

The term ‘public library’ includes the physical space, of course, but in some areas a mobile library service also exists, to complement the permanent building. Those members of society whose use of a library is hindered or cut off completely due to their age or lack of mobility can benefit hugely from a service that comes to them, providing books as well as local council services. 

It would be completely reckless to write libraries off as an obsolete resource, especially having not even considered their more general service to society. Their tangible impact is clear, but a library is much more than just a storage place for books. Writers including David Nicholls and Neil Gaiman have written an open letter following the announcement of a potential £1.76m cut in Hampshire County Council’s library budget, calling public libraries ‘havens, refuges and getaways, the vibrant hearts of the towns and villages they serve’. The abstract impact here is just as crucial as the tangible. A library acts as just as much of a haven as its contents, an escape from the hectic everyday as well as a lifeline for those more vulnerable in the community. The beauty of a public library is that everyone can enter, free of charge – the young, the old, the well-off and the struggling. Their closures are always devastating losses for the communities they serve. 

So are they really under threat? Hampshire is not the only county council to have thought about cutting their library budget in the past few years. Since 2010, there have been almost 800 library closures, with the possibility of more to come as every sector continues to fight for a slice of an ever-decreasing council budget. It’s unlikely that they would all close, since local authorities are bound to provide a “comprehensive and efficient library service” by the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. However, these terms are never defined, and are as such up to each local authority to interpret as they see fit. That being the case, it is not impossible that councils could decide that having a single library containing bits of every resource would fit the terms, leaving them free to close the other libraries in the county. The precedent set by these cuts is therefore a huge threat.

What do we lose if we don’t save them? In a more abstract sense, losing our libraries means also losing a generation’s love of literature, reading and studying. These are important without a doubt, but could we find them somewhere else? Probably. What is much harder to have without the physical space of a library is the community space it provides and, therefore, the sense of community it fosters within the society it serves. 

A library provides a space in which one can just exist with a book or a newspaper, surrounded by a community without feeling obliged to buy or give up anything in return. In an age where loneliness and isolation are rife, it is more important than ever to keep these spaces alive – and not, as we might initially assume, just for the benefit of older people who are especially prone to social isolation. Loneliness amongst the young and the working is on the rise too, so what better way to combat it than with a free, welcoming space in the heart of the community?

We also lose the support given by a community if the space in which it functions ceases to exist. Projects set up in accessible spaces such as public libraries to help vulnerable groups in society could not continue delivering their aims if their access points simply vanished. For example, in every library in my county in England there is something called the Tricky Period service. This project provides free sanitary products to anyone who needs them, either as a one-off or as a more regular way of getting hold of what they need. It’s a ‘no questions asked’ service which supports the most vulnerable in the community without needing to single anyone out – everyone is entitled to use it as they wish. If the libraries were to close, the Tricky Period service would no longer be able to run in the way it does, putting those who might not be able to afford sanitary products in a difficult situation.

If libraries are so threatened, then, how do we go about saving them? It seems simple, obvious even, but the most important thing is that we use them. What better way to show how valued these resources are than to give them our physical support? 

Moreover, it is perhaps worth noting that libraries also have a part to play in their own salvation. Just as many well-known brands have moved with the times in order to survive, so must they. It is not enough anymore to simply offer the free loan of books, CDs and DVDs when so many are available online, from the comfort of our own homes. Rather, much as some high street shops are doing, libraries must endeavour to offer an ‘experience’ to their borrowers which they cannot obtain from within the confines of their bedroom. For example, the library near me on my Year Abroad offers video games evenings for kids, IT workshops for older people, and a range of other things – including a workshop on how to prepare oysters! All of these events encourage people to come into the physical space (perhaps for the first time) and to use it for themselves. Once people have a personal connection to a place, they are much more likely to want to try and protect it. Showing people just what libraries can offer them so that they become personally involved in their existence is perhaps their best line of defence.

As a final remark, let us turn to another highlight of the authors’ open letter. It states: “To close a library is to say we do not value culture, we do not value community, we do not want to give children a chance.”. A telling reflection of our current society, perhaps, but not one we have to put up with. 

Balliol divests from fossil fuels

Max Spokes
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Balliol divests from fossil fuels

Balliol College has announced plans to divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies. The college released a statement on Monday, saying that it planned to reduce its endowment’s fossil fuel exposure, “as far and as fast as practicable.”

This includes what the Chair of Balliol’s Investment Committee, Richard Collier, has described, as a “significant reduction in the College’s fossil fuel investments,” from approximately 2.4% of its total endowment to a target of less than 1%, with a view to reducing this further over time.

This would represent the College divesting at least £1.67 million of its total £119.1 million endowment fund away from fossil fuel extraction companies.

The plans include selling some holdings and making alternative investments where necessary, however, this applies to extractors, and not necessary to oil service companies or drilling equipment manufacturers.

Students have campaigned for over a year for the College to divest its funds from companies which directly contribute to the climate crisis, and this move undoubtedly represents a victory for those who have pressed for Balliol to shift its policy regarding investment.

In a statement released on the Balliol College website, the role of students was directly referenced as the driving force behind the decision, citing students’ concern about the College’s investment policy provoking a “response” from the Investment Committee.

Reacting to the decision, the student Balliol Divestment Campaign commented, “We’re thrilled that Balliol has decided to align itself with a just and sustainable future, and has realised that such a future is incompatible with the continued burning of fossil fuels.”

The group added, “We look forward to seeing more and more institutions take this step and join the growing divestment movement.”

Balliol becomes the fifth Oxford College to announce a shift in policy to one specifically aiming to divest its funds from fossil fuel companies, joining St Hilda’s, Wadham, Wolfson and Oriel.

On a university scale, however, Oxford ranks 45th in the People and Planet university league scorecard. The ranking includes such measurements as environmental sustainability, policy and strategy, and would suggest that despite the student success to pressurise a shift in Balliol’s policy, the university as a whole is behind the curve with regards to its divestment policy.

Critics would point to the fact that Oxford still has over £200 million in fossil fuel funds, undermining the leading research that members of the University have carried out with regards to climate science.

The news comes after an open letter from Fossil Free SJC revealed that St John’s College had invested a combined £8m in BP and Shell, two of the world’s leading fossil fuel extractors with billions of pounds invested in future plans to continue the extraction of oil and gas.

In light of Monday’s announcement, Fergus Green of the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign welcomed Balliol joining the select group of divesting colleges. He added, “The student body is angry at years of obfuscation and delay on climate action and Oxford cannot ignore this pressure any longer.”

Not only has Balliol committed to reducing its endowments in fossil fuel exposure, the College committed itself to not soliciting or accepting direct or indirect donations from fossil fuel companies, as well as declaring its intent to join discussions with Oxford University Endowment Management (OUEM), the body which manages the University’s central endowments.

The move is not only environmentally significant, it represents an important symbolic shift, as the College’s endowments contribute substantially to its annual income, and thus supports scholarships, bursaries, fellowships and the maintenance of Balliol’s historic buildings.

In addition, Balliol announced its aims to encourage greater student-staff collaboration on measures concerning sustainability, guided by the Oxford Climate Action Plan, which will examine how the College can make its policies regarding energy, waste and food more sustainable.

The Balliol Divestment Campaign’s work is not over though; the group’s next aim is to reformulate the College’s environmental policy which is argued to be “outdated and not ambitious enough,” despite being written in 2017.

Responding to the further commitments made by the College, the Co-Director of People and Planet, J Clarke, congratulated Balliol on “taking a principled stance on the refusal of donations from those most responsible [for the] climate crisis.”

The announcement puts mounting pressure on other colleges, as well as the OUEM, to change their investment policy whilst representing an important victory for divestment campaigners. The fact that Balliol is only the fifth Oxford College to announce a policy of divestment raises serious questions over the University’s commitment to reducing its contribution to the climate crisis.

John Evelyn’s Diary | Hilary Term 2020, Week 1

John Evelyn
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John Evelyn’s Diary | Hilary Term 2020, Week 1

A reshuffle is afoot in Frewin Court – the Frenchman waves the white flag, going out the same way he came in – at the drop of a pen. A resignation without political motivations? Maybe. A resignation without political implications? Absolutely not! Playing the long game by going up against the Short Man; who knew the local Irish priest suffered from a severe case of apiphobia. If only he could please both, taking a leaf out of the book of the Mertonian running around in Circles. We only hope a second Irish presidency doesn’t look like the first. As Tricky Dicky could attest – sometimes telling people “I’m not a crook” doesn’t save you from the gallows.

The BNC hot seat sees the French King taking what was formerly held by the French Queen. Thankfully no nomination process was required, otherwise this could have proved too great an impediment for a CDSC. The former CDSC, having had enough electoral fun decided to return to his previous pastime as well as taking up another – motivational writing. As moving as his statement to the trib was, the Facebook post, unfortunately, was not.

Standing Committee continues to ignore the Ghost of Michaelmas past, it’s unsurprising given his accusations: assault, battery and discrimination – the bread and butter of any election campaign. A piece of advice to Ms Mountfield: try alleging hacking, forgery, or bugging, or, even better, missing minutes – they might take you more seriously.

The trustees took a day off their exceedingly important business to support TSC. The ex-Librarian, Trinity College, having reviewed the evidence agreed the Society was not at fault. This comes as no surprise – he has experience leading the House from a lying position. It seems like they are emulating some recent speakers. Like the fake newsers would tell you, denying hard evidence is the best way to protect an autocrat. Some members of TSC have ample experience denying CCTV evidence, especially concerning late night encounters with the CCC. Perhaps this is due to their involvement in the latest Union power couple. As the Former President and the Former Acting President could tell them, sometimes mixing business and pleasure does not end well.  

Legal fees are running the coffers dry. The presidential defense, as well as the name change have been the preferred use of member money. Perhaps the new Treasurer could suggest putting together a half decent term card to attract members. She should have plenty of time given she was tackled out of the race for the top spot, a throwback to Twickenham perhaps. Hopefully her view from the benches will be better in Frewin court.

Dora Maar and the Everyday Strange

Olivia Cowley
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Dora Maar and the Everyday Strange

The women of the Surrealist movement have suffered a curious case of the feminine shadow, what could be termed Muse Syndrome. Often, their biographical and artistic legacies have been dogged by their associations to prominent male surrealists; the result, an awkward and myopic epitaph.  

Despite her reflection “I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse”, for many years, Leonara Carrington was largely known in her native England as the 26 years younger wife of Max Ernst. The prescient Méret Oppenheim was often presumptively referenced as Mr Oppenheim. She was never included in any of Breton’s planned, promotional photos of the Surrealist group, despite being a significant and active member. For years after her death, Dora Maar was remembered as Picasso’s “Weeping Woman”, the lachrymose subject of a series of portraits. In 1997 when she died, her obituary in The New York Times contained a familiar genitive – “Dora Maar, a Muse of Picasso, Is Dead at 89’.

The current exhibition of Maar’s work at the Tate Modern is the first of its kind. Put on in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and the J. Paul Getty Museum, the retrospective assembles over 200 pieces by Maar and some by fellow, contemporaneous surrealists. 

Born Henriette Theodora Markovitch on the 22nd of November 1907, Maar was the daughter of a French retailer and a Croatian architect. While studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian (two of the few institutions which offered an unadulterated education to their female students), Maar frequented the surrealist jaunt, Cafe de la Place Blanche, and workshop of André Lhote. Whilst in Paris, she also befriended the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Eluard and André Breton. Maar’s career was rarely static; her oeuvre includes painting, filmography, poetry, as well as photography. Her photographic subjects range from the Wall Street Crash to East London’s pearly kings and commissions for Vogue. 

Despite the breadth of her subject matter, Maar’s gaze is persistently singular and always aslant. The Tate exhibition includes Maar’s first paid project as a photographer, catalogue photos of the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel for an art history book. In Maar’s spatially ingenious portraits, the subject of countless dross, glossy postcards is rendered mythical, skeletal (Maar contributed 36 photos to the book, she was only credited for 6). In another of Maar’s early works, an advertisement for hair oil,  an empty ointment bottle floats on a sea of dark locks.

Filing down a row of Maar’s photos is like watching a delightful kinetoscope. Each of Maar’s montages, superimpositions or collages demand from their viewer a child-like and willing imagination, a wax tablet. A two-headed calf springs from a fountain, fingers bathe in an alchemicalblue, an alabaster hand unfurls from a shell. In one of Maar’s most notorious portraits, a soft-shelled creature is photographed at close range in a soft, lambent grain. It is all at once extraterrestrial, porcine and oddly infantile (The photo is titled “Portrait of Ubu” and Maar refused to disclose the species of its subject, scholars eventually settled on a preserved armadillo fetus). 

While much of Maar’s work could be categorised as strictly surrealist or strictly journalistic, she is at her most interesting when she occupies the space between. In one photo, a rabble of ruddy-faced boys play in an ally –  it is only upon a second, more forensic look that we notice a boy in the background running vertically up a wall. 

Even when her photographs are not manipulated, they are still distinctly surreal. Statues covered in muslin occupy Piccadily like muffled ghosts, a man with his head in a manhole is reduced to rhombuses and rectangles. Maar’s work is quick to reveal that surrealism is not strictly an elusive doctrine. If we are willing to look for it, we might find it anywhere. The exhibition terms such an outlook ‘the everyday strange’, an artistic choice which seeks to ‘transform human experience… to reject the rational in favour of a vision that embraced the power of the unconscious mind’. It is by this sensibility that Maar celebrates the sentiment of the artist (and her friend) Brassaï  –  ‘there is nothing more surreal than reality itself’.

Initially focused on her photographic career, the exhibition concludes with the paintings Maar produced later in life. It is at this stage that the looming figure of Picasso enters the gallery, and with him a slight irony. A retrospective of Maar’s work cannot refrain from a significant segment dedicated to the artist, dedicating an entire room to Guernica alone (which Maar photographed). Maar’s individualistic oil paintings are evocative and stark. However, her distinctly Picasso-style cubist paintings (an influence the exhibition identifies – “she was yet to develop her own style”)  are often her least interesting work, some appear even unfinished. It is not to say that this aspect of Maar’s oeuvre ought to be occluded, rather, that the value of emphasising it seems questionable, perhaps an attempt to exploit a connection. Maar once remarked, ‘‘All his portraits of me are lies. They’re all Picassos, not one is Dora Maar’, the exhibition might do well to remember, or at least confront, this. 

The exhibition is also careful not to be too incisive regarding Picasso. The inscription to Maar’s The Conversation –  a tenebrous painting which depicts her seated besides Picasso’s concurrent mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter –  meekly describes the painting as a ‘loaded scene’. Other critics have been less reserved; writing for The New Yorker, Brian Dillon tersely states “Picasso encouraged Maar toward painting and away from photography—and then he left her, for Françoise Gilot”. 

Nonetheless, despite diversions, the exhibition is largely successful in releasing Maar from a role as solely supplement, scribe and documenter of the Surrealist movement. Her artistic agency is celebrated and enormously enjoyable. Gallery-goers can expect to leave the Tate instilled with some of Maar’s own exuberant curiosity. 

Acting Directly: Zoe Lafferty

Lucas Jones
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Acting Directly: Zoe Lafferty

Zoe Lafferty, according to the Daily Mail, is “absolutely one-sided” and “leaves no doubt where her sympathies lie.” The first part may be a crude understatement, but the second is firmly true. Her activism is certainly not limited to theatrical pursuits, but the interplay between those two strands of her personality is what makes her pieces so biting. Lafferty has made it her business to bring disquieting narratives to international stages for more than a decade, even circumnavigating the ban on foreign journalists in Syria to travel there during the Civil War.

Her work in the Middle East began with the Freedom Theatre, a project founded in Jenin refugee camp in 2006. Reflecting on what attracted her to the Freedom Theatre, she talks about the project’s co-founder Juliano Mer Khamis, whom she met while she was training as a director in New York. Driven to America by a desire to connect theatre with its substance rather than studying its form, she was disappointed to find herself suffering the same dilemma she faced training in the UK. That is until she ran into Mer Khamis. “He’s like the Che Guevara of theatre,” she muses, “I really loved the way he was talking about art… as a tool of resistance.” Knowing “nothing about Palestine”, she saved her money for a year and headed out to join him in Jenin.

Freedom Theatre was an attempt by Mer Khamis to train young people to use theatre as a way to express political narratives on stage. In Lafferty’s words: “it’s training young people to be political artists.” There is certainly no shortage of political narratives in Jenin refugee camp, which saw brutal fighting during Al-Aqsa Intifada. Lafferty explains that the Freedom Theatre “comes from a narrative of armed resistance,” but also emphasises that, as much as the Western world would love to hear it, theatre will never be able to replace it. Nevertheless, she concedes, it can give young people a way to have their voices heard without having to take up arms and put themselves in harm’s way. She is, however, painfully aware that even artistic resistance carries serious risk.

Juliano Mer Khamis, Lafferty’s friend and mentor, was murdered in April 2011 just outside the Freedom Theatre. Coming off a high following a particularly successful show, none of the cast had considered the amount of danger they were putting themselves in until that point. “There’s absolutely a risk,” she states sombrely, “most artists are under severe threat.”

That being said, Lafferty is quick to point out that the Freedom Theatre is not looking for pity. “It needs to be on a professional standard, whatever the hell that means.” This drive to produce “professional” artists manifests itself in staggeringly powerful theatre. “The Siege”, which Lafferty directed, retold the 2002 siege of Bethlehem using reports from fighters exiled in the aftermath of the battle. It had an extremely successful, albeit heavily protested, run in the UK. Asked about the problems her shows have faced, she smiles and tells me “If it’s too easy it’s not changing anything.”

The political nature of the Freedom Theatre’s production is driven by the residents of the camp’s desire to have their voices heard. The participants refuse to be called activists, stating instead that they are artists. The fundamental importance of their art as a means of expression is clear through their artistic philosophy: “if you don’t put politics in your art, its meaningless.” Their art is not designed with the primary aim of creating a reaction, but their visceral stories normally evoke one regardless. The director, however, has no qualms about labelling herself an activist.

For Lafferty, theatre and activism go hand-in-hand. Her plays explore conflict and violence through deeply personal narratives often told by the people who lived them. ‘The Fear of Breathing’ brought the twilight of the Syrian revolution to the stage using verbatim reports that Lafferty collected from inside Syria during the Civil War. ‘The Keepers of Infinite Space’ examined the Israeli prison system, while ‘And Here I Am’ paints a picture of a lifetime of oppression and violence through the eyes of one Palestinian boy. Lafferty’s plays are often so personal that they could be accused of voyeurism, were it not for the painstaking research she undertakes before each production.

“Drama therapy is something that’s important,” Lafferty says, “but that should happen behind closed doors.” This is one of the fundamental challenges of her work: telling the stories of vulnerable people without increasing the trauma that they are already dealing with. ‘Queens of Syria’ began as a drama therapy project for women fleeing the Syrian civil war and ended its tour of the UK in front of an audience of 1,000 people. Her plays spring from the personal narratives of the actors and participants, rather than projecting one onto the cast. That, however, poses a dilemma when the personal narratives are so harrowing that repeating them on stage in front of huge audiences would do more harm than good. Lafferty’s challenge is to navigate the razor-thin line that exists between inauthenticity and personal damage, something that she does with impressive tact.

Lafferty’s activism and her art may be inextricably linked, but it is also worth noting that her activism often transcends her art completely. She is less well-known as a climate protester whose work with Extinction Rebellion saw her run as a candidate for the European Parliament in May 2019. Her work is changing; where her activism was previously shaped by her experiences in theatre, her theatre is now being guided by her activism.

“For me I’m interested in narratives that aren’t necessarily being heard… the job of art and artists is to critique.” Climate activism, Lafferty makes it clear, will influence her work in the future. She wants to look at the climate crisis through the eyes of “the people on the front line”, which would continue her work in the Middle East, but also wants to engage with the situation in Britain today. She set up Creative Destruction, a collective that attempts to bring together art and activism, in the wake of the December general election. Her tone is icy as she talks about the result, which encouraged her to refocus on blending art and activism – an “old story” for a woman who has spent most of her career doing just that – with a greater focus on the UK.

Lafferty’s 2020 will be extremely busy. Touring with several plays (though not in the immediate future thanks to a last-minute cancellation from Singapore) and working to grow Creative Destruction into a force for change, she has her work cut out for her. Smiling and optimistic, her friendly demeanour contrasts with the force of her convictions and the dedication she has to her activism. That separation of personal and political, however, has no place on the stages she directs. Her work can only tell a political story by being personal; her activism is both a product of her art and a driving force behind it. Regardless of your own political persuasion, Lafferty shows that art as a tool for resistance is far from dead.

On Rejection

Shuichi Chiba
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On Rejection

You send it off, knowing that you’re probably going to get rejected. But there’s that little bit of optimism, maybe you could even call it hope, that they’ll say yes. You allow yourself to weigh up the odds of success; you reckon that since it’s your 7th attempt, the laws of probability dictate that the outcome will be different and that you’ll be accepted. This is the one, you think. All those other ones, they were just leading up to this success. With a sense of relief that you’ve sent if off and that this is the one, you go about your day, impatient for the result.

You come back and you see something from them. You click on it, glad that they’ve replied. But once again, it’s just the same result. They’ve given you some vague, wishy-washy sentences about how you’re perfectly nice and all, but it feels all a bit robotic. They put some other stuff in, but it just leads up to the same answer that you’ve been dreading, but you know and you have known since you sent it off would be coming: “Unfortunately, we have not chosen to progress your application.”

And the process goes again (and again and again concurrently because you’re probably emailing multiple companies at the same time.)

The impersonal, efficient, opaque way that companies have managed to say no is a very different type of rejection to being told “No” by your parents. All you have is the email, and there’s no real reason about why they have rejected you. For all you know, the HR junior staff member has been given the unenviable task of sifting through hundreds of applications late on a Friday evening, and has skimmed your application, having found the smallest incriminating detail with which to put you into the virtual bin.

Or maybe they’ve fed it through an algorithm, and the algorithm has some obscure reason dreamt up by a programmer in a board meeting 5 years ago with which it is authorised to flag you up and reject you. You’ve been found wanting by a line of code. Maybe a team of people have looked at it thoroughly, diligently reading each one and comparing you to the other applicants. They place you on a whiteboard, and they move you around on a rankings table, and then, all of a sudden, your name has dropped down too far and then you are cut off. I’m not sure which is the most comforting.

Most students in Oxford are probably quite unused to dealing with rejection. The event in their life so far that they were most likely to be rejected was for the Oxford interview, and so they were lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on how your week has been) to escape through that character-building process that is rejection by the Oxbridge admissions system. There were very few opportunities to be rejected. Schooling is compulsory, so by law you can’t get rejected. You could have been rejected if there was an admissions test for your secondary school or sixth form, but again, if you’re at Oxford, it’s unlikely.

But everyone has to get rejected at some point in their lives. It’s a depressingly universal sentiment. No one can ever get everything that they want in life. In some ways, it’s a mark of adulthood. Each time you have success, your confidence balloons and it’s like you have the magic touch. The longer you avoid rejection for, the bigger this balloon gets. Until it pops. It’s obvious that there are lots of things outside of your control, and that some things are just not meant to be. Your expectations are brought down to size, and you start to doubt whether there were exogenous factors that you weren’t aware of that enabled your previous successes.

Being in Oxford probably makes it worse. Doesn’t it always? You’re surrounded by lots of incredible people with lots of intellect and skills and when you imagine who’s got your place, which was never even yours to begin with, you envisage those people having the placement that you wanted, sitting in your seat. Of course the company was right to choose them instead of you, you imagine. People around you might make off-hand comments like “The job market looks good” or “You go to Oxford, that’s your life sorted then.”

And by and large these statements are true. Most people who finish their undergraduate degree at Oxford will go onto a job or go in to further education. Many of those jobs will be well paid and at big companies, and many of those further education courses will be very competitive. 4% of people do not, however, according to the Careers Fair. On the one hand, this is great news. You only need to get accepted for one thing to not be unemployed, and 24/25 is a pretty big probability. On the other hand, as a person that worries too much, every time I get rejected, I probably subconsciously think about whether I will fall into that 4%.

We’re all developing some sort of coping mechanism to deal with rejection; otherwise it would be far too depressing. You think and worry about it less. You joke about it with your friends, knowing that they probably have and will experience something similar. You look up the companies that have rejected you and find that on reflection that they aren’t so good, and that the place that you’re applying to now is much better and has such a good working environment and career prospects.  And before you know it, you’ve got used to it. You think that next time you apply for something, you’ll be so hardened and your skin so thick to the process that it won’t even hurt if you get rejected and that you’ll just move on with your day when you inevitably do.

Personally, I’ve developed the winning attitude. Given the current housing market, I probably won’t be able to afford a place of my own until many years down the line, whether I have a job or not. If I don’t get a job, I won’t have to pay back my student loan. With each rejection, the prospect of living at home with my parents becomes more and more appealing to me.

Maybe companies should be convincing me to work for them, rather than me having to convince them that I should work for them.

Finding and Losing Love at Uni

Isobel Merriman
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Finding and Losing Love at Uni

Love is an elusive beast. It creeps up on you when you least expect it and generally, it messes with your plans. I’d always planned on being single when I arrived at uni – I pictured myself sitting in a lecture swapping coy glances with a handsome stranger, or making eyes over my laptop at a cute fellow intellectual in a chic café. Basically, I predicted a lot of meaningful eye-contact and wooing straight out of an Austen novel. But in my final year of school, I met someone and fell promptly (and inconveniently) head over heels.

We were together for nearly a year, but within three weeks at Oxford it had come to a slightly devastating end. I know it’s not just me and that many people arrive at Oxford determined to maintain long distance relationships that aren’t destined to make it past first term, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. When you’re battling an onslaught of essay deadlines, societies and socialising, the distance between you quickly shifts from geographical to emotional. I hate to take the stance of a cynic but does Oxford make it easier to lose love than find it? Urban myth tells us we have roughly a 30% chance of finding the person we end up with at Oxford – a statistic that half makes you want to run out and meet as many potentials as possible just to hedge your bets – but the odds still feel fairly stacked against you. Between the bizarre complexities of clubbing culture and hectic Oxford days, it can be difficult to meet the one and harder still to make it work.

I’ve long held a theory that you will only ever meet someone clubbing if you’ve already met them.  Sure, you may flirt with a stranger, you may even go home with them, but I think I can confidently claim that no one has ever found true love in a club. The scene really isn’t set for romance between the inadequate lighting and the antisocial music. It does frankly nothing for me when being hit on equates to a guy bellowing the lyrics to Kanye’s “I love it” in my general direction. If by some miracle sparks start flying, it’s more often lust than love. But going clubbing with someone you’re already interested in is a completely different kettle of fish. Suddenly, you have an excuse to hold their hand whilst you’re navigating through the press of people at the bar and if your hands still happen to be holding later… well, who could blame you? When there’s already been some small-scale flirting, Bridge suddenly transforms into a realm of tipsy possibility, where you can make a move and excuse it on a drink too many if it happens to backfire, or, conveniently, forget it ever happened?

But say you do the impossible – maybe you meet them at a society, maybe they ask you out for a coffee and you get butterflies, dating at Oxford also comes with its own unique struggles. I don’t know about you, but frankly I don’t have time to be interested in anyone at the minute. I’ve got essays, the occasional lecture and potentially a gym membership to maintain this term and I can’t see myself making time for an actual date. When an Oxfess about feeling guilty about taking a shower strikes a chord, you shudder to think about the self-flagellation that would arrive with the time it takes to prepare for a date. So dating at Oxford inevitably becomes a rather casual affair. Maybe it’s just spending some time alone watching a film, or a late night catch up, but it’s unlikely to happen at a time you could be working productively.

So it’s a late evening, probably in your room or theirs, where – if you’re unlucky and you live in a broom cupboard like me – the room is mostly taken up with a bed. The issue quickly becomes clear. Lots of Oxford relationships therefore tend to move quite quickly and a date can turn into a ‘booty call’ in the time it takes to scan the room for a place to sit that isn’t The Bed. But if you’re only seeing each other in snatched moments between essay dilemmas and attempts to have a social life, it can be hard to be truly intimate in a way that isn’t just physical. We joke, but an intercollege relationship often sounds almost as challenging as the long distance relationship that I was in.

However, if you’re in the same college and the person you’re seeing is practically a neighbour it can become harder still to define what you are. It’s almost impossible to ‘date’ if you’re simultaneously sitting next to them in the library or opposite them at dinner. Add onto that the potential triple threat of them being in the same year, the same college and the same course. Whilst that means you’re spending plenty of time with them, if anything were to go wrong, you’re, well… spending plenty of time with them. If nothing else it’s frankly cruel to subject a Tutor to that palpable tension once a week.

So why do we do it? Losing love hurts worse than a scooter to the ankle and the chances of it not working out seem horrifyingly high. But that’s not just the case at Oxford. Maybe here we’re fighting against low lecture turnout, busy schedules and awkward living situations, but we are still fighting. Emblazoning our initials onto puffer jackets and braving the Bodleian in the hopes of an Oxlove. Pre-ing for Parkend or Plush with our hopes high. Maybe even attending a 9am lecture. Because ultimately, we know it’s worth it when it’s real.

Why we need to stop throwing money at the NHS

Rachel Cordery
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Why we need to stop throwing money at the NHS

As the battle lines were being drawn for the General Election, candidates began to make promises and, surprisingly enough, the NHS was once again at the centre of attention.

While this election promised to be designed and determined by Brexit, certain sections of the news continued to be dominated by the fact that our health service is failing and incompetent. As usual, politicians promised to deal with the NHS by throwing more money at the problem.

Labour promised to raise the NHS budget to £155 billion, which would apparently cut waiting times and boost mental health services. This follows from recent reports that hospital waits are worse than ever, and no key governmental targets have been met over the past three years.

Surely, it must be time for the government to realise that blindly funding the NHS does not improve its failing administration. Of course, the NHS does need a massive amount of money to function. If you consider the size and scale of the machine, it is a small miracle that it has survived this long, especially since funding reached an all-time-low under the coalition in 2010. NHS funding should increase, but more attention should be given to how this money is spent and on the fundamental issues of administration.

Last summer, my friend was given an opportunity to look through a small window into the inner workings of the NHS. Working in an administrative team in South London, the tales she told were not of an efficient, well-oiled machine, but of a misguided and ineffective service. Although she was a relatively powerless and minor cog for that month, I can’t imagine her experience was atypical of the national organisation.

When she arrived, this Camberwell-based team was faced with a 6-month backlog. But, the fault was not a lack of funds. Instead of answering the constant phone calls from patients or focusing on the job at hand, most of the team was preoccupied with other affairs, namely coffee breaks or one member of staff’s honeymoon.

Whether this lack of action was due to poor management or other factors, what is evidently clear is that the problems of the NHS run far deeper than financial troubles. With over 1,250 hospitals throughout the UK, the administration of healthcare is no small task. This figure includes the 290,000 doctors of which 53,000 are junior doctors and doesn’t even account for walk-in centres, GP surgeries and more. But you would think, with the constant media and public pressure to reduce waiting times and increase general efficiency, the government would focus more time on the problems at ground level.

Quite simply, if the paperwork is not done, the health service can’t perform, no matter how many doctors there are, or how hard they work. Regardless of its problems, the NHS continues to be one of this country’s proudest achievements and despite its defects, privatisation is not a viable or sensible option.

Free healthcare available for all should not be taken for granted, but the fact that the entire country is affected by various NHS policies, makes the lies and empty promises made by politicians even harder to bear: the big Brexit bus immediately comes to mind.

The NHS has become more and more of a political tool over which politicians bicker. They commit to unachievable goals and then ultimately fail to follow through with them. By using blanket statements, pledging to “outspend the Tories” or “strengthen our NHS”, healthcare becomes a piece in the political game to lure in undecided voters.

In its infancy the idea of a universal health service, as detailed in the 1942 Beveridge Report, was a radical measure in response to the monumental social changes brought by war. The escalation of war on the home front brought by the Blitz and evacuation, brought the problems of health, poverty and welfare to the forefront of politics. After thousands of children were sent from industrial cities to small rural villages, there was a wave of criticism directed towards mothers and society for the relatively poor standard of welfare and life.

The promise of solutions to remedy the country’s social discrepancies, including a national health service, bolstered Labour’s position in 1945, their campaign focused on the fulfilment of wartime assurances.

The eventual implementation of a National Health Service was established in a time of promise and hope after a war that devastated the country. It was the nearest this country has ever come to a ground-zero, in which social policy was reinvented.

In 1945, the offer of free and universal healthcare was enough to satisfy a tired, war-struck Britain. Now, the NHS is a different beast and the public, the majority of who have never known a life without free healthcare, are less tolerant towards the defects of the service.

In the era of modern technology with super-fast internet and high-speed trains, in a world where we can cross continents in mere hours; the idea of waiting for healthcare on the NHS seems unacceptable. At its birth, I doubt the Labour government wished for an 18-week wait for a non-urgent appointment or a 10 hour wait in A&E. But the NHS was created in another world with different priorities.

Nowadays, 70 years on, it is not unreasonable to expect the structural bases of the organisation to be efficient and successful, especially because of the millions that are pumped into it annually. As it grows and evolves with the growing population and diversifying priorities, there is a greater need to reform it at its 1940s roots.

Cracking on Love Island

Isabella Colletta
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Cracking on Love Island

Love Island has returned to our screens for the winter season, bringing back the glossy drama and soft-porn camera shots that have taken over British televisions for the past few summers. Love Island is one of the most popular cultural phenomena of recent times, even traversing continents with last year’s debut of Love Island Australia. The show’s dazzling promise of the swings and roundabouts of a microcosmic two-month holiday romance seems the perfect antidote to a miserable winter, and it is one of the few reality tv shows to survive the producers’ keen oversaturation.

Winter Love Island has awakened the same incomprehensible vitriol as previous editions, with a host of radical Daily Mail columnists begging the question: “What kind of person goes on Love Island?”.

It’s clear that the show has very real problems. Contestants have been raising issue with the show’s level of aftercare for years. The suicides of two previous contestants have ignited a debate regarding the responsibility of reality television to support participant and last year Love Island responded with a far more comprehensive support system. However, as previous contestant Amy Hart reiterated before the airing of this season’s first episode, the barrage of online abuse is more difficult to protect participants from.

Whether they watch the show or not, most people seem to have some sort of opinion about Love Island. The mixture of perfection and vulnerability of the fish-bowl world of the villa brings out a response which pokes, probes and infantilises the contestants and the question of their “real intentions”. The £50,000 that comes with “true love” for the winners gives critics sexist ammunition to fire at the “gold diggers” of the show, with Molly-Mae Hague an obvious example.

Often ascribed as ‘plastic’ representation of love, Love Island actually reflects a broader range of the excitement, insecurity and vulnerability of dating than any recent reality drama. Whilst the ever-present swimwear rule and sharp editing creates a kind of greenhouse of romantic obsession, their experiences are very much grounded in reality. Already this season we’ve seen rejection, jealousy and the kind of insecurity which could only fester in the unstable environment of a precarious early romantic bond. Each attempt to “crack on” with possible partners is an attempt to find something they truly feel like they’ve been missing. It’s awkward, occasionally mind-numbing and always incredibly human.

Fears of rejection are exacerbated by the producers’ cruel snap ‘recouplings’ – a forced establishment of preference in front of a firepit. The drama of having someone explicitly compare you to others is both riveting and horrifying. We watch in hope that every contestant won’t have to face the forced rejection this ritual imposes, and when they inevitably do the only catharsis comes from the gratitude that at least it’s not us.

And for some, the game becomes too much. This year famously posh contestant Ollie Williams left early in the competition after realising he still had feelings for his ex. Last year Amy Hart left after the man she was hoping to express her love to rejected her with a pathetic array of excuses – and we learned as a nation that hiding emotional cowardice behind mediocre salsa skills is impossible. Both stepped past the veneer of the show to demand that their feelings be heard. It’s impossible to view them as the “archetypal characters” that reality television so often relies on in its narrative arcs.

Perhaps this is what is so enthralling about Love Island. – the question of whether it is legitimately possible for someone to put up and maintain a farce 24/7. The people we are watching are unpredictable and at the same time highly sympathetic because, despite the controlled environment of the Villa, their experiences of trying to find the real thing mirror our own attempts. What may rattle people most about Love Island is that any attempt to distance yourself from the people on it is futile. When we watch people recouple and reject, it’s impossible not to relate to their embarrassment. On-screen or off, the sting still feels the same.

Watching people try to fall in love is fascinating. Like many reality TV shows, Love Island captures the vanity, embarrassment, and pain of the entire process. But despite its wealth of flaws, I still like to think that Love Island gives an optimistic outlook. At least once a year people are willing to expose themselves to national television in their pursuit of love, sharing their flaws and attributes in equal measure. Whether they manage to find true love or not, these people understand that regardless of setting, finding love takes real bravery. They are well aware that they will experience untold criticism for a simple human desire so many of us share. Few of us are willing to demonstrate that vulnerability.

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