Sunday 27th July 2025
Blog Page 541

Debate: The West Has No Role To Play In The Middle East

0

Proposition – Leo Rogers

When considering as large a question as the West’s role in the Middle East, we should be starting with the bare facts. The region is home to multiple failed states (Yemen, Syria, and Iraq) and some of the world’s most brutal autocracies. Many of these depend upon Western support. The lucky few living in the region’s sole democracy, Israel, constitute a mere 5% of the total population. After a century of Western interference, huge swathes of territory are drenched with innocent blood and perpetually teetering on the edge of another catastrophe.

Western governments deserve much of the blame; many flashpoints have their roots in Western interventionism. In 1953, America overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, as punishment for his attempt at nationalising Iran’s oil. Subsequently, under American tutelage, the Shah’s regime crushed dissent with a Stasi-esque secret police force. The revolution that overthrew the Shah evolved into the brutal autocracy the Iranian people suffer under today. If you are British, ask yourself: if Clement Attlee had been overthrown by American proxies, and your parents and grandparents had been tortured by agents of an American vassal regime, would you consider America qualified to guide your country on the path to democracy?

 The incompetence of Western interventions is as unforgivable as its brutality. Journalist Andrew Rawnsley captured a particularly ridiculous instance of this phenomenon: prior to the 2003 invasion, Tony Blair was briefed by Michael Williams- a senior foreign office expert- on the potential for conflict to break out between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities. With characteristic starry-eyed idiocy, Blair responded: “That’s all history, Mike. This is about the future.” One might ask whether Blair has been following recent events in Iraq. The future he helped create demonstrates that what’s past is indeed prologue.

When confronted with this legacy, interventionists- ironically, given they tend to inhabit the right of the political spectrum – echo the classic Communist refrain that, though it may seem to have failed, their ideology has never truly been practiced. With enough commitments, better strategies, wiser alliances, we will be on our way to the sunlit uplands of a peaceful and democratic Middle East.

It’s too late. Alongside the millions of lives lost, homes destroyed, and families separated, the legacy of the last century of Western intervention is a loss of trust. The citizens of the Middle East are not stupid. They have memories as long as ours; too many have already made the rational calculation that, given the bloodshed and instability rippling out from every Western action in the region, we simply don’t have their best interests at heart.

 No amount of blood or treasure will win back this trust, and without it intervention is doomed to failure. While interventionists speak of moral responsibility, we have lost our moral credibility.

Opposition – Asher Weisz

More than any other event, the 2003 Iraq invasion has shaped our generation’s negative view of Western involvement in the Middle East. For reasons which I imagine are fluently explored above, many now see our presence in this region as inherently unnecessary and dangerous. Some, going further, see it as simply the latest stage in a long and sordid story of white imperialism.

Such views are useless caricatures. The legitimate role of the West in the Middle East today is twofold. Firstly, the West must protect its allies if it is to have any global respect, and in order to support its own interests and friends. Secondly, it is the imperative of powerful democratic nations not to watch idly by when populations are threatened by murderous totalitarians. That is not an imperialist imperative; it is an anti-imperialist one.

The Middle East is a troubled and volatile region. It is riven by religious divisions. Moreover, it is threatened by Iran’s maniacal imperialism. Worldwide, it is expected that the West will help those who put faith in it. In such a sensitive area, it is a travesty to betray this expectation. The Trump Administration’s cruel abandonment of the Kurds to Turkey’s mercy is a taster of the total breach of trust which this motion implicitly recommends. The idea the West has no role whatsoever would result in a situation where allies, particularly Israel and the Gulf states could be sure of no assistance against regional threats. Such shameful isolationism would make clear globally that it is dangerous to be the West’s enemy, but far more perilous to be its friend.

A complete Western absence from the region would also embolden those who seek its downfall. Amid the hysterical response to Qassem Soleimani’s assassination, the background of escalating Iranian aggression against the US and its allies has been conveniently forgotten. Our enemies are spurred on by our inaction. Ambivalence to all events in this crucial part of the world empowers every tinpot dictator and theocrat to threaten and hurt the Western nations.

Above all, Western refusal to involve itself in Middle Eastern affairs would be a conscious decision not to stop catastrophes perpetrated by murderers and terrorists. Under this motion, America would have rejected the Iraqi government’s desperate pleas to intervene against ISIS in 2014. Those “doves” who deny any place for the West would have feebly wrung their hands, posted their mournful tweets and held their demonstrations as Yazidis, Iraqis and Syrians were driven further under the yoke of bloodstained fanatics. It is only a presence in the region which stops disaster. There are times when moral duty compels us to act.

Western withdrawal from the Middle East would not mean that we had left those nations alone. We would have left them exposed: to the caprices of extremists and to the imperialism of Iran and Putin’s Russia. We would not leave peace. We would leave a vacuum waiting to be filled.


Truth and Technology: a Fraught Relationship

0

Recent discussion on the topic of so-called ‘fake news’ has exponentially grown. The use of the term “fake news” itself has increased by 40x (on Google search results) in the last year alone. The era of “fake news” has many worrying consequences, but perhaps the greatest is our all-too-real inability to really determine true from false: deception and reality seem too intertwined, despite our best efforts to genuinely and impartially seperate them. These troubles have only been severely compounded by the more eerie side of technological advancements.

The problem is very simple: there is so much misinformation out there – aggrandised by products of the modern age, like artificial intelligence, deep fakes and targeted algorithms –   that fact-checking seems like an almost impossible task. When we do actually try to distinguish true from false, it takes so long that few people actually carry through. Instead, other belief forming mechanisms—or, perhaps worse, decision-making procedures—fall into place. We suspend rational belief, and either believe what we want to believe, or throw our hands up in the air in confusion, and go back to watching cute cat videos online. Finally, after all of this, we make judgements decisions on these issues without justified beliefs.

Own a farm producing milk for a living? You’re probably going to stand by the health value of milk. Ardent vegan who thinks the milk industry is a moral outrage? You’ll be inclined to dismiss milk as being of little benefit to health. Don’t really care about milk other than with your cereal each morning? Cute cat videos it is. We believe what we want to believe, and if we don’t really care, we resort to lacking belief in anything. Apathy or impassioned belief without understanding the reality of a complex topic is an important discussion in its own right, but what I want to focus on is that this issue arises primarily from the vast piles conflicting opinions, articles, journals, videos, political statements, tweets and who knows what else just to find the truth.  The problem we face today is that when we develop a belief the threshold required to justify it is increasing to a level we simply cannot meet regularly, if at all. Advancements in technology has changed the way we consume media, making finding out the real truth seemingly impossible.  

Just take the recent example of deep fakes, ultra-realistic videos created using Artificial Intelligence. They were first reported by Motherboard at the end of 2017 when used to create fake pornography starring Gal Godot. A more recent report by the UK-led East Stratcom task force suggests something a lot more sinister. East Stratcom is an EU counter-measure to disinformation which reported that trolls backed by the Kremlin are experimenting with new AI technology that manipulates videos, and these videos will be used in the online information war in politics. This is exemplified by fake footage of Obama expressing sympathy for gay and lesbian victims in a shooting was disseminated in Georgia amongst conservative Christians by Russian-backed media.

But what are these deep fakes? The simplified version is as follows: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), devised in 2014 by Ph.D. student Ian Goodfellow, allow algorithms to create images, rather than just classify them—and it does this by having two GANs try to fool one another into thinking images they’ve created are real. As Samsung’s AI Centre has reported, this is extremely powerful: GANs only need one image of a person in order to create an ultra-realistic deep fake video.] If you were so inclined, you could just about ruin a stranger’s life by taking a picture of them on the street with this technology.

The Verge argues that this is merely scare-mongering. They contend that this technology has been around a while and has even been well-known for a couple years. In their eyes, it would remained marginal in the political sphere and information watchdogs (like East Stratcom) and corporations (like Facebook) e continue to keep a close eye on this kind of technology. However, the suggestion that the manipulation of photographic/videographic evidence hasn’t entered the political sphere or affected people’s mentality is simply wrong. One must merely cast their mind back to the time that Donald Trump tweeted out a fake (slowed down) video of Nancy Pelosi, and it seems that The Verge might well have benefited—as we all would—from hindsight. Or, we think back to that time he tweeted a video which purposefully edited clips from the 9/11 attack into Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s speech to make her seem pro-9/11. Not to mention the deep fakes supposedly originating from Russia, which are alleged to have been used to influence Brexit, the debate on Catalonian Independence, and the Eurovision song contest.

Like all technology, deep fakes have taken a while to reveal their more damaging potential. We may treat anything Trump says with scepticism, but no one can deny the widespread impact Trump and his tweets have. I for one don’t want to think about the effect of Trump tweeting deep fake footage of anything from 2020 presidential candidates or of the Ayatollah. With that said, Trump is as much, if not more, a victim of this sort of technology than a perpetrator. On May 16, one Belgian political party tweeted out a fake video of Trump calling upon Belgium to follow America’s footsteps, and exit the Paris climate agreement. Fraudulent behaviour, phishing and scams are rampant and convincing enough as it is to have fooled many of us—the power of deep fakes combined with the malicious intent of such fraudsters is somewhat frightening to consider. What this means is that very little, if anything, that we find online, provides any definitive proof that it is accurately reflecting reality.

Perhaps an even more worrying issue is information over-saturation. One solution to the above problem is just to check multiple sources, right? Well, that’s not so clear when contending with purposeful confusion mongers and disinformation publishers. Information over-saturation has a number of causes. For a start, there are just so many voices shouting over each other online that it’s difficult to differentiate what is backed up by real facts and what is made up. The IPCC, an authoritative voice on climate change, published in 2007 that climate change was real and the cause of man. The world was on the brink of a shift to radical action, but competing sources of information, such as this article published, claiming to have found leaked emails, ‘exposing’ that climate science alarmists had manipulated data to push their agenda disrupted change. Colloquially known as “climate gate”, the article, although quoting accurately,  took phrases out of context:three independent committees have found “climate gate” to be unsubstantiated.

It is the combination of new technology and existing consumer habits and dissemination tactics that is particularly dangerous. Consider again East Stratcom’s report that Russia are experimenting with deep fakes. The task force notes that “Often, the Russian policy is not to back one side or the other, but to amplify extreme views on both sides of an issue to fuel conflict, confusion and disaffection. Russia is believed to spend up to $1bn a year on disinformation activity.” This may seem counter-intuitive, but it actually makes a great deal of sense. When there is so much information which seems equally plausible out there, the resulting confusion leads people to suspend judgement, or, potentially worse, to stop caring. Technology like bots allow lies to be spread en masse and add some sense of legitimacy.

Imagine what deep fakes and manipulative AI technology could do: everything from creating emails indistinguishable from real ones to spread ten fake facts about climate change for each accurate point of data. All the problems caused by the information war around vaccines and autism is a worrying example of where every conversation is heading. Over-saturation, deepfakes, and things like fake news factories (which were reported in 2016, when the term “fake news” first arose, and have recently taken on a more sinister form), are all just the beginning of the kind of technology that can influence conversations. The consequences are terrifying. In the words of Marc Morano, notable for his non-profit that promotes climate change denial, “gridlock is the best friend” of anyone who wants to stop action against issues like climate change. The strategy Morano advocates is exponentially more effective in 2020.

So, what’s the solution? To start with, paying for reputable news sources is essential. The Times have long been charging for their online articles, while The Guardian and Wikipedia continue to ask their users for some sort of donation to their worthy cause. As consumers, we decide what drives our news. If what we want is free or entertaining news, then this clearly comes at the cost of accuracy, as clickbait, false stories and frivolous news take over. But if we prioritise our democratic values, we need to pay for accuracy; it is not clicks, or advertising, which drive our news sources, but reliable reporting.

This won’t entirely solve the issue. Ultimately, we need to change our habits when we consume the media. We need to start fact-checking everything we consume, and questioning whether what we’re engaging with is actually true. Programmes like the Poynter Institute’s MediaWise, which focuses on empowering us all to tell apart true and false and to stop disseminating fake news, or Google plug-ins like inVID, aiming to help users distinguish from falsities, will be crucial in this battle for the truth. Other organisations which have begun to address this issue include First Draft, Pheme and Full Fact, as well as the East Stratcom task force. 

As one of my Cherwell predecessors noted, “When it comes to the big stories, one where the safety of sources lies in the hands of the press, journalists are still the ones we turn to.” It seems like this is still the case today. We need to gain autonomy in handling our information in the face of our technological age, these organisations, amongst many others, provide tools towards our doing that. At this moment in time, this is a monumental task and responsibility for all of us. It’s a vicious cycle, if we let the problem fester, it becomes even more difficult. 

The Poynter Institute on its advice regarding how we engage with news, and East Stratcom, who state that we need to encourage people to: “question what they are reading before they consume it.” The first sentence in this very article contained a lie—one which was purposefully deceptive. One which might still be believed to be true by some who never made it to the end of this article. The statistic about the use of “fake news” in Google searches was false: the real number is closer to 400x than 40x. It is an unfortunate fact that most people reading this article probably believed the statistic without question, and perhaps even more unfortunate that many will fall short of fact-checking my corrected statistic as well. My predecessors at Cherwell have noted that ‘fake news’ is not a new concept, but technology, and its ability to magnify the effect of this fake news, is.

I have no doubt that technological advancement will roll on, whether or not we face up to these difficult questions. So the question becomes whether our own moral advancement will manage to match this. Will we bother to protect reality by changing our habits in acquiring information, reflecting on our morals in disseminating information and developing our decision-making abilities in using this information? Aldous Huxley stated on BBC Radio before the publication of Brave New World that eugenics might be the way forward. In his 1946 foreword to that same book, with the benefit of hindsight, Huxley changed tack: his message read that it is not technology, but the hand that wields it, that is good or bad. In this vein, it is the mixture of social media, AI, advertising systems and algorithm technologies combined with human shortcomings that have created this problem. It’s not eugenics or social media, nor atomic energy or Artificial Intelligence, that are the problem. The blame can only be on us. So, whether it’s education, counter-technology, or reforming our news consumption habits, something must steer us into reality. 

Oxford’s Divestment Shame

0

There is a certain irony in studying, researching, or teaching at Oxford, one of the world’s leading institutions of higher education. This irony manifests itself especially in the field of climate science, which seeks to reclaim the future even as the university—albeit indirectly—seeks to destroy it. Nearly seven years ago, The Oxford Climate Justice Campaign published its first divestment petition, addressed to then-Vice-Chancellor Andrew Hamilton, as part of the global Fossil Free campaign. The original petition received 2,670 signatories, and this number is still on the increase. Following the release of the Paradise Papers in November 2010, which implicated Oxford, Cambridge, and many of their constituent colleges in secret offshore investments such as oil-drilling, OCJC realized the need for a fresh anti-divestment petition. Whilst this petition has received only 270 signatures so far, support for divestment still appears to be a top priority on the student agenda, with student involvement in OCJC increasing vastly in 2019.

Aside from student-run OCJC, Oxford’s divestment campaigns include Oxford Alumni for Divestment and Oxford Academics for Divestment, both of which published petitions in 2014. In addition to these, in 2015 the university itself publicly commended its own lack of direct investments in coal and tar sands. In a statement issued by University Council, the university’s executive governing body, the university pledged to continue this practice—a tangible but minuscule step on the long road towards ethical investment. However, in the same statement, the university also proclaimed a need for “the continued inclusion, where financially prudent, of a broad range of energy investments within The Oxford Funds.”

Such a description is fitting for the university’s approach to many issues, including divestment. The university has responded positively to the majority of climate-related lobbying, including the Oxford Climate Society’s effort to diversify course curricula to include more material relating to climate change, as well as the Student Union’s effort to encourage the Careers Service to feature more climate-friendly jobs and internships. However, it has been slow to embrace the widespread calls for divestment. The university’s ethical investment policy goes back to 2008, when University Council resolved that, “if the activities of a company are, on ethical grounds, inconsistent with the educational and/or research objectives of the University, then the University may choose not to invest even though this may reduce returns.” In the university’s eyes, divestment clearly remains a “choice”, and one that, in a world of revived climate denial, they do not appear to be all too keen to make.

Numerous universities across the UK, including St. Andrews, King’s College London, and University College London, have pledged to divest fully from fossil fuels. Others, including Edinburgh, Durham, and Bristol have already succeeded in doing so. Nearly all of these commitments resulted from years of student protests and relentless petitioning. Yet, even though Oxford is vibrant with student activism, the university remains unconvinced that fossil fuel investments require the particular ethical scrutiny that they doubtless do. In the past two years, OCJC has unfurled protest banners during the Boat Race, installed protest art on the Radcliffe Camera, and disrupted fossil fuel companies’ recruitment events. Twenty-six JCRs and 15 MCRs have passed motions in support of divestment. Still, the list of colleges that have moved closer to divestment is far too short to consider such actions successful.

In early 2018, St. Hilda’s amended its investment policy to eliminate companies whose business activities are incompatible with the needs of an endangered environment. A year later and Wadham followed suit, agreeing to completely divest from coal and tar sands after prolonged discussions between college government and student leadership. Every now and then, one hears talk of other colleges pledging to divest, but there is little evidence that other colleges have actually acted on any pro-divestment urges. Nonetheless, many JCRs continue to push for new investment policies and negotiate with college governing bodies in the hope that they will, someday, succeed. But in this new decade, is “someday” good enough? As one of the world’s leading universities continues to invest heavily in fossil fuels with little criticism, shouldn’t we be necessitating, and indeed forcing, immediate action?

It is difficult not to forgive student climate activists at Oxford for believing that negotiation and the occasional protest is enough. After all, this is what has worked at other universities across the country. But, given the stereotype that Oxford is “different”—a bastion of the elite with a convoluted system of constituent colleges—the lack of momentum on divestment shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In order to ensure divestment across the board at Oxford, student campaigns must commit to more frequent, comprehensive action involving more students and a more clearly defined method for achieving their goals. Students must use existing channels, such as university and college committees, to their fullest capacity, and ensure that campaigns sustain momentum from year to year and term to term. They must actively lobby for divestment, keeping in mind specific demands, such as timelines for divesting from various types of fossil fuels and ways to hold the university and individual colleges accountable. It is not enough to simply declare support for divestment. In this new decade, it will be more important than ever before to combat the reckless, backward nature of the fossil fuel sector. It may not be prudent to abandon previous strategies entirely, but further action in this arena will occur most easily if pro-divestment groups unite around a more specific methodology for reaching their goals.

Sung Sikyung: an ode to the Korean balladist

0

I often get asked whether I listen to K-pop. Although I answer “yes,” I hate getting this question. In part this is because people often ask just to be sarcastic, as let’s be honest, the genre gets a lot of hate for its over-commercialisation. The other half who ask from a genuine enjoyment of K-pop are soon disappointed with my “no’s” to their follow up questions of: “Do you listen to x recent K-pop band?”. Rightly disappointed, they then go on to ask me “Well, who do you listen to?” I tell them: Sung Sikyung, Kyuhyun, Jo Sungmo, and other older K-pop bands; only to be told that my taste in music is “niche,” or even “hipster.”

At this point, I also get frustrated. Not because they don’t know of my favorite artists, but because they assume their knowledge of mainstream K-pop with is entirely representative of the diversity within the Korean music industry. If you asked anyone in Korea about these artists, you’ll find that everyone is bound (and yes, I do mean bound) to know of them; there is absolutely nothing ‘niche’ or ‘hipster’ about my taste in music.

After countless similar exchanges, I started to consider telling people, “No, I don’t listen to K-pop,” because I find the term K-pop itself to be unfair. K-pop has become a term to denote all music by Korean artists and producers. This means that for these artists, regardless of the style of music they create, their musical genre is defined by the mere fact that they’re Korean. ‘K-pop’ is short for ‘Korean popular music’ just as ‘pop’ is short for ‘popular music’. Therefore, just as pop only represents a subsection of western music, the same should go for K-pop.

I found it necessary to provide such a long introduction in order to do justice for my favorite musician, Sung Sikyung, a ballad singer that gets misattributed the K-pop label. The first time I listened to him was in 2009, when his biggest hit ‘On the Street(거리에서)’ started playing regularly, well…on the street. There was a serene and even heavenly quality to his voice that instantly got me hooked. Through Sikyung, I began to explore more ballad music, and the genre grew on me more and more. Five years later I was listening to essentially nothing else but a playlist of six ballad musicians: Sung Sikyung, Jo Sungmo, Kim Dongryul, Davichi, Kim Kwangseok,  and Kyuhyun. 

Needless to say, Sikyung remained the musician I listened to the most. Sikyung’s ‘노래가 되어’, amongst others, was a song that never failed to comfort me when I needed it most throughout struggles with my mental health. It’s a poignant song about how he himself has become a song to provide the listener with strength, support, and a shoulder to cry on. 

Over Christmas I had the opportunity to finally see Sikyung in concert, which meant a lot to me as I hadn’t had the chance to see him before. He opened with ‘바람, 그대, and from the very first word that he sang it was clear that even the latest recording technologies couldn’t fully capture the depth and the subtleties of his emotions, let alone the richness of his voice.

I was able to find so much comfort and consolation in hearing his singing live. Worries about finals and finding employment have been weighing on my mind; so listening to him sing was the perfect Christmas gift. It provided me with escapism, consolation, and a safe place: it was exactly what I needed.

To make the experience even more magical, the stage set-up, fireworks, house chorus and the orchestra were nothing short of perfect, complementing Sikyung’s voice in the best way possible. As a PPE student, I couldn’t help but conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the extravagant show that he put on. As a result, I felt as if he didn’t put this concert on for profit, but for the enjoyment of his fans like myself.

By writing this review, I hope that I have succeeded in introducing him to a new audience at Oxford, and furthermore I hope that this has been an adequate way of thanking Sikyung for his music and everything he has done for me over the last few years. I’d encourage everybody to listen to him, but most importantly follow him on Instagram @mayersung; he’s obsessed with it.

Review: The Gentlemen

0

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen has been described – somewhat euphemistically by critics – as a ‘guns and gangsters’ film. It has been perceived as an unsubtly orgiastic love-song to organised crime and its concomitant violence. This does a disservice to a film which in fact tries to grapple with the ambiguities and tensions of urban modernity. Far from revelling in a dated world of wheeler dealers, diamond geezers, and Mockney caricature, The Gentlemen depicts the delights and dangers of our present age. The film only has one character with a Cockney accent, and a relatively soft one at that, which in itself reflects the changing face of Britain’s capital city. 

Thus, on the face of it, it might appear surprising that class is absolutely central to The Gentlemen. Indeed, Ritchie initially titled the screenplay Toff Enough. Social status fundamentally shapes the film’s characters, from the pretentious faux-country squire accent which Matthew McConaughey’s protagonist Mickey Pearson doffs, to the pathetic drug-addict Laura Pressfield (Eliot Sumner), whose binges are financed by her aristocrat parents. Throughout, the fragility of high-status positions is exposed, and those with material, social and cultural capital mocked. Ritchie is trying to tell his audience that institutional privilege is clearly as relevant today as it’s ever been. Indeed, he includes a telling nod to Oxford as a breeding ground for pretentious junkies with more money than sense. 

There are further nods to the tensions of contemporary society. London’s knife crime is a recurring motif throughout. Yet Ritchie’s message is unambiguous: boys with knives are just that – boys.  They are young, inexperienced and ultimately frightened, using weapons as solutions to problems (often of their own making) without thinking through the consequences of their actions and are quickly overawed by truly genuine threats. Thus, when Colin Farrell’s Coach (a famed boxing instructor) wearily knocks the knives out of the hands two cocksure adolescents at a chicken shop, the message is clear: children carrying weapons, unsurprisingly, have no idea what they are doing. 

Coach is in some ways paradigmatic of British civic life at the turn of the decade. Fiercely protective of the boys he teaches to box, he shields them from the harm they would otherwise come to, given their troubled upbringings. Coach represents many ordinary 21st century Londoners in his unswerving devotion to providing support and stability to those who might otherwise have been discarded by Britain’s elite. Indeed, the state in all its forms (the police, judiciary, and so on) are tellingly absent. Perhaps Ritchie is suggesting something about the condition of Britain, ten years into austerity. 

If anything, The Gentlemen would have benefitted from more time spent in Coach’s gym, and less in the decadent splendour of country piles and chic London townhouses. Ritchie’s previous masterpieces – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), and Snatch (2000) – were so riveting in part because they focussed on the outsiders drawn into vast, sprawling criminal underworlds. Thus, the prosaic lives of petty thieves and crooks are blown apart by prospects of untold riches and unparalleled danger.  By homing in on the centre of a criminal maelstrom in The Gentlemen instead, Ritchie ups the material stakes but sacrifices some of the pathos he might have otherwise harnessed. 

The added problem here is that the weaving, swerving, interlocking plotlines for which Ritchie is usually renowned are not fully utilised in The Gentlemen. Plot twists can be seen coming before they are explicitly revealed, in the main because sparring business tycoons are more familiar to cinematic audiences than the intricacies involved in fixing boxing matches (Snatch) or petty armed robbery (Lock, Stock). The Gentlemen is about the centre of criminal empires, which is in some ways a shame, as Ritchie has aptly demonstrated in his earlier works that far more ambiguous and interesting dilemmas appear on the periphery of such worlds. 

Nevertheless, what The Gentlemen might lack in its narrative complexity it more than makes up for in its fleshed-out characters. Particular praise must be reserved for Hugh Grant’s ‘Fletcher’ and Michelle Dockery’s ‘Rosalind’. The former is a slimy, lisping investigative journalist who purrs and simpers as he tries to blackmail Raymond (Charlie Hunman), Mickey Pearson’s right-hand man. Hugh Grant is almost unrecognisable playing this sleezy tabloid writer, a far cry from his earlier years as Richard Curtis’s go-to cheesy heartthrob. Equally, Michelle Dockery, who rose to fame in Downton Abbey and has gone on to become a staple in British period dramas, takes on a new role to play a powerful and elegant businesswoman who exerts measured influence over her husband Mickey. 

On the whole, Ritchie deserves much praise for The Gentlemen. It’s a cool, cutting take on contemporary life, mixed with hefty doses of sharp dialogue, neat camerawork and bloody violence. It captures today’s zeitgeist, without feeling heavy-handed or preachy. So, although The Gentlemen may have plenty of guns, quippy one liners, and testosterone-fuelled punch-ups, it rises comfortably above the petty limits of its genre conventions. 

Orwell: a deserving modern hero

0

George Orwell should be declared a modern hero. The Etonian rebel was an interesting character, for he voluntarily subjected himself to poverty for many years between Paris and London. He eagerly wrote about his dreadful experiences, sprinkling his writing with stories of the British Empire, from Marrakech to Burma. He echoed the oppression of indigenous peoples, often subject to the brutal shortcomings of imperialism. As a result, Orwell’s books are woven into the fabric of British society. He pioneered a political dictionary of phrases, including ‘Doublethink’, ‘Big Brother’, ‘freedom is slavery’, and ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. These phrases come from his written commentary of the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes across Europe. After fighting in the Spanish Civil War against fascism, Orwell took on the responsibility of educating his readers from the frontlines. 

As with many dystopian writers, Orwell made predictions that would come true several decades later. I once asked myself whether some political leaders used his infamous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, as a political bible. Principally, he predicted that technology and economic growth would lead to powerful, oligarchic regimes with concentrated wealth. Orwell’s writing is readable and that is one of the greatest things about it. He unravels his complicated observations into enriching narratives.

I shall list, in no particular order, which essays and books I would recommend you read. This week marks seventy years since the prolific author’s death, but his work and attitudes continue to live on, and I am thus proud to present the following recommendations.  

A Hanging: an essay describing the tragedy of the abysmal justice system in Burma, an ensuing weakness of British colonial rule.

Why I Write: This essay is a lovely complement to Orwell’s other works. We directly hear from him and the burdens he felt as a writer. 

The Spike: Orwell talks of his experience at a miserly workhouse. Workhouses were places where the destitute of British society would go and work for free, in return for food and accommodation. 

Some Thoughts on the Common Toad: Orwell talks on the sublimity of nature and denies that it is a bourgeois exercise to seek pleasure from it.

Shooting an Elephant: Culture clashes can be traumatic, and this essay is an example of that. However, we are likely to take Orwell’s stance, because as the title suggests, this culture clash refers to the treatment of animals by officials.

Nineteen Eighty-Four: Perhaps you should start with Nineteen Eighty-Four, as Orwell offers a rich commentary of politics, economics and sociology, using an adventurous and heart-wrenching story.

Animal Farm:This novella can be read as a lovely bedtime story for children, but once you delve deeper, you will realise that Orwell has described the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.

Why the Poor Die: While this is self-explanatory, Orwell is able to create a very clear image of what poverty was like in his time, but the sentiments still remain universal. This is a crucial essay, if one wants to feel empathy for those in need. 

Politics and the English Language: Orwell gives the best tips on how to write well, with great context.

Pleasure Spots: Orwell talks about holidays. This is an insightful snippet of British culture, and how it has evolved.

All of the works I have suggested have major relevance today, even Pleasure Spots. The essay explains modern consumption habits and criticises mankind’s new methods of finding happiness.While I am not a political leader who uses Nineteen Eighty-Four as a bible, Orwell’s books have provided me with much guidance on not what to do. Moreover, he is more than his criticism of left-wing and right-wing politics: he teaches the importance of peace against power, freedom against slavery and love against hatred. It is no wonder why today’s writers still roar on about Orwellian warnings and why the world is not as bad as it might be. Seventy years on, we have Orwell to thank for that.

Top Ten Sporting Moments of 2019

1st June: Liverpool become Champions of Europe

Unlike many of the events on this list, if you ask anyone where they were on 1st June, they probably won’t recall watching the abjectly dull match which brought an end to the 2018-2019 Champions League, with Liverpool goals at either end sandwiching long spells of Tottenham possession. However, it was nevertheless significant, not only for crowning Liverpool champions of Europe for the sixth time (double the victories of their rivals Manchester United), but for capping off a tournament dominated by some of the most memorable European club matches in recent history. Ajax’s remarkable run to the semi finals took them past Real Madrid and Juventus, where they were eliminated in unlikely fashion by Spurs, who themselves had beaten Manchester City on away goals in a thrilling second leg 4-3 loss at the Etihad. The Final struggled to live up to the excitement and intensity of the other matches of the competition, but Liverpool must be admired for their victory, even more so after they added the UEFA Super Cup and 2019 World Club Cup to their trophy cabinet.

11th June: Women’s World Cup 13-0 Record 

June saw the heaviest defeat in World Cup history as an unstoppable USA triumphed 13-0 in a “thumping” match against Thailand in the opening game in France. Goals came thick and fast for the best ranked team in the world, who scored, on average, every seven minutes. Alex Morgan scored five times for the Americans, bolstered by Rose Lavelle and Samantha Lewis, with six goals coming in a breathless closing sixteen minutes. This created an atmosphere charged with shock and awe in Reims. While hardly a surprise win for one of the best funded teams at the tournament, the manner of victory was astounding, and it is unlikely that it will be surpassed at a major international tournament in the future. 

1st July: Breakout star Coco Gauff at Wimbledon

Teenage dreams really can come true and did for 15 year old American Coco Gauff at Wimbledon. She broke history as the youngest athlete to qualify for the main draw and proved herself as the one-to-watch when she beat the world renowned Williams sister, Venus, in straight sets (6-4 6-4). Although she is recognised as the 68th best player in the world, this victory against Williams cemented her as a true contender, as she is the youngest player to win in the first round of the ladies’ singles since 1991. 

14th July & 25th August: Ben Stokes Magic

It would be difficult to recall English sport in the summer of 2019 without allocating significant time to the two legendary moments provided in successive months by Ben Stokes. The first was in July, when England hosted the World Cup. Requiring two sixes in the final over simply to level the Final, Stokes then led the charge in the Super Over as England scored 15, equalled by New Zealand, and the result was determined on the number of boundaries scored in the match. With the boundary comeback rule now abolished by the ICC in future events, this will never be repeated. And just as Stokes has provided one of the most memorable moments in recent international sport, he outdid even himself at the second ashes test a month later. England, bowled out for 67 in their first innings, achieved their highest winning total in history with a second innings score of 362-9 to level the series at 1-1. This was largely thanks to Stokes, who scored 135. Credit must also be given to the unlikely cameo played by Jack Leach, whose partnership with Stokes saw 76 runs scored – 1 by Leach, 75 by Stokes – both cementing their places as sporting legends.

6th August: The Time Trial to Change the History of the Transcontinental Race 

Are women as able as men? The age-old question answered was assertively by Fiona Kolbinger. The German Cancer Researcher is the first woman ever to win the Transcontinental Cycling Race. She stole the victory from Ben Davies by close to six hours, managing to ride across Europe in an awe-inspiring 10 days, 2 hours and 48 minutes. Thrashing a field of 224 men and 40 women, this athlete demonstrated that women are just as capable as men when given the right training, opening up the sport to more head-to-head intergender competition. 

12th August: Nike Changes Maternity Policy

It may not be a sporting event, but it certainly was one of the most memorable moments of the year in sport: athletes Alysia Montano, Kara Goucher and Allyson Felix’s bravely calling out Nike for their inadequate maternity policies. These forced athletes back into training straight after giving birth and held back on sponsorship until the athletes returned to competition. The trio shared their stories individually, and as a result, have improved the rights for many athletes as major changes in Nike’s Maternity Policy have been made. Now, female athletes will not be “adversely impacted financially for pregnancy” for 18 months, which is 6 months more than the previous policy allowed for. This demonstrated how powerful sharing can be and implies that women are finally being taken more seriously in sport.  

2nd October: Dina Asher-Smith sets British Record

Although there were many issues surrounding attendance at the World Championships at Doha, there was a strong contingent of Union Jacks in the stadium to celebrate the first British Gold medal in sprinting since Linford Christie in 1993. In a British Record of 21.88 seconds, Asher-Smith was never in doubt. While many saw victory as a formality in the build-up to the race, this should not take away from this stellar achievement.


4th October: Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s new British Heptathlon Record 

In an excellent few days for British female athletes with double-barrelled surnames, Doha was stunned as the heptathlon was won by Katarina Johnson-Thompson who blew Belgian Nafissatou Thiam out of the water with a landslide victory of 204-points, the best in the sport since 1987. In her mission to beat her main competitor, she set four personal bests and managed to surpass household name Jessica Ennis-Hill’s 2012 British record of 6,955 for a total of 6,981, putting her sixth in the all-time Heptathlon records.

12th October: Kipchoge’s Marathon

Yes, it did not set an official record. Yes, it involved a team of runners working for around him. And no, it was not an open event using the standard rules. But Eliad Kipchoge’s remarkable marathon time of 1:59:40 remains the Roger Bannister moment of our generation. Working with a team including Team Sky’s Sir Dave Brailsford and with the backing of Britain’s richest person Jim Ratcliffe, Kipchoge ran through 26 miles and 385 yards of Vienna in a time many had long deemed impossible. An incredible feat of endurance, it set a standard of human performance that will be difficult to surpass. With every detail calculated, including the use of a revolutionary inverse running formation, this event set a notable record in what some would describe at the purest form of sport.

19th & 26th October: England Come Close in Japan

On successive Saturday mornings, the England men’s rugby team won stunning victories against Australia and New Zealand to make their first World Cup Final since 2007. Barely tested until the quarter final, The  Wallabies were ruthlessly dispatched by a score of 40-16, with England holding a commanding lead for much of the game. In a more than convincing attacking performance, it was the young back row pairing of Tom Curry and Sam Underhill who were given the most praise as fans began to dream that a team from the Northern Hemisphere could lift the World Cup for only the second time. This match’s elevation as one of the finest England performances in recent memory lasted just a week before it was completely overshadowed by victory against New Zealand. Simply for the iconic image of Owen Farrell smiling in the face of the Haka, let alone the stunning victory that followed, this game will live long in the memory. The All Black’s had not lost a World Cup match in 12 years before Eddie Jones’ side pulled off a classic underdog victory, leading from the second minute through a Manu Tuilagi try and taking them to the Final. It was not to be against a blistering South African side, but this remained a fine tournament for English rugby.

We recognise that these moments barely scratch the surface when it comes to the entire year of sport, however we feel that these events are significant not only in demonstrating athletic potential and excellence, but also in making the field of sport more accessible for future generations. Honourable mentions should also go to Australian batsman Steve Smith, for his impressive record over the course of the year, Tiger Woods, for winning his first major tournament in a decade, and swimmer Caeleb Dressel, who won a record eight medals at the World Aquatics Championships

A feast for the eyes: are we obsessed with photographing our meals?

0

Gone are the days when grace was exchanged before eating a meal. Now, Instagramming our food has become the standard ritual, digitally feasting with our eyes before our forks. With over 216m posts under #foodporn, ranging from radiant acacia bowls to greasy pizzas (the world’s most Instagrammed meal), the internet has its fair share of the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to food.
Recently, the celebrity Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal criticised diners for photographing their meals before eating them, complaining the food would get cold. Unless his restaurant operates on a radical no-lights or candles-only system (which would certainly be one way to address climate change), then phone shutter speeds are usually 1/250th of a second, faster than a human blink… hardly long enough to leave the food stone cold. But perhaps Heston has a point. Is our culture so obsessed with appearances that even food is a visual experience rather than one of taste or smell?
Let’s be honest: for some, it’s an opportunity to show off. Do we really care if you’re having an avocado toast after a post-morning run? Food has become glamourized, a status symbol that feeds into our consumer society and fuels our lifestyle aspirations as we associate particular foods with certain values or habits. Some restaurant chains have even banned customers from taking photos of their food, arguing it distracts them from their experience, both of the food eaten and the people they are with. Look at it from their perspective: why are customers checking their phones every five minutes to see how many people approve of their meal, when their gratification is on the plate right in front of them?
And yet, is it not an experience you are documenting, rather than food alone? A photo tells a story in a thousand words: who you ate with, where you ate, the cultural aspect. Food is integral to everyone’s life, a universal experience inherently communal, so should people like Heston really be criticising those that celebrate and share it? Besides, it’s basically free advertisement for restaurants and food brands alike by encouraging others to purchase the products too.
There are plenty of tips online for photographing food: deep bowls block lighting, plates with wide rims are distracting, neutral backgrounds are best, it goes on…
But what matters is the motivation behind the photograph. It is merely to brag, or to celebrate an experience with friends and family, to share recipes that inspire others, or to make a memory tangible and permanent?

Review: Dans le Noir

0

Have you ever seen About Time? It’s not a requirement to read this article, but if you happen to have watched arguably the greatest rom-com of the past decade then ‘Dans Le Noir’, the restaurant where I spent a unique evening last week, will have an extra layer of intrigue. In one of the first scenes of the movie, the protagonist is roped into going to a special restaurant with his friend, where he meets and falls in love with his future wife. That restaurant, though, is not your ordinary London eatery. Dans Le Noir is, as the name may suggest, entirely, completely pitch black.

When I say the restaurant is pitch black, I mean it. There is no chink of light, no vague silhouette – you cannot see anything at all. In order for the restaurant to function, Dans Le Noir chooses to employ blind waiters, which, according to its website, aims to invoke “a moment of positive empathy that breaks our preconceived ideas of disability”. I was led to the table completely helpless, one hand on the shoulder of our waiter, with my friend’s hand on mine, trying not to trip over my own feet or bump into any of the other guests. As in About Time, you’re seated on a long table with other guests, but other than a parting “enjoy your evening” to the lone woman to the right of me, we didn’t engage in any chit-chat with other people, partly because it’s hard to actually know how far away they are.

The experience of eating in darkness had benefits and downsides. Something that neither I nor my friend had expected was the sense of panic you get when first seated. Being unable to see anything at all is a scary sensation, even when you’re prepared for and expecting it, and although it passed after a minute (I would recommend closing your eyes to acclimatize), it did make us both a little apprehensive for the first few minutes about how much we would enjoy the experience. It’s pretty hard to eat like you normally would in the restaurant, and both of us gave up on cutlery after a few minutes, reverting to using our hands. Not necessarily the most dignified meal I’ve ever had, but it was pretty good fun.

That said, eating in the dark allowed me and my companion to have a more intimate and honest conversation than is always possible in the harsh light of day. Once we’d both relaxed, the blackness allowed us both to feel comfortable in a way that’s not always the case in a public restaurant, where it’s easy to feel strangely observed or awkward. It might have been the ‘surprise cocktail’ (which tasted a lot like slightly jazzed up vodka and orange juice), but I found myself discussing more personal topics than I think I’d have felt comfortable doing in an average setting.

The meal was, if nothing else, surprising. Instead of choosing your food, you’re instead given a tasting menu, told to pick the number of courses, one of three menus – red (meat), blue (fish), or green (vegan/vegetarian), and inform your waiter of any dietary requirements. With no way of seeing what you’re getting, you have to put complete trust in your chef and simply tuck in, with no knowledge of what it is you’re about to taste. We opted for three courses, both slightly apprehensive of what we were letting ourselves into, but we shouldn’t have been worried. Although I can’t fully disclose the secret of what we actually ate (which is revealed to you at the end of the experience), it featured a range of ingredients, from perfectly cooked lamb to possibly the best sticky-toffee-style cake I have ever tasted. Even my friend, who can be quite picky, was completely satisfied with his meal. It’s clear that the restaurant does not just rely on the gimmick of eating in the dark, but puts effort into creating a delicious culinary experience, too. I did feel, though, that the inability to see the food, whilst providing a fun novelty experience, removed a layer of pleasure that comes from seeing food of such high quality.

Overall, Dans Le Noir was a meal like I’ve never had before, and I’m very glad that I had the experience. That being said, I don’t think I’d go again: although I could just about justify spending a scary amount of money as a celebration of my friend’s 21st birthday, you could, it has to be admitted, probably get food that was just as good for about half the price. You are paying extra for the experience of eating in the dark, ultimately a novelty rather than something that truly improved the experience. I would encourage you all to go with an open mind, and the realization that eating in the dark is an entirely different experience to what you might have imagined.

Kate Tempest: the protest voice of a generation

0

“The whole thing’s becoming/Such a bumbling farce/Was that a pivotal historical moment/We just went stumbling past?”

Not enough people have heard of Kate Tempest. These words come from the final track, ‘People’s Faces’, in her latest album released in 2019, The Book of Traps and Lessons. After a difficult year, rounding off an even harder decade for so many people in our country and around the world, Tempest deserves to be listened to.

On Twitter (the glorious yet grizzly child of the 2010s) I read a Tweet about how ‘boomers’ criticise today’s music, accusing it of all being the same, about sex, money or drugs. Yet when Stormzy commented on the prevalence of racism in the UK, in the words of Tempest herself, this same generation got their ‘hackles up’ and attacked him rather than listen to what he was trying to say.

Despite the opinions held by older generations, there are plenty of artists nowadays who both through their music and their actions make statements about the many flaws, faults and fracture-lines of modern society, and Tempest is surely one of the most underrated. In 2016, the spoken-word artist and poet released an album entitled Let Them Eat Chaos which was nominated for a Mercury Prize the following year.

“Europe is Lost, America lost, London lost,” Tempest warns, before continuing later in the same song, “The water level’s rising! The water level’s rising! The animals, the elephants, the polar bears are dying! Stop crying, start buying, but what about the oil spill? Shh, no one likes a party pooping spoil sport.” In this song, ‘Europe is Lost’, as in so many of her others, Tempest tackles not the specifics, but the broader shifts and worrying patterns that she witnesses in the world. Consumerism, materialism, the climate crisis, political lies, hypocrisy, and inequality; these issues and many more are tackled head on by the artist, producing some of the most powerful and provocative music I’ve ever listened to.

For those entering 2020 wishing they knew more about what’s going on in the world, my advice would be to take the time to listen to Kate Tempest. Whilst the 24-hour news agenda constantly flows, trends on Twitter come and go, and breaking news alerts pop up on your screen, away from all of this is Tempest. Her lyrics and activism focus on the bigger picture that is too often missed in this day and age. My second piece of advice would be to listen to The Book of Traps and Lessons from start to finish and in order; Tempest’s work is so engaging, so demanding, that it deserves your full attention. Listen to it on a long train journey, in the bath, or before bed.

In a crowded market in a crowded world, Tempest is truly unique; her style is a gripping fusion of spoken-word, poetry and rap, her voice seemingly so close to the microphone that you hear the inflections of pain, anger, sorrow and hope in every line. ‘Hold Your Own’, the seventh track on the album, is perhaps the most powerful four minutes of music I have ever listened to:

Tempest begins, “But/When time pulls lives apart – hold your own/When everything is fluid and nothing can be known with/Any certainty/Hold Your Own.”

“Nothing you can buy will ever make you more whole/This whole thing thrives on us feeling always incomplete.”

Some music uplifts you, sometimes it merely compounds your misery; yet The Book of Traps and Lessons forces you to follow every line – listening to Tempest is not a passive experience, rather, it is an active provocation of your emotions and intellect. Further, Tempest encourages you to stop and reflect; “I know the days are reeling past in such squealing blasts/But stop for breath and you will know it’s yours.” Her music (as well as her collections of poetry) resoundingly resonates with those issues which society in 2020 has inherited from our failures to learn from previous decades.

In ‘Brown Eyed Man’ Tempest laments, “I’m a child of the Gimme-More nation/When they want something they launch an occupation.”

We can all learn a lot from what Tempest has to say, least of all our leaders, and with the looming turmoil and conflict that threatens to bring only more suffering to the Middle East, they could benefit from listening to these words from ‘Lessons’:

“You would think/That over time/Our lessons would be learned/But time and time again we find/Our lessons have/Returned.”

I suppose the appeal of Tempest to me (a listener who usually leans towards old and slow music, think The Carpenters) is that in an odd sort of way, her music provides the perfect justification for my degree – history and politics. She comments on and warns us about falling for the same traps today because we failed to learn our lessons when we encountered them yesterday.

As we start a new decade that began with Twitter falling into a meltdown about #WW3 in just three days, Traps and Lessons reminds us of the importance of preventing ourselves, when interacting with society, from being dragged into the suffocating centrifuge of 24-hour news and media storms in teacups. Whilst there are a multitude of artists providing important contributions to political and social debates within society, no one strikes an arrow to the core of the message quite like Tempest, and so it is appropriate to end with words from the same track with which I began, ‘People’s Faces’.

“But it’s hard to accept that we’re all one and the/Same flesh/Given the rampant divisions between oppressor/And oppressed/But we are though/More empathy/Less greed/More respect.”