Friday, May 16, 2025
Blog Page 591

Fun or fake?

Simon Hunt
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Fun or fake?

I’m not going to question whether student politics is good fun, because for a lot of people it obviously is. What I do believe, however, is that people who find student politics the most fun are the worst possible candidates for a future political career.

There are those who find student politics exceedingly fun, and there are those who will go on to become political leaders, and I think it would be best for us all if membership of the two groups never overlaps. I’m talking entirely from personal experience here, but on the basis of discussions I’ve had with those who are involved in student political societies, they are invariably people who don’t personally stand to gain or lose from their own local politics.

Living in a sleepy village or a nice part of town where there are little in the way of serious political issues besides rates of rubbish collection, the politically minded naturally turn to national and international issues to quench their thirst for intellectual debate. If, however, they live in a place where there is crime, poverty and serious inequality on their doorstep, then finding solutions to these questions naturally requires more urgent attention than discussions on geopolitical matters, which just seem remote and alien.

For these people, the student debating chamber is thus more like a pantomime than it is a place to have a proper debate: the levity with which political matters are treated feels so unwarranted. Eccentricity in Oxford’s student societies once stood for those people who defended fringe viewpoints but with laudable precision and dexterity. The kind with whom you wouldn’t really agree but who possessed such conviction and determination to resolve some real injustice that you had great admiration for them.

Eccentricity these days stands for those students who don’t have particularly interesting views or thoughts – and they might effortlessly change from week to week – but who like to dress in a funny way, they enjoy wearing silly bow ties and other quaint clothing. Decades ago, it was almost a requirement of a successful political career that it began at a university, in a student political club or association. Nowadays, it’ll likely count against you, which is a good thing in my view.

People don’t want plastic politicians with identical histories as former student politicians. What people do want are those who are interested in politics, not in the sense of it being the object of intellectual curiosity, but rather because they are strongly motivated – perhaps because of personal experience – by perceived injustices that they would like to make a personal contribution towards rectifying. And those people are hard to come by in student political clubs and debating societies.

They do exist at Oxford however, but they’re already out there solving problems and improving things, not talking about them over a glass of port. They are already making a difference, raising money for charity, helping to tackle problems in their communities, supporting those around them and fighting for those who don’t have a voice. They aren’t interested, perhaps not even capable, of wrestling with the weighty intellectual issues which are announced as motions in debating societies. But the work that they are doing is equipping them for successful future political careers far better than any number of hours of student politics could do. Student politics can and should be fun, but let’s not pretend it’s a dress rehearsal for real life.

Prelude to war or diplomatic overture?

Lara von der Brelie
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Prelude to war or diplomatic overture?

Tensions continue to rise amid a deteriorating economic situation in Iran and a build-up of US military equipment in the Middle East. Predictions for the future, however, remain polarised. Some argue that the current friction will come to nothing. Pointing to the similarities between President Donald Trump’s relations with North Korea and Iran, some suggest that a diplomatic breakthrough may be on the cards. Refusal by either side to back down and engage in discussions, however, has led others to predict that war is becoming an inevitability.

Both views are misplaced. The situation is more volatile today than it was during the crisis with North Korea. Personal grudges, clashing ideologies, and political pressures narrow the potential for compromise. The stakes, however, are also arguably much higher. The involvement of the vital strategic and political interests of both sides means that a full-blown war will not be allowed to happen.

Relations between the United States and Iran have been strained since the 1950s. Despite these tensions, in 2015 Iran reached an agreement with six countries, including the US, to limit its enrichment of uranium in return for the removal of sanctions placed on it by other countries.

In May 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The sanctions he has since reinstated on Iran have caused triple digit inflation and massive reductions in the value of its oil exports. Economic hardship has in turn led to conservative criticism of President Hasan Rouhani’s decision to enter into the JCPOA in the first place.

On May 8th of this year, Iran gave the remaining countries in the JCPOA sixty days to come up with a way of protecting Iranian oil sales from US sanctions. If China, Russia and the EU states fail to find a solution, it has threatened to suspend its restrictions on uranium enrichment and halt the redesigning of its heavy-water reactor.

Some commentators have predicted a similar alleviation in tensions between Trump and Rouhani as occurred between North Korea and the US.

There are certainly commonalities between the two crises. Then as now John Bolton very publicly pushed for America to take an aggressive stance towards a so-called threat. Writing in the Wall Street Journal a month before becoming National Security Adviser, he argued that it would be “perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first.”

Why is this situation different? In February 2018, John Bolton had little in the way of formal power; it would be another month before he ascended to the position of National Security Advisor.

But tensions between the US and Iran run much deeper. On the American side, many individuals with personal bones to pick are involved. Bolton has openly professed his dislike for Iran since his time in the Bush administration. As a profoundly Christian Zionist, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s views run counter to Iran’s bellicose attitude towards Israel. Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric could not be more at odds with Iran’s conservative Islamist government.

From the Iranian perspective, the government has little reason to trust the US. The Americans have a long history of improper involvement in Iran, including the CIA’s 1953 instigation of a coup against their democratically elected Prime Minister, as well as its role in the Iran-Contra affair. Both ensure that Iranian hatred for the Americans runs deep.

The weakened position of the moderates in Iran’s government also limits the potential for discourse. Calls for dissent and withdrawal from the nuclear agreement grow ever louder among Iran’s conservatives. Rouhani’s promise that the JCPOA would bring economic prosperity was overconfident and short-lived. Growing scepticism regarding the President’s foreign policy will thus severely limit his potential for conciliation with the US.

Does this mean war? Probably not.

The threat to oil and gas facilities in the Persian Gulf will likely make even the most hawkish policymaker think twice before acting. A war with Iran would also give it free reign to attack Israel, an American ally.


Wanting to maintain its soft power in the region, the US will not attempt a direct intervention in Iran. A more realistic prediction for the future is a series of proxy wars between the two states. Indirect conflict between Iranian backed militias and US or Israeli armed forces will intensify in countries such as Syria if relations remain in deadlock. More drastically, however, failure to limit the impact of crippling US sanctions could cause Iran to withdraw from the nuclear agreement. This would mean an end to international oversight on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

What seems increasingly clear is that the US is out to pick a fight. Pompeo took the provocative step in April of listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organisation. Yet a recent statement by the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Syria argued that the threat from Iranian-backed forces had not increased. That Iran’s alleged “troubling escalatory measures” may just be an excuse for American neoconservatives to reassert their position in the Middle East seems likely. The question now is whether the US will succeed in entrenching its influence in the region. If it doesn’t, a miscalculation from either side could lead to unintended conflict.

“Black students don’t apply to Oxbridge because of a deficit of hairdressers”

E.M Ayovunefe
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“Black students don’t apply to Oxbridge because of a deficit of hairdressers”

So, you’ve found yourself outraged by an intentionally provocative headline about race and Oxbridge. Welcome, friend. Join me in suckling at the nourishing teat of rage. Let it sustain you.

So, before we begin, the facts as they are: Professor Graham Virgo, Cambridge University Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, conducted interviews with Black Cambridge undergraduates and sixth-form students, so as to better understand the obstacles they faced in applying to Cambridge, and to inform the university’s approach to access work in the African and Caribbean communities. Number three on the list was the shortage of Afro-Caribbean hairdressers in Cambridge, after “not having enough money,” and “not fitting in.” Still with me? Good. Let’s unpack this.

The deliberate sensationalisation which seems always to accompany the discussion of race, of university students, and of academia more generally, is here coalesced into a perfect storm, cannon fodder for The Telegraph. The article is a calculated and cynical minimisation of the anxieties of current and potential Black university students, which bypasses the latest strike in the press’s war against “snowflake” students and identity politics, seeking to depict the very modest and reasonable expectation that my university town might have somewhere I could get a f**king haircut as ridiculous and entitled.

The dearth of Afro-Caribbean hairdressers in a university town signals to would-be students that the town just doesn’t have that many Black residents. A barometer of cultural inaccessibility and alienation for Black students, a lack of hairdressers is but one symptom of broader concerns regarding the need for a cultural infrastructure or community that can support Black students in the race-related issues they may (let’s be honest here, will) encounter during their studies.

Whatever it actually means, it is as reductive to discourses on access to dismiss the very valid concerns of those applying to university as it is lazy for Cambridge University to blame Black students for the failure of their own outreach efforts. The Telegraph elected to report at length on the apparent absurdity of choosing not to apply to Cambridge based on the proximity of a barbershop, rather than anxieties surrounding finances and fitting in as a Black student in an overwhelmingly white institution. In doing so, they threw away an opportunity to facilitate a meaningful and productive discussion of the structural and institutional obstacles which deter Black students from applying to the country’s top universities.

Full disclosure: I travel to Brixton to get my hair done. I’ve had one barber my entire life, and I don’t intend to change that. I also know several people, from a variety of ethnic groups, who at seventeen years old decided against applying to Oxford or Cambridge simply because it wasn’t a university environment which, in their eyes, reflected the demography of the multicultural and inclusive towns they’d grown up in. To pretend as if academic concerns are the only factors which influence university applications is absurd, as absurd as it is to paint Black students as unreasonable for having the temerity to consider non-academic concerns when making their application.

They might not be able to populate their respective towns with barbershops, but if Oxford and Cambridge want to prove themselves truly committed to diversifying their student populations, they need to come good on the promises to which they have publicly committed themselves, and start asking present and future Black students not just “where do we err?” but “how do we change?”

While I’m inclined to, for the time being at least, reserve all judgements, I must also ask of Oxford whether it is an institution that fundamentally wants to improve itself. I sometimes wonder whether Oxford doesn’t half revel in the illusions of mystique and grandeur it’s built up for itself over the last nine centuries, and whether the university is willing to cast off some of the myths and traditions that so often dissuade the uninitiated from applying.

Should we cancel reality TV?

Deia Russell-Smith and James Cashman
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Should we cancel reality TV?

Deia Russell-Smith: Yes

Following the suspected suicide of a 62-year-old who appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show a few weeks ago and the death of two former Love Island contestants, the justifiability of reality TV has come into question.

Many have questioned how damaging reality television shows are for the contestants and viewers alike. The debate has attracted the likes of Katie Hopkins who, ironically, called into question the humanity of the effects of such shows on the lives of the British public.

The suicides of Love Island contestants Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon have highlighted the severe pressure that constant public scrutiny brings down on people, both male and female. The intense training programme before episodes air, the money spent on personal trainers, and sheer time in the gym have shown many fans that the body types presented on the show are far from real or sustainable. The intense and damaging norms that prevail on the Island advocate toxic masculinity and dumb femininity, leading Piers Morgan to brand the contestants “the stupidest people in the world.” The intense conditions on the show mean that few relationships last outside the confines of the villa; even this year’s beloved Jack and Dani barely made it past the six-month mark.

All these reasons for axing these shows are valid, yet cutting the shows is just the first step towards confronting the underlying trends that they have so vividly and disturbingly highlighted.

Reality TV is hardly the only place where suicide happens or people are under constant stress and scrutiny. The fact that someone dies from suicide every 90 minutes in the UK shows that television-related suicides receive wildly disproportionate media attention. Every suicide is tragic. In order to get to the root of the problem, we must take a long and hard look at how our obsession with perfection is reinforced by advertising, social media, and unrealistic body images. Lastly and most pressingly, we must consider the way that “reality” television presents and heightens reality itself.

Taking Love Island off television like Jeremy Kyle is just the tip of the iceberg. So much more needs to happen in order to prevent negative mental health and the ensuing deaths. The show has recently announced that it will try to ensure a more thorough aftercare process for this year’s contestants, raising hopes that some progress will be made. Nevertheless, however difficult it may seem, cutting such shows altogether may be a surer way to impact the lives of people positively.

More systemic solutions, however, are needed. The government needs to look closely at the implications of social media, negative advertising and television upon the lives of its citizens. Ultimately, the way to stop such suicides is to make our own reality less like the one reflected back from our screens.

James Cashman: No

I was taught, from a very young age, that life is about choices. You choose how much time you dedicate to a piece of homework, how you treat the person being bullied in your class, and how you conduct yourself in public situations. You rise and fall based on your choices.

In the same way, people choose to go onto The Jeremy Kyle Show. Guests are not randomly selected: this is not the Hunger Games. Guests know in advance that their personal lives will be laid bare to a national audience of one million people. They accept this risk and take the opportunity anyway. As former guest Dwayne Davison said on the radio recently, before he “basically texted” the show to ask to participate: “of course I knew what Jeremy Kyle was about.”

I feel dreadfully sorry for the man who recently took his own life after recording an episode. He must have been in a terrible emotional state and one can only sympathise.

However, one cannot take away his responsibility for going on the show. He was accused of infidelity by his fiancé but instead of seeking to challenge this accusation in private, he chose to confront it in front of the country. He must have known that whatever was said between himself and his partner, and whatever judgement the lie detector produced, would be broadcasted to millions.

I am not here to defend reality TV. I personally can’t stand it, and am especially dreading the imminent return of Love Island to our TV screens. I find it puerile and moronic. What I am here to defend, however, is the right of broadcasters to make such programmes, of people to consensually participate in them and of the viewer to watch them.

There seems to be a rather sinister and profoundly unhealthy culture of intolerance emerging. Instead of tolerating something that one finds uncomfortable, it is quite common now for a person to seek to suppress it. One can see this in the phenomenon of “trigger warnings” which accompany lectures and newspaper articles that contain “distressing” material, the idea being that the reader must be protected from uncomfortable feelings that may be aroused. It was thus correct, some argue, that ITV pulled The Jeremy Kyle Show because it aroused uncomfortable feelings in its guests.

As someone who has undergone therapy for clinical anxiety and depression, I can tell you that this idea is ridiculous. It suggests that the individual has no responsibility or agency, and is actually the opposite of what is required: someone suffering from an anxiety disorder must learn to weather difficult sensations in order to become more resilient for the future.

Life is difficult, and one must encounter difficult and distressing experiences and take responsibility for one’s actions. People who participate in reality TV shows do so with their eyes wide open and must deal with whatever is thrown their way. We cannot make their decisions for them.

The long read: the politics of Eurovision 2019

Joanne McNulty
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The long read: the politics of Eurovision 2019

For the third time in its history, the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Israel on Saturday 18th of May. This was the first time, however, that the contest took place in Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem, as Israeli officials had wished. Fearing that holding Eurovision in Jerusalem – a disputed territory with Palestine – would be in transgression of the contest’s ethos of apoliticism, the Eurovision Broadcasting Union (EBU) insisted – after much contention – that the contest be held in the undisputed city of Tel Aviv instead.

This was the first in a long list of conflicts between the EBU and the Israeli government and forms part of a wider controversy surrounding Israel’s hosting of the contest at all. In line with the rules of the contest, Israel, as last year’s winner, had the right to host this year’s edition – but activists from the pro-Palestine group Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) have argued that Israel should never have been allowed to host or even enter the competition in the first place.

The BDS movement has existed in official form since 2005 in response to a call from Palestinian NGOs to boycott Israeli products and cultural events until the end of what it describes as its “occupation” of Palestinian territory, likening the treatment of Palestinians in Israel to South African apartheid. The purpose of this article is not to come to a conclusion on the BDS movement and Israel-Palestine conflict as a whole, but rather to explore the arguments for and against boycotting Eurovision 2019 and the reasons for the overall failure of BDS’s boycott attempts. Tensions between the two countries, already high, have flared even further over the past few months, with Tel Aviv being the target of rocket strikes from Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insinuating that Arabs in Israel were second-class citizens, and children from both countries being killed in crossfire.

None of this was mentioned during the live broadcasts of the Eurovision Song Contest, which markets itself a pan-European cultural celebration – strictly apolitical, of course. The contest is a golden opportunity for host countries to boost their tourism industries, but also to promote and construct their national culture in the public imagination and to suppress criticism of their policies. Had Israel been allowed to host the contest in Jerusalem as officials originally wished, it would have formed part of a wider campaign in Israel to have Jerusalem recognized as the country’s official capital (and therefore to undermine the Palestinian claim to the city).

Slots in both the semi-finals and the final were put aside to include interval acts ostensibly representative of Israeli culture (Madonna’s shaky performance notwithstanding). For example, the inclusion of the Shalva Band, whose members are all disabled, as an interval act in the second semi-final suggests that Israel celebrates and is inclusive towards its disabled citizens. In reality, the country’s disability pension is less than half the minimum wage and the government has faced protests from a group calling themselves the Disabled Panthers – but viewers at home are highly unlikely to have been aware of this.

The contest’s frequent past associations with camp and the LGBT community additionally provided ample opportunity for countries to partake in a process known as ‘pinkwashing’, in which LGBT rights are foregrounded in order to mask the lack of human rights for other groups. This is not exclusive to Eurovision – part of Israel’s national branding has for a long time been its status as a kind of outpost of LGBT rights and tolerance surrounded by an otherwise hostile Middle East. The Eurovision Song Contest being hosted in Israel allows LGBT fans to actively participate in this process of ‘pinkwashing’ – as long as the contest remains a source of camp, LGBT-friendly entertainment, the uncomfortable realities behind the scenes can be safely ignored.

Even countries that are actively hostile to the LGBT community have been able to exploit its support for Eurovision. Hours before millions of viewers watched the final of the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russian police violently broke up the Moscow Pride parade. The hypocrisy of European audiences engaging in a fun cultural celebration while the war continues in the Gaza strip a few miles along the coast is one of the main arguments deployed by BDS in favour of a boycott of the contest. During the contest itself, gay host Assi Azar made multiple references to the acceptance of Israeli society of his sexuality, and transgender 1998 winner Dana International sang a cover of ‘Just the Way You Are’ accompanied with a kiss cam that included gay couples kissing.

BDS has fallen at every hurdle. Israel successfully hosted the contest, and though full viewing figures are yet to be released, in the UK viewing figures averaged 7 million, a small increase on the 6.9 million who tuned in in 2018. No nation decided to boycott the contest. Of the 43 countries who participated in Eurovision last year, 41 returned. The two withdrawing, Bulgaria and Ukraine, did so for unrelated reasons.

A petition to boycott the 2019 contest gained traction in Iceland, but the country’s broadcaster, RUV, ultimately announced its participation any way, and found enough acts willing to participate to hold a national final. Every country managed to find singers willing to perform in Tel Aviv, despite pressure from BDS. Pink Floyd founder and BDS activist Roger Waters went as far as addressing a personal letter to Conan Osiris, Portugal’s participant, urging him to withdraw. Osiris acknowledged receipt of the letter, but never directly responded.

What doomed BDS’s campaign against Eurovision from the start is the fact that according to the rules and ethos of the competition, Eurovision is officially strictly apolitical. It has its roots in the aftermath of the Second World War and was originally conceived as a means of bringing a divided continent together through the medium of light entertainment. To this end, the politicisation of the contest was strictly prohibited – the only thing that mattered was the enjoyment of music.

Whether a nation-based song contest can ever be apolitical is another matter – but the de jure apoliticism of the contest hamstrings any attempt at anything other than neutrality. The EBU would never revoke a country’s right to host because of its government’s actions. Every broadcaster must pay a fee to participate in the contest, under the assumption that should they win they gain the right to host the contest the following year. Were the EBU to revoke K AN’s (the Israeli broadcaster) right to host the 2019 contest, K AN would have grounds for a costly legal case against them. The BBC, meanwhile, could never have boycotted Eurovision 2019 because it is a state broadcaster and is therefore obliged to remain impartial. The same principle applies to most of the other participating broadcasters across Europe.

The contest is of course political. The very concept of a contest in which representatives of states compete against each other is already inherently political as it implies the recognition and existence of all states which participate – leading to problems for partially unrecognised states like Kosovo. Eurovision Asia, an event originally planned for 2018 by the EBU, was ultimately shelved because too many Asian states were diplomatically incompatible with one another to form a large enough cohort of participants.

Were Israel to be prevented from hosting the contest, it would not only be seen as the EBU ‘siding’ with Palestine, but also as the EBU denigrating Israel and its citizens. In a contest like Eurovision, which for one night a year delineates ‘European culture’, the importance of Jewish representation is obvious.

The continued participation of Israel in the contest ensures that that representation – and the inclusion of Jewish people in a cultural construction of ‘Europe’ – is guaranteed every year. Until 2015, all Israeli entries had to include Hebrew lyrics, and even after that songs like perpetual 2015 favourite ‘Golden Boy’ have mixed Mizrahi instrumentation and melodies with Western pop.

There have of course been several non-Israeli Jewish Eurovision contestants, but there are few of them, and their Jewishness is often entirely unnoticeable – often intentionally. Ukraine’s 2006 contestant Tina Karol – real name Tetyana Liberman – adopted her stage name specifically because she believed that her Jewish surname ‘held [her] back ’, while Can Bonomo, Turkey’s Sephardi 2012 contestant, faced anti-semitic abuse from the country’s right-wing press. Ideally, even a Eurovision without Israel would still contain a healthy amount of Jewish representation – but the fractured nature of the contest’s organisation and the discrimination that many Jewish artists face in their home countries make this unlikely.

The counterpoint to this is the question of who actually gets to be represented, as Jewish people are not the only citizens of Israel – around 25% of its population are from other religions, who are rarely represented in Israeli Eurovision entries. While numerous commentators have questioned whether the inclusion of Israel and Australia is indicative of the contest constructing European culture as explicitly white, the reality is slightly more complicated. Israel’s eligibility to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest does not stem from a selective ‘Europeanness’ conferred to them by the EBU – rather it is one of a number of Middle Eastern and North African states who lie within the European Broadcasting Area and are thus eligible to participate. The issue is that most of its eligible neighbour states – and the eligible states in North Africa – do not recognize Israel.

The Palestinian national broadcaster, PBC, faces even more obstacles – as it is not a member of the United Nations, it is ineligible to be a full member of the EBU and is therefore unable to participate in Eurovision. Any Palestinian representation in the Eurovision is therefore, paradoxically, only possible through Israel.

In the history of Israel’s 40 year participation at the Eurovision Song Contest, it has been represented by a Palestinian performer once – in 2009. The song in question was a duet with an Israeli Jewish singer titled ‘There Must Be Another Way’ – a ballad with a not-so-subtly masked plea for peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Though BDS supporters have argued that artists performing in Israel is tantamount to condoning the country’s policies, the Icelandic act – self-described ‘anti-capitalist BDSM techno band’ Hatari – decided to use its participation in the contest as a way of raising awareness about the Palestinian conflict. They criticized the Israeli government, stated that they were prepared for the EBU to disqualify them, and even challenged Netanyahu to a traditional Icelandic trouser wrestle. The band’s entry – Hatri mun Sigra, or ‘Hatred Will Prevail’ in English – imagines a nihilistic, dystopian future in which far-right populism succeeds. The song ultimately came in 10th place, Iceland’s best result in a decade. When their televoting score was announced, the band members unveiled scarves with the Palestinian flag on for the TV cameras to capture, prompting a roar of outrage from the audience.

Hatari’s outspokenness, however, may come at a price – at the time of writing the EBU was discussing the potential punishment, which could include fining RUV or even banning them from the contest. They also risked getting into legal trouble – after it was discovered that they had been among the signatories of the boycott petition to the Icelandic broadcaster, Israeli civil rights organization Shurat HaDin suggested that they had a case to bar the group from entering Israel. Publicly calling for a boycott of Israel violates the Entry into Israel Law, thus opening the door for the government to deny the band a visa. Though the band managed to enter Israel without issues, the very fact that a group can form a legal case against a participating Eurovision artist for their political views – which are not particularly radical – is worrying in itself.

BDS’s ultimate failure stems from their delay in organising a boycott attempt, waiting until every broadcaster had already confirmed participation before beginning to lobby them. By the time that a group of 50 British artists had signed a letter calling the contest to be moved in January, it was already far too late to do so. The only route left for BDS activists was the general public. But there is nothing that a boycott of viewers could have achieved other than reduced viewing figures. In previous contests that have been subject to boycott attempts – Russia 2009 and Azerbaijan 2012 – very little happened beyond the withdrawal of one or two countries, and the contest returned to business as usual in the following years.

Although a massive reduction in viewing figures would send a message to both the EBU and Israel that Israel’s hosting of the contest was not welcomed, it is unclear what would ever come from this. The EBU could not justifiably expel a country for delivering poor viewing figures, and any reaction to the figures from the Israeli government would be an attempt at rehabilitating Israel’s public image rather than any actual policy change. Israel will most likely participate again next year, and the controversy will be forgotten. If the UK’s viewing figures are anything to go by, this reduction in viewing figures will not happen.

Whilst the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest is now over, Israel’s participation in the contest along with several other countries like Russia and Azerbaijan will continue to be contentious, and we should not assume that the issues of politicization and cultural boycotts will not arise again. Nevertheless, despite the often contradictory nature of Eurovision’s commitment to apoliticism, it is not an ignoble goal. The image of Israel constructed by K AN is not necessarily analogous with the image of Israel that the Israeli government would like to construct, and celebrating Israeli culture is not the same as celebrating Israeli policy. Some viewers may believe that the contest’s unifying power even in the face of divisive politics is exactly what should be celebrated – others may believe that human rights abuses should never be ignored in any context.

The reality is that the case of Eurovision 2019 has demonstrated that without early and consistent coordination, boycott movements are largely ineffectual. The most effective form of protest – regardless of whether or not it was the noblest or actually showed the most solidarity with Palestine – was that espoused by Hatari, who engaged with the contest critically and exposed Eurovision as the inherently political event that it is.

Pots, Spice & Lunchbox: Jeong’s Dosirak

Ashley Lo
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Pots, Spice & Lunchbox: Jeong’s Dosirak

Often finding myself disappointed by the overpriced but unnecessarily dense sushi and cold Chinese platters outside Asia, Korean cuisine is my safe bet – one that doesn’t usually disappoint. Self-evidently, it’s almost impossible to mess up Korean food – get your gochujang right (or just buy it?), soak your meat, stack the kimchi and you are set to go with some quality Korean food. Sounds easy, right? At least, that’s what I’ve concluded from my Kfood haunting in a few cities, from Chicago, South Bend, Toronto, Taipei, London and, finally, to Seoul. There is a downside to this, however: it is equally difficult to make outstanding Korean dishes, be it bibimbap, bulgogi, or jjigae.

Curiously, Oxford, with such a high density of Thai restaurants, really only has two places that do Korean. I guess three if you include Pan-Pan, but I am suspicious of anything fusion – to put things in perspective, it’s like seeing a European restaurant that does Spanish style ravioli or Lyonnaise
tapas. Bamboo, with somewhat of a negative reputation despite being well hidden away in Cowley, has a suspiciously Chinese feel – an unfair impression, perhaps, after the owner’s wife decided to converse with me in fluent Mandarin. So that left me with Jeong’s Dosirak in the Covered Market.

I’ve been there for a few times because I love Korean food. It is tasty and spicy – not your wasabi spicy, your salsa spicy, or even your Sichuan spicy. It is our Korean spicy: kind of sweet, kind of hot, glides on the tongue, burns in the throat and sits in your stomach like a dying, gasping volcano.

For the first time, I got a Bibimbap, the Korean equivalent of pasta in Italian cuisine. It was standard: a well-mixed rice bowl with assorted vegetables and marinated beef. But since it didn’t come in a burning stone pot and hence was without the rice crust, I would say I still prefer the Bamboo version which, by the way, also comes with a fried egg on top. Always a win.

Then on a cold depressing day in January, I got the Kimchi Jigae (tofu and pork stew). A no brainer, right? The steaming soup and all that spiced up kimchi and tofu really warmed me up. Be careful not to dilute the stew with your tears because you will not stop guzzling even as you cry. The stone pot
also looks adorable.

On my third visit, I discovered my favourite: the Dakgalbi (spicy stir-fried chicken) Dosirak. Think marinated diced chicken smothered in a gochujang-based sauce with cabbage, sweet potatoes, and scallions in the hue of a flame, tenderly bathing in rice. Smells like heaven and tastes like devil. It is
attended by a multitude of sides which often include kimchi, japchae (glass noodles), eggroll, kimbap (sushi roll), each sitting in their tiny cells if you’re into the perfect aesthetic. There is a reason why this place is called Jeong’s Dosirak and not Jeong’s sweet chilli fried chicken, which I found way too soggy.

Although slightly pricier than the other eateries in the market, Jeong’s Dosirak comes with the best, though remarkably unkorean, wallpaper and (wooden!) tables; for less than 7 pounds, you can get a decent lunchbox or rice bowl. It is nutritious too: fibre, protein, carbs, no macro gets left behind. Did I mention you also get the good old kimchi, which, by the way, can prevent ageing and assist in weight loss? A downside, however, is that even when sitting inside, food is served in plastic containers. The portion, like the cute family business itself, was more petite than I am used to but
hey, less is more right? And as a Covered Market establishment, of course, it is only open until 5pm six days a week. Oh dear, do I wish I could enjoy its wholesomeness on a Sunday night in good old England.

Jeong’s ordinariness is what makes it so special, and I always find myself going back just for another hot spoonful of chicken or tofu. It’s the kind of restaurant we need: a little spicy, a little cosy.

Ted Bundy Reinvented

Rose Shohet
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Ted Bundy Reinvented

Joe Bertlinger’s Ted Bundy biopic, released to Sky Cinema on Friday, seemed to be just one more of the latest string of films blatantly cashing in on some of the most horrific series of murders in recent memory. Starring Zac Efron, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile had stirred up controversy upon its announcement for its very concept — fictionalising the attacks of an already notorious serial killer, with little compassion or attention given to the victims of the horrific tragedies. Whether these accusations hold up now that the film has been released, is up for debate. How accurate is Efron’s depiction of Bundy as a man of overpowering charisma? Is it ethical to convert true crime into fantasy at all, regardless of the way in which it is executed?

Bertlinger has had a 25-year career as a true crime documentarian. His 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills had a huge impact on the case he was examining, as the film exposed the wrongful conviction of the three teenagers interviewed, eventually helping them with their release from prison. The core message of his films, he says, is that we shouldn’t condemn people based on appearances; it is generally the people you would least expect who might be responsible for murder. Indeed, this formula may work for those who have been wrongfully convicted, but it is exactly this belief — that Bundy was not the kind of person you would expect to be a serial killer — that creates the central flaw in the way in which Bertlinger chose to portray the murderer. This problem was already prominent in the Netflix documentary about Bundy, Conversations With A Killer, also directed and produced by Bertlinger. Conversations falls into the trap of presenting Bundy ashaving the charming magnetism that he played into while in court, as opposed to the cowardly creep who was much less intelligent than he wanted the world to think he was. According to those who knew him, Bundy was a shy, reserved man who was relatively articulate, but hardly a genius. Diane Edwards, his first girlfriend, referred to him as being “pitifully weak” in an interview. His avoiding detection for so long was not due to his own mental acuity, but because of a lack of communication between police across the different states he committed the crimes in. Bundy is not the last person you’d expect to be a serial killer: in fact, his behaviour fits the profile of serial killer pretty accurately. This construction of a fantastical persona is not only an inaccurate rewriting of history, but also harmful to his victims. It encourages the myth of that Bundy had some sort of overwhelming magnetism, a lie which Bundy himself so clearly wanted to cultivate due to the notoriety it brought him. Similarly, despite Bertlinger’s best attempts to hone in on a murderer’s perspective via the material collected by journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, the interviews with Bundy himself revealed very little about what it was that caused him to commit what is believed to have been upwards of 30 brutal murders. Many of his explanations come across as aimless rambles. In the same way, Extremely Wicked’s recounting of the narrative from the perspective of his ex-girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer, fails to grasp the inconvenient mediocrity of Bundy’s true personality. Bertlinger’s argument that anyone can be a serial killer regardless of his outward appearance is effective in some instances. The opening montage effectively highlights the dichotomy between Bundy’s quotidian life with his girlfriend, while a voiceover with a newscast recounts the callous murders of countless women, creating a jarring juxtaposition. Nonetheless, Efron’s ability to convey the charm and charisma he displayed in court leads to his victims becoming mere footnotes. It becomes increasingly infuriating to watch. It is unclear throughout whether he actually committed these crimes. As Sam Adams mentioned in his Slate review of the biopic, “if you wanted to make a movie about a jovial law student named Ted Bundy who was unfairly accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable, you could reuse 90% of the footage without changing a thing.” When the evidence piled against him is so irrefutable, the lack of attention the film gives to these actual crimes makes for an incredibly uneasy viewing experience. Thus, while the biopic remains as factually accurate as it could possibly be, the angle it takes is one which makes it difficult to defend. There are so many aspects of the Ted Bundy case which would make for a fascinating biopic. What made Carole Anne-Boone stand by him during trial, despite all the evidence that was so piled up against him? How much did Bundy benefit from white privilege during his time in court, where the audience would laugh along with his jokes despite the gravity of the case against him? What were the wider implications of Bundy’s conviction, as people started to become aware that serial killers were not a removed danger, but could be living anywhere within society? The fantasy that Bundy possessed some sort of irresistible charm and magnetism, however, is not one of them.

‘We can still be friends’: Thoughts about my Exes

Cherwell Life
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‘We can still be friends’: Thoughts about my Exes

I first realised I was a teeny bit in love when I heard “The Winner Takes It All” playing on the radio, and I got terribly upset at the thought of being dumped by my girlfriend. Very twee of me. And rather inconvenient, since I’d caught feelings in the middle of A-Levels: I even skived off revising the Third Crusade in order to lose my virginity. But in my defence, I’d never felt that way before. Oh, there’d been other people. From fumbled schoolboy kisses in the bike shelters after crappy discos to teenage dates in art galleries (pretending to be rather more cultured than I am) I’d had my fair share. But this was my first proper girlfriend. More than that, despite the cliché, this was the first person I’d really fallen for. I couldn’t get her out of my head. She was in the place where Saladin and Richard the Lionheart should have been.  Dearest reader, I was a happy young fool; a happy young fool in what Hollywood calls lurve.

So with that experience, I have sufficient authority to say that that whoever it was that first said it was better loving and losing someone than never loving them at all was talking right out of their arse.

Obviously, she dumped me. Her reasoning was perfectly justifiable, and she was very sensible about it. I nodded along, agreed when she said we’d still be friends, and left amicably. Once I got home, I  preceded to crank up the ABBA and start crying. My Dad tried to perk me up a bit – “son, in life, you go out with lots of people, they break up with you, until there’s one person that doesn’t” – but it didn’t work. I was far more interested in being morose than moving on. I’m a humanities student, so being a tortured romantic (and Romantic) has a natural appeal. However, I was much less Percy Shelley, and much more a bit of a moron. I haven’t talked to her since. 

It’s been different with Girlfriend 2. Mainly that’s because we can’t afford to avoid each other. Short version is: friends, went out, split up. But since we’re at the same college, with the same friends, asides from ostracising ourselves from society, we’ve had to find a way to get along. She’s been much better at in than me. I was far too mopey and shy, whereas she toughed it out and is now doing better than ever. I wasted a term being an idiot, made the blood a lot more bad than I should have done, and was – once again – a bit of a moron. 

Which is sad, because she was lovely. Genuinely lovely. We got along like a house on fire. She cared for me, and made me smile like no one I’ve ever known. I royally cocked it up, and got depressed about it. I knew I’d let her down and shot myself in the foot. So I’ve resolved to do better this term. Not to get back together with her – both agreed that shouldn’t and won’t ever happen – but just to get along. 

Admittedly, mixed results so far. We’ve had a chat, and I can look her in the eye again. I even made her laugh recently, which felt brilliant. Baby steps, but I think we’ll be alright. 

Because it seems obvious to me that if you like someone enough to date, then you like them enough to spend time together, ask them about their day and make sure they’re doing alright. It can be tough (especially if you’re a sad sod like me). But much like Avengers: Endgame, it makes sense in hindsight. You can wonder what might have been, why it all went wrong, and curse the fact that Ross and Rachel made it look way too easy. But if you can be happy for them, if you can smile when they mention their date that night, or laugh together the way that only friends can, then things will work out okay. 

I really hope I can get there with my second ex. Truly. Especially as she was much nicer person, in hindsight, than my first one. I fell in love because I was young, foolish and, surprise, a bit of a moron. Oh well. Provides good copy, if nothing else.   

Unbelieva-ball

Alex Melling
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Unbelieva-ball

As Trinity term begins, so does ball season at Oxford. No doubt a great deal of students are looking forward to this much-appreciated reprieve from studying (and stressing out over not studying), especially when many of us have exams, but is this the case for everyone?

There is an undeniable air of sophistication around the idea of a ball, and it’s always nice to immerse yourself in that every once in a while, but at a lot of universities, Oxford in particular, these balls breed elitism and the very class-divide that the university is supposed to be trying to quell. This may sound like an attack on something very well-intentioned and just generally enjoyable, but selectively enjoyable things that exclude certain people on the grounds of wealth and social upbringing need to be reformed.

Unlike a lot of things at Oxford, balls are not an exclusive tradition, and other universities do it too. Perhaps this makes it more acceptable, considering that wherever you go, there will probably be a ball and it sure won’t be free. However, the average cost of a ball ticket at St. Andrew’s, another old, prestigious university, is £35. The ‘cheapest’ ball ticket at Oxford ranges around the £85-£90 price tag, usually increasing in price for extra privileges, such as a meal or some free drinks.

Oxford may be one of the best universities around the world, but if we pay the same as everyone else for tuition, why can’t we pay the same for entertainment? St. Andrews can pull off balls that are just as good as ours, so why are they over double the price here? Oxford as an institution has grown comfortable with cutting out certain groups of people in the past, but that by no means makes it an acceptable practice in the present.

I knew well before I arrived at Oxford that I would not be going to any balls. The money that I would have to put into attending even one would set me back far more than I deem it worthy to spend a night in a suit drinking cocktails. This is the reality for a lot of students here, and it makes one lose faith in the promises that the university has made to iron out elitism and make the university accessible and enjoyable to everyone, regardless of background.

This is hardly something I lose sleep over, but what I didn’t know was that I would be made a fuss of for not going. As a result, I must vacate my room for the night of the college ball, which ultimately I see as an insult. Do they think I’m going to try and sneak into the ball? Maybe that has happened before, maybe they have to take precautions, but nevertheless, being moved to a different building for a night feels like an attack on my decision (that essentially wasn’t much of a decision) to not go to a ball. I would have been happy to stay in my room all night and not be a disturbance; I take this action as a lack of trust and a disrespect to my reasons for not attending.

It also serves as a physical separation of students that is centred around their financial background – I know that some people won’t be going simply because they don’t want to, but for those without a choice this feels very much like a physical manifestation of the class separations that Oxford is supposed to be fighting against. Going to such lengths to make sure a person cannot be included in something feels very wrong to me, and perhaps the university instead should be going to these lengths to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be included.

In all honesty, I wish I didn’t have to sound like I am trying to stop anybody from having fun and making the most out of their time at university, yet it seems unfair for certain types of enjoyment to be exclusively for those with the money. Yes, I am aware that essentially that’s how life works, but when there is an opportunity to avoid this, why wouldn’t anyone take it, especially at a university that is as wealthy as this? It almost feels like the poorer students are being punished for their financial situation – colleges and the university as an institution offer great financial support for people who are really struggling, but there is no way to justify needing a bursary on the grounds of unacademic, entertainment-based activities, and even if there was, it simply doesn’t feel right to be having to take this money for something like a ball, which should already be accessible to all. 

The future of Oxford is the hands of its students – it’s our responsibility to decide whether to cast off old, elitist traditions and move towards a place of equity, or continue along a path of financial discrimination that crops up in places that the institution seems to overlook. So let’s do the right thing.

Review: At Eternity’s Gate

Amber Sidney-Woollett
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Review: At Eternity’s Gate

It is worth watching At Eternity’s Gate for Julian Schnabel’s mesmerising cinematography alone. This new biopic of Vincent van Gogh, with the titular character played by William Dafoe, is rich with contextual information about the painter’s life and explores the profound bond he shared with his younger brother Theo, as portrayed by Rupert Friend. It also examines, in great detail, his history of mental illness and the blackouts he experienced during his worst psychotic breaks.

Dafoe honours our cultural memory of this artist and provides us with a perspective on the man as much as the artist. Though prone to violent outbreaks, such as the shocking scene when van Gogh screamed at a group of French children and chased them across a field, van Gogh is largely presented as a gentle-giant, at his happiest with a paint-brush in his hand. One of the aspects which surprised me the most was the kind of hero-worship which characterised the relationship between Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) and van Gogh – at least as portrayed by the film – as van Gogh was left heartbroken at his friend’s decision to leave ‘him’ (as he viewed it) and cut off his own ear, ostensibly to gift it to his fellow painter, not to a prostitute as pop culture has suggested.

In March 1886, van Gogh, moved from Antwerp to live with his brother Theo, thus heralding the beginning of his famous ‘Paris Years,’ until February 1888. It was under his brother’s guidance that Van Gogh became a member of the group of young avant-garde artists experimenting with new styles, attending the eighth and final exhibition of the French Impressionists work in Paris that same year. The Impressionists and the colour theories of Chevreul helped to alter his style which was to become still freer. Van Gogh’s original work was nurtured by Gauguin whose disregard for the conventional methods of painting forged a strong friendship between the two of them. Despite the exaggerated presentation of van Gogh as a kind of Messiah-figure the film beautifully showcases the French countryside and the layer of ‘fairy dust’ which has been scattered across this motion picture renders it the more poignant if anything.

The time which van Gogh spent committed to the Saint-Remy sanatorium was intercut with shots of him in conversation with his doctor, portrayed by Mathieu Amalric, whose eyes regularly fill with tears at the suffering this artist experiences. The ending of the film, with van Gogh’s prolonged death, is emotional – as is to be expected, and left me a little tearful. However, I do cry a lot so this might not be the best indicator of the film’s emotional impact. Schnabel follows the new cinematic trend in portraying van Gogh’s death as a tragic accident, as accepted by the recent animation Loving Vincent, offering the less critically acclaimed version of the events surrounding his death.

A film like this did not need to be produced, of course, the easiest way to understand an artist is always through their actual work. But I’m glad it was. It is a powerful portrayal of an artist who has always suffered under our misconceptions of him; then as now. One cannot help but think that van Gogh would be appalled by his fantastic immortalisation and would struggle to believe that one of his paintings could now sell for hundreds of millions of pounds. Van Gogh was a man of simple tastes, wanting only money for his painting equipment and food. The scenes where van Gogh wanders through the French countryside, breathing in the air as if it is the only thing keeping him sane and alive, feel very pertinent today for a world consumed by the excess and trappings of luxury. Like van Gogh, we too should go back to basics and strip away the learned fantasy, drawing upon what we know to be true within ourselves.

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