Monday, April 28, 2025
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Oxford says “No!” to Katie Hopkins

Cherwell News
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Oxford says “No!” to Katie Hopkins

Students demonstrated outside the Oxford Union on Thursday in response to far-right activist Katie Hopkins’ invitation to speak that evening.

Hopkins was speaking against the motion “This House supports no-platforming.” She was debating alongside former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe and columnist Toby Young.

Around 50 protesters and police gathered outside the entrance to the Oxford Union before the debate, chanting “Shame on you!” as people entered the building. There were also two pro- Hopkins counter-protesters present.

Cherwell also understands that a student protesting the event was arrested by police of cers and taken into custody. One onlooker claimed that, “someone threw a milkshake at a counter- protester… and was arrested by the police.”

The protest was organised as part of the “Boycott the Oxford Union” campaign. The campaigners also wrote an open letter to the Union calling for them to stop inviting racist and fascist speakers. They wrote: “This is a woman whose hateful views, including comments di- rected at refugees, migrants, Jews, Muslims, the mentally ill and the LGBTQ+ community have led to her being red from LBC Radio. Last year, she was detained in South Africa on the charge of spreading racial hatred.”

They continued: “In January 2019, the Oxford Union played host to Marion Marechal Le Pen, former National Assembly representative for the far-right political party National Rally (formerly known as the Front National). She has accused the Muslim community in France of being aligned with terrorist groups and has repeatedly defended the claim that Muslims are a ‘treach- erous third column’. She has also made frequent hateful statements about France’s LGBTQ+ community and other oppressed groups.

“We call upon the Oxford Union to immediately cease hosting fascists and racists and to remove videos of the following fascist and/or racist speakers from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.

“Until this happens, and until the institution ceases to appease fascists and openly enable the online radicalisation of far-right terrorists, we pledge to boycott all Oxford Union events.”

Before the debate, an elderly woman was escorted off the Union premises for shouting at Hopkins. She was reported as saying “Fascism is not dead.”

The Labour MP Naz Shah was due to speak in support of the motion, but pulled out of the debate the day before the event.

Although Shah has not publicly stated the reason for her decision, according to an email sent to Katie Hopkins by The Guardian and shared by Hopkins on social media, the politician withdrew from the debate because of Hopkins’ participation. She was replaced by the 12th elected Secretary’s Committee member from St Peter’s, Jack Solomon.

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “I am very disappointed that Naz Shah MP has dropped out of our No Platforming Debate at such a late stage.

“We have been in contact since the 11th March 2019 and although the speakers for this debate have been public knowledge since the 24th April, she only expressed her unwillingness to speak opposite Ms Hopkins yesterday.

“I think it is a great shame that instead of debating Ms Hopkins in our chamber Ms Shah has decided to not participate altogether and I am sure that many of our members will also be deeply disappointed by this.

“Far from providing either Ms Hopkins or Ms Shah with a platform, the format of our debates is such that any speaker can be held to account either through challenges from the audience or points of rebuttal from other speakers.

“Ms Hopkins will be delivering an eight- minute in speech in this debate as one of eight speakers including Ann Widdocombe [sic] MP and Chief Justice Robert French AC and anyone in the audience will, as is tradition, have the opportunity to challenge any of our speakers on either side of the motion.”

Three of those who were invited to speak at the debate have publicly rejected the Union’s invitation, criticising Hopkins’ invitation and the nature of the motion.

Matthew Feldman, who directs the

Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, responded to the organising committee’s invitation saying: “I refuse to appear on a stage with radical right activists, irrespective of forum.

“This is because I believe, following Popper, that tolerating intolerance is an avoidable danger for liberal democracies – especially in a multicultural society – and giving racists a platform is not something I’m willing to countenance.

“I hope this sole condition is acceptable to you and thank you again for the humbling offer to debate in your esteemed chamber.”

Historian Evan Smith also rejected an invitation to participate in this week’s de- bate, replying to the Union: “Thank you for your email and the invitation to debate at the Oxford Union. However, given the long history of previous invitations extended to racists and fascists by the Oxford Union, I must decline your invitation.”

Smith was not aware of Hopkins’ invitation at the time, but told Cherwell that he supported the new boycott campaign.

Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal, who was also unaware of Hopkins’ invitation at the time, rejected the Oxford Union’s invitation, replying by email with a criticism of the motion: “Thank you very much for this. I am afraid I must decline: I don’t like set piece debates on crude motions like this.

“They militate against any form of nuanced argument which, in any case, are always contextually made, not blanket injunctions.”

After the Union’s decision to invite Hopkins was revealed by Cherwell, Gopal wrote on Twitter: “Recently I turned down an invitation from the Oxford Union Soc. They wanted me to speak for the inanely & tendentiously phrased motion, This House Believes in No Platforming. How silly. Now it turns out they’ve invited hardcore racism-monger and bilious bigot, Katie Hopkins.

“One real problem with both Union soci- eties historically is that they don’t seem to understand that debate isn’t a stupid mat- ter of being For or Against Something. This isn’t party politics and it isn’t a school-boys game.

“Fascists kill. Racists kill. Misogynists kill.

“Anyway, all of which is to say that I am now speaking in favour of the motion to boycott the Oxford Union Soc until they re- consider the value of offering platforms for spouting rank bigotry and extermination- discourse. I call on others to do so as well. This is not a game.

“I also call on both Union societies to stop peddling an infant’s idea of debate and free speech, and to start acting as mature institutions in academic contexts with a serious commitment to freedom of inquiry –which is meaningless if it is not combined with commitment to truth.”

She continued: “It wouldn’t matter what two silly little privileged university clubs did–but unfortunately, they are in fact a pipeline to Parliament & that asinine posh boy (and girl) braying that afflicts that mode of discussion, and therefore national politics–which has consequence for us.”

Hopkins was reported by those who attended to have made a notably controversial speech at the Union debate.

The speech, which was in opposition to the motion, included such statements as: “Now I’m basically Mussolini, and I’m alright with that. I’m comfortable with who I am.”

She was also reported to have said, “Boycott the Oxford Union’s aim was to get vegan and associated unemployables to boycott this place” and “Jihadis are meant to blow themselves up to get 72 virgins, which is more than exists in the whole of Oxford.”

In addition to these comments, Hopkins also told one Oxford graduate student who questioned her views: “Darling, you’re not hot.”

Hopkins is the most recent in a series of controversies around speakers at the Oxford Union. Marion Marechal Le Pen and Steve Bannon attracted significant numbers of protesters as well  as condemnation from the City Council.

Naz Shah and Katie Hopkins have been contacted for comment.

Shadow Minister withdraws from Union debate over Hopkins’ participation

Angus Brown
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Shadow Minister withdraws from Union debate over Hopkins’ participation

Labour Shadow Minister Naz Shah has withdrawn from this evening’s Oxford Union debate on no-platforming this evening amidst calls for a boycott of the Union and planned protests.

Although Shah has not publicly stated the reason for her decision, according to an email sent to Katie Hopkins by The Guardian and shared by Hopkins on social media, the politician has withdrawn from the debate because of Hopkins’ participation.

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “I am very disappointed that Naz Shah MP has dropped out of our No Platforming Debate at such a late stage. We have been in contact since the 11th March 2019 and although the speakers for this debate have been public knowledge since the 24th April, she only expressed her unwillingness to speak opposite Ms Hopkins yesterday.

“I think it is a great shame that instead of debating Ms Hopkins in our chamber Ms Shah has decided to not participate altogether and I am sure that many of our members will also be deeply disappointed by this. 

“Far from providing either Ms Hopkins or Ms Shah with a platform, the format of our debates is such that any speaker can be held to account either through challenges from the audience or points of rebuttal from other speakers.

“Ms Hopkins will be delivering an eight-minute in speech in this debate as one of eight speakers including Ann Widdocombe [sic] MP and Chief Justice Robert French AC and anyone in the audience will, as is tradition, have the opportunity to challenge any of our speakers on either side of the motion.”

Shah’s decision to take part in the debate follows the creation of a campaign group calling for a boycott of the Oxford Union.

The ‘Boycott the Oxford Union’ campaign earlier told Cherwell: “This term [the Union] are playing host to the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, who has achieved minor fame by insulting and stoking hatred towards countless oppressed and marginalised groups.

“We pledge to boycott the Oxford Union until it ceases to appease fascism and removes videos of the following fascist and far right figures from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.”

Shah will be replaced by the 12th elected Secretary’s Committee member from St Peter’s Jack Solomon.

Naz Shah has been contacted for comment.

Rego’s Abortion Pastels: An artistic fight against stigma

Franklin Nelson
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Rego’s Abortion Pastels: An artistic fight against stigma

In Portugal in 1974, the fascist dictatorship the ‘Estado Novo’, with its emphasis on the importance of the role of motherhood for women, was overthrown in a military coup and a new, left-wing government was formed, with a motto of ‘Democratisation, Decolonisation, Development’. However, views on the right to an abortion, which were heavily influenced by Catholic doctrine, still stoked widespread controversy.

In response, in 1998, a referendum was organised to determine views on the decriminalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, as long as it takes place in the first 10 weeks and is in an authorized healthcare institution. Yet despite the political changes, 50.91% of voters rejected the change, with a voter turnout of well under 50%. Naturally, the tight nature of this margin prvoked widespread discontent. In such a context, the Portuguese-born artist, Paula Rego decided to take action.

Much of Rego’s work has been marked by, and produced in response to, events in and from Portuguese history. For example, her tapestry depicting the Battle of Alcacer-Quibir, at which the King of Portugal, Dom Sebastiao, vanished and was presumed dead, and her 1960 painting, entitled ‘Salazar Vomiting the Homeland’. Her response to the No vote in the 1998 referendum is no exception to this trend. Between July 1998 and February 1999, Rego produced a series of ten pastels, which later became known as Untitled: Abortion Pastels. Unusually for the artist, the series is without a title, suggesting that she wants these highly graphic pieces to speak for themselves. In a subsequent interview, Rego stated that the series “was born from [her] indignation”, adding that she could “not abide the idea of blame in relation to this act. What each woman suffers in having to do it is enough.”

Each pastel depicts a woman – some are older, others younger – attempting to carry out an abortion by themselves. They are lying on beds, sat on chairs, squatting, in domestic settings – clearly not places where abortions are supposed to be carried out. But these women, who no doubt stand for Portuguese women in general, have no choice because of the country’s law. Either they choose to give birth, or they attempt to end their pregnancy prematurely and clandestinely. Some look away whilst others gaze out towards the viewer, making for an unavoidably disconcerting, voyeuristic encounter. Contributing to the voyeurism is the fact that some of the women are dressed as schoolgirls; Rego has spoken of this decision as being an attempt to reinforce the message of the works: it’s not pleasant, is it?

The women seem to be in pain. The vivid, bold colours of their clothing and their surroundings throw into relief the desperate nature of their situation. Indeed, the title of the works – Abortion Pastels – seems almost oxymoronic, in light of the conflicting connotations of the two words. While the former evokes physical and emotional pain, the latter makes the audience think of soft, delicate shades and scenes. It is as though the two should not belong together but, by bringing them into the same frame, Rego is surely not only trying to make the point that abortion can no longer be ignored, but also provocatively challenging the limits of what art can depict and how art should be viewed.

In 2007, there was a second referendum on whether abortion in the first ten weeks of pregnancy should be legalised. With 59.25% of voters casting their ballot in favour of the change, Portugal caught up with much of the rest of the world in relation to access to abortion.

A ground-breaking series, Rego’s Abortion Pastels challenge and condemn the cruelty and hypocrisy of Portuguese society and its policing and shaming of women’s bodies; a legacy of the fascist dictatorship that still casts a shadow over the country.

In keeping with her Iberian predecessor Picasso, who made the case that art should serve as “una herramienta de lucha” (“a tool of warfare”), Rego’s series underlines that the shame surrounding having an abortion does not rest with these women.

Instead, it lies squarely with the society they belong to, which forces them to seek alternative, often dangerous means of terminating their pregnancies, and indeed all societies that do not accord women the right to a safe and legal termination.

By subverting the Salazar regime’s patriarchal conception of womanhood, Rego is launching a feminist counter-narrative to that promote the state for many decades, inviting the viewer to reflect on the changes that have taken place over time with respect to the relationship between reproductive rights and religious belief.

Visually striking and innately political, this is art designed to shame the powers-that-be, and society in general, into action.

An Artist Censored and Shamed

Basil Bowdler
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An Artist Censored and Shamed

In April 1912, aged 21, Egon Schiele found himself imprisoned for 24 days, having been accused of seducing and abducting underage girls and exhibiting pornographic material to minors. Though undoubtedly a personal nadir, Schiele’s imprisonment fits into a wider period in the artist’s life. Sickened by the superficial sycophancy of Vienna, Schiele sought artistic rejuvenation in the countryside, only to find his cosmopolitan habits and eroticized artwork hounded by his conservative neighbours.

In the pantheon of tortured artists, Schiele is a paramount, but also a problematic figure. The debate as to whether his portraits represent a playful subversion of contemporary standards of sexual conduct and display, or whether they depict the pornographic exploitation of adolescent girls, will continue to be debated into perpetuity. Indeed, Schiele’s work asks us to question whether it is the prerogative, or even the duty, of an artist to override morality.

For all his protests about the artifice of Viennese life, Schiele was a quintessential product of the city he sought flight from. Already daring, his work reached new heights under the pupilage of Gustav Klimt, the patriarch of fin de siècle Viennese art, whose decorative eroticism Schiele began to incorporate. It was through Klimt that Schiele was not only introduced to potential patrons, but also to the expressionist works of Kokoschka, Munch, and van Gogh. Though Klimt was a vital spring of inspiration and support for Schiele, the younger artist soon broke out into his distinct oeuvre. Klimt’s angular poses and depictions of lustful escapism gave way to emaciated and contorted figures with a new level of sexual openness.

Whereas a sense of wide-eyed excitement at the world, albeit in very different forms, pervades the work of both Klimt and van Gogh, Schiele often turned his gaze inwards onto himself. Schiele’s conflicted, even paradoxical, self-portrayal reveals a man battling for a sense of self and place in the world: we see Schiele as saint and sinner, fashionable dandy and emaciated corpse, martyr and masturbator.

Such adolescent angst goes hand in hand with a zeal for sincerity and a rejection of the artificial. The dazzling decorative schemes of Klimt were no longer enough for Schiele, and he sought to hone his work in rural retreat.
The first of Schiele’s sojourns was to Krumau, Czechoslovakia. Travelling with fellow artists, the eccentric dress and pose of Schiele’s entourage isolated them from their new community. Indeed Schiele’s paintings of Krumau reflect this sense of unease. The tall imposing houses and brooding castle of the real-life town are exaggerated and tarred with carcinogenic
brown and black in Dead City III (1911). Yet most disturbingly for the townsfolk, Schiele’s party became a massive hit with some of the town’s youth. One school-boy, Willy Lidl, became utterly infatuated with Schiele. When the artist briefly returned to Vienna, Willy desperately wrote to
him: “I love you endlessly, I live only for you. If you stay near me
I will become strong, if you leave me I will die.” Amongst the party was also the 17-year old Wally Neuzil, a former model and lover of Klimt’s who Schiele now embarked on a relationship with.

Escaping from the claustrophobia and condemnation of the town, Schiele and Wally took up residence in the outskirts: in a house with an idyllic garden. With the support of Willy and Wally, Schiele settled into rural life with astonishing success, ecstatically writing to friends to come out to visit him. The impressionistic haze of Field of Flowers (1910) captured the mood of childlike paradise that now engulfed Schiele. Yet something more suspect and scandalous was also afoot. Schiele’s practice of having young models sit for him, obscured in the anonymity of Vienna, quickly became a cause of public scandal. Though it seems that all of Schiele’s young models were
volunteers, and though the borders of sexual maturity were more hazy in an age where the age of consent was fourteen, his failure to get the permission of their parents is inexcusable. It brought condemnation down upon him. Exasperated and outraged, the enraged townsmen eventually drove Schiele and Wally out.

Despite the circumstances of their abrupt departure from Krumau, Schiele and Wally were determined to get away to another rural retreat. This time it was the town of Neulenbach, half an hour outside of Vienna. They picked up their same lifestyle and gossip quickly spread. Yet when a young girl
running away from home sought refuge with Schiele, who was too embarrassed to return her to her parents, the artist found himself confronted with the police, who unearthed hundreds of erotic works.

Schiele spent 21 days in prison before appearing before a court. The judge denounced Schiele’s work, taking a candle to one of Schiele’s drawings. It was a powerful demonstration that, as much for the nature of his work as for his supposed seduction and abduction, Schiele was condemned. Indeed, the only charge that held up was the one of displaying pornographic images; the charges of abduction and seduction were dropped.

Yet with all art – especially that of Schiele, given its preoccupation with the individual self – it is difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to draw a neat distinction between the lifestyle that produces it and the art itself. Schiele was a product of a Viennese scene where moral concerns over sex and age were viewed more as irritating and obsolete obstructions than as rigid taboos.

In transmitting this artistic philosophy outside of the urban confines, he exposed himself to criticism to a far greater extent than he had previously. The outrage and despair Schiele felt is forcefully displayed in To Prevent an Artist from Working Is a Crime, It Is to Kill Life Which Is in Gestation (1912). Stretched out beneath a pile of coats and blankets, Schiele’s sunken eyes, cropped hair, and unkempt stubble have a skeletal horror. Turned on its side, his lying body appears to float and rise with a spectral quality. It is as if the very asceticism of his conditions was draining the life from him.

Schiele’s imprisonment met with protests from many of his supporters in Vienna and served primarily to bolster his presence. Though it does not do to romanticize the plight of the tortured artist in prison, nor can Schiele’s imprisonment be dismissed merely as a mytholigising episode. In many ways, it was Schiele’s artistic coming-of-age. The child-like naivety at the idea of the artist as a god, reshaping the world as he saw fit, which pervades his earlier work now gave way to a serious awareness of the darker side of this world. Previously Schiele had toyed with the concept of death as a mirror to life; now his work took on a grim morality.

Schiele’s censorship, though short-lived and more of a moral and aesthetic than a political dimension, was no less impactful for it. It both brought to an end a period in which he sought artistic regeneration outside of urban life and gave him a new awareness of his works potential to incite outrage. For Schiele, the paintbrush was a double-edged sword as capable today as it was a hundred years ago of provoking admiration as condemnation, at depicting life or death.

Counter-terrorism measures threaten democracy

Jan Eijking
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Counter-terrorism measures threaten democracy

We let things happen for as long as they don’t shock us, as long as they don’t look scandalous. And our threshold for something to shock us, or to look scandalous, may well have shifted dramatically in the age of terrorism, where “threat think” is the new normal.

Tellingly, Netflix’s most recent addition to its colourful men-with-guns portfolio is Bodyguard, an allegedly Islamophobic show about a heroic war veteran turned bodyguard and part-time terrorist-hunter. The show features Muslims only as victims or as perpetrators, or both. It has also received praise as the “best show of 2018”. If this is mainstream (and a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes certainly suggests that), it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mounting abuses of counter-terrorism regulation don’t raise red flags for most of us.

And they go beyond anti-Muslim prejudice: counter-terrorism, in the UK and elsewhere, is increasingly being used against left-wingers and artists.

Two recent cases lay bare the extent of this politicisation, suggesting that counter-terrorism has a serious problem: a democratic deficit at best; fundamentally anti-democratic leanings at worst. First came last year’s decision of the University of Reading to ask students to be “cautious” when reading a left-wing essay on their reading list, in the alleged interest of Prevent. Prevent is part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy known as CONTEST, first released by the Home Office in 2006 with its latest revision last June.

It consists of “four P’s”: prevent, pursue, protect, prepare. Prevent is effectively a call for citizen paranoia — since 2015, all NHS staff have to pass “radicalisation awareness training”, and nation-wide schools are asked to safeguard against radicalisation.

The practice has crept into universities. In a 2017 article for the London Review of Books, Karma Nabulsi, Associate Professor for Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, gives a whole range of scary examples: a Sikh student praying in her room is overheard by cleaning staff, so her room is searched; a student’s request for permission of a film screening on Palestin- ian refugees is denied on the grounds of “extremism” legislation; a Muslim student explains she’d been suffering from depres- sion — in response she’s asked whether she was “being radicalised”. The list goes on.

The fact that an essay assigned for course reading is labelled a threat should raise more eyebrows than it did. Do we really believe that students reading “Our morals: The ethics of revolution” are in danger of radicalisation? Are we next going to purge Marx and Lenin from the classroom? If CONTEST is supposed to protect “British values,” is outright censorship one of them? How on earth did this become acceptable?

The UK is not the only example of this. As a German citizen, I’ve been following the news about an investigation against Berlin-based artist collective Centre for Political Beauty with disbelief. The group frequently makes the headlines with its combination of provocative satire and guerrilla art-activism: in 2015 they exhumed the bodies of refugees that had died at Europe’s external borders, flew them to Germany, and buried them on a Berlin graveyard to bring home the consequences of European refugee politics.

Sympathisers dug symbolic graves across Germany. Later that year the group launched a crowdfunding campaign for a bridge that would connect Europe and Africa; the money raised was then spent on a rescue platform in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2017, they invited high-school students to compose anti-Erdogan flyers which were then printed remotely in a hotel room in central Istanbul and sailed out of the room’s open window over Gezi Park.

And finally last year, when far-right politician Björn Höcke, Thuringia delegate for “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD), publicly called the Berlin Holocaust Memorial a ‘memorial of shame’, the Centre crowdfunded a replica of the memorial which was then installed next to the politician’s private home. Thuringia had previously become infamous for the complicity of its branch of the German secret service in the activities of the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) terrorist network. With that in mind, the artists called for a “civil secret service” to surveil Höcke’s home for as long as he wouldn’t kneel before the replica memorial.

The collective has received death threats in response. Höcke himself proclaimed that whoever “does this is, in my opinion, a terrorist.” Thuringia delegate Christian Carius (CDU) empathised, arguing the artists used “Stasi methods” which had “nothing to do with art”.

This month, a freedom of information request by a Thuringia delegate for Germany’s left-wing party (Die Linke) revealed that an undercover criminal investigation against the collective had been underway for the past 16 months — on the legal grounds of “suspicion of formation of a criminal group” under article 129 of Germany’s penal code (StGB). Prosecutor Martin Zschächner justified this by referring to the group’s declared intention to spy on Höcke, which he argues constitutes a criminal offence. Other groups investigated under 129 are right-wing extremist hooligans, Holocaust deniers, and suspected members of the Islamic State — natural company for an artist collective of course.

There is reason to doubt prosecutor Zschächner’s neutrality: he is known to be close to AfD, has donated money to that party, and initiated the prosecution a mere four days after Höcke had publicly called the artists “terrorists”. This doesn’t look like a pure coincidence. Just recently, less than a week after it became publicly known and numerous German artists and intellectuals expressed their fierce objection, the investigation was closed with immediate effect. Thuringia’s minister of culture has called the message this prosecution sends to Germany’s art scene “disastrous”.

But this is more than just a disastrous prosecution, more than just a scandalous denial of artistic freedom, and certainly more than just a bad apple: it is symptomatic of an unacceptable ambiguity at the heart of counter-terrorism regulation.

It shouldn’t be hard to decide where to stand on this. Of course, terrorist attacks must be taken seriously as a threat, that’s out of the question. But it is out of the question, too, that “terrorism” and “counter-terrorism” are wildly vague terms. Strategies and frameworks devised by governments can use that vagueness for political purposes. And that is exactly what has happened: counter-terrorism, as it stands now, is not just a strategy — it’s politics. It is not some objectively devised measure to combat suicide bombers, but a powerful instrument.

Policing efforts aside, what counter-terrorism has empowered in practice — be that through Prevent’s vigilante fantasies or by censoring art in the name of 129 — is right-wing paranoia. This becomes perhaps most obvious in the guise of anti-Muslim prejudice, but counter-terrorism’s red scare reveals an- other depth to its politicisation. And we’ve let that happen.

So yes, it is out of the question that terrorism is a threat. But it is out of the question, too, that we are entitled to our opinions. It is out of the question, too, that art must be free. And it is out of the question that a democracy must tolerate if not embrace dissent, contention, opposition, satire, humour. Without it, what’s left?

Love/Sick: An anthology of romantic adrenaline and hysteria

Mia Gainsford
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Love/Sick: An anthology of romantic adrenaline and hysteria

Love/Sick by John Cariani was first described to me as ‘an absurdly romantic anthology’. It is a selection of short plays operating within a wider theme, yet, this is not a piece looking to make an investment in the Russian-doll run bank of meta-dramatics for the sake of a huge pay out in cachet. Love/Sick uses the meta-drama for its diagnostic credentials. By this I mean, far less profoundly, its ability to allow one to make sense of a whole by observing the parts within. 

Consisting as it does of nine separate short plays, and so far having only seen three, The Singing Telegram, What?! and Uh-Oh, it is already apparent that the wider play, or rather the mother Russian doll to these nontuplets, is simply a performance of what it means to be love sick. In this play, love is a physical symptom. Love is adrenaline, hysteria and tied-tongues. 

Yet, that is certainly not to say that Love/Sick is a sickly, overwrought display of kisses, candle-lit dinners and other wild romanticisations – it is far from it. In Uh-Oh, one will see Sarah played by Olivia Marshall sparkle with psychopathy as she tries to ‘find the fun again’. Whilst in The Singing Telegram, Sabrina Brewer’s character, Louise Overbee is a cliché crumbling before the audience’s eyes as Noah Seltzer, the singing telegram himself subverts expectations and creates a humorous gaucheness beyond the inherent tackiness of his job title. The two together take the audience to a squeaky clean American suburb where anything can be bought in a Target store and all that is spontaneous is ‘retro’. 

Directors, Olivia Marshall and Luke Dunne have fully harnessed the natural dynamism and playful energy derived from a cast as concise as the plays, whilst the actors themselves navigate a plethora of roles with all the necessary agility. Eddie Chapman, plays the content, couch-potato of a husband, Bill in Uh-Oh and switches seamlessly to Andy, a lover tongue-tied by displays and expressions of sincere emotions in What?!, negotiating as he does, a change in relationship circumstances, age and sexuality.

Love/Sick is rather unique in the fact that all of the actors will perform both heterosexual and non-heterosexual roles. It is this impartiality from both the cast and directing team toward all gender combinations which reinstates Love/Sick’s broader concern with the importance of that which we feel when we are in love over whom we feel love towards. The actors are performing the state of being love sick, rather than making a performance out of sexuality or any other aspect of identity.

The form of the short play itself charges the narratives with an urgency, resonant of the heightened sense of reality, one feels in love. Yet, simultaneously the directing team have worked hard to capture the powerful and sometimes understated simplicity of being in love. It is this being (in love) which works so well in contrast to the brevity of the plays and reinstates love as a physiological sensation rather than a cultural cliché. 

What?! has all the charm of a romantic Auden poem, Uh-Oh all the twists of one of Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected and The Singing Telegram, an irresistible theatricality from the juxtaposition between singing and stiltedness. Matters of the heart are reconciled in doorways, characters are ‘dazzled’ and hands are held; showing at the BT theatre next week, one can expect to laugh, gasp and perhaps cry. The only cure to love sickness is falling more in love.

How Ukraine’s comedian-president is reshaping national identity

Theo Jeffries
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How Ukraine’s comedian-president is reshaping national identity

Unfamiliar with Ukraine’s newly elected president? Head to Netflix, and you can see him conquer the hearts of a nation as president in a three-season, (prophetically titled?) comedy show, ‘Servant of the People’. No, seriously. On April 21st, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine with 73% of the vote, beating the president-in-office, Petro Poroshenko by a landslide.

The 2019 presidential elections in Ukraine have been rife with tension and expectation. They are the first Ukraine has faced since the 2014 revolution, annexation of Crimea, and the start of the war in the Donbas. They are also the first in the country’s democratic history to present an anti-establishment candidate as winner, in fact the first in which this has even been a remote possibility. In the five years which have passed since the Euromaidan revolution, in which a corrupt Russia-backed puppet government was overthrown in a series of violent events, a harsh ethnic and linguistic duality has defined Ukraine, which has struggled to come to terms with a bipolar reality within its confines.

As is so often the case in complex histories composed of heterogenous ethnicities, national identity is an easily inflamed yet blurry sentiment. Until now, Petro Poroshenko, traditional oligarch and now ex-President, had taken a starkly pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian stance. Perhaps the only stance it was possible to take at all in the wake of an anti-Russian revolution, and which has shaped political discourse since. But Zelensky, the newly baptized comedian-cum-president does not fit the expected mould. Zelensky’s utter lack of a political program makes the country’s future uncertain, but some there may be hope that Ukraine’s latest political showdown may be a symptom of changing tides for a country which has struggled to define itself since the retreat of the USSR.

The showdown between Zelensky and Poroshenko, entrenched political figurehead versus up-and coming ‘voice of the people’, may seem like a familiar trope to European readers. Poroshenko truly is a politician of the old Ukrainian style. Founder of Ukraine’s leading confectionery company, he is a perfect representative of the establishment and Ukraine’s political system, operating on the ‘funding for votes’ model that has prevailed in the country for the past 25 years. His challenger, Zelensky, is everything you might imagine him to be: anti-establishment, anti-corruption; a liberal populist taking his natural place opposite the oligarchical incumbent.

And, naturally, Zelensky too is backed by one of Ukraine’s most prominent oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoisky leading partner of Privat Group. Many of his critics have pompously pointed this out, claiming he is but a puppet to Kolomoisky’s business interests. This may well be, and it is a stark reminder that whatever changes voters might expect from Zelensky’s presidency, these will not venture to shake the country’s oligarchic foundations. However, backing is a prerequisite for presidential candidacy, and even a self-proclaimed ‘voice of the people’ as is Zelensky must succumb to the political realities of a country in which power is concentrated in few, jealous hands. How much of a role this will play in his presidency is, for now, a matter only of speculation.

Zelensky’s political personality throughout the electoral campaign has merged, in the popular imaginary, with that of Vasyl Holoborodko, the character he plays in ‘Servant of the People’, a satirical show recently picked up by Netflix. Vasyl, Zelensky’s character, is an everyman teacher who unexpectedly becomes president of Ukraine and leads a heroic campaign against corruption and excess in government. Zelensky’s fictional persona has brought him a reputation as an anti-corruption hero without requiring any of the real action that this role would require in a starkly non-fiction world.

Ukraine has a deeply rooted history of making heroesof individual figures: the individual as leader and representative of a group is worshipped, and we need look no further than the transparently named ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award to see how the Ukrainian state has an enshrined system of glorification, making the presidential elections all the more significant. Amongst so many heroes, the rebel leader battling on behalf of the people against the wicked established order happens to be a national favourite: the Cossacks Bohdan K hmelnitsky, leader of the K hmelnitsky Uprising, and Ivan Mazepa; Symon Petliura during the Russian Civil War; Stepan Bandera in the 1930-40s.

Who the leading figure of the country is has the potential to mould Ukrainian national identity, which is in many ways still in the process of being imagined following a period of disorder and uncertainty, following the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas. It’s easy to see, then, how Zelensky’s charisma and popularity, not to mention a show which seems to prophesize a glorious presidency, made him an easy target for the hopes of so many Ukrainians, despite the lack of a credible political platform.

Zelensky is a national hero of the digital age: his appeal crafted not through ideology or action but through online campaigning that blurs the lines between Zelensky the man, and Holoborodko the character.

Ukrainians have chosen their rebel hero, but for now at least, he is a rebel without much of a cause. In fact, what is peculiar and interesting about Zelensky is that he seems to not be interested in ethnic identity politics at all, beyond conceding that he is willing to speak in Russian as well as Ukrainian. That said, it is very hard to pinpoint a clear political stance on any issue whatsoever from what he has said, written or otherwise expressed throughout his campaign. His only expressed goals are eliminating corruption and restarting the peacemaking process in Donbas, but there is little substance to these slogans, no concrete details for what structures will replace the current kleptocrat-oligarchy, or how the tensions that caused the war in Donbas will be resolved.

The departure from a discourse based on the country’s problematic ethnic divide in particular is a far step away not only from his predecessor, Poroshenko, but from Ukrainian political culture more widely. Ukrainian nationalism post-W W2 has been essentially negative and nostalgic: it often reverts to what Ukraine is not in its search for a stable identity. A true Ukrainian is not a Russian, a true Ukrainian is not a Pole, Ukrainian culture is not Russian or Polish culture. This is combined with a peculiar nation-wide, though perhaps unconscious, refusal to see or admit the many similarities between Ukrainian and Russian/Polish culture, and the idea that the Ukrainian is an entirely separate and distinct entity to the Russian or the Pole. This whole parade is grounded in nostalgia: it is forever the Ukrainian independent states of the past that are looked to, rather than creating a vision of a future Ukraine.

The Decommunisation Laws, introduced by Poroshenko in 2015, reflect this exclusionism and nostalgia, and involved the renaming of many Soviet towns and streets, as well as the obliteration of any Soviet imagery not relating to W W2. This effectively tore many people away from a part of their personal identity and something they were proud of, especially those who had lived and worked within the USSR for the majority of their lives. The ever-stricter language laws have also had this effect: by gradually forcing everything to be in Ukrainian (the latest bill seeks to outlaw any media published in other languages if it is not also accompanied by a Ukrainian version), minority languages, and even Russian, which is used as the primary language in everyday life by around 45% of Ukrainians, are being forced into obscurity.

Those accustomed to European political developments might recoil – a populist with no plan for the future and an appeal based on fiction? Yellow gilets and Five Star movements flash before our eyes. But perhaps a blank slate is precisely what Ukraine needs. After all, Poroshenko’s politics, being starkly anti Russian are based on the exclusion of a significant portion of those currently residing in the nation. A blank state allows for inclusivity, the only peaceful counter to group identity politics.

Zelensky might offer a better chance of creating a Ukrainian national identity simply by not doing anything at all. This may give the nation the space to develop freely without imposing a top-down, state-wide narrative on what is and what is not part of the Ukrainian culture, as Poroshenko attempted to do with the 2015 Decommunisation Laws. The absence of a vision of Ukrainian identity makes Zelensky the antidote rather than the antithesis to Poroshenko’s conservative nationalist ideology.

That there is no detail in his political program seems to be unimportant to most Ukranians. This is largely due to dissatisfaction, especially in recent years, with Poroshenko’s actions which have failed to move the peace process in Donbas in any quantifiable direction, as well as allowing for high-level to go largely unpunished. Zelensky proposes a Ukraine without corruption and without war – this has been enough to get him elected.

A political project which moves away, as Zelensky’s does, from the traditional restrictive discourse of nationalism must necessarily leave space for a new discourse to be created. Non-existent ideology may be more an antidote than poison to Ukrainian politics.

The lack of nation-wide ideological confrontation beyond ethnic division in Ukraine can most likely be explained by the perceived sense of freedom and democracy in the country, as well as the lack of a long-term stable government. Amongst Ukrainians there is, generally speaking, a feeling that there is more democracy and people are allowed more freedom than in other post-Soviet states (chiefly Belarus and the Russian Federation). Theoretically, Ukraine is a free country in the most significant senses of the word. In practice however, the imaginary liberal bubble is often burst, something which Poroshenko has entirely failed to address. There are no legal restrictions on civil liberties, and people are mostly able to express themselves freely, but various nationalist paramilitaries may respond violently, shutting down or disrupting any sort of event held by people holding these ‘liberal’ views unless it’s under police protection. IZOLYATSIA in Kiev has had numerous events investigating and criticizing the far right disrupted by radical right-wing activists from C14, the same group responsible for violent attacks on Romani camps.

Anti-government protests in response to these issues have only broken out in response to blatant corruption or perceived unjust interventions in the democratic process at the highest level (as was the case in the 2004-5 Orange Revolution and the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests and revolution). These successful revolutions are also crucial to creating an idea of Ukraine as truly democratic because they offer the appearance of a substantial change in government. Even if the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan both produced some positive changes in Ukrainian society and net-positive changes in Ukrainian politics, the political system and many of the people within it remained largely unchanged.

Every new president since independence has proclaimed to offer something different to his predecessor. In practice what this has meant is that the new president was backed by a different group of oligarchs than the previous one. This has generated low expectations amongst voters, as there is a feeling that whoever comes into power will simply use their position to serve the interests of their group of associates rather than working towards the common good. Ukrainian politics in its current state lacks any form of dialectic: the politicians range from populist centrists through populist right-wingers to far-right ultranationalists. Zelensky’s advantage is that he is has created a persona which sets him apart from the traditional Ukrainian political or business elite, and is therefore expected to more likely act in the best interests of the people than Poroshenko.

However, Zelensky’s campaign money comes from – the billionaire owner of PrivatGroup, which was until recently in control of Ukraine’s biggest bank, PrivatBank, forcibly nationalized by Poroshenko in December of 2016. Poroshenko‘s decision was been overturned in this past weeks. This kind of power play at the highest level of government may give the reader a flavour of why it is that Ukrainians have opted for someone who seems to be set apart from it all, and of how misguided this hope may turn out to be. Nevertheless, a president who is not a politician may at the very least shift the focus for policymaking from presidential to parliamentary, and in turn shift the policy targets from oligarchic to popular.

If Zelensky delivers on his promise to stop corruption and reform government institutions, as well as restarting the peace process in Donbas, he will create a space in which Ukraine can move into the future rather than stagnating as a state that is still very much post-Soviet yet is stuck in limbo between Russia and the EU. His actual identity is yet to be seen, leaving Ukraine’s future a blank slate: the repeal of certain laws passed under Poroshenko which limit Ukrainian politics may regenerate a dialogue around the ideological problems in the country and the development of a full political spectrum.

Zelensky presents a blank slate. We must hope that it is filled with inclusivity rather than incompetence, so that we might be proven wrong about the capabilities of a comedian attempting to run a country. A political project which moves away, as Zelensky’s does, from the traditional restrictive discourse of nationalism must necessarily leave space for a new discourse to be created. Non-existent ideology may be more an antidote than poison to Ukrainian politics.

The Difference Between a Burnt Roof and 250 Dead

Jeevan Ravindran
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0
The Difference Between a Burnt Roof and 250 Dead

On Easter Sunday, the world recoiled in horror as Sri Lanka experienced trauma unseen since the dark days of the country’s civil war, with 250 people killed and more than 500 injured in a series of bomb blasts targeting churches and hotels. It seemed like it was every single news agency and journal’s biggest story, with widespread commentaries being offered on the details of the attacks, their consequences and their possible instigators.

As a Sri Lankan, I naturally had a very visceral reaction to the attack. I wanted to see people talking about it, I wanted to hear the latest developments in the story, but I also wanted to see the media and the people using their power to create awareness of the tragic loss of 250 lives. However, when I opened social media later the evening of the attack, I scrolled through Instagram and Facebook, and found just one post about the Sri Lanka attacks, urging people to pray for the country.

Rewind one week and the Western world was reeling from the shock of the historic blaze at the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris which caused the spire to fall and destroyed the monument’s roof. It was a story that spread like wildfire, with media reporting on the “tragic loss,” and people all around the world paying tribute to the landmark, posting photos and tributes and pledging their support for Paris.

“My heart is broken,” the caption read on possibly the sixth or seventh Instagram post I had seen in about five minutes on the evening of the fire. I myself witnessed and shared in the distress and grief first-hand, as a languages student who is currently living in Paris as part of my year abroad.

However, I couldn’t help but feel, after Sri Lanka, that perhaps Notre-Dame had received coverage in ways that Sri Lanka hadn’t – there was reported in such a way that made it sound as if the quicker than Notre-Dame did, and I later found that my social media observations were in fact fairly representative of public interest in the story, with Google searches for Notre-Dame in the first 24 hours after the event outnumbering searches for Sri Lanka within the first 24 hours by a ratio of 7:1.

For most people in developed countries, Notre-Dame is an instantly recognisable icon. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, remains an abstract unknown, unless it was the spot of their latest family holiday. Insufficient news coverage in Sri Lanka is nothing new, with world awareness of the 26-year civil war still relatively limited. Hostility towards journalists in the country has undoubtedly contributed to this, but whether to the extent that it justifies such a huge lack of media coverage, I’m not sure.

Furthermore, the current state of world affairs is such that these attacks are now common – the bomb blasts follow on the heels of the massacre of 49 Muslims at the Christchurch mosque in New Zealand in March. This means that we are all the more likely to become desensitised to the information we receive, whilst the sheer rarity of the destruction of a historic monument alone has incentivised people to actively participate in the awareness of what happened at Notre-Dame.

The discrepancy in awareness is no doubt in part due to the fact that these stories are too easy to dismiss as countries where these problems are too rampant, or just to be expected. Notre-Dame understandably received so much coverage partly due to its relatability – and maybe, people have forgotten to grieve human tragedies that are a little further from our reach.

On the other hand, what does this say about the kind of society we’ve become? We express more grief for a single building – which nonetheless stands mostly intact and bore witness to no fatalities – than we do for the targeting of three churches and loss of 250 lives. It’s true that you can’t put a price on cultural loss, but Notre-Dame can be rebuilt. However, we cannot bring back the dead, and nor can we rebuild the family units which have been torn apart. This disproportionate lack of support also extends to donations, with Notre-Dame having already received €750 million in pledges, whilst Sri Lanka’s victims are desperately relying on student crowdfunding pages.

This is another story that has fallen prey to factory production. If we want to change the way people react to these stories, their media portrayal needs to be unique to what happened, and not the same tried-and-tested formula for every massacre, bomb blast and human tragedy in the “far-away” countries that the Western world finds all too easy to forget.

We are all people. And if justice is to be done to what happened, ordinary people everywhere need to become the centre of our stories. We owe them that much, at least.

BREAKING: Union boycott campaign to organise protest against Katie Hopkins

Angus Brown and Ben van der Merwe
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BREAKING: Union boycott campaign to organise protest against Katie Hopkins

The newly established “Boycott The Oxford Union” campaign is planning to organise a protest against Katie Hopkin’s appearance at the Union this Thursday, Cherwell can reveal.

Speaking to Cherwell, the campaign revealed it planned to hold a protest on Thursday, though did not elaborate further.

The boycott organisers also revealed that it planned to encourage next year’s freshers to join the boycott if the Union did not make the changes they have demanded.

The campaign are promoting a petition and an open letter promoting the boycott on Facebook and Twitter.

The organisers accused the Union’s leadership of “attempting to use the dangerous rise of fascist and far right movements around the world to gain publicity and further their own careers.

“We do not see fascism as a spectacle to be exploited for the amusement of the Union’s elite membership.”

The campaign calls for a boycott of all Oxford Union events until the Union agrees to “cease hosting fascists and racists and to remove videos of the following fascist and/or racist speakers from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.” 

The Union has attracted criticism and protests this year for hosting speeches by Steve Bannon and Marion-Marechal Le Pen, and for a planned event with Alice Weidel which was ultimately cancelled, including a formal letter of protest from the City Council. The Council’s executive board criticised what they described as “the Oxford Union’s pattern of endangering community safety by inviting fascists into the city.”

Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds wrote at the time that “[t]he Oxford Union’s pathetic courting of publicity by inviting racist after racist is deeply frustrating for local people. Our city is proud of its diversity and yet the Oxford Union seems determined to threaten this.”

The ‘Boycott the Oxford Union’ campaign said: “This term [the Union] are playing host to the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, who has achieved minor fame by insulting and stoking hatred towards countless oppressed and marginalised groups.

“We pledge to boycott the Oxford Union until it ceases to appease fascism and removes videos of the following fascist and far right figures from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.”

The organisers did not clarify whether they were planning to organise a protest against Hopkins similar to those which greeted Bannon and Le Pen.

The open letter states that the boycott is addressed not just at the present Union committee, but at a “decades long pattern of inviting proponents of hate into Oxford. The Oxford Union has previously hosted the Holocaust deniers David Irving and Nick Griffin, and the former leader of the fascist English Defence League, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (alias Tommy Robinson). “The Union has ignored repeated and widespread calls from Oxford students, staff and residents to withdraw invitations to such figures.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “From its foundation, the Oxford Union has placed a high value on the voices of both its members and its guests.

“By inviting speakers that are sometimes considered to be controversial (not only on the right but on the left – for instance Slavoj Žižek in MT18) we aim not only to host them, but to challenge, explore and criticise their ideas.

“The Oxford Union is unique in that far from offering speakers a ‘platform’ from which to lecture its members, it always allows for time for its speakers to be questioned. Far from ‘applauding Steve Bannon’s hateful ideology’, members in the chamber at his talk were meaningfully silent as he entered and went on to pose question after question that sought to interrogate his views, not praise them.

In response to news of the planned protest, Athis said: “I recognise the right to peaceful protest and support this right but I would urge members who feel comfortable doing so to attend the debate so that they can interact with the speakers and see first-hand the discussion about No Platforming, which is so aptly related to this campaign.

“In November, there were some examples of protesters who chose to use violence or verbal abuse to intimidate those who did not wish to join in or were trying to attend the event. The Union supports the right to peaceful protest.

“This term, Katie Hopkins will be one of eight speakers in this Thursday’s No Platforming debate in which any member will be able to challenge our guests on their views, as has happened frequently in the past.

“Far from being a small and self-selectively elite membership limited to those who can afford our membership fee, the Oxford Union offers an access membership at a discounted price (which I myself took advantage of upon joining) and the option to pay in instalments so that we can make the institution accessible to everyone.

“The Oxford Union’s Standing Committee has recently voted unanimously to inform minority groups or societies that signal interest of potentially contentious speakers in order to improve the Union’s relationship with these groups in Oxford. I hope that this step illustrates the Union’s commitment to working with groups who may oppose the views of our speakers, not against them, while not compromising our commitment to upholding the free speech of both our members and our guests, as long as that speech is not promoting hate.”

Katie Hopkins has been contacted for comment.

Boycott campaign: Union using far-right to “further their own careers”

Ben van der Merwe
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0
Boycott campaign: Union using far-right to “further their own careers”

A campaign to boycott the Oxford Union has been launched in response to the Union’s decision to host far-right speakers, most recently Katie Hopkins.

The campaign are promoting a petition and an open letter promoting the boycott on Facebook and Twitter.

The organisers accused the Union’s leadership of “attempting to use the dangerous rise of fascist and far right movements around the world to gain publicity and further their own careers.

“We do not see fascism as a spectacle to be exploited for the amusement of the Union’s elite membership.”

The campaign calls for a boycott of all Oxford Union events until the Union agrees to “cease hosting fascists and racists and to remove videos of the following fascist and/or racist speakers from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.”

The Union has attracted criticism and protests this year for hosting speeches by Steve Bannon, Alice Weidel and Marion-Marechal Le Pen, including a formal letter of protest from the City Council. The Council’s executive board criticised what they described as “the Oxford Union’s pattern of endangering community safety by inviting fascists into the city.”

Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds wrote at the time that “[t]he Oxford Union’s pathetic courting of publicity by inviting racist after racist is deeply frustrating for local people. Our city is proud of its diversity and yet the Oxford Union seems determined to threaten this.”

The ‘Boycott the Oxford Union’ campaign said: “This term [the Union] are playing host to the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, who has achieved minor fame by insulting and stoking hatred towards countless oppressed and marginalised groups.

“We pledge to boycott the Oxford Union until it ceases to appease fascism and removes videos of the following fascist and far right figures from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.”

The organisers did not clarify whether they were planning to organise a protest against Hopkins similar to those which greeted Bannon and Le Pen.

The open letter states that the boycott is addressed not just at the present Union committee, but at a “decades long pattern of inviting proponents of hate into Oxford. The Oxford Union has previously hosted the Holocaust deniers David Irving and Nick Griffin, and the former leader of the fascist English Defence League, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (alias Tommy Robinson).

“The Union has ignored repeated and widespread calls from Oxford students, staff and residents to withdraw invitations to such figures.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “From its foundation, the Oxford Union has placed a high value on the voices of both its members and its guests.

“By inviting speakers that are sometimes considered to be controversial (not only on the right but on the left – for instance Slavoj Žižek in MT18) we aim not only to host them, but to challenge, explore and criticise their ideas.

“The Oxford Union is unique in that far from offering speakers a ‘platform’ from which to lecture its members, it always allows for time for its speakers to be questioned. Far from ‘applauding Steve Bannon’s hateful ideology’, members in the chamber at his talk were meaningfully silent as he entered and went on to pose question after question that sought to interrogate his views, not praise them.

In response to news of the planned protest, Athis said: “I recognise the right to peaceful protest and support this right but I would urge members who feel comfortable doing so to attend the debate so that they can interact with the speakers and see first-hand the discussion about No Platforming, which is so aptly related to this campaign.

“In November, there were some examples of protesters who chose to use violence or verbal abuse to intimidate those who did not wish to join in or were trying to attend the event. The Union supports the right to peaceful protest.

“This term, Katie Hopkins will be one of eight speakers in this Thursday’s No Platforming debate in which any member will be able to challenge our guests on their views, as has happened frequently in the past.

“Far from being a small and self-selectively elite membership limited to those who can afford our membership fee, the Oxford Union offers an access membership at a discounted price (which I myself took advantage of upon joining) and the option to pay in instalments so that we can make the institution accessible to everyone.

“The Oxford Union’s Standing Committee has recently voted unanimously to inform minority groups or societies that signal interest of potentially contentious speakers in order to improve the Union’s relationship with these groups in Oxford. I hope that this step illustrates the Union’s commitment to working with groups who may oppose the views of our speakers, not against them, while not compromising our commitment to upholding the free speech of both our members and our guests, as long as that speech is not promoting hate.”


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