Wednesday 16th July 2025
Blog Page 601

A fee hike for international students is deeply unfair

Brian Wong
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A fee hike for international students is deeply unfair

There is nothing accessible about the 10% hike to international student fees. It has recently been announced that the fees for overseas students at Oxford are due to rise by over 10% for more than 40 undergraduate courses.

This change would put many international students in a very difficult position with respect to applying for and studying at Oxford: although this is perhaps only the tip of an iceberg when it comes to the wider difficulties international students face as they seek to pursue their studies here: from porters mistyping ethnic minority students as tourists, to colleges having deeply unfriendly vacation storage policies, to the repeated failures at facilitating the integration of international students who are studying in the UK for the first time.

International students – as is the custom for UK universities at large – pay significantly more than their UK and EU counterparts. For international students, the rates and fees of Oxford, even with all its funding and scholarships, remain disproportionately exorbitant.

Many of my friends who contemplated applying for Oxford eventually settled for other (equally valid, but not their desired) universities back home or elsewhere in the UK. For an institution that brands itself as the apex of intellectual discovery, this is problematic, unfair, and hugely exclusionary. Prospective talents are put off from applying or taking up their offers, because for all the fanfare about funding (especially at undergraduate level), students from abroad find themselves shunned by an unhelpful administration and excluded by prohibitive bureaucracy.

Most current international students find themselves scraping by in order to make their academic and financial ends meet.

I’ll be frank here: I myself had the privilege and fortune of attending the University of Oxford as an undergraduate on a full scholarship from a generous donor. Without the scholarship, I would have struggled with the fees, and that is in spite of my family’s relatively decent finances.

The intuitive response to my observation may be – international students are wealthy: surely, they are far better than domestic students in terms of affording Oxford’s fees. Some may well be.

But not that friend of mine whose parents are retiring soon with limited pensions and heavy mortgages yet to be paid off; nor that friend of mine whose parents sold their only apartment to raise enough money for them to come to England for sixth form and college; nor many amongst the 43% of Oxford’s student population – 17% amongst its undergraduates – who are not UK or EU citizens.

Individuals’ life chances should not be predominantly determined by the resources and prospects of their parents. Meritocracy alone is arbitrary enough; we have no case to introduce a further arbitrary variable that compounds the birth lottery with the wealth lottery.

Perhaps the question is one of feasibility. Yet it would be unfair to dismiss the egalitarian cries here as simply infeasible, because we know full well that what we deem feasible is the product of negotiations and historical processes that have typically excluded international voices and left some of the least represented nationalities erased and silenced.

Finally, Oxford and Cambridge – given their historical snobbery and role in producing some of the finest disastrous governing minds that wreaked such havoc across the world during the colonial era – should recognise that they have core reparative duties to at least offer those with talents and aspirations, born in other countries, a fair chance at entering and thriving in them.

Now the further objection may be – if other countries aren’t doing it, why should the UK? See the classic anti-slack-taking challenge to taking up the burden of mitigating injustices (Miller, Cullity): why should we scratch the backs of other countries’ citizens when they don’t do it for our own?

This mentality is understandable, but misguided. It ignores the fact that citizens – 18 to 21 year olds – often have limited to no say over their countries’ educational policies. It also assumes that just because a problematic practice is currently the norm, we should maintain it as such – for all the fanfare of a post-Brexit, better England, here it becomes ironically reluctant at taking up greater leadership roles and positions as a leading country in the world for education.

Moreover, it isn’t true that all countries charge their overseas students exorbitant fees – and even if their private universities do so, there is no reason why Oxbridge should be allowed to get away with this, given their unique roles as neither fully private nor public.

We do not allow injustice to be committed again merely because it has already happened – why should we let superficial cries of so-called ‘fairness’ drown out the voices of those who would truly need and deserve the opportunities to acquire the world-class knowledge and skills championed by Oxford, very possibly to make a difference to their own countries and the world?

Finally, there’s the objection from local interests: that international students ought to cross-subsidise poor and deserving local students. Yet this claim conflates the claim right of local students with a particular claim upon foreign students.

It reeks of the classic, callous claim that pits white working class against foreign migrants workers. It neglects the fact that it is years of deliberately or incompetently maintained austerity that has left this country’s education infrastructure damaged and its students, youth, and future generations collectively deprived.

Why should we allow the UK government and education establishment to drive us apart, to impose upon us artificial divides at their own convenience? Life’s unfair, you might think. Deal with it.

Sure, but dealing with it should not be akin to remaining silent and complicit, in face of injustice. We can deal with unfairness by removing it.

Because there is nothing more frustrating than the exploitation of ‘local interest’ as a cheap political excuse to dismiss our obligations to strive for greater fairness and justice for all – whether they are students or migrants.

Because wealth is a deeply arbitrary metric in allocating education spaces, which makes current students feel unwelcome and future students feel deterred, thus undermining the meritocratic end objectives of tertiary education.

Because I was lucky, but many are not.

Because international students deserve better. Because we can do better

Oxfordshire County Council vote ‘No confidence’ in Oxford Health

Sam Millward
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Oxfordshire County Council vote ‘No confidence’ in Oxford Health

Oxfordshire County Council have passed a vote of no confidence in the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The decision follows a failure of communication about the closure of a local Community hospital.

Meeting on Friday 31st May, the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) discussed the recent closure of Oxford City Community Hospital, before holding an amended vote of no confidence in the Trust’s use of communicative procedure.

The possibility of the unit closing had been on the table since the previous summer, but was not declared to Oxford health until after the final decision was taken on the 8th May.

In response to this, Oxfordshire County Council convened a meeting of the Overview Scrutiny Committee, confirming the motion of no confidence on the same day that patients were discharged from City Community Hospital.

According to Oxford Health, the HOSC received testimony from “chief operating officer Dominic Hardisty, clinical director Pete McGrane and joint service director of Oxfordshire community services Tehmeena Ajmal, who responded to a volley of questioning”.

“The committee acknowledged the Trust’s grounds for the temporary closure.”

COO Dominic Hardisty told the committee that communication surrounding the issues was not of the standard it “could or should” have been, but cited a fear that staff would leave if the decision was announced, claiming employees may “vote with their feet”.

Hardisty also admitted that the unit had only managed to stay open due to the “extraordinary efforts” of staff members, informing the committee that some employees would work consecutive night and day shifts to cover staffing shortages.

County Councillor Lis Brighouse said she “would not accept” Hardisty’s response: “many of the residents in my ward work on the Churchill site.

“I’ve not met one health professional who would vote with their feet.

“They’re working back to back shifts in a system we know has massive problems. It’s a mess. “I can’t accept that they would vote with their feet.”

Councillor Hilary Hibbert Biles also told Cherwell the committee that the “lack of communication shows a lack of respect”.

The Chairman of HOSC, Arash Fatemain, described the issue as “managed rather than addressed” by Oxford Health.

He went on to say: “In light of the events that have transpired in the past and in particular, some of the decision-making, the committee doesn’t have confidence that there’s a proper understanding of the agreed working principles from Oxford Health.”

As previously reported by Cherwell, the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust temporarily closed its 12 bed City Community Hospital at the end of last month, due to staff shortages.

Half of all nursing posts had been unfilled since 206, with two thirds of posts due to be vacant by the end of the May.

Oxford hospitals are also experiencing an “exodus” of EU workers since the 2016 referendum. 800 EU staff have left Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, over double those that left in the five years preceding 2016.

Oxford Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said: “The fact that over 800 EU nationals have left our health service since Brexit is deeply saddening.”

Oxford marches for an end to NHS crisis

Rachel Cordery
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Oxford marches for an end to NHS crisis

Hundreds took to the streets last Saturday to protest the state of the NHS.

Under banners calling for action to Oxfordshire’s NHS staffing crisis, protesters marched through the city centre. With the closure of Oxford’s community hospital fresh in people’s minds, the town’s access to medical care was at the top of the list of concerns.

Growing opposition to the privatisation of cancer-scanning services at the Churchill Hospital was exacerbated last month when it was announced the twelve-bed ward in Headington would temporarily close due to a shortage of NHS nurses.

Health campaigners had raised concerns that more than two thirds of nursing posts were vacant by the end of May.

Beyond Oxfordshire, NHS services across the country have been battling a staffing crisis for a number of years.

Extremely high costs of living in Oxford have been cited as the main barrier to attracting new staff.

Latest NHS figures show that the trust employs 5,343 staff with just over 13% of posts being vacant.

Last week, John Drew, Director of Improvement and Culture at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) told Cherwell: “Recruiting and retaining staff is a challenge both for the NHS nationally and for us here in Oxfordshire.”

Acknowledging the significance of the crisis, Drew went on to say: “We have a clear workforce plan in place for the year ahead which includes ongoing recruitment of international nurses, a significant growth in apprentices, and continued efforts to ensure that OUH is a great place to work so that our existing staff want to stay with us.

“Moreover, we have seen a reduction in staff turnover recently and we want to see that trend continue by retaining our staff and helping them to develop and build their careers here in Oxfordshire.”

Yet as well as the high cost of living, the Oxford University Hospitals Trust, which runs the John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals, recently revealed that amidst the growing uncertainties of Brexit, a growing number of Spanish nurses were leaving the organisation to go home.

Responding to the worsening staffing crisis, a major expansion and redevelopment of housing for NHS staff in Oxford is being planned.

A plan, submitted to the Oxford City Council in April, involves the demolition of the original hospital accommodation and the creation of an additional 51 homes.

Protestors also marched against the privatisation of cancer (PET-CT) scanning at the Churchill Hospital.

In April, Oxfordshire’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was presented with a petition, which had amassed 10,000 signatures, opposing the plans. The belief of the petitioners is that privatisation of such services would mean that the NHS would become an inferior service.

Scanning services for cancer (PECT-CT) have been provided at the Churchill Hospital since 2005. In a meeting between the UOH and the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC), it was decided that the matter would be referred to the Secretary of State for Health.

The OUH told Cherwell that due to the decision “no changes will be made to the current PET-CT service at the Churchill Hospital while this process is ongoing.”

Following the meeting, the OUH Chief Executive, Dr Bruno Holthof, said: “I would like to thank the Oxfordshire HOSC for agreeing to our request to examine this issue.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the many patients who have contacted us to say how much they value the current PET-CT service at the Churchill. We are grateful for their support and also that of our local MPs and our governors who have spoken out on this issue.”

Pride must be inclusive

Flora Windebank
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Pride must be inclusive

Presuming that you’re living in the 21st century, you will be aware that June is Pride Month for the LGBTQ+ community. Pride is a time for celebration and, as is in the name, pride for the community itself. And yet every year the same age-old question arises: should straight people be allowed to march?

The history of Pride is understandably both an empowering and heartbreaking subject. Pride originated in New York in 1969, with a riot at the Stonewall Inn following one of the raids that often occurred in LGBTQ+ friendly spaces. These raids were frequently intrusive – anyone in feminine clothes would have to prove their female anatomy to police officers – and it was at this point that the tolerance limit of this discrimination had been reached.

It’s quite easy now to forget why Pride exists, or why there is still a need for it to exist (straight pride has been demanded by allegedly “oppressed” cisgender heterosexuals for over 30 years). Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and with the increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community has emerged an increase in the voices of what is either blatant homophobia or simply an ignorant refusal to empathise. So, when various members of the community resist allowing straight people to march with us, this should come as no real shock. The reasoning is clear: straight people cannot relate to our history, have not experienced discrimination in the way we have, are not explicitly part of the LGBTQ+ community and may even oppose its legitimate existence.

Pride is a time for the LGBTQ+ community, the moment when we can come together to show that we exist and that we deserve to exist. For some, to share this is to loosen the link to our history and to others in our community. Is there much sense in allowing people whose existence goes unquestioned for 12 months of the year and who effectively have 11 straight pride months, to march with those who are celebrating the time in which they can forget the toxic shame that has caused a repression of their innate nature and identity?

My answer, despite the above, is yes; there is always sense in allowing straight people to march in Pride. In fact, there is far more sense in allowing them to march than rebuking their presence entirely.

As has already been established, Pride is a time for the LGBTQ+ community to be openly proud of their identities. This has now become not simply a march to end the harassment and belittling of the community, but a march for acceptance. Self-acceptance, yes, but also acceptance from those outside our community.

We expect, justifiably, to be integrated into a society in which 90 percent of people identify as straight. We are a minority. We do not have the power to be exclusionary. If there is to be acceptance, there must also be the recognition that this applies to our actions towards those outside the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

In excluding straight people, and by ‘straight people’ I am talking about straight allies rather than those with exclusionary views themselves, from celebrating our identities we only marginalise ourselves further. We extend the separation and misunderstandings between the two. The irony of demanding to be a part of society and then actively seeking to shelter ourselves from said society is frankly ridiculous.

I do not dispute that Pride should center around the LGBTQ+ community, and in attending any straight allies should be fully aware of this. However, the solution to all our discriminatory issues and subconscious bias toward cisgendered heterosexuality does not come in the form of the insular surroundings of only those inside the community. I return to the issue of reactions; if we act in this way for the one month we are given to freely express ourselves, what do we expect from the other eleven months in which our straight contemporaries dominate? Just as we feel resentment and anger from the varying exclusivity of society, so would any straight ally who is rejected from showing their support.

And it is this support that is so vital in our fight for acceptance. We fight for equality and inclusivity; why divide when we are given a choice? Why would the 90 percent of the population who do not identify as LGBTQ+ include us, the clear minority, if we can’t even include those who fully support our rights? The point of Pride, as the name would suggest, is to be proud of who we are. How can we do so if we do not have the support of others, if we are continuously shamed and dehumanised?

We are not equal yet – we have much further to go. But we are much, much stronger if we act as a combined potential rather than with solely the remaining 10 percent of the population.

With this being said, there is a certain level of conduct that should be upheld by straight allies when attending Pride. It is an enjoyable event that should be welcoming to everyone, but that is not to say the history behind it takes a back foot. To all of us celebrating Pride this month, there is a deeper meaning that an enjoyable afternoon with music and alcohol should not distract us from. This is a time for humans as a whole to support each other as equals, to show our solidarity no matter what identity or sexual persuasion.

Read our history, take from it what you will, and please, celebrate it with us.

Oxford researchers develop AI machine to think like humans

Rachel Cordery
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Oxford researchers develop AI machine to think like humans

Researchers at Oxford University are attempting to recreate human thinking patterns in machines, using a language guided imagination (LGI) network.

Their work could inform the development of artificial intelligence (AI) that is capable of human-like thinking.

AI machines can now recognise images and process language, but this “continual” or imaginative thinking ability is only restricted to humans, at the moment. These machines are unable to understand and interpret language in the same way and with the same depth as humans.

The “human thinking systems” have a cumulative learning capacity that accompanies them as their brain develops. This system is associated with the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for memory processes that take place as people are performing a task.

Human thinking requires the brain to understand a particular language expression and use it to organise ideas in the mind. The human brain is able to generate mental images guided by language.

For example, if a person notices it is raining, they would internally say, “I need an umbrella” before deciding to get an umbrella. As the thought travels through the brain, they will automatically understand what the visual input means, and how an umbrella will prevent them from getting wet.

While AI machines would be able to recognise the raindrops, there would be no similar thought process to link the rain with the need for an umbrella.

Feng Qi and Wenchuan Wu have used the model of a prefrontal cortex to create an artificial neural network, in an attempt to reproduce human-like thinking patterns in machines.

Qi told Cherwell: “I think this work may open a new page of AI.” In their paper, ‘Human-like machine thinking: Language guided imagination’, they wrote: “We proposed a Language guided imagination (LGI) network to incrementally learn the meaning and usage of numerous words and syntaxes, aiming to form a human-like machine thinking process.”

The LGI network developed by Qi and Wu has three key subsystems: a vision system, a language system, and a synthetic prefrontal cortex.

The vision system contains an encoder that unscrambles the input or imagined scenarios into abstract population representations, as well as an imagination decoder to recreate imagined scenario from higher level representations.

The language system imitates the part of the brain which extracts quantity information and converts binary vectors into text symbols.

The final component, which also imitates a part of the brain, is the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) which combines inputs of both language and vision representations and predicts text symbols and manipulated images.

Further research of the LGI network could lead to the development of more advanced AI, which is capable of more complex human-like thinking strategies.

Qi told Cherwell: “I think this work may open a new page of AI.

“LGI has incrementally learned eight different syntaxes (or tasks), with which a machine thinking loop has been formed and validated by the proper interaction between language and vision system.”

“The paper provides a new architecture to let the machine learn, understand and use language in a human-like way that could ultimately enable a machine to construct fictitious ’mental’ scenario and possess intelligence.”

Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

Christopher Sinnott
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Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

A student standing to be elected to the Oxford Union Secretary’s Committee has been sharply criticised by members of his JCR for submitting a motion tabled in the agenda that claimed “colonialism is underrated”.

The motion, which calls for a “Declaration of War on St. Edmund’s Hall”, was posted in protest in the Queen’s JCR Facebook group by a member who asked “how and why a motion including the phrase ‘colonialism is underrated’ is being heard”.

The member went on to point out that “historical and present-day imperialism resulting in cultural and actual genocide isn’t particularly funny” and that “not all of us see the impact of global colonialism as something that can be joked about, and when your immediate family are still regularly endangered by the lasting ramifications of colonialism in your country, perhaps you can speak on it”.

The post called for the withdrawal of the motion from the meeting’s agenda and for a “public apology from the proposer and seconder”. The member who brought the motion to the JCR’s attention declined to give further comment on the incident.

The controversial comments appear to be particularly troubling as the fresher that tabled the motion has filed an application to stand as a secretary’s committee candidate. Cherwell understands that he was selected to do so as part of Amy Gregg’s “Unlock the Union” slate.

In response to the controversy, Gregg confirmed that the student “will not be a member of the Unlock the Union team. I hope the Queen’s College deals with him appropriately”.

In a statement, the fresher told Cherwell: “On 9th June, I submitted a motion to the Queen’s College JCR for a constitutional meeting, with the motion being for the purposes of ‘declaring war on Teddy Hall’ – a joke inspired by another JCR’s declaration of war on their own MCR. Having missed the deadline for submissions on Friday, I hurriedly drafted my motion, found someone to second it and sent it to the Chair via email, asking that it still be included despite its tardiness.

“My seconder had absolutely no clue to any of the contents – only that it had to do with war with Teddy Hall, and simply seconded as a favour to me. This was entirely my motion; I alone saw it before sending it off.

“It later came to my attention that the section with ‘colonialism is underrated’ could be construed as in very bad taste, and was something that should not belong anywhere near a JCR motion, not least when a post was made to our JCR Facebook page laying bare my transgressions. The comment was meant as a joking justification for taking over another college ‘for their own sake’, but I see now that it was seen as an inappropriate and even offensive inclusion to many.

“Indeed, I barely gave that point much thought at all. I profusely apologize for this – my only intention was to entertain, but I see now I crossed a line I should not have, something I was blind to see when writing and sending in the motion. Most of all I apologize to my college and especially my seconder, who did not deserve to get wrapped up in this as a result of my action.

“As a result of this I have since asked for the entire motion to be removed from the meeting, having realized my mistake and error in judgement, and would ask for your forgiveness for my transgression.”

In response to the controversy, Queen’s College JCR President Ebrubaoghene Ayovenefe wrote a Facebook post to all JCR members in which he strongly condemned the motion.

Ayovunefe wrote: “I can’t believe I actually have to say this in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen, but the Queen’s College JCR does not endorse imperial apologia, nor does it in any way support the view that it was ‘underrated’.

“One of two things is true. The article point of the motion in question (which has since been withdrawn) was written with either i. little to no forethought on what was being said when that ‘joke’ was written, thus demonstrating a frankly astounding ignorance of the inherent violence of colonialism, its consequences on the peoples who suffered under the colonial project, and their descendants still reeling today from its aftershocks; in which case, I would kindly invite the proposer and seconder to, after sincerely apologising to the JCR, educate themselves on the British imperial project and how it much contributed to the comfort which they enjoy as residents of this country, relative to the descendants of Britain’s imperial subjects. If the two are finding such particularly difficult, I can provide some recommendations for reading, or I could let them know what it is to be a native of a country Britain used as its imperial whipping boy for almost a century.

“Or ii. the proposer and seconder knew all of the above and, in the name of ignorance, a “joke” or needless provocation, decided they just didn’t care; in which case, I would rather less kindly invite them to examine the faults of their own characters and begin to work on developing a degree of sympathy for others, and a thorough understanding of why such comments are not only resoundingly insensitive to the natives of former colonial nations (such as myself, for one) but why it is not their place to make such a mockery of colonialism, but rather their place (and, indeed, their moral imperative) to educate themselves on and involve themselves with the various decolonial efforts taking place in social and academic spheres.

“An apology is not enough if it is engendered merely by the collective censure of one’s peers, rather than a more profound understanding of how one has erred.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Ayovunefe defended the JCR committee, saying: “until Hilary Term of 2018 the vetting process allowed for motions to be discussed or dismissed at the discretion of the JCR Chair, a power which was removed from our constitution on the grounds of its potential for undemocratic abuses of power, and one which we will consider restoring in the light of this motion.

“This article point in question and the levity with which it was included in the motion point not only to a frankly ubiquitous ignorance of the colonial project and its legacy, but also to the outright denialism of this legacy’s effects, which occur at the level of both the personal and institutional.

“I need only gesture to Professor Nigel Biggar’s ‘Ethics and Empire’ project to demonstrate how normalised imperial apologia is both in Oxford and in society at large, and how reflexive attempts to whitewash the extent to which the standard of living Britain enjoys are a consequence of its position as a former colonial power have become in the wake of the historical revisionism of Empire.”

Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

Tilly Walters
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Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

At the England-Netherlands Nations League semi-final on 6th June, EDL founder Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) was filmed punching an England fan outside the stadium in Portugal. This is more significant than a reflection of the toxicity and violence that has defined our political landscape in the three years since the EU referendum. Central to national character, football (whether club or international) represents a crucial part of English society.

Nationalist rhetoric has always found a home in football. The Italian ultras have had close historic links to Neo-Nazi gangs and far-right fascist groups; fans have territorial tendencies, and fierce identification with a team. The intensity of the ultras of Italian teams like Lazio or Roma demonstrate an obsessive operation that has paramilitary links in their establishment in the early 1960s. Most recently, an Inter fan was killed during clashes with Napoli in December 2018; Tottenham fans were stabbed by  Lazio ultras in 2012. The violence and idelogy go hand in hand, with posters of Mussolini and Hitler, as well as racist and anti-Semitic rife within the clubs and their supporters. Outside of the ultras’ own fan action, the wider control over clubs has political links – Italy’s controversy-racked ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi held the controlling share in A.C. Milan for 31 years up to 2017. 

The over-amalgamation of fascist politics and football is a combination that asks for chaos. The association with politically motivated violence has prompted the presentation of football matches as hostile atmospheres. It has taken more than 25 years to counter falsehoods about the Hillsborough disaster – spread by the police involved – and feelings of hurt and injustice still justifiably run deep. Football is becoming entrenched within British identity politics and threatens to become caught in the politicisation of almost every element of British everyday life.  

It could have been the heatwave, the blissful distraction from political chaos, but the 2018 World Cup seemed like it was part of a positive change to the reputation of English football. The euphoria of the first semi-final appearance in 28 years signalled a new and fresh approach, manager and set of players; it did seem, for a brief second, that football really was ‘coming home’. There was positive patriotism and unity in a country divided by bitter European tension. Henry Winter commented that ‘England gave the nation hope of a better future, and not only on the field of play’ and this was certainly accurate. In pubs around across the country, with complete strangers tensely watching Kane’s flawless shots or England’s first penalty shootout win, it seemed that Brexit-brutalised Britain had finally found a collective love. Waistcoat sales soared, the players themselves participated in the social media frenzy surrounding the competition. Everyone was keen to have something to do with the sun-bathed positivity of the team’s careful campaign. Despite media expectation with the World Cup being held in Russia, the mood was overwhelmingly optimistic throughout.

This unification was significant for a reason – the team represented the best of the UK, diverse, multicultural and young, yet heralded by tradition; their manager, Gareth Southgate, is an ex-England player himself with a significant international record. The team masterfully banished the negativity and criticism that had trailed the national team for years, but it seems like the positivity of that summer has been overtaken by division once again; football may be returning to a place of violence and division, representative of a stereotyped aggressive patriotism bordering on nationalism. Yaxley-Lennon’s presence at an international game, overpowering the neutrality of the sport-loving majority, signals a shift as English culture and society becomes dominated by political suggestion.

The Football Spectators Act allowed for the barring of specific fans for violence, racism, threats and almost any criminal behaviour connected with the attendance of a football match. Yaxley-Lennon was, in fact, briefly banned under public disorder before the case was dropped. Legal framework around antisocial behaviour related to the support of teams has tried to distance what seems like the twin concepts of football and disorder that have defined the game for decades.

England fans have a poor reputation for international behaviour. Their attitude is defined more by occupation than encouragement, leaving a bitter taste on wins or losses. Consistently, England fans at away games will be at fault for violence, rowdy behaviour or racist language. It isn’t every fan, but those who bring English football into disrepute seem to view it as their duty. Southgate branded such supporters ‘an embarrassment’ after their behaviour in Portugal, conveying worries about future UEFA games and fans’ behaviour. Following the positivity of the World Cup, it seems as though the English game is regressing with the return to violence at international games.

There were reports of fans at the game wearing clothes with EDL logos; the national team clearly wishes to distance itself from such ideology. This is ‘tarnishing’ them with the  ‘wrong atmosphere’ as the head of England security described. It seems that year after year (a game in the Netherlands in 2018 had similar activity), the group of away fans that sing racist songs, behave violently and get arrested are attempting to keep football grounded in its less pleasant past.

The 2018 World Cup team was the most ethnically diverse team to ever represent England; 11 out of 23 members were non-white. Such stats represent the tangible change within football, with a team more truly representative of the positivity of England’s diversity. To have EDL supporters defining the team’s image with racist behaviour seems incongruent with the promising change that Southgate’s squad has brought. Football is one of the most uniting elements of ‘Englishness’, with 75% of respondents to a British Future survey (both white and ethnic minority) feeling that English football represented national identity – the same cannot be said about other truly ‘English’ (i.e. not just British), components of identity, such as the St. George flag.

The ‘Football Lads Alliance’ is a prime example of football-associated patriotism turned sour. A group formed in 2017 as supposedly ‘anti-extremist’, it has instead been suggested to give a cover to the far-right, with Yaxley-Lennon and other EDL figures present at their march against extremism in October 2017. A group that could have a positive message has instead been overtaken by the loud minority. There were reports of Islamophobic abuse on their Facebook page and aggressive confrontation of counter-protesters (with anti-Islamophobia signs and banners) at their march. Similarly, the Casuals United, a far-right protest group composed of football supports, has targeted Muslim groups in their protest action. 

Amongst global teams, and even other English nationals, the anti-England backlash is so prevalent that it has spawned a movement, ‘Anyone But England’. This has encouraged a wider trend of English football fans disavowing the behaviour associated with their national team. English football should not be relinquished to the minority that have soured the sport. If football’s increasing diversity and inclusiveness proves anything, it’s that it inspires positivity and community, bringing a country together even in the middle of political turbulence. Far-right figures within English and British politics threaten the cohesion and unity that sport can provide.

Staging Invisibility

Lou Lou Curry
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Staging Invisibility

What does it mean to be a hustler? The answer you get will, for the most part, depend on who you’re asking – the response, however, is generally negative. If you look it up on Urban Dictionary (reputable, I know) the answer is simply “someone who knows how to get money from others.”

Pop culture, on the other hand, offers us a treasure trove of answers. In his pièce de résistance ‘Hustlin’’, rapper Rick Ross offers us, in my humble opinion, the most comprehensive or academic introduction to the etymology and nuances of the word ‘hustler’.

Ross is not the only artist to have exploited the word for entertainment purposes, inverting and exploring a term which so often has, in the dictionary definition at least, negative connotations. One only has to recall the halcyon days of 2008 for Beyonce’s hot take on the matter in her hit ‘Diva’, where she posits that a ‘diva’ is actually a female version of a ‘hustler’ – thrilling stuff.

Even kids’ ‘TV is not devoid of the odd reference to the ‘hustler’ – looking even further back to 2004, in a now iconic episode of Drake & Josh, Drake is branded a ‘hustler’ after he takes advantage of Josh’s billiard skills and swindles people out of their money.

Despite the idea of the ‘hustler’ being so firmly ingrained in pop culture, then, there is surprisingly little about a specific type of hustler – that is, the ‘hustler prostitute’. Though perhaps this is not that surprising after all – these ‘hustlers’ were practically invisible. Their race, sexuality and disabilities, among other things, as well as their choice (or, rather, lack thereof) of profession leave them invisible to the masses. To find the ‘hustler prostitute’ culturally or historically is certainly hard work – though not quite impossible. However, to find representations of the ‘hustler prostitute’ through an intersectional lens or in a context where they are not fetishised and simultaneously degraded is impossible. (Or at least it was until I discovered FX’s Pose halfway through writing this – but, even then, that is still only one show in a great sea of media.)

My original play Hustlers constitutes my response to the lack of representation of this invisible group – a response which has been four years in the making. Inspired by Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Hustlers, a photo book depicting the “hustlers” on the streets of LA, I was determined to offer an honest take on the industry and discover more about these often forgotten faces. My exploration of their lives emboldened me: I wanted these narratives (especially the LGBTQ+ and BAME narratives which are often suppressed or neglected by the media) to be acknowledged. Hustlers is based on the lives of actual survivors, and I am proud to say their voices will be heard: the play debuts at the BT Studio next week, before its run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Offering an intersectional view on sex work in the 1980s, Hustlers is set during the AIDS and drug crisis. The play focuses on the lives of four individuals, aged between sixteen and twenty-four, as their lives continuously intertwine and collide. Exploring challenging themes – from addiction to struggles with sexuality to sexual assault – each narrative offers a glimpse into another world, one not that far from our own: the streets. I wanted this play to offer an intense examination of the mental and physical consequences of sex work, the extreme pressures these individuals are put under, and the methods they adopt to gain a release from their own realities.

Writing the script and conveying its intended message to my audience was no easy task. How was I supposed to rectify almost forty years of looking the other way in a forty minute show? How could I encourage my audience to think with an awareness of intersectionality? How do I stage the invisibility these four characters felt?

Yet, when it came to this idea of ‘staging invisibility’ I realised I was asking myself the completely wrong question. Instead of focusing on the years of marginalisation, how could I celebrate diversity? How could I bring it to the very forefront of my production? How could I stage these narratives in the most visible way possible?

There have been some valiant and successful attempts to challenge the lack of diversity in the Oxford drama scene: for example, Medea at the Keble O’Reilly last Trinity, which had an all-BAME cast and crew; similarly, My Mother Runs in Zig-Zags at the North Wall earlier this term, also with an all-BAME cast. However, I still think it is currently still not diverse enough and more can be done.

But while all can safely agree that the Oxford drama scene can become more diverse, how one should go about doing so is admittedly difficult to ascertain. Nowadays merely an empty buzzword, the meaning of ‘diversity’ is so nebulous that any attempt to improve it seems like a impossible and daunting task. Diversity in terms of what? Race? Gender? Sexuality? Furthermore, how could I challenge diversity in a way that was not superficial? I ultimately decided to start small, beginning with my own cast and crew.

Indeed, in directing and acting in Hustlers, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how easy it has been to embrace diversity in the production, even if this has improved the overall issue of diversity in the Oxford drama scene only marginally.

Both the director and assistant director (Priya Radhakrishnan and myself respectively) are women of colour. We also have a very diverse cast in terms of race (over a third of our cast and crew are BAME) as well as in terms of sexuality and nationality. Yet, merely listing the various races or sexualities of the cast and crew of Hustlers is a superficial bandaid on the much deeper and darker issue of diversity in theatre – not only in Oxford, but nationally.

I believe the answer to diversity lies in our having the courage to address it – not tomorrow, not in a minute, not when it’s more convenient, but right now. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my experience, it’s that it’s possible to make room for a diverse cast and crew in your productions – no matter what the production and even when it’s easier not to.

This could mean making Lysander and Hermia a lesbian couple in your reproduction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Brasenose did for their arts week a couple of years ago, to great effect), even if it means changing the script; this means deciding to have an all-BAME cast, even if only 1.9% of students Oxford admitted in 2017 were black.

I think this attitude is especially pertinent to new productions, which have a blank slate from which to work. I would encourage any new or aspiring writers or directors to carve out a space in their scripts for diversity – because, with enough momentum, it’s where the future of theatre is headed. Allow yourself to be inspired by the full range of talent and experience Oxford has to offer across the spectrum. As an audience member, open yourself up to new experiences and new narratives. The characters in Hustlers, characters I guarantee are so different from you, invite you to hear them, to explore their history and to delve into their complicated lives.

So come, allow them to be heard.

Professor accuses Cambridge of anti-white racism

Sam Millward
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Professor accuses Cambridge of anti-white racism

Professor Nigel Biggar has accused Cambridge University of “discriminat[ion] on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all moral and politics”.

The Director of the McDonald centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life, went on to say that “if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt of prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all.”

Writing in in the Oxford Magazine, a circular produced by and for faculty members, in second week of this term, Biggar penned an article entitled “Cambridge and the Exclusion of Jordan Peterson”, addressing the decision taken by Cambridge to rescind the offer of a visiting fellowship, extended to the Canadian polemic on the 19th of February.

A Cambridge University spokesperson told the Evening Standard: “We recognise Nigel Biggar’s right to hold views on Cambridge in relation to discrimination against white, male, conservative men, which are claims which we refute utterly.”

Biggar’s article charges Cambridge on three accounts: communicating the decision to rescind the offer to the Student Union, before contacting Peterson, not providing reasoning for its decision, and its inconsistent attitudes towards free speech and the actions of faculty members.

The Oxford Regius professor wrote that, having examined Peterson’s actions and career, he believed critics of the Canadian “had no good reason to infer from a single, ambiguous photograph that Jordan Peterson endorsed ‘Islamophobia’”, referring to an image taken of Peterson with his arm around a man saying “I am a proud Islamophobe”.

“He failed to ask the obvious questions that any fair-minded observer would have asked.

“He, along with his colleagues, rushed to judgement”, said Biggar, speaking about the judgement made by Stephen Toope, the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University.

He claims that “the full significance of Cambridge’s reaction in this case only becomes clear when related to an earlier one”, going on to describe Cambridge Fellow Dr Priyamvada Gopal’s online attack on his work “Ethics and Empire” as “incontinent abuse”, based on the same rhetoric as the decision to withdraw Peterson’s invitation.

In December 2017, Dr Gopal, a Reader in Cambridge’s English Faculty, and Fellow of Churchill College attacked his work, tweeting “we need to SHUT THIS DOWN”. The response, a widespread social media movement against Biggar, came as a reaction to what the Oxford academic terms his “modest view that ‘empire’ can mean a variety of things, is capable of good as well as evil, raises ethical questions worth thinking about, and requires sophisticated moral evaluation.”

He goes on to claim that the “fact that Dr Gopal’s behaviour appears to have violated their university’s own Social Media Guidelines seems to have bothered them not at all.”

Biggar then extends his comparison, appearing to state that Dr Gopal received preferential and inconsistent treatment from the University, on the basis of her race, sex and political biases.

“When one puts Cambridge University’s serial inaction in the case of Dr Gopal alongside its precipitate action in the case of Professor Peterson, what is revealed is this: the University does in fact discriminate on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all morals and politics.

“If you’re non-white, female, and aggressively ‘woke’, then you’ll be accorded maximal benefit of doubt, given a pass on official norms of civility, and let free to spit hatred and contempt on social media.

“However, if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt about prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all. And, should you do so much as appear to transgress ill-conceived norms of inclusiveness, you’ll be summarily and rudely excluded.”

Dr Gopal described the piece in the Oxford Magazine as a ‘tedious bore”, saying “These power imbalances are so profoundly built in to bullying, harassment, stalking, racism, sexism etc”.

Speaking to Cherwell, Professor Biggar said “Cambridge University declares that it ‘utterly refutes’ my claim that it engages in political discrimination. I have substantiated what I have claimed with argument and evidence.

“To refute it would require counterargument and counter-evidence. Since Cambridge has supplied neither, it has not refuted my claim; it has merely rejected it without explanation. Once again its leadership has shown itself incapable of engaging in the accountable giving-and-taking of reasons, which is the very raison d’etre of a university.”

At the time, Cambridge’s Student Union (CUSU) offered the following statement “We are relieved to hear that Jordan Peterson’s request for a visiting fellowship to Cambridge’s faculty of divinity has been rescinded following further review.

“It is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson. His work and views are not representative of the student body and as such we do not see his visit as a valuable contribution to the University, but one that works in opposition to the principles of the University.”

In response to this, an extensive blog post from Peterson, entitled “Cambridge University Rescinds my Fellowship”, condemned the university and union, ending with the statement “I think that it is no bloody wonder that the faith is declining (and with it, the values of the West, as it fragments) with cowards and mountebanks of the sort who manifested themselves today at the helm. I wish them the continued decline in relevance over the next few decades that they deeply and profoundly and diligently work toward and deserve.”

Interview: Mike Gravel

Ben van der Merwe
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Interview: Mike Gravel

Hello? Who is this?” came the confused voice of the 89-year old former Senator.

I had arranged a Skype interview with Mike Gravel, a left-wing outsider in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He didn’t seem to know this, but I wasn’t going to complain. Cory Booker’s team had replied to my interview request with an automated message asking if I wanted to apply for inclusion on his “press release distribution list.” No, thanks.
Under any definition, Mike Gravel is not an ordinary presidential candidate. Not only is he 89 years old, but his campaign manager is 17. His policies, which include closing all US military bases abroad, are far to the left of the US political debate.
I ask him if he’s serious about running. “Of course, I’m 89 years old – by no stretch of the imagination could I get elected. But my ambition is getting the issues out there.”

Gravel ran for President before, in 2008. His firebrand campaign pledged immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and reparations for the war’s victims. After polling be- low 1% for several weeks, he was eventually excluded from the MSNBC television debates. (Gravel still claims that MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, conspired to sabotage his campaign due to their links with the military).

He’s clear that running for President again wasn’t his plan. “I had no intention of doing it. I was contacted by David Ok and another gentleman – Henry Williams. They asked me if I’d run for President, and I said, ‘Do you realise how old I am?’ They said, “That doesn’t make any difference for us, it’s the issues!’

“I still have the same agenda – because nothing’s changed, things just got worse. I gave them my Twitter ac- count, which I never used, to go ahead and run me, because they gave me a list of the issues that they’re interested in, which are identical to mine. But most importantly, at the top of the list was my efforts to create a Legislature of the People. And that floats my boat.”

The Legislature of the People is the latest iteration of Gravel’s enthusiasm for direct democracy, a constitutional amendment that would establish a deliberative body open to all citizens to enact, amend and repeal legislation.

I ask him what he thinks about the Brexit referendum as an example of direct democracy in action: “The people voted on the referendum, but they were not acting in a deliberative fashion. So, what the politicians did was just kick the can down the street and blame it on the people. When you have a referendum, it’s an up and down vote but it has no deliberative qualities to it.”

Gravel laments that the media never reported his proposals for direct democracy during is 2008 candidacy, preferring instead to focus on his foreign policy. I realise I haven’t heard about it in his 2020 candidacy either. In fact, there’s nothing whatsoever in his platform about direct democracy.

I don’t raise this, but Gravel is open about his marginal role in the campaign: “I wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for these young kids. I’m not travelling at all. I’m just staying here in my living room. McKinley, when he ran for President in the old days, would sit on his porch, make a speech, and his minions would go out and campaign.

“Well, I’ve also got a patio campaign. I sit on my patio in California, and these kids out of New York are running the whole show. If they’re successful in getting me into the debates, I’ll show up for the debates but not much more than that.”

With few media interviews and no sign of being allowed anywhere near the debate stage, Gravel’s public face has been his Twitter account, which is being run by the three teenagers who make up his campaign team.

The Twitter feed mixes acerbic putdowns of fellow candidates (“If you want a vision of the future under Cory Booker, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. and every once in a while it stops for an inspirational lecture on how we should never stop dreaming.”) with sober reminders about America’s spiralling inequality and the human consequences of its foreign and immigration policies.

As well as direct democracy, some of the Senator’s more fringe views have been side-lined from the campaign. His support for a ‘citizens’ commission’ to conduct “a true investigation as to what happened” on 9/11 does not feature, and nor does his belief in UFOs.

After past statements about 9/11 resurfaced, the campaign quickly disowned the remarks: “Yes, Sen. Gravel has made these statements, and we disagree with them and don’t believe that 9/11 was an inside job. But he’s never caused anyone’s death or unjust imprisonment or helped keep people in poverty and pain, unlike Biden and Booker and Harris. Frankly, these are only words, aimed at the richest and most powerful among us, folks like Dick Cheney.”

The campaign’s hard-line stance on US foreign policy, however, is authentic Gravel. Under the slogan ‘End American Empire’, the website carries a running tally of US expenditure on ‘regime change wars’ since 2001. At almost $5.5 trillion, the website claims: “That’s enough to cover the full cost of tuition for every person wishing to enroll in community college in the United States.”

I ask Gravel if he’s serious about cutting military spend- ing in half. He tells me: “If you take a dollar from the military budget and put it into education, the dollar only employs one person for the military budget, but employs four people for the education budget. You could cut back on our imperial military establishment by 50% – this comes from [Vietnam-era Secretary of Defence] Robert MacNa- mara. He said: ‘You can cut the budget 50% and we’re not going to be at risk anywhere in the world.’”

Gravel’s stance on military spending is not really financial, however, but moral. I ask him if he really believed that America has an empire: “Totally! Totally. We followed in your footsteps, and you were wrong, and we are presently wrong. And it’s immoral. It’s immoral.

“Right today, we have the Abraham Lincoln carrier and its flotilla coming in to threaten Iran. This is sick. Iran hasn’t done anything to us. They’re not a threat to the United States, they’re not a threat to Great Britain.

“The US overthrew [democratically elected Iranian prime minister] Mossadegh in 1953 at the behest of Britain, because he had nationalised BP. We deposed him – he died shortly after, under private arrest – and we installed the Shah, who turned around, became our puppet and oppressed his people. And then the Ayatollah came in, as a revolutionary group, and is still running the country. It’s all because of us – we took away their democracy.”

I ask him what he thinks of America’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran: “Who are we to sanction anybody, and to pull your government into sanctioning people? Under Clinton we had sanctions against [Saddam] Hussein. During that decade 500,000 children died, and the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: ‘Well, that’s collateral damage.’

“That isn’t collateral damage, that’s murdering children, and we’re doing the same thing now in Venezuela. Tens of thousands of children are going to die for lack of medicine and proper food. Sanctions don’t work. Take North Korea – does it look like Kim Jong-Un missed a meal? No, they don’t work. It entrenches stronger the people who are running the country because they blame us for what’s going on.”

While other candidates on the left of the Democratic party oppose war with Iran, I suggest that few would argue America’s foreign policy is systematically oppressive. The Senator tells me: “That’s not true. This stuff is systematic. We have an arrogance, and the British have this too to a degree, we have an arrogance that thinks we’re superior to other people. This is hubris of the worst kind.

“I’ll give you an example. We are establishing a military presence in the heart of Africa. China is also dealing with Africa, but what are they doing? They’re making economic development available to the Africans to raise their standard of living.

“This whole NATO operation is really a boondoggle. When you had the implosion of the Warsaw Pact, there was no reason anymore for NATO to be there. And, by and large, the European Union recognises that there’s no real threat to them from Russia or anybody else. What happened in Ukraine was all instigated by [Victoria] Nuland, the Under- secretary of our Foreign Affairs Department, under Hillary Clinton.

“We’re only for regime change if someone doesn’t knuckle under to our economic policies. As far as regime change, we don’t see that in Saudi Arabia. We don’t see that in Egypt, or other countries. If you’re a tyrant and you suck up to us, we’ll leave you alone. But if you oppose us, we want regime change.”

A key part of Gravel’s platform is re-engaging with multilateral institutions. This includes a pledge to rejoin the Paris Accords, the Iran nuclear deal and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – effectively ending America’s nuclear threat.

The Senator explains to me: “We’ve got two major problems that are destroying the planet. There’s no question that with the advance in science and technology people on the planet are better off than they used to be, but by the same token, with the level of growth and pollution that’s going on we are slowly imploding. It may take 100 years, but unless we change this whole process and go to non-carbon based energy production we’ll destroy the planet. So that’s one. That’s a suicide pact that we’re marching towards.

“The other pact is the suicide pact that we have is with nuclear. Once he got his Nobel Peace Prize in his back pocket, Obama started refurbishing our nukes. We are go- ing to re-do our entire nuclear arsenal. They say it’s going to cost $1.7 trillion, but that’s not what it’s going to cost. The cost overrun in the Pentagon is legion. So, it’s going to cost north of $3 trillion. That could provide education and healthcare to us, but the boondoggle of it all – the mother of all boondoggles – is that none of these weapons are usable. If you unload it, you immediately trigger a nuclear winter, and we’re all going to die. You as well as us.

“The Pentagon says that this refurbishing of the arsenal is a number one priority, and the reason is that we want to be able to instil fear in people who don’t agree with us and really make them understand that we are prepared to use these nukes on a first strike capability. It doesn’t get scarier than that.”

As well as transferring all US military bases to the United Nations, a Gravel presidency would prohibit aid to Israel and Saudi Arabia and ban all arms exports. While most candidates awkwardly avoid the topic, Gravel’s team have pledged reparations – not just for the descendants of for- mer slaves, but to the descendants of those impacted by Jim Crow, settler colonialism and America’s foreign wars.

I ask Senator Gravel if Britain and America’s historical crimes are really the responsibility of today’s citizens: “No, it is our concern, because we see the legacy of this all around – worldwide. What I think the solution is is edu- cation, but in the US we have an education system that’s based upon property taxes at the local level. So, if you’ve got a rich community, they really pour money into their kids. But if you’ve got a poor community, they don’t get it. The legacy is there. Not only for slavery, but what we’ve done with our discrimination to the Latino group and the whole immigration problem.

“The other thing is to alter capitalism so that the profits of capital, which pay for the costs of capital, are shared with everybody through a loan programme. How do the rich get rich? They do it through borrowing money and getting rich off others’ money. We can set up a programme for that nationally.

“This one presidential candidate wants to give everyone $1,000 like we do in Alaska. That’s pocket change in the course of a year, for a poor person. That doesn’t cut to much. What we need to do is alter the nature of capitalism so that it does benefit the people first, and the wealthy second.”

The Gravel campaign has always been keen to make the debate stage. To participate in the debates, however, candidates must genuinely be running to win – something which the Gravel team announced on Twitter last month, despite earlier claims by Gravel that he planned to drop out and endorse the ‘most progressive candidate’.

Given the sensitivities surrounding eligibility for the TV debates, I gently ask whether there was any possibility of Gravel dropping out to endorse another candidate. The Senator laughs: “Oh, yes. Well, that’s the plan! That’s the secret plan! There’s no way, at my age… I could serve maybe 4 years, but I’d be 94! Although, if I’m in good condition, I’m still better than 95% of the people running.

“I would endorse Bernie Sanders, no question! I donated money to him at the last go-around, when he was sabotaged by Hillary, Obama and Wasserman-Schultz. Bernie would have beaten Trump in the last go-around, and I still think he could beat Trump. But what’s happening with the Democratic Party is ‘Oh, we’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to take the middle road’. There’s no middle road.”

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