Saturday, April 26, 2025
Blog Page 64

Vigil for former Oxford student ‘wrongfully held’ in Iran for more than two years

Euan Elliott
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Vigil for former Oxford student ‘wrongfully held’ in Iran for more than two years

A vigil will be held for Johan Floderus, a former Oxford student, who has been detained in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for over two years.

Floderus, a Swedish national, graduated from Harris Manchester College in 2014 with a philosophy, politics and economics degree, before working as a diplomat with the European Union’s External Action Service. 

In April 2022, the then 33-year-old was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. His arrest was made public more than a year later. Last December, Floderus appeared in an Iranian court, accused of “spreading corruption on earth” – prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. 

The vigil, aimed at “raising awareness of Johan’s plight”, will be held on Saturday 1st June. A silent march is to be held through central Oxford, concluding with a reception at Harris Manchester College. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained by the Iranian government for six years, will speak, along with friends and family of Floderus.

Conditions in Evin prison, where Floderus is currently held, are notoriously poor. Human rights groups accuse prison guards of arbitrary beatings, humiliating detainees and failing to give injured prisoners access to medical care. Floderus is allowed one short conversation a month with his family. Cell lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and according to his family, Floderus is given neither sufficient food rations nor medical attention.

Floderus’ detainment is seen as part of Iran’s strategy of hostage diplomacy, whereby Western citizens are arbitrarily detained so that their freedom may be leveraged by Tehran for financial or political gain. The European Union has stated that there are “absolutely no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed to leave the country in March 2022, the day after the British government settled an outstanding debt of £393.8 million, linked to the pre-revolutionary government’s order of thousands of British tanks which never arrived. In September 2022, the US unfroze £4.8 billion of sanctioned Iranian funds in return for the release of five American prisoners.In July 2022, Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official, was sentenced to life in prison by a Swedish court for crimes against humanity following his involvement in the 1988 mass executions of Iranian prisoners. Nassim Papayaianni, of Amnesty International, has stated that there are “very clear indications that the authorities are holding Floderus hostage to compel the Swedish authorities to swap him for the former Iranian official, Hamid Nouri.”

We Walk Along

Josephine Thornton
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We Walk Along

We walk along by the river, my hand in his, our arms of different lengths and his palms much bigger than mine. The sun is hot but not too hot; we feel its glow on our shoulders as we walk towards the bridge. Along the bank there are poppies, hundreds of them, interspersed between the long grass. Their tissue paper petals are translucent in the sun. We walk and say very little, but sometimes his fingers gently brush against the back of my hand.

The path winds upwards and opens onto a bridge, a great metal monstrosity that hangs above the wide stretch of dancing waters below, but from up here there is little sense of that. You stand by the railings and look down at the glittering blue, the sun rippling in a blinding continual flutter, and you close your eyes and feel the breeze in your hair. You forget for a moment that your heart is heavy, and those words you have been trying not to say evaporate on your tongue.

We stand there for several minutes, passed by occasional cyclists in bright lycra and walkers, some in jeans and t-shirts that catch on the breeze, others dressed in tight leggings and wielding walking sticks. A few greet us, some smile in our direction. I imagine how we look from the outside, young and intertwined. The present does not capture what might be coming next, and so they keep walking or pedalling, these passers-by, and we become extras in their stories, frozen in our moment of bliss.

The sun is taken in by a cloud and it is a reminder that the afternoon will not last forever. I look up into his face – I am always looking up – and see into his familiar eyes. There has often been a melancholy tinge to that blue, and now that it is the end of May I finally understand why. Those eyes have known all along that they will watch as I walk away. He smiles, the sweetness of his face clarified by his sorrow.

I trace his chin with my finger. Without the need for any words, in the language that will always unite those of a similar soul, I tell him that I would not change a single one of these perfect moments that have led us towards our imperfect end.

The Orwell Tour review: ‘A unique and first-rate travelogue’

Hassan Akram
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The Orwell Tour review: ‘A unique and first-rate travelogue’

Within the last year there have been countless new books on George Orwell, but Oliver Lewis’s The Orwell Tour, just released in paperback, is the most accessible and enjoyable of them all. Lewis writes in a crisp and evocative style (I can still see in my mind’s eye the Martian dust of Marrakech and the architecture and landscape of Huesca); and he has Orwell’s own gift for fresh similes (on a bus “it was as if the passengers were coins in a tin can being rattled”; in Burma he finds “a crumbling church tower, as if copied and pasted from Surrey”). The result is a book which, even without the Orwell element, would remain a first-rate piece of travel writing.

Orwell had an extremely productive life in which, aside from writing enough novels and essays and letters to fill twenty thick volumes, he travelled very widely. He was born in India, educated at Eton, lived among miners in Wigan and beggars in London and Paris, served as a policeman in Burma and a soldier in Spain. Lewis handles every location with expertise. He is not just a travel writer, but a novelist, a humourist, and a historian.

Like Evelyn Waugh, a contemporary of Orwell’s and a former contributor to Cherwell who wrote a number of amusing travelogues, Lewis makes his travels more fun to read about by recording a number of humorous interactions with locals. There is an incident that stands out involving an octogenarian monk in Burma. Lewis approaches him and asks for a photograph. “He replied: ‘Mannay?’ I answered that I had paid my entrance fee, but he snapped back: ‘No mannay? Get out!’” At another point Lewis meets a woman who complains to him that, on ships, dogs are always taken down first: “They’re treating them like animals. It’s disgusting.”

Lewis manages seamlessly to blend anecdotes and local colour with history and biography. In the chapter on Burma, he gives an overview of the country’s history since Orwell’s days, and this historical coverage flows perfectly with all else around it, where in less competent hands it would have come through as a tacked-on digression. Some of the accounts of local folklore are also very good, e.g. the legend of Jack of Southwold.

There is some literary criticism here, too, but it never overbears and is always interesting. Lewis belongs to that school of Orwell scholars which seeks to rescue his dullest novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter, from what E.P. Thompson called the condescension of posterity; an intriguing parallel is drawn between that novel and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (yet another Cherwell alumnus – we’re on a roll this week). If anything, these snippets of literary criticism are too brief, although those who want more such can always console themselves with a copy of Orwell: The New Life or the latest issue of George Orwell Studies.

Lewis does his best with the less interesting sites of Orwell’s life, and the quality of writing and research never falters. Orwell had lived for some time in some quite full places, like Hayes, of which he gave a laser-accurate description as “one of the most godforsaken places I have ever struck”. Henley-upon-Thames, the town of his childhood, is green and pleasant, though it is more worth reading about for the charm of the Edwardian setting than the charm of the place itself.

The book also benefits from small details of niche interest. Lewis, like Orwell, is something of a bibliophile, and he has an extraordinary eye for bookshops in all the places he has visited. “It is hard to resist visiting any bookshop in the vicinity of somewhere with Orwellian credentials.” It is interesting to read a description of a tucked-away library in India where books in English have gone utterly unborrowed since the 1950s, remaining as a sort of shelved tomb for the British Raj. Some of Lewis’s observations defy categorisation but remain amusing and thought-provoking: in Marrakech he reflects that former French colonies have better hotel breakfasts than former British ones.

If at times Lewis tries too hard to be accessible (i.e. explaining about how public schools are not really public), that is compensated for by the fact that everyone can read this book. Lewis succeeds admirably in everything that he aims to do, and his infectious enthusiasm for his subject shines through in every line. Whether you are interested in travel or literature or history or biography, this is definitely a book to read – as, I am sure, will be his upcoming book on travels through the life and work of John Steinbeck.

Oliver Lewis’s book The Orwell Tour is now available in paperback from Blackwell’s, Waterstones, and Gulp Fiction. You can find my interview with Oliver Lewis here: [weblink/page number]

The Drake and Kendrick Lamar saga

Nina Naidu
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The Drake and Kendrick Lamar saga

Since the rise of hip-hop in the 1990s, diss tracks (short for disrespect or disparage) have been a staple of the genre. These tracks aim to tarnish a person’s reputation through the art of “spitting bars”, escalating conflict between individuals. It’s often a game of verbal ping pong, where releasing one diss track prompts a response which in turn prompts another response, intensifying the rivalry. I’ve even witnessed amateur rap battles on primary school playgrounds with kids hurling insults about each other’s mums. While somewhat entertaining (especially when both parties commit to the diss), the stakes are never as high as in the most infamous track feud: Drake versus Kendrick Lamar.  

Many are surprised to know that the Kendrick-Drake feud actually dates back to the early 2010s, despite its recent resurgence. Initially, the two artists began on favourable terms with their first collaboration in 2011 on Drake’s album Take Care. They continued to collaborate together over the next few years. However, in 2013, Lamar stirred the pot by claiming that he would “murder” Drake amongst other rappers in Big Sean’s song ‘Control’. This led to a response from Drake in the album Nothing Was The Same, referencing Lamar’s ‘Control’ verse. Drake, however, denied dissing Lamar, claiming that he wasn’t at all threatened by Lamar’s verse. 

Between 2015 and 2022, their disses evolved into ‘sneak disses’: subtle jabs without directly mentioning names. This feud reached a peak in a famous 2016 interview with Barack Obama, who, when asked whether Lamar or Drake would win in a rap battle, appraised Lamar’s album To Pimp A Butterfly as the best album of 2015. Drake responded unfavourably to Obama’s endorsement of Lamar, taking a shot at the former president with the line “tell Obama that my verses are just like the whips that he in / they bulletproof” in his song ‘Summer Sixteen’. 

Fast forward to 2023, when fellow rapper J. Cole suggested that he, Lamar, and Drake formed the ‘Big Three’ greatest rappers of modern hip-hop on Drake’s song ‘First Person Shooter’. Lamar, rejecting this idea, responded with a diss track asserting that he was only “big me” rather than part of the aforementioned trio…

In March 2024, Lamar released ‘Like That’, stirring controversy with disses aimed both at J. Cole and Drake. Referencing many of Drake’s previous albums and songs (“fuck sneak dissin’, first-person shooter” and “certified paedophiles”, for example), this marked a departure from years of subliminal disses. Accusing Drake of issues with alcoholism, gambling, inappropriate behaviour with minors, and being a neglectful father, Lamar made it undeniably clear that their beef was far from over, and he was determined to win. As of May 2024, 17 total diss tracks have been involved in their feud. 

While diss tracks have always fuelled drama in the hip-hop scene, their reputation has been somewhat diluted by the sheer volume produced by YouTubers and social media influencers. A notable example is the feud between Jake Paul and RiceGum, two YouTubers popular in the mid-2010s. When Jake Paul released his infamous song ‘It’s Everyday Bro’ in 2017, it was widely mocked for its poor quality. The song dissed Paul’s ex-girlfriend, Alissa Violet, prompting her to release a response track, ‘It’s Every Night Sis’ with RiceGum. Their feud, which also involved Paul’s brother Logan, caused quite a stir on YouTube, with many criticising their bars as inauthentic and ghostwritten. Today, when people mention “diss track”, it’s difficult not to think of these two influencers trading juvenile insults.

Despite this, the enduring feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar remains both entertaining and impressive. While the content of their diss tracks may be contentious, the prolific output of music is a testament to their dedication and talent and casual listeners and fans alike remain eager to hear the next revealing instalment.

World Cocktail Day at the Ashmolean Museum

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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World Cocktail Day at the Ashmolean Museum

As News editors, when we received an invite to the Ashmolean Museum’s celebration of World Cocktail Day – 13 May, for those who didn’t celebrate – we jumped at the opportunity to take a break from running between protests and sending off comment requests. Instead of attending our usual 4 pm tutorials, we found ourselves at the Ashmolean’s rooftop bar, where we were served a range of Ashmolean-inspired cocktails. 

We arrived at the event and were greeted by a table decorated with flowers and charcuterie boards. Other members of the press, Ashmolean staff, and representatives of Gibson’s Organic Liqueurs and Oxford Artisan Distillery joined us as we discovered new cocktail recipes and learnt more about the Ashmolean Museum. 

We spoke with a member of the Ashmolean’s brand licensing team, whose workdays are dedicated to ensuring that the museum’s ‘brand identity’ is aligned with their wider narrative. Her creative domain includes art print tees developed with Topman, but extends to creative details with an ecopaint brand developing paint colours inspired by the Ashmolean’s collections. The newly painted rooftop restaurant features ‘Enamel Blue’, for example, lifted from accents on delicate pins and brooches in the enamel jewellery collection, and ‘Breaking Wave’, a colour from the details of waves depicted in their Japanese woodblock prints. 

As part of these efforts, the museum recently launched a partnership collaboration with Gibson’s Organic Liqueurs, whose owner, Miles Gibson, attended this event. Gibson’s farm, based outside Burford in Oxfordshire, grows all of the fruit and flowers used in Gibson liqueurs – a feature of the company that is, according to Gibson, “unlike almost every other liqueur producer in the country.” 

We tried the Ashmolean Crab Apple Organic Liqueur, developed by Gibson, first straight-up and then in a crab apple martini. The liqueur is composed almost entirely of crab apples and sugar. The alcoholic base, a gluten-free organic grain spirit, was hardly detectable and allowed the pure bitter apple flavour to dominate the drink. Star anise – subtly sweet and tinged with licorice – added an needed edge. The liqueur bottle is enamelled with Still Life of Apple Blossom, a relic from the Dutch Golden Age, painted in the 1680s by John Verelst. The painting, we are told, was Verelst’s only one not to include a vase – a nod to the organic wildness of the crab apple used in Gibson’s liqueur. 

We also tasted the Oxford Artisan Distillery’s Ashmolean Dry Gin, the bottle of which featured ‘Spray of Morning Glory’, by Takeuchi Seiho, part of the museum’s Eastern Art collection. The blue and green flowers depicted in the print are a nod to the orris and exotic kaffir lime leaves, two of 17 botanicals that together created the final full, juniper-led taste. It was a flavourful base for a summery G&T, which we received garnished with a slice of jara lemon and a sprig of lavender. 

If the Monday afternoon invite-only rooftop gin tasting didn’t quite align with the museum’s stated goal of making their collections “more accessible… and relevant to people’s lives”, then at least the event was such a delight that no one attending seemed to mind. The atmosphere was light, the drinks were both tasty and brand-aligned, and, as the organisers reminded us, it’s royalty income generated from products like cocktails that allows the Ashmolean to keep entry to its world-class galleries free. 

In addition to free entry for all, the Ashmolean provides Oxford students and alumni with free entry to paid exhibitions and a 10% discount on all museum merchandise. 

Cherwell Introduces: Tongue

Joseph Lomax
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Cherwell Introduces: Tongue

Joining me this week are the up-and-coming Oxford rock band, Tongue. After a gorgeously hot and sunny day, I had the pleasure of watching their electric set on my home turf, the Christ Church bar.

Consisting of front-man James (2nd Year Mathematician at Worcester), bass player Tilly (2nd Year English and French student at Pembroke), guitarist Doudou (2nd Year Mathematics at Christ Church), and drummer Jack (2nd Year English at Wadham), the band met me after their set to discuss who and what Tongue are, their favourite memories as a band, and their love for the humble Dyson Airblade…

So how did you guys meet and form a band?

James: I was on a total crusade during freshers’ week of 1st year, after introducing myself I would tack on ‘do you play guitar’ or ‘do you play drums’, and Doudou plays guitar. We met at this introductory maths lecture. And I met James because he’s part of a different band…look at his t-shirt!

Jack:  I’m in Blue Bayou, and we both played at Wadstock, and James found us and liked us!

James: We came across Tilly, because I know Alec, and he knows Tilly, and she plays bass, and plays well!

Jack: Very well.

James: Everyone I know who plays an instrument has played in Tongue at some point. Basically 10 people? Actually, 11. AND a chairman, Jacob. He may or may not be here tonight.

Taking a brief break halfway into their set, James was keen to help me continue my journalistic endeavours – so I asked, accompanied by a lovely drumroll from Jack: Who is your biggest musical inspiration?  

James: It’s Pavement. Yeah. Official answer is Pavement. Anyone else got any suggestions?…no? Yeah, Pavement!

What is your favourite song to perform as a band?

Doudou: Say it on three?

James: Yep, ok let’s do it on three….

Tilly: No wait, I’m between two and I wanna say the same as you guys…. ok ready.

All together: One, two, three… Dyson Airblade.

I had to ask: What was it about this hand-dryer that was so special for the band?

James: It’s just the best type of dryer. You know you’re going to have dry hands, the physical intensity of it is just incomparable.  I have a belief about hand dryers, you’ve got to put one hand on top of the other slide them in and out alternately, it should be systematic! And that’s what a Dyson Airblade is…systematic!  What on earth is better than an instructional hand dryer? You’ve got clear communication.

Tilly: I like the Dyson V version; you know the ones with the handles that jut out (like the ones at Society café? I ask) I don’t know about the society café toilet, but all I can say is there’s something very powerful about the stance of that Dyson.

What exactly did you mean when you said that you embody: ‘The typical machismo of post-funk jazz fusion?’ – I could sense the irony but thought I’d get some clarification.

James: Just a little joke about jazz-fusion – not to get sincere, but local music is an old-boys club. Our Spotify is 59% male listeners, an all-time low for us. It’s a joke about how machismo the industry is.

What is your creative process like? Do you write all together, or do you bring ideas to one another. Tell me how it gets thrashed out.

James: I’ll come in with a skeleton, and everyone else will put the meat on. I encourage them to put their own special meat onto the bones. To me whoever is playing IS Tongue, and I am always saying I want you to make this your own.

What is your favourite memory together as a band?

James: Mine is when we first rehearsed. Doudou was late as shit, and me, Fin, and Mathias played Dress Like Shit, and it was…fine. But Doudou arrived and we ran it again and it sounded beefy, and fun, and just so much better.

Tilly: I really like when we ran onto the train at the last minute, and we all went to Didcot together. We were just ambling without a care in the world and then all had to frantically pile onto the train.

Any special business in Didcot?

James: I live there, and I have a shitty little studio in my garage called the box where we rehearse.

What’s the story behind the name?

James: Deep down I wanted the name to be Feral Beast Club – Doudou and Mathias, everytime I suggested it, were like yeah, ok, that’s an option….

Doudou: someone just said Tongue one day, right?

James: Yeah, someone who isn’t in the band anymore suggested we call it Tongue. As an 18-year-old getting a text from a 23-year-old saying ‘I like Tongue’ was something I’d never experienced before…

And finally, please tell people why they should buy your album!

James: They should buy the album because Jack couldn’t buy his cigs from the Tesco opposite Christ Church.

Jack: Because there’s music on it!

James: Because Mathias Franz plays drums on it and he’s a god incarnate.

Tongue’s debut album, Tongue! is out now. 

Oxford Union rejects motion ‘British Museums are Not Very British’

Charlotte Dawson
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Oxford Union rejects motion ‘British Museums are Not Very British’

On Thursday night, the Oxford Union voted against the motion ‘This House Believes British Museums Are Not Very British.’ The final count had 95 members voting for the motion and 155 members voting against. 

Speaking in favour of the motion was former Conservative Minister for Culture the Rt Hon. Lord Vaizey of Didcot PC. He was joined by second-year Philosophy, Politics, and Economics student Aliyyah Gbadamosi (University College) and first-year law student Karma Gad (Mansfield College). 

The opposition featured Willie Jackson, New Zealand politician and former unionist, broadcaster and Urban Maori leader. He was joined by Gary Vikan, a former director of the Walters Art Museum, and second-year Philosophy, Politics, and Economics student Shermar Pryce (University College). 

Aliyyah Gbadamosi opened the case for the proposition with information on the British Museum: it displays over 8,000 works of art and artefacts, she told us, yet more than 70% of these items were acquired abroad. She argued that to call the British Museum’s artefacts ‘British’ is to say that the objects that a thief steals and then displays belong to him.

She acknowledged that having foreign artefacts is a common practice for “universal museums” but argued that in the case of the British Museum those objects were acquired through violence and injustice, making modern day possession of them unjust.

Shermar Pryce then spoke in favour of the opposition. Pryce agreed that many objects displayed in museums in the UK were acquired illegitimately but stated: “What is more British than that?” He argued that institutions like museums must tell the stories of their country and of their people and so museums in the UK must tell the colonial history of the British Empire. 

Pryce argued that because Rosetta Stone became the property of the British after they defeated Napoleon in Egypt, it represents one of Britain’s “favourite pastimes”: defeating the French. 

Karma Gad then continued the case for the proposition. She acknowledged that universal museums have an educational value, but questioned whether it’s “worth it” if it comes to the detriment of the culture they’re teaching about. She noted that the British Museum’s Ethiopian tablets are so precious that they have never been on public display and argued they don’t educate the public yet the Museum still keeps them. She also criticised the “patronising” argument that British museums are entitled to foreign artefacts because nations cannot care for them themselves.  

Gary Vikan spoke next for the opposition. He also chose to focus on the case of the British Museum because “it’s the biggest, it’s in deep trouble, and it’s changed [his] life.” He reminisced about going there for the first time and being amazed by the art that he had only ever seen in textbooks. 

He argued that the universal museum is an invention of the British and by collecting the art of the world, museums like the British Museum are “essentially British.” 

The Rt Hon. Lord Vaizey of Didcot PC then spoke in favour of the motion, and delved into the UK’s Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, which bans an object from leaving the UK if it has a strong cultural link to British history. He said we believe in keeping objects that are culturally important to us and we should apply the same rule to others.

He then argued in favour of giving the Parthenon marbles back to Greece and concluded that museums represent a Britain that does not believe in “fair play”, which is no longer the case.

Willie Jackson closed the case for the opposition and argued: “British museums are very, very British because it’s very, very, very British to take from indigenous people.” He declared that taking other peoples’ culture and claiming it as their own is “very British” and also described how last year the British Museum lost around 200 items that it was meant to protect as “very British again.” He concluded by expressing hope that “your tradition of justice brings our ancestors home.”  

‘Act normal, that’s crazy enough’: In conversation with Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind

Ananya Parakh
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‘Act normal, that’s crazy enough’: In conversation with Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind

Why have humans survived as the ones to travel to Mars, create artificial intelligence and make use of the world’s resources unlike any other species? Dutch historian and author, Rutger Bregman, author of the pop history book Humankind might have the answers. Through scientific arguments supporting the inherent kindness of Homo Sapiens, Bregman argues that “most people, deep down, are pretty decent.”  

Brian Hare’s theory of a shift in perspective from “survival of the fittest” to “survival of the friendliest” is one supported by Bregman: “I recently became a father. My daughter is 2 and a half years old right now. I love her very dearly, but it’s quite clear to me that she is very stupid. Toddlers are not all that impressive compared to, say, pigs or chimpanzees of a similar age. There is one thing which they really excel at, which psychologists call social learning. They’re really good at imitating us. The way my daughter talks is sometimes quite funny and disturbing, because sometimes she sounds like a little history professor. Our ability to learn from one another is our secret superpower. Loneliness is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” On the other hand, humans are also capable of committing terrible atrocities and waging wars that a “penguin could never dream of”. And this is why it took more than a couple, but about 400 pages, to explain Humankind.

Growing up in different environments has a considerable effect on our behavioral patterns and habits, being social creatures. This could include putting the milk or cereal in first, having a jam or clotted cream base on a scone, reading Bregman’s books or watching Love Island. Growing up in the Netherlands, Bregman has experienced the social norms that have led it to rank as one of the happiest countries in the world: “In the book (Humankind), I talk about how nomadic hunter gatherers live their lives. There’s one very striking aspect that they have a reverse hierarchy where the group controls the leaders. It’s very dangerous to be a narcissist in a nomadic hunter gatherer society, because quickly the group will crack down on you. And that often reminds me of the Netherlands actually. So in the Netherlands we call it ‘hayfield culture’. As soon as you think you’re more important than others, people start dunking on you in a pretty massive way. So, it’s sometimes a bit difficult to be ambitious. There’s a famous Dutch saying, “Act normal, that’s crazy enough.”

You are who you surround yourself with. The Plastics from Mean girls or The Nerds from any 2000s movie, you do you. Bregman’s experience at university led him down an unconventional path to finding what is truly cool: “I was initially a very lazy student in the Netherlands. We have a grading system that goes from 1, which is the worst you can get, to 10, which is a perfect score, and for me 5.5 was the best possible grade to get because that was just enough to get a pass. So, for me the most important thing in my first year was drinking enough beer and wasting enough time. But then what happened is that I became a member of a small Student Society in Utrecht, another city in the Netherlands. One of my friends, who was a member, brought me along and I fell completely in love with that student society. I guess it was the way people related to each other. There was such an honest and natural curiosity that most of the members had. It was also the kind of conversations that were much more interesting that what I was used to. So it turns out that curiosity and ambition are not just things that you can be born with but are also highly contagious. My definition of cool really changed during that period.”

How many people grow up dreaming of money? A house made of money and not cheese, or a money themed birthday party instead of princesses? As foundational as it is, how much money do we really need to chase to be happy? : “There’s a famous Daniel Kahneman study and his number was $75,000 a year, and after that there are huge diminishing returns to getting wealthier. I don’t pity those people to be honest. The world is lying at your feet basically. And you’ve got only one life. You’ve got only one career. A career on average lasts 80,000 hours. That’s 10,000 working days. That’s 2000 work weeks, and then you retire and then you die. So time is the most precious thing you have on Earth. Your teens and your 20s are absolutely essential because this is the period in which you’re writing the constitution of your own life. Usually, past the age of 30, people get stuck. So make your 20s really count. Don’t be a sheep. Don’t be a zombie. Don’t follow all those silly people to what my friend (and Oxford University student) Simon van Teutem calls ‘the Bermuda triangle of talent’: banking, corporate law, consultancy. Being really successful is not about buying that big house or owning a boat. Being really successful is helping as many people as possible. That’s what it should be about.”

A few ideas that Bregman advocates for are a universal basic income, open borders and a 15-hour work week in his book Utopia for Realists. Vigilant of being called naive, Bregman has sprinkled the definition of realism with hope. While believing that there is much to learn from Machiavelli to get things done, he holds faith in a world growing into a utopian reality: “A couple of decades from now, three-quarters of all countries are going to have a declining birth rate. We have also seen that the birth rate has plummeted and is plummeting in many rich and middle income countries. And in the end, the most precious capital that countries have are its people, right? And there’s already the global war for talent going on. I think that the countries that will be the most prosperous in the next couple of decades will also be the most tolerant countries. And that is why places like Oxford University can be so inspiring, because of its diversity.”

If you’re struggling to see the benefits of Brexit, Bregman seems to have an optimistic view on it: “Britain has also delivered a service for the rest of Europe, because they have shown us that getting out of the EU is such a bad idea that we don’t have to try it for ourselves in the Netherlands. Even Geert Wilders, the right wing populist, the most racist, xenophobic politician in the Netherlands is also against Nexit. And we really have to thank Britain for that. So thank you for your service, Great Britain. Thank you for proving to the rest of the EU that getting out of the EU is one of the most stupid ideas you can ever come up with.” Sorry if that opener was misleading.

“We live in a world of global apartheid, where the country in which you are born already determines 60% of your income. And I think it would make a lot of sense to abolish all borders. I mean, that’s the utopian end goal. Now, obviously there’s a lot of intermediate steps, but we’ve got a lot of empirical economic research and most of it shows that immigration is both good for immigrants, obviously, they get a massive gain in wages, but it’s also good for receiving countries. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and they pay quite a bit in taxes, they contribute much more than they take. That’s just what the evidence shows us, but people find it very hard to follow the evidence when it comes to this and that is one of the dark sides of human nature.” 

Bregman’s upcoming book is about the waste of talent, and here’s what he has to say about the role of Oxford’s talent pool: “So many smart people who go to the best universities get stuck in jobs that don’t add much value to the world. Lots of young physics students, for example, when they’re young, dream about going to Mars or finding a cure for cancer.” And you might not like this if you’re considering selling-out: ”But then they turn 25 and there’s some hedge fund in London that gets them a shitload of money, and then they’re lost. There was this quote that went viral 15 years ago from someone that worked at Facebook, “The greatest minds of my generation think about how to make people click on ads.” And that is so sad, right?” His message: “Don’t go for the big corporates. We owe it to the world.”

Bregman‘s books Utopia for Realists and Humankind are available at Blackwells and Waterstones.

Why don’t we go clubbing any more?

Kiera Hybel
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Why don’t we go clubbing any more?

It’s a Wednesday evening and I’m curled on a JCR sofa with my friends, peppermint tea in hand. Whereas once we would have been throwing back shots, we now relegate ourselves to onlookers, marvelling at the freshers who career around the room, “Park End” bouncing from their lips.

You may already have crafted an image of my anti-social and, dare I say, boring friend group, but I implore you not to be so quick in your stereotyping (herbal teas are for everyone, ok?). As we sit on this sofa, esteemed elders that we are, I don’t feel boring. I don’t feel that I’m missing out.

But why is this? What about the sweaty caverns of Plush or the narrow corridors of Bridge has made me so immune to the allure of a club night? Perhaps it’s the notoriously bad nightlife in Oxford – “this is no Manchester, no Newcastle”, my northern friends decry. Although this is evidently true, I instinctively know that it isn’t the answer I’m seeking. A hardened Cowley veteran, my infrequent club nights this year have been at O2, Bully and Glamorous. Of these clubs, it’s the half-empty basement bar, Glamorous, in which I’ve made the best memories, dancing to Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ as my friends countdown to my birthday. Given that Glam can hardly be deserving of the label ‘club’, I know that it’s not more tightly packed rooms and louder DnB that I desire.

At the heart of this debate is a stark generational shift. It’s not that we don’t want to go clubbing in Oxford, it’s that we don’t want to go clubbing at all.

In February of this year, Rekom (the owner of clubs including Atik and Pryzm) went into administration. As readers will by now be aware, Atik Oxford is closing in June, a headline of such importance that it could only be topped by the northern lights and a geomagnetic storm last seen in 2003. Atik’s closure is not testament to Oxford’s questionable nightlife. Rekom had already shut the doors to 17 of its venues; the fate of Atik Oxford rested on discussions with the club’s landlord, rather than financial dire straits. Nevertheless, while Atik and Park End (Street) may not have been compatible after all, Rekom’s troubles are an indication that my lack of enthusiasm for clubbing is not unique.

Gen Zers just aren’t clubbers and there are stats to back this up. The NHS revealed in 2021 that 38% of 16-to-24-year-olds in England either don’t drink or haven’t drunk in the last 12 months. A survey by Keep Hush in 2022 found that only 25% of Gen Z would ever consider a night out. It’s my suspicion that these slightly outdated figures have only been exacerbated in the past few years.

Rekom put forward that its financial difficulty was due to the fact that one in three young Brits are socialising less. It’s a plausible argument given the aftermath of a global pandemic, a steady increase in spiking, and an ever-present cost of living crisis. Even in a city as small as Oxford, it’s impossible to go on a night out without feeling the sweaty hand of a stranger snatching at your waist or droplets of beer-breath settling on the back of your neck. A friend’s single vodka coke at a recent event cost her £16, much to our incredulity. But despite all of this, I don’t think Rekom’s conclusion captures the full picture.

I contend that we’re not socialising less, but instead socialising differently. It has become all too easy to label our generation as TikTok-obsessed internet addicts, but, in my opinion, it’s actually social media which is inspiring us to be more creative with how we spend our time. Town and Gown was all the rage this year, but this is only representative of a wider running craze sweeping social media by storm. The running frenzy isn’t purely pandemic-related: the 2025 London Marathon has received 840,000 applications, smashing the record of 578,000 set last year. From a quick scroll on Instagram, I’m led to believe that students have left nightclubs and joined running clubs.

But that’s not all. Be it crocheting, group reading, baking, swimming, travelling, picnicking, listening to live music, or painting candles and pottery, you bet my social media has suggested it to me. We’ve been told by TikTok (or, for the more refined among us, Reels) to romanticise our lives. We’re certainly not living as the ‘main character’ when shoved up against the wall of a club.

Last weekend, I went to visit my sister at her uni. Very spontaneously, we hopped on an evening train to a tiny seaside town and made our way to the seafront. It was when I resurfaced after having plunged into spearmint-fresh waters that the only other person on the beach, backlit by a soft pink sunset, said “aren’t you glad we didn’t go clubbing?”.

JSoc and UJS release statement condemning antisemitic graffiti at Regent’s Park College

Cherwell News
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JSoc and UJS release statement condemning antisemitic graffiti at Regent’s Park College

Oxford University Jewish Society (JSoc) alongside the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) have released a joint statement condemning the recent discovery of antisemitic graffiti at Regent’s Park College “reported by students to be Nazi swastikas.” They urged the University administration to “show zero tolerance to the antisemitic and hostile atmosphere which has been allowed to flourish at Oxford University.”

On 9th May, Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor, Irene Tracey, attended a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “protect Jewish students” and combat antisemitism on UK university campuses. Representatives from UJS were also in attendance. Their current statement goes on to say that: “Since October 7th, we have seen an overwhelming surge in antisemitism on campus, and this has only increased in recent weeks. Shamefully our experiences have been denied by JCR and MCR motions accusing us of ‘weaponising antisemitism’.” 

Several statements of solidarity with the Oxford Action for Palestine encampment passed recently by college JCRs have referenced the “weaponisation of antisemitism” in relation with these demonstrations, including that accusations of antisemitism are “wholly at odds of reality of these encampments, which are safe spaces for Jews, Muslims, peoples of other faiths and none.” 

Olly De Herrera, president of OXJSoc, told Cherwell: “Yesterday (May 21nd) we became aware of two incidents of antisemitic graffiti discovered in the bathrooms of Regent’s Park College, which were highlighted to Regent’s students via an internal email from the College.” Also clarifying that “we were told by students at Regent’s Park College that the graffiti was Swastikas.” 

Sir Malcolm Evans, Principal of Regent’s Park College, spoke to Cherwell on May 23rd and officially confirmed that the discovered graffiti was “in the form of a number of swastikas.” 

On midday of Tuesday May 21nd, members of Regent’s Park College were addressed in an email by current Dean Dr. Lynn Robson regarding the incident: “Anti-semitic graffiti was drawn on the walls of two cubicles in the toilets adjacent to the Hall, and has now been removed.” It goes on to state that: “It is hard not to connect this to the impending votes on motions that have been put forward to JCR and MCR.”

Robson reaffirmed support for “freedom of speech, and academic freedom within this College and the wider University … which is conducted respectfully and does not amount to harassment, violates the dignity of others, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.” 

She also warned that “we do not tolerate any instances of abuse, offensive behaviour, open or covert hostility, directed at others on the grounds of race, religion or belief … This and any other instances of such behaviour will warrant Serious Disciplinary Action under Section 5 of the Student Disciplinary Policy.” All students were advised to contact the Dean directly, or the college’s Harassment Officers in case of having experienced or witnessed any such behaviour. 

Maria Jabal, a Junior Dean in Regents Park College, followed up Robson’s email by providing a link to an open letter hosted on the website Oxford since 7/10 to all students addressed in the original communication. Her message read: “I’m attaching an open letter to the university on behalf of Jewish students, academics and friends which I think would be helpful for you to be aware of.” 

Ten minutes later, Robson sent an additional email again addressed to the entire College community explaining that: “The email from Maria Jabal was sent in error, and from her personal account. ”

On Thursday May 23, Cherwell received a full statement from Sir Malcolm Evans, Principal of Regent’s Park, following the public statement of condemnation delivered by JSoc and UJS:

“Mutual respect and toleration and the freedom of religion or belief is a central pillar of Baptist identity and thus foundational to the ethos of Regent’s. This is reflected in much of the work of the College and, speaking personally, is a subject to which I have devoted much of my professional academic life.

Early this week anti-Semitic graffiti in the form of a number of swastikas was found within the College. This is deeply shocking and is a matter that the College, and I personally, take extremely seriously. Such behaviour has no place here and cannot be considered acceptable under any circumstances. We do not know who did this or why it was done; but be assured that appropriate action will be taken should we become aware of the identity of those responsible – as it would in respect of any such display of hatred or hostility towards members of our College, or others.

Steps have already been taken to provide support and we will continue to assist all students who have been affected by what has occurred. The College has always prided itself on offering a welcoming and inclusive community – something which has recently been confirmed in a JCR survey of student life. I hope that we are able to learn from what has happened by being reminded of the need to be understanding and supportive of each other as we share in our common life together. I am confident that the values that underpin the College will continue to guide us as we do so.” 

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