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2017: The year of Jack Antonoff

Verity Stuart
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2017: The year of Jack Antonoff

Four of 2017’s best albums were co-written and produced by pop’s veiled hero, Jack Antonoff, the man paradoxically behind odes of female liberation and songs of empowerment. His work with Lorde, St Vincent and Taylor Swift has evidenced grand change in each artists’ musical sound, dissected and highlighted through Antonoff’s nostalgic, evocative pop production.

The first of his projects in 2017, however, was Antonoff’s own personal record, Bleachers’ Gone Now, an album that demonstrates the musician and producer’s unabashed ambition. Gone Now is stately, fragmentary, and unflinching, shaping a world around his songs just as his life is moulded by his music. He insists on indulging in every pleasure in the roaring singles ‘Don’t Take the Money’ and ‘I Miss Those Days’, and yet even the album’s quieter moments brim with intertextuality. ‘Goodmorning’ has recurring reprises throughout the record and collaborators Carly Rae Jepsen, Julia Michaels and Lorde sing backing vocals. We infer a sense of the album’s narrative and yet the quiet admission of defeat on the final song, ‘Foreign Girls’, denotes Gone Now as a kind of vanity record, an attempt at creating something big and masterful but not yet complete.

It is his project with Lorde, however, released the very same month as Gone Now, that affirms a shared ingenuity between the songwriters. Melodrama is a reflection of what it means to be a young woman in the shape of a humid pop record, shameless in its self-indulgence. Antonoff’s production perfectly mirrors Lorde’s intimate lyricism, with small touches occurring when most needed: the unobtrusive guitar strums of ‘The Louvre,’ work when contrasted to the post-chorus’s ambient cracklings, and the trap drums oppose the title track’s orchestral pining. Pop melodies are infused with arrangements of misshapen beats and distorted sounds that creep under the skin. They operate on personal and universal levels, perfectly capturing the unparalleled joy of self-awakening and the testing of personal limits as reflected in the sultry summer world that Lorde and Antonoff create: luxurious, audacious, and melodramatic.

The first two albums released in 2017 with Antonoff’s involvement detail summer obsession, intoxicating claustrophobia and nostalgia unrivalled by the present. But Antonoff’s philosophy shifts in the two albums released in the later part of the year – St Vincent’s Masseducation and Taylor Swift’s Reputation expose bitter, rancorous realities after the sweet summer haze of teenage optimism has waned. St Vincent, otherwise known as Annie Clark, and Swift are two figures who have elicited divisive views from audiences, the former due to her unapologetic presence as a female guitarist in a homogenous male domain, and the latter due to her numerous feuds and romantic controversies.

They both exploit these conflicting philosophies through their unexpectedly celebratory records, as the dangerous female archetypes they are assumed to conform to become figures to embrace. Swift becomes the once exaggerated character from her 2014 music video, ‘Blank Space’, no longer a desperate and long-suffering female caricature, but a villainous, paradoxical woman. She is at once heartbreaker and heartbroken, perpetrator and victim, the girl next door, the business woman, the snake. The album induces a new appreciation for Swift’s adaptability, as the sensual siren of ‘Don’t Blame Me’ and the infatuated girl of ‘Gorgeous’ share the same space.

The album is not, as assumed, simply a vengeful defence of Swift’s mistakes, and there are moments of optimism. While Swift’s best love songs have been founded in moments of fantasy (2010’s ‘Mine’ and ‘Enchanted’), the level of specificity and delight found in everyday things (“spilling wine in the bathtub, building blanket forts”) is deliciously and unabashedly present. Reputation could even be the most personal album in Swift’s repertoire, disguised behind discordant, bruising instrumentals and vocal modification. The breathy, gasping tones of ‘Dress’, the synthesised monotony on ‘King of my Heart’, and uncomfortable borderline rapping on ‘End Game’ fail to disguise Swift’s tumultuous, dizzying, and personal lyrics. Despite her reputation, this is quite possibly Taylor Swift’s first album about love.

St Vincent’s Masseducation, however, tears into loneliness. While the shimmering pop production on Reputation allows listeners to unknowingly dance to aching, throbbing lyrics of hurt, the antagonistic production on Masseducation cannot be ignored. Clark addresses her listeners through gritted teeth, producing a guttural voice with startling candor: “I am alone like you”. Clark truly embraces the dangerous female archetype in a way that Swift only jokingly assumes. The guitars shudder instead of echo, wincing at the harsh brutality of Clark’s loneliness. In the album’s first single, ‘New York’, she speaks in the present and yet talks about the past, echoing an exhaustion at the sexual personalities she’s given and roles that she must play.

It is here that Antonoff’s production is key, as Masseducation is ultimately a pop album, or at least redefining the roles ascribed to female pop singers in 2017. “Sugarboy” exemplifies this through its synthesised production, unblemished vocals, the call-and-response refrain, and the Swiftian, even Carly Rae Jepsen-inspired line, “got a crush on tragedy”. These classic pop tropes are inverted, played at a pace too fast, a beat too soon, feverishly weird and intrinsically fanatical. Clark and Antonoff explore the characters of pop, a theme amplified by the album’s visual aesthetic –  the bold colours and robotic music videos play out as a strange futuristic utopia, sedated with pills, alive with lifeless forms and choreographed to perfection. Creating something genuine within this ridiculous landscape seems impossible, and yet Clark and Antonoff achieve this, not through mockery, but by breaching the limits of generic convention.

There is perhaps no other producer working with such high-profile women in pop music, helping to expose their various vulnerabilities, romances and agonies in the same way. Despite this, the achievements of these female artists should never be wholly ascribed to Antonoff. In an age of music preaching female empowerment, all too often it is men behind the scenes, selling a dangerous capitalist feminism to eager young audiences.

But these albums do not show Antonoff orchestrating the success of his collaborators – ingenious lyricism is unmistakably found within the artists themselves. Antonoff contributed to the writing of four of Masseducation’s songs in contrast to Annie Clark’s thirteen credits, and he only co-wrote two of the eleven songs Lorde penned on ‘Melodrama.’ Whatever can be said about Taylor Swift, her role as a business woman in control of her own career can never be doubted. Lorde and Julia Michaels even receive writing credits on Bleachers’ Gone Now, creating true collaborating relationships between these musicians.

Antonoff does not define or validate the artists’ creation, but gives them a technical platform to operate outside of generic convention. Melodrama, Masseducation and Reputation are uncompromising, dazzling displays of artistry, demonstrative of real talent, real sincerity, and real compassion, as the artists turn these stories into technicolour memoirs that will reverberate for years to come. By investigating the boundaries of modern pop music in 2017, Antonoff and his collaborators somehow come to define it.

Review: Fall Out

Nick Denny
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Review: Fall Out

When Tim Shipman, The Sunday Times political editor, started writing the book that would become Fall Out, he thought it would be the boring second album. His previous offering, All Out War, detailed the drama, deceit, and devastating wounds of the Brexit referendum and its aftermath. It ended with May triumphant, Boris foreign secretary, and a newly-reinstated Jeremy Corbyn at the helm of a Labour party resounding with mutinous muttering. Oh how times have changed.

His new book takes up the story where All Out War left off, and charts the next chapter of Britain’s tumbling political gyre. It records the failures and chaos of Theresa May’s 2016-17 government, the disastrous election campaign, and the bitter few months that followed, ending the story in October this year. The book is the same style as its predecessor, where expert analysis is blended with a compelling personal narrative, seasoned with plenty of anecdotes from the world of political gossip.

Fall Out, then, is the story of the machinations and madness that inhabit the world of Britain’s political elite. We hear that David Davis keeps his laptop in a biscuit tin in an attempt to stop it being hacked, and that he once mistook Michel Barnier for the foreign minister of Finland, who was very bemused at why Davis had decided to single him out for a conversation about Finnish fish. The many plots of the last year are also laid bare; we learn that Philip Hammond jumped ship and backed Boris immediately after the 2017 election, only to be recalled by May as chancellor, and that Amber Rudd was actively encouraging backbench rebellion over Brexit from the Cabinet.

The dominating figures for much of the book are the trio at the heart of the 2016-17 government, Theresa May and her two chiefs of staff, the ‘gruesome twosome’ of Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. These two, mostly unknown outside the Westminster bubble, wielded ferocious power during their time in government, including over the PM. During the notorious ‘Trousergate’ incident, after learning that May wanted to wear her own clothes, Hill screams: “Big mistake. You need to realise that the PM does not know her own mind on this stuff and needs me to be the one making those decisions for her”. She calls in the much-derided £995 leather trousers from a designer, before shouting: “Where are the fucking hydrangeas? I want hydrangeas now!” Hill and Timothy succeeded in creating an atmosphere of mistrust and bullying at the top of government, treating civil servants and cabinet ministers alike with contempt – at one point openly referring to Philip Hammond as “the cunt”. It is not surprising to read of the relief felt across Westminster when they resigned post-election.

At the centre we have the figure of Theresa May, who, though pitiable, gives a convincing display of someone promoted beyond their ability. Taken hostage by Hill and Timothy, she is indecisive at critical moments, and time and time again demonstrates the truth of Corbyn’s jibe of ‘weak and wobbly’. Her party don’t have much sympathy; after the election one MP says gloomily: “we all fucking hate her. But there is nothing we can do. She has totally fucked us.”

Her nest of cabinet vipers also don’t come out terribly well. Political plotting is combined with startling incompetency. Pessimism also characterises the mood; at one point a treasury civil servant voices his despair to Philip Hammond. “You’ve got more power than I do, Chancellor, why don’t you do something about it?” “I don’t have any more power than you do,” Hammond replies, “we’re both stuck in this hellhole together.” Indeed, they have each clearly enjoyed informing Shipman of their dislike of each other. Anonymous cabinet ministers call Phillip Hammond a “nervous ninny”, Boris is named “a plonker”, whilst Theresa May is condemned as “economically illiterate”.

Though British politics has continued to gallop on since the end of this book, the number of fresh details and glowing insights make Shipman’s vigorous prose a worthwhile read. However, as entertaining as the book is, one is left with growing despondency at the fact that these individuals are still in government. As our country faces Brexit one hopes that our political class can pull together and face the challenges. The story isn’t over yet, and we wait for the next in Shipman’s series, no doubt containing more farce and strife. But, who knows, might we see a Labour government?

Professor Biggar should be allowed to speak, even if we disagree

Emma Ball
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Professor Biggar should be allowed to speak, even if we disagree

It is our responsibility to publicly decry instances of racism or hate speech when we encounter them, that much is certain. However, in today’s increasingly politically sensitive society, a line must be drawn between denouncing those who have encouraged racist ideas and those, such as Professor Nigel Biggar, with well-researched opinions who are making no attempt to justify slavery or European superiority. In the manner of the ‘Boy who Cried Wolf’, the legitimacy of holding true racists to account is undermined by such accusations directed at academics whose viewpoints are not designed to be provocative and are founded on the basis of extensive historical research. Misdirecting such accusations could have the severe consequence of lessening their impact and therefore their power for social reform.

In cases such as the criticism of Professor Nigel Biggar, it is therefore important to be clear on the facts of the matter before a case for public criticism or support is made. This is particularly significant when it is considered that much of the criticism, most notably from the Oxford-based rights group Common Ground, has been focused on what Biggar has supposedly implied, rather than what he directly stated.

A reading of his article: ‘Don’t Feel Guilty About Our Colonial History,’ as published by The Times, reveals that Biggar never claimed that the British Empire did not commit atrocities nor does he say that our sense of guilt as colonialists should be entirely removed. Instead, it becomes clear that he merely advocates the advancement of a balanced view considering the negative and positive aspects of empire and a moderation of our guilt so that it does not become a paralysing force for our future policy decisions. Ironically, Common Ground condemn Biggar’s argument for its lack of evidence whilst offering little specific evidence of their own to counter his arguments.

Particularly significant is the accusation levelled at Biggar about his supposed support for British interference in the affairs of foreign countries. By claiming that our guilt should not prevent us from adopting an interventionist foreign policy, Biggar is attempting to make our decisions less encumbered by historical baggage, not endorsing a return to ideas of white supremacy. In fact, the implication that any interference by Britain in international affairs is bad and presumptuous seems deeply flawed. Surely it is our duty to intervene where we perceive there to be gross injustice? Do we not consistently do so by sending in aid?

This particular controversy opens up a wide range of further debates, many of which have been at the forefront of other discussions, such as those surrounding the statue of Cecil Rhodes. It has therefore become more and more important that we are aware of the dangers of possessing a selective memory when examining our history. Our ability to learn from past mistakes is prevented when we make blanket statements. Whilst aspects of colonialism were undoubtedly negative, it is arguable that in some regards the connections forged have left a positive legacy in the continuation of the Commonwealth and the introduction of the Commonwealth Games.

Issues with the criticism of Biggar do not just lie with the faults in their content, but also with the spirit in which they were made. By challenging his right to an opinion, they are challenging his right to academic free speech. This has dangerous implications. Academic free speech enables consideration of multiple different perspectives, thereby allowing balanced conclusions to be reached. In a time of growing threat from fake news, it is essential that academic free speech prevents the formation of misconceptions and ensures issues can be discussed before they escalate or become deeply ingrained.

Obviously we should applaud all those who seek to make the world free from discrimination and racism. I count myself among that number. However, we should not sacrifice crucial liberties such as the right to academic free speech in the process, especially not through wilful blindness or ignorance.

Modigliani Tate review – ‘a delight to walk through’

Eleanor Birdsall-Smith
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Modigliani Tate review – ‘a delight to walk through’

The first room of the Modigliani exhibition is almost empty. One single self-portrait of humble size hangs on the right hand side of a rather dingy blue room. While this is a somewhat unusual and potentially even anticlimactic entrance to an eagerly anticipated exhibition, it importantly and pointedly sets the tone for the rest of the show, which elegantly focuses on careful appreciation of each individual piece of art.

The exhibition does not over-exert itself for the sake of drawing big crowds. Unlike many recent exhibitions focused on art giants of the 20th century, the walls are not plastered from ground to ceiling with every possible piece of art that can be fit within the space limits. Instead, each painting is given precisely the necessary space to be appreciated in its own right. It has been argued that as a medium, large scale exhibitions naturally overwhelm, and prevent sincere appreciation of any one single piece. And it is certainly true that there is a fine line between giving people their money’s worth (exhibitions at the Tate are certainly not cheap, even with student concessions) and maintaining the suitable atmosphere for the individual pieces on show.

The curators of the Modigliani collection, however, manage this balance with almost unprecedented success. His preparatory drawings, for instance, are not a few faint scribbles used for the sake of filler, but hold true merit in their own right. They are striking and poignant and illuminate things that the final paintings never could.

The information given alongside his first portrait is not only useful and interesting, but marks the end of the exhibition’s concern with Modigliani the man; the focus from this point forward is primarily about the work itself. One room makes up a secondary part of the exhibition, with separate (free) tickets, and delves into the way in which he lived. It makes use of virtual reality headsets, and whilst I initially thought that this could come off as a gimmick, in fact it is extraordinarily immersive.

It also cleverly declutters the rest of the show; looking at the art itself, the audience is not overwhelmed by artefacts, photographs, or long spiels of information. The presence of Modigliani the man is only felt in one other part of the exhibition, in a film projection titled ‘Modigliani’s Paris’, which consists of a small selection of clips and images focusing around the role of Montmartre. The exhibition is structured in such a way that this primarily acted as an introduction to the next two rooms of artwork, which focused on Modigliani’s potentially lesser-known work with stone and free carving. He was quoted to have said that he always wanted to work with stone, and although this work was limited due to his poor health, the small white room dedicated to his sculpted ‘Heads’ is a highlight of the whole show.

This focus on the merit of each individual piece is consistent throughout the exhibition; the Art acts as the central focus. Any relevant history of the era is woven into the description of the works, providing accents to the pieces without dictating or defining the layout. The small descriptions under the name and date of the works, which in other exhibitions are often filled with pointless technical details, here provide well-written insights into the subject of the painting, Modigliani’s relationships and his influences.

The room of nudes, which includes the controversial pubic hair that led to the closure of his only solo show by police in 1917, are not scandalous in the same way anymore. In fact, I didn’t even initially notice the demure little dark triangles (though maybe that’s just because I’m a hairy feminist myself!). More importantly, however, not all women had these little bushes, some were more classically smooth, and while this may not seem exciting or interesting in itself, the originality and variation of the female form certainly was.

Modigliani painted women with pubes and women with small, sharply pointed breasts, as well as some women with narrow hips and wider waists, and some with soft rounded boobs, which sat lower on their chests. This meant that when the traditional Serpentine S expected of a woman’s silhouette in art was present, it didn’t feel as tired, it just seemed to suggest that this woman depicted really was naturally wide hipped. Of course, the pieces were made for male buyers, but the inaccuracies and sumptuous quality of the female bodies are at least interesting and at times quite accurate, without being angry or vicious like the nudes of Picasso and the Surrealists can often be.

The exhibition has been criticised for being nothing more than a simple display of everything we know about Modigliani, which therefore only acts to illuminate his lack of range. It is unfair, however, to argue that this is indicative of a lack of quality, and obtuse  to suggest that as a result all the paintings begin to look the same. This is an artist who painted for himself and for his subjects, rather than for an audience. All the works certainly do look like Modigliani’s, but they also differ dramatically at times, as they sensitively channel the essence of their subjects and when he pulls it off really successfully, the results are intensely powerful.

With hindsight Modigliani’s work was not particularly dangerous; it did not take the art world by storm or change the face of art as we know it. Compared to his contemporaries and his influences, Modigliani was relatively tame; all his subject’s eyes, however creepy their monochrome nature may be, are in the right place, the sloping mannerist limbs have not progressed much further than the likes of Botticelli and he never put a urinal in an exhibition declaring it to be ‘Art’. This does not, however, imply that his art isn’t valid and interesting. The exhibition is beautiful, it has humour and power and is a delight to walk through; I would suggest it is a brilliant way to spend a couple of hours.

Toxic Masculinity and the Mythopoetical Movement

Barney Pite
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Toxic Masculinity and the Mythopoetical Movement

The book Men and the Water of Life by Michael Meade is not particularly well known. Michael Meade is a writer and mythologist who rose to prominence as part of the mythopoetic Men’s Movement of the 1980s and 1990s, which originated ultimately in psychoanalysis, stemming primarily from the work of Carl Jung. This book explores problems of masculinity within the frame of various mythological traditions, particularly those of the Hausa in Africa, and the celtic traditions of Ireland. Meade writes a dense and poetic form of English. At the beginning of each section of the book, Meade tells a story – a son who angers his father when he throws away a rat, a son who disobeys his father, a great hunter, when he eats some forbidden honey, and a boy who angers a half-giantess by a lake. He then explores each myth in depth, examining it’s implications and it’s meaning within the frame of the male journey.

Men and the Water of Life sprung from Meade’s experience running workshops and conferences for men, in which “executives, ex-cons, priests, war veterans, doctors, healers of all kinds, students, craftsmen, professors, and artists of every descriptions…wandered and laboured in the “forest of stories”, and…relived life’s wounds”. Meade uses these old stories to cut inroads into the male psyche and to explore the forces that drive the masculine.

The Mythopoetical movement, and in particular Michael Meade, identified an absence of mythological spirituality in most people’s lives, and Meade discovered, through his own participation in rituals which explore the spiritual lives of men, that many men sought ‘re-entry to the unfinished initiations of youth and the timeless forest of spiritual adventures.’ ‘Men and the Water of Life’ offers to it’s readers a insight into the unfinished initiations.

It might at first seem that writers like Michael Meade and Sam Keen, having written books  like Fire In The Belly which seeks to challenge masculine obsession with the ‘WOMAN’ and to change the “WOMAN to women into Jane (or one certain woman)”, are working on a different wavelength from the feminist movement which came into existence the generation before them. However part of initiation into manhood is the ability to temper oneself, to cool one’s anger with the metaphorical ‘water’, addressing in the process the existential anger and personal uncertainty that lies at the heart of violence against women: “A man must be tempered; he must have his temperament made and remade through repeated immersions in fire and water” Meade writes. Sam Keen’s central purpose, moreover, of finding ways for men to see women as people rather than an idealised “creatrix or goddess”,”mother and matrix” or “erotic-spiritual power” is fundamental to ending sexualisation and objectification.

There is a myth often perpetuated (mostly by men themselves) that men lack the emotional complexities of women. This is a deeply untrue. Men need emotional and spiritual support just like women, but there are far more women’s groups than collective support for men, and there are far more books in the vein of Simone De Beauvouir and Jermaine Greer than those like Keen’s or Meade’s. There are reasons why complex initiation rituals are a fundamental part of most pre-modern societies; initiation into manhood tempers the man and allows himself to understand his place within his order. The mythopoetic movement exemplified by books like Fire In the Belly and Men and the Water of Life present ways for men to undertake these initiatory journeys in the modern world and in their own way

Oxford’s outdoor laboratory infected with ash dieback

Isabel Morris
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Oxford’s outdoor laboratory infected with ash dieback

Wytham Woods, which has served as the University of Oxford’s outdoor laboratory since 1942, has contracted ash dieback, a fungal disease which affects ash trees.

The disease was confirmed in the ancient, semi-natural woodland last summer, when symptoms were detected on saplings. It is alleged to have arrived by spores spread by wind, cars or brought on shoes.

Dr Keith Kirby, a researcher at the University’s Department of Plant Sciences, told Cherwell: “We have been expecting the disease at Wytham for a couple of years, as it is present elsewhere in Oxfordshire.”

The chronic disease is caused by an Ascomycete fungus, and is characterised by leaf loss and crown dieback in ash trees. The fungus has spread rapidly since its first detection in the UK in 2012, with recent data showing that it affects more than half the country. Ash dieback poses a major threat to Britain’s 80m ash population, as well as wildlife that depend on the trees for their survival.

Ash trees make up about one third of the Woods’ canopy, meaning a major loss of the species will have substantial ecological consequences for the woods and surrounding areas.

Covering 1000 acres, Wytham Woods is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and one of the most studied areas of woodland in the world. Divided into four main habitats, the woods are home to more than 500 species of plants and 800 species of butterflies and moths. Wytham has also been the origin of over 200 PhDs and 1,500 scientific papers.

In an interview with the Times last week, Professor Ben Sheldon, Head of the University’s Department of Zoology, confirmed that every single tree in the Woods has been marked and mapped, their species identified and growth progress measured every few years. He said: “One of the reasons we do that is we are interested in the ways tree species interact. You are also ready in case some big change happens.”

Speaking about the future of the woodland, Dr Kirby said: “The spread and impact of the disease and its impact on other wildlife themselves will be research topics in the woods. Other research will be largely unaffected, unless the level of tree death gets to the stage where it is not safe for the researchers.”

An upside to the change, he said, is that “the woods are likely to become more open, and this could benefit some plants on the woodland floor, as well as some birds and small mammals that like dense undergrowth.”

Because the disease cannot be directly controlled, management in the Woods have to do away with trees along walking tracks that become dangerous as the disease progresses.

Colonial scars remain in Singapore, even if you can’t see them

Lee Chin Wee
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Colonial scars remain in Singapore, even if you can’t see them

I come from Singapore, a country that bears testament to the mixed legacy of British colonial ambition. Singapore’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed with the currents of conquest: First as a trading post under the Srivijaya and Majapahit kingdoms, and later as British port which served as a conduit for trade between China and British India. But the bounty of empire was extracted through oppression – along with trade came racism and inequity.

There is nothing wrong in recognising that colonialism does not lend itself well to simplistic moral evaluation. Singapore emerged relatively unscathed compared to most other British colonies. We had the good fortune of being spared a ruinous war of independence, and the British governed us less severely compared to what was then-Burma. The British were by no means altruistic; but in wanting to prosper off their colonies, they also saw fit to build up political institutions and infrastructure.

In that light, it is unfair to condemn Prof Biggar as a “white supremacist”, given that he, too, rejects the unalloyed celebration of colonialism. He concedes that it is impossible to ignore the terrible damage wrought by white Europeans on the territories they colonised. However, Biggar would have you believe that, despite its apparent costs, colonialism resulted in net benefits for the colonised. He cites the introduction of “political order”, and contrasts it against “the grave human toll of a century of anti-colonial regimes and policies”. However, he fails to discuss the possibility that colonialism might have tilled the soil for the rise of populist and subsequently authoritarian nationalist leaders. Neither does Biggar acknowledge the ethno-centric notion of “political order”, which disregards the pre-colonial systems of governance that thrived long before European colonialists saw fit to dismantle (or co-opt) them.

But even if colonialism gifted “political order” to the unwashed masses in the same manner as Prometheus giving fire to the uncivilised, this must be weighed up against how colonialism institutionalised and exported racism to the world. European colonialists did not invent racism, but weaponised race on a scale hitherto unseen. Key to this approach was the use of racial classification to support a divide-and-rule strategy; painting the colonised peoples as a racial “other”, then encouraging various racial groups (as defined by British bureaucrats) to jostle between each other for scraps of political and economic power.

British Singapore was a plural, but profoundly segregated, society. Each “race” was assigned a plot of land to call its own – the Europeans were granted prime land; the Chinese were located southwest of the Singapore River; the Indians congregated in Serangoon Road and Arab Street; and the Malays were located near the northern fringes of the town. To perform this task of ethnic sorting, the British had to conduct a census on a population whose idea of “community” vastly differed from the pseudo-scientific European theory of “race”. Non-Malay language groups such as the Bugis and Javanese peoples, along with non-Muslim groups such as the Aborigines and the Dyaks, were grouped under the clumsy heading of “Malays”. This census, in turn, influenced colonial policy – someone who self-identified as Bugis would have been housed in a Malay area; their children forced to enrol in Malay-language schools.

Erasure of identity was not the only harm. The European theory of “race” was founded on the premise that peoples were different not only in appearance and culture, but also in inherent capacities. European civilisation was seen as the most advanced, with other “races” lagging behind. It was no wonder, then, that the British administrators in Singapore developed damaging stereotypes for each “race”. George Leith, who was a senior military officer in Malaya, wrote that “(the Malays) are incapable of any labour apart from the cultivation of paddy fields.”

The scars of British rule remain. A few years after the British granted independence to Malaya, the racial enmity fostered by their divide-and-rule strategy contributed to a series of deadly mass riots. Even today, the trope of the “lazy Malay native” has been co-opted by the local Singaporean populace to explain why there exists a racial disparity in socio-economic outcomes. In every former British colony, colonisation created racial tensions and ethnic strife when there previously was none.

Perhaps the crucial lesson here is that the “benefits” of colonialism – the roads which were built, the trade which flocked to Singapore’s shores, the introduction of Western “political order” – will always be remembered, because they are easily quantified. But colonialism has also led to less tangible impacts on race, identity, and national conscience. These harms are harder to quantify, because you cannot point to a racist stereotype and say, “the British did it”; but you can point to a road and say, “the British built it”. Biggar is wrong: The real problem is that it is too easy to claim that colonialism was beneficial for colonised peoples. The real harm is that it is too easy to let the fog of history obscure the trauma that colonialism inflicted upon the colonised.

And this, mind you, applies to my homeland – one of the “best case outcomes” for colonialization. In places far less fortunate than Singapore, British imperialists enslaved black workers to work in diamond mines and farms. In 1893, Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company murdered 1,500 Ndebele for the sake of colonial expansion in Rhodesia. These are, without question, immoral actions.

Yet Biggar counters, “The massacre of up to 20,000 Ndebele in Zimbabwe in 1983-4 was perpetrated, not by the British but by that patriarch of African nationalism Robert Mugabe.” He, wrongly, fetishizes moral consistency. Perhaps it ought to be the case that we condemn the past in general; but in the absence of that, it is at least better to condemn some aspects of our past rather than none of it. That this occurred does not diminish the moral horror of British atrocities in Rhodesia. It only suggests that these crimes are as deserving of moral condemnation as Mugabe’s slaughter of the Ndebele.

To commit the lesser of two genocides does not make you a saint.

Michaelmas reflections of a fresher

Eve Webster
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Michaelmas reflections of a fresher

“I suppose you still think Oxford’s really fun, don’t you?” I’ve just admitted to a third year at the bus stop that I am, indeed, a fresher. And my answer to the question? Yes, I do.

Perhaps I’m still in the ‘honeymoon period’. Having exchanged vows at that solemn marriage ceremony that is matriculation, I’m tied to the place, ’til graduation do us part. When I looked in the mirror at ‘Ede & Ravenscroft’, wearing my subfusc and (holding) my cap, I’ll admit I caught my breath like a bride would in her wedding dress. Equally I caught my breath when the shop assistant broke it to me that it would be £64.99. Off I went to the Primark of subfusc, ‘Shepherd and Woodward’, where a more manageable £25 was handed over.

During the actual, albeit rather brief, ceremony, sitting in the Sheldonian as one of the thousands of students on the conveyor belt being “formally initiated into the University”, I looked at the awestruck faces in front of me. We had all stopped feeling smug by the Thursday of fresher’s week. Reality had caught up. I wonder if the University has ever been jilted at the altar, if one fresher-fiancé with cold feet has been overwhelmed by the commitment. I could relate. Oxford is like an incredibly high-maintenance spouse who gives just enough to make the relationship worth it. It’s as Marilyn Monroe said: “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.” While Ms Monroe may not exactly be a relationship guru, this is the way many of us see Oxford – it’s the beginning of a new relationship.

The magic of it is still there for me. I’m still excited to glance up at the RadCam’s ceiling while labouring over an essay (which, at best, will be branded with the phrase ‘some improvement’ at my next tute). I still explore the city: the parks, the meadows, the weird side streets. And who could forget Fudge Kitchen…I’m on my third loyalty card already. Every time I have a pint in a new pub I feel as though I have discovered yet another trait of my new partner, as we slowly become better acquainted.

Fresher’s week was fun, but couldn’t mask the looming inevitability that reality was on its way. Yet for me it never fully set in. Yes, I get that libraries, lectures and referencing aren’t exactly part of the typical holiday experience, but you have to at least like your subject to be here, so is it really so bad? Naturally, I was overwhelmed at the Fresher’s Fair, and, like most naive freshers, signed up to things which would only clog up my inbox. The emails from Amnesty International constantly remind me I won’t be going to Kenya on that humanitarian mission, as I thought I might be for the duration it took to tap my details into the spreadsheet. However, among these there were some things which only the unique enthusiasm of being a fresher gave me the courage to try.

My relationship with Oxford wasn’t the only new one I would be embarking on – I was going to have to make some friends. My tutor told me at our first meeting, ‘We like to throw you in the deep end first, watch you try and swim, throw you a life-ring and then show you how to do it’. I suppose friends are like arm-bands in this metaphor – they can’t teach you to swim, but they help you catch your breath and float while you give it a go. So I guess it only makes sense, the speed at which freshers tend to bond. But it made me suspicious. Initially, I couldn’t stop myself thinking, “they can’t all be this nice. One of them must be a backstabbing snake.” I still haven’t identified such a snake, but I really don’t think these relationships are all still simply in the ‘honeymoon stage’ too.

College bops are the perfect example of how fortunate I’ve been. At first, I thought I was stronger than the juice – Christ, I even pre’d. I was put to bed long before 11pm and woke up to a glass of water and a painkiller on the bedside table, a bin strategically placed on the floor next to my head. All from people I’d known less than a week. Then there’s the post-bop trip to A&E after my friend sustained an injury dancing to ‘Man’s Not Hot’. We sat waiting for hours, me dressed as a fairy and her as (young) Stalin. We ended the night on a high with a Soloman’s.

It’s not all smiles and rainbows, parts of Oxford are wearing a little thin. After all, something like 50% of marriages do end in divorce. There’s the perilous burden of work, Eduroam, approaching deadlines, the Bridge queue, never feeling quite good enough and of course the cost of a single rum and coke being basically half my student loan. Those endearing quirks may soon become irritating, but even for the broken-in there must be something to make it worth sticking around for – only 1.3% of Oxford students walk-out, compared with the national average of 7.4%. Maybe it’s for the degree (and wow have we put in the work to get here), but could it be that the feelings of excitement and wonder linger?

At least for now, I’m still enchanted with Oxford. I only have eight terms left here, so I’ll try to keep them, and myself, fresh.

Review: ‘Women & Power: A Manifesto’ by Mary Beard

Grace Morgan
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0
Review: ‘Women & Power: A Manifesto’ by Mary Beard

“Shut up you bitch”, “I’m going to cut off your head and rape it”, “you filthy old slut”: a brief sample of some of the less graphic online abuse targeted at Mary Beard in recent years. Beard, a true titan of the study of classical antiquity, has been the recipient of such vile attacks simply for engaging in public debate on pertinent issues, often within her own area of expertise. In August of this year she was subjected to incredible vitriol following her assertion of the ethnic diversity of Roman Britain, with an American author even wading into the debate with the claim that she was “talking bullshit”.

In Women & Power, Beard provides a diagnosis of the misogyny from which such attempts to silence women arise, situating modern examples from the Western world in parallel with tales from the classical world. She begins the first section of the book, ‘The Public Voice of Women’, by citing the manner in which Telemachus dismisses his mother Penelope in The Odyssey – the first recorded example of a man telling a woman to “shut up”. This archetypal interaction is easily applied to the modern day, with Beard using the example of the Punch cartoon of a boardroom: “That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs. Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it”, to typify the way in which the female voice continues to be dismissed.

Beard continues to use classical examples to contextualise and explain the abuse which public female speech continues to attract. She notes that those who often succeed in being heard are those women who mimic features of male rhetoric, such as an early Roman woman Maesia, who successfully defended herself in the courts, and who was described as the ‘androgyne’ for her alleged male nature. More recent examples include Margaret Thatcher, who underwent speech therapy to deepen the tone of her voice – supposedly thereby giving it greater authority.

This connects to the second section, ‘Women in Power’, in which she argues that women are excluded by existing power structures, particularly as the cultural image of a powerful figure is very much still that of a male, and that there exists no template for a powerful woman – stating that even if she were to try to imagine a female professor she would struggle to think of someone like herself in her role. In fact, the stereotype of a powerful woman may only be that of one who resembles their male counterpart. Here, Beard uses the example of the trouser suit worn by female politicians such as Hilary Clinton, as a way in which women have to ‘fit the part of power’.

Beard goes on to argue that this is encouraged by the representations of women who possess power as having acquired it through illegitimate means – for example, the headline ‘Women prepare for a Power Grab in Church, Police and BBC’ in early 2017 certainly says a lot about society’s perceptions of women’s relationship with power: that it is not theirs to ‘take’. The attempts to discredit powerful women, she argues, have their roots in the classical world – perhaps best exemplified by the use of the Medusa theme, which has been applied to Theresa May, Angela Merkel, and most graphically Hilary Clinton, who during the election campaign was repeatedly presented as the decapitated Medusa, the handiwork of Donald Trump, in the guise of Perseus.

My only issue with the book was that Beard did not really address the position of women of minority groups in relation to power. Although at times implicit, this was not properly addressed, namely the relationship between racism and misogyny as something that limits specifically women of colour in the public domain. Whilst reading her discussion of the depiction of female politicians in the media I was surprised by her omission of the extreme vilification of Diane Abbot that took place during the 2017 general election campaign following an unfortunate interview appearance, whilst Boris Johnson’s similarly blundering interviews were dismissed as mere slip ups. That is not to say that her ability as a politician should not be criticised, but the disproportionate abuse to which she was subjected (and continues to be so), such as an excruciatingly humiliating television interview in which she was made to listen to a recording of the incident, is simply unfair, and unrivalled by that experienced by any other white male or female politicians. Although I did go on to find this example briefly mentioned in the afterword, the issue should have been given much greater attention in the main body of the book.

Women & Power claims to offer some form of remedy to the problems identified, and it is true that Beard does provide interesting insight by questioning general preconceptions about women and authority. She proposes that to address the ‘Miss Triggs question’ we should reassess our perceptions of what constitutes spoken authority; rather than through superficial means, such as assimilating characteristics of male speech, we should reconsider what and who we associate with spoken authority and why. She also suggests that we redefine our idea of what ‘power’ is – arguing that it currently does not accommodate women, as the structure is ‘already coded as male’. This, she claims, should involve deconstructing our definition of ‘power’ so that it is not viewed as a possession, and crucially so that it does not have to involve public prestige, using the example of the little-known women who founded the Black Lives Matter movement. Whilst these are striking musings on the concept of power, I do wonder whether they can be considered more than that; I am not sure that the book merits the claim of being a ‘manifesto’, as it does seem to prompt more questions than it answers (which is by no means a criticism).

Whilst definitely not a flawless ‘modern feminist classic’, as has been claimed by some reviewers, this really is a fascinating read, as Beard identifies common features of women’s experience in the public sphere, but offers a new angle through her use of examples from the classical world, which demonstrates that often these issues transcend historical periods. Women & Power, furthermore, is the perfect retaliation to the base insults of Beard’s aggressors, as an intelligent, concise, cogently delivered and persuasive work; she is most certainly not a woman who will be silenced.

Blue passports remind us that Brexit is not for the young

Christian Edwards
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3
Blue passports remind us that Brexit is not for the young

“For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them”, wrote George Eliot in Middlemarch. The metaphor in which Theresa May has recently got her thoughts entangled is that blue is good and burgundy is bad. With the announcement of the return of the ‘iconic’ blue passport, blue now means an assertion of sovereignty whilst burgundy is a surrender of independence.

We like symbols. Symbols are important. They express immediately, and in ways often more powerful than words, complex systems of emotions, thoughts, concepts. They give form to the abstract and have a unique and unifying force. But the Brexiters heralding the second coming of the blue passport as a ‘victory’ over the EU are farcically mistaken. It is merely the victory of style over substance.

The rhetoric enveloping the blue passport reveals what lies at the heart of Brexit: the generational divide. Getting our blue passports ‘back’, as headlines from The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and others proclaimed, is a meaningless statement for millions of Britons. When Scottish Labour Press officer Gordon McKee tweeted: “I’m not getting a blue passport ‘back’, I’ve never had one”, he spoke for everyone born after 1988, when Britain voluntarily adopted the colour burgundy. Rather than May’s symbol of sovereignty, the former Thatcher aide Charles Powell views the blue passport as a symbol of “nostalgia on which the predominantly elderly Brexit constituency thrives”.

This nostalgia for our old passports, and the hysteria among Brexiters for getting them ‘back’, is absurd. Many Brexiters were bemused to find that the Conservatives’ design for the new passport looks quite different to the old model. Isn’t that shade of blue a bit lighter than before? Weren’t the old ones sort of…black? Why isn’t it going to be hardback again?

There is a touch of irony to all this: getting our old passports ‘back’ really means conforming to global standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal. (More foreign bureaucrats). These standards mean no more hardbacks. Nor will the colour chosen by May’s team be the same as the old. We are simply getting a passport void of all its current freedoms, but one that shares a closer resemblance to the colour of the party who got us in this mess in the first place. Some commentators have sardonically noted that the shade of blue can be described as “imperial”. Our own special blend of rose-tinted, imperial blue.

All talk of getting our passports ‘back’ is therefore ridiculous. The ‘old’ is a chimera. We will really be getting something new, something a bit disappointing, with a vague resemblance to a past which is now impossible to reconstruct and revive. Is that not the whole essence of Brexit?

May’s decision has provoked further demonising of the EU. The Sun’s subheading ‘The Government has agreed…to scrap the EU’s burgundy model, enforced on the nation from 1988’ construes our current passport as a symbol of oppression. But nothing was ‘enforced’ on Britain. As has been pointed out over the past week, there was nothing legally binding in the agreement: Croatia chose to retain its passport colour when joining the EU in 2013. It was not bludgeoned by ‘Brussels bureaucrats’ for its decision, nor is it any more of a nation because its passports are not burgundy.

Beneath this symbolism lies not only what David Lammy MP called ‘misguided imperial undertones’, but a reminder of how far the Brexiters’ promises have unravelled. With substantial promises of a properly funded post-Brexit NHS having evaporated last year, the Tories must now settle for mere symbols, and dress them up as ‘victories’.

But how can a victory be a victory when there is no opposition? What does the EU care for the colour of our passports? This sudden valuing of symbols over substance reveals a desperation – the need to give the public some good news before the end of the year. So, like that great-aunt with no idea what to buy her great-nieces-and-nephews for Christmas, May has given us her botched ‘Brexmas’ present, outdated, unwanted and redundant.

Rather than a defining reaffirmation of our national identity, the blue passport reveals the frailty of that which it proclaims. An Observer editorial wryly noted “a blue passport will not assuage Britain’s identity crisis – it symbolises it”. The fractured ‘nostalgic’ symbolism is a thin veneer for Britain’s irrepressible anxiety about its current place in the world. We have traded the privileges of the burgundy passport for the decrepitude of the blue.

Brexit, from the start, has been wrapped up in metaphors. The blue passport odyssey is simply the latest, and one which, pitiably, the Brexiters seem unable to disentangle themselves.

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