The Oxford Union has released a report detailing the judgements of a tribunal that considered seven allegations of electoral malpractice. The tribunal upheld the results of the election and found no evidence of electoral interference by the Returning Officers (ROs). In the course of the investigations, both President-elect Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy and candidate Chris Collins were found guilty of making “vexatious claims” and fined £100.
Last term’s election saw Osman-Mowafy elected Union President for Michaelmas Term 2024 with four more votes than the runner-up, Collins. Campaigning was especially fierce with three slates competing for votes under newly-instated rules that regulate online campaigning.
The tribunal noted an increase in litigation, asserting that most previous elections have only led to two or fewer allegations. They attributed the high number of allegations in Hilary term to a rise in “vexatious claims” and continued that “the quantity of claims does not necessarily reflect any material change in the conduct of elections.”
In the first allegation, Mikael Toosy accused Alexandra Duckworth of abusing her powers as an RO in the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) to schedule its elections on the same day as the Union’s elections in order to benefit certain candidates.
Toosy submitted a statement by OUCA President-elect Matty Brown as part of his evidence. Brown tried to retract his statement by claiming it was “procured through duress and deceit”, but the Tribunal found him guilty of making a submission “he knew to be untrue” and suspended his Union membership for Trinity Term. Duckworth was found not guilty.
Additionally, Toosy used case law to support his arguments which prompted the ROs to note: “Parties may be best served by reliance on the Panel’s understanding of straightforward and basic terminology in the English language” and further observed that “detailed references to criminal case law when a reference to the Oxford English Dictionary would perhaps suffice should be avoided.”
The second allegation was Osman-Mowafy accusing Deputy RO Adam Turner of a “motivated attempt to invalidate candidates”, referring to the initial disqualification of 21 candidates from his and Israr Khan’s slates.
The RO that made the relevant decision, Kit Newbold, testified that Turner’s advice to go ahead with the disqualifications had not hindered them in any way. Since Osman-Mowafy’s accusation was that he had hindered electoral officials, Turner was found not guilty.
Additionally, Osman-Mowafy accused Turner of ‘abusing the forms of house’ during a public business motion, but the tribunal accepted the defendant’s assertion that he had acted in accordance with the rules. Osman-Mowafy was found guilty of making vexatious claims and ordered to pay a fine of £100.
The report noted that they were “extremely concerned” that Mowafy brought forward a claim that was “so easily demonstrated to be incorrect” and further advised that the President-elect “makes a more detailed study of the forms of the institution over which he will ultimately preside.”
In the fifth allegation, Collins accused Newbold, who was in charge of the count, of misinterpreting (though in good faith) the rules of the Union which affected the election’s outcome. The Tribunal noted that the election had been exceptionally tight, with Osman Mowafy defeating Collins by three votes in the initial count and four votes in the final count.
Collins argued that Newbold should have suspended the count and referred the matter to the Tribunal when they discovered that three unstamped ballots were cast. The tribunal found this to be an “impractical expectation.” He also argued that Newbold’s interpretations of certain contested ballots were unreasonable, which the tribunal rejected after taking a closer look at the 17 ballots in question. In fact, the re-examination found that Osman Mowafy had won by a difference of five votes rather than four.
The Tribunal upheld the election results and found Newbold not guilty of any charges.
In the seventh allegation, Collins accused Osman-Mowafy and others of conspiring to commit electoral malpractice by “making use of any electronic or online system” to solicit votes, and “[communicating] illicit statements”. The tribunal did not agree that the instances cited, including messaging on the Oxford Union Graduates group chat or holding a birthday party in the Union bar, violated their rules or amounted to a case. Furthermore, the tribunal noted that there was no evidence submitted to back up the charge of conspiracy and Osman-Mowafy described the allegation as “frivilous and malicious”. Collins was fined £100 for vexatious claims.
Ex-access officer Theo Sergiou filed the final allegation, which accused the entire RO team of neglecting to make the election accessible to those with disabilities. It was not considered by the Tribunal due to its submission after the deadline.
Sergiou stated that elections were inaccessible for candidates due to compressed timelines and voters due to a lack of provisions for proxy voters and those with visual disabilities.
The Panel did not discuss the allegation in detail as it was not submitted in time but stated that they are “assured that all such complaints are taken extremely seriously and are dealt with at the highest levels of the Society’s governance structures.”
When asked for comment on the proceedings as a whole, the Union responded: “We have full confidence in our disciplinary proceedings relating to the most recent election and look forward to putting on an exciting term card for our members in Trinity.”
Cherwell also notes that there were 3 additional allegations covered in the Tribunal’s proceedings which were not reported on because they were either in camera, too personal or not relevant to the public. The full report can be found at the Union’s notice board.
Week 7 – for the normal student, we are approaching the end of term, for the less normal; it is hack week on St Michael’s Street! For our last review therefore, we headed to the Three Goats Heads (conveniently right beside the Union). We visited here for Sunday lunch and found the pub to have a welcoming, vintage feel. The staff were really sweet and the food arrived incredibly quickly. In short – it was fantastic! The macaroni and cheese was delicious and the nachos were huge and had an exceptional amount of cheese (looking at you, Turf!). The chunky chips also deserve a shout out – they were the best we have had. For drinks, they had an extensive range of beer on tap, we of course had to try their bitters. Samuel Smith bitters was delicious with a buttery note, they even rivalled our favourite bitters at the Lamb and Flag! Our friend had the Alpine lager, claiming that it tasted like Staropranen (a popular Slovak beer – we will take her word for it). An impressive feature of this pub is their cocktail selection – quite rare to see in a pub but this place had it all, ranging from fruity classics to some more sophisticated flavours. Our friend had the Rob Roy and claimed it was the best cocktail he had tasted in a while! Overall, this pub is very quaint, has a great vibe and delicious food, and is particularly good if you don’t want to break the bank!
In another spectacular repeat of European history, a group of right-wing politicians met with an Austrian neo-Nazi last November in a small German town called Potsdam, known for being the seat of residence of Prussian kings and the German Emperor until 1918 The meeting ignited a national discussion on immigration policies, extremism, and the (re?)rise of far-right movements in the country. It was not just notorious figures such as the Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner and representatives from Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which it counted among its attendants; a number of middle class professionals – doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs – were also present.
Sellner, known for his staunch and provocative anti-immigrant stance, took centre stage during the meeting. His speech focused on the concept of “re-migration”, a deceptively clinical term euphemizing the forceful mass deportation of migrants to their “countries of origin”, their possession of German citizenship disregarded. In particular, Sellner advocates for the expulsion of three distinct migrant categories: asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights, and what he calls “non-assimilated” German citizens, who, he claims, “form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies”. These ideas resonated with representatives of the AfD, a right-wing populist German parliamentary party that has gained significant traction in the last year.
Yet, the AfD is also under pressure domestically from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. The agency has labelled the AfD branches in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony as right-wing extremist groups. Additionally, the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD youth wing, Junge Alternative, was recently classified as a suspected extremist group; this decision was partly informed by the movement’s close ties to the Identitarian movement, its espousal of “ethno-nationalist” ideologies, and its “contempt for people with an immigrant background”. In response, the AfD maintains that its organisation is a legitimate political entity operating within legal boundaries; its official platform emphasises its dedication to the German nation and advocates for the equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of their background. However, the revelations from the Potsdam meeting have reignited discussions surrounding the influence of far-right ideologies in German politics. Within this climate, calls to ban the AfD have gained momentum, with a petition amassing over 800,000 signatures and initiatives in the Bundestag to outlaw the party.
As a result, the AfD “appears highly unsettled by these demonstrations. The extreme right is in a state of panic. Attempts are being made to question these demonstrations as forgeries and as staged events”, says Matthias Quent, professor of sociology at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. While the protests are unlikely to reach or make an impression on “ideologically hardened segment of the AfD voter base”, Quent believes “there is also a reachable portion of the AfD voter base that can be unsettled by the protests and does not take the protective claims made by party leaders at face value.” While these protests may lead to further radicalization of some right-wing members in a time of increasing political polarisation, “people at work or in private circles [who] attend such demonstrations” in towns and cities across the country can help combat the polarisation of social media as undecided voters are convinced that broad swathes of the public are against the rise of the far right. On 14th of February, the AfD was polling at 18%, which is a loss of 4% points compared to the previous month. Having regularly achieved results of 20% or more towards the end of last year, this trend sees support for the AfD continuing to decline. Polling research leader, Robert Grimm, judged that in light of demonstrations for a “well-fortified democracy”, “moderate protest voters” find it difficult to continue sympathising with the AfD and their cause.
Germany’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, has branded these protests as “an encouragement and a mandate” to act politically: “We want to break up right-wing extremist networks, cut their funding and take away their weapons”, Faeser said at the unveiling of her ministry’s new 13-point plan to fight right-wing extremism. This plan sees the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution taking on expanded powers for uncovering the financial sources of right-wing extremist networks. Through these proposed changes to the law, even a potential threat of far-right extremism would suffice to warrant actions such as freezing bank accounts. Faeseris also advocating for a change to the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, in order to better protect the Federal Constitutional Court from the influence of those with anti-democratic tendencies, particularly with relation to potential court judges. j The action plan also calls for progress on the stalled firearms law reform which aspired to tighten gun regulations and emphasises changes to the already approved disciplinary law reform, which aim to make it easier to remove “Verfassungsfeinde” or “enemies of the constitution” from public service. Additionally, local police and regulatory authorities, such as the trade and restaurant health and safety control, should be empowered to prohibit right-wing extremist events from taking place based on information from the intelligence services.Amidst the backdrop of rising far-right extremism across Europe, Germany finds itself at a critical juncture. The recent convergence of Austrian neo-Nazis, German right-wing politicians, and Alexander von Bismarck in Potsdam serves as a glaring indicator of the ideological challenges still facing the nation. However, in the face of this resurgence, Germany is not alone. From Austria to Spain to Sweden, the tendrils of far-right ideologies are entwining themselves with the fabric of European society, directed most aggressively toward the most powerless in society, namely ethnic minority groups and asylum seekers. In light of this growing threat, the importance of anti-extremist action cannot be understated. All across the continent, citizens are rallying in opposition to such groups, against hate, discrimination, and intolerance. Over 870 recorded demonstrations against the rise of the far right in Germany underscore a tendency towards defending democratic values and safeguarding societal inclusivity. The struggle against far-right extremism is not confined to national borders; it is a shared challenge that demands a united response from all who cherish freedom, equality, and human dignity.
The fifth week blues are hitting so we are combatting them with blue lagoons! Spoons pitchers are a student staple for a reason, and week we decided to try out some new flavours. This is our ranking of some of the Spoons pitchers, assisted by our expert friends.
Bumbu Colada – this boasts a violent coconut flavour. Not to be touched unless you are a serious fan of Bountys. 2/10
The Godfather – our friend described this as “pepsi and disappointment”. If you enjoy cola you might enjoy this but save your money and just order a vodka coke, it will taste the same. 3/10
Blue Lagoon – “it tastes like chemicals”, “like eating a smurf”. Despite this, the blue lagoon is a fan favourite, our friend Kit said he could drink it “all night long baby”. 4/10
Woo Woo – our friend says it tastes “like the colour red”. A bit like watery squash, but we love it. 6/10
Mango Monster Mash – this drink tastes like a holiday. 7/10
Bubblegin – this is our personal favourite. You can never go wrong with a bubblegin, it tastes like childhood and the glitter makes it even better. 9/10
Candy Rosa – this is a new addition to the menu, and we were impressed. A very fruity cocktail, this arguably surpasses our love for bubblegin. It’s safe to say we have found a new favourite and we would seriously recommend you go down to Spoons to try one of these. 10/10
The first time I sat down to a formal dinner at Oxford I was bamboozled. Which fork… which knife… do I make my way outside-in, or inside-out? I was informed quite promptly by my tutor to assuredly not eat before the diners in front and to my sides had their meals in front of them. Although my college keeps it to a minimum, I know if I had to listen to five minutes of Latin at that point I would have been utterly dumbfounded. Alas, given I would have to wait until my ten minutes in the Sheldonian the following week to be introduced to incomprehensible Latin prose, I proceeded to eat my meal feeling amused, or pleasantly beguiled perhaps, by the gimmick of it all.
What baffled me as my time in Oxford continued, however, was that the ensemble of traditions Oxford had to offer were by no means a gimmick. I’m not pleading ignorance to the over 900 years of history to which these traditions owe their existence, but I was, and I still am, surprised by the sincerity, importance and integrity of these rituals to the university today. Dressed in a funny gown with a carnation pinned to my chest as I prepared to bleed onto my exam page, I struggled to take myself seriously.
Hilarious as some of the absurd, quirky and wonderful traditions Oxford has to offer are, their retention in Oxford today is a potentially unsettling reminder of what Oxford used to represent, which diametrically opposes the features of Oxford today that drew so many of us here.
On the one hand, Oxford is at the forefront of research and innovation, with swathes of resources both mental and financial supporting it. On the other, Oxford is a hub of discussion, progress, radical thought and critical theory. In the best way possible, Oxford certainly ascribes to what social conservatives associate with ‘woke culture’, if such is to represent self-reflexive thought about the socially constructed nature of structures that stratify individuals, or the critical questioning of existing institutions. Although there is no doubt significant progress to be made, discourse in student activist groups, overflowing attendance to feminist theory lectures, and the hiring of new critical theory scholars reflect the ‘left wing’, if you will, political and social consciousness that has developed within the university.
It is this consciousness that comes into head-on conflict with the culture and thought immortalised in Oxford’s traditions. Oxford was once a bastion of the British class system. It may not be a bastion as such today, but it is certainly still, symbolically or in the minds of some at least, an edifice of class, racial and gender discrimination as well as elitism. Glaring examples emerge by pointing to the Oxford Union and its far from accessible £300 joining fee, or otherwise Oriel College’s stone memorialisation of the godfather of the South African Apartheid. More covert examples are seen in the juxtaposition between the University’s extortionate wealth and the deprivation in local Oxfordshire, or the University and colleges’ failure to ensure not only an Oxford education, but participation in the university at large (joining sports clubs and attending balls come to mind) are accessible. The limited implementation of the foundation year scheme, dwindling number of Opportunity Oxford admissions, and the stigma directed towards students who’ve rusticated for ‘just not being able to cut it’, reflect further ways elitism is an active force. Chance encounters with those individuals, be it deans, principals or students, who very much choose to propagate the rhetoric that Oxford is indeed, elite, reveal that even in the university community, members are still seeking to uphold what Oxford once was in the face of the new.
So amidst the spires, a struggle seems to be underway. There are two worlds at knuckleheads, grappling over Oxford’s identity. Whether these worlds can be reconciled whilst tradition and history are so pertinent to life in Oxford is an important question. I am unsure how much longer the university will be able to straddle the gaping divide between its past and its future.
Do not take me as arguing for the tradition’s demolition. Tradition is important. A legacy emphasising Oxford’s place as one of the oldest educational institutions in the world generates a spirit that worships and celebrates learning. There is tremendous value in this spirit. It motivates us to rethink and reconsider relics of the past, be it institutions or processes, to cohere with the new.
But I am dubious about the outcome of this internal struggle. As I have already mentioned, Oxford was a bastion of the English class system, and the English class system is very much alive and well. All I can hope is that reflexive and critical recharacterization of Oxford’s values will one day be sufficient to compete and confront a history of exclusion and elitism. The onus of reconciliation is on the present.
In All Of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh leads us by the hand into a dreamlike, introspective world. The film begins with Andrew Scott’s Adam staring out of his window over London, watching the glittering lights of skyscrapers hovering in the darkness, like a constellation of stars, just out of reach.
Adam lives by himself in a faceless London apartment block. His life is routine, lonely: toiling away over his next manuscript, procrastinating, reheating leftover takeaway, falling asleep watching television. It quickly becomes apparent that Adam is one of the only people living in his building, with almost all the other rooms being empty. His only neighbour, Paul Mescal’s Harry, appears at his door one night with a bottle of whisky.
‘Japanese,’ Harry says. ‘It’s meant to be the best in the world, but I don’t know why.’
His eyes betray a kind of desperate loneliness that is perfectly mirrored in Scott’s. These are clearly two men trapped at the edge of society, yearning for connection, yet unable to find it. Of course, a tentative relationship begins to blossom between them.
Interwoven with this romance, this burgeoning connection between two strangers, is Adam’s experiences returning to his childhood home, as he pines for his lost connection with his parents. It is quickly established that Adam’s parents have died, but on returning to their old house, he begins to see them again, exactly as they were when they passed in the eighties. There is a wistful seam of nostalgia that runs throughout the film: Adam keeps his childhood toys under his bed and rifles through old photos of himself, and the soundtrack is filled with eighties tracks that Adam plays on his record player.
Watching the film, its emotional impact strikes most, gradually building over the course of the runtime to deliver itself like a gut punch in the film’s later scenes. The cast, chiefly Scott, achieves this with a remarkable tenderness. Especially affecting for me were the scenes between Scott, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell – who play Adam’s mum and dad respectively. The relationship between them and their son is rendered brilliantly. It would have surely been tempting to paint them as perfect parents, lacking any nuance in their characters, but they are portrayed entirely realistically, each with their own foibles. They may crack jokes with their son, and the three actors have such a brilliant chemistry together that you can believe they are a family, but they are not perfect parents. Both have flaws and regrets. Adam’s mother struggles to accept her son is gay, and Adam’s dad struggles with not being more supportive of their son.
Over the course of the film, their great regret at their struggles to raise their son, at chances missed, and ultimately their greatest regret, missing him grow up, simmers. At points, this bubbles to the surface. These are three people who deeply love each other, but who are chained to regret. And of course, they are all painfully aware that this reunion between parents and son – which to me has more the quality of a dream than a ghost story – is not permanent. Like all great dreams, it must end.
Adam and Harry’s relationship, delicately fitted between these scenes, is equally engaging. Both Scott and Mescal are subtle enough that they can pull off a relationship between them convincingly, and they have such a chemistry on screen that scenes between them never fail to engage. This is made even more impressive by the fact that most scenes between them take place only in Adam’s apartment, very rarely broken up by the couple going outside. There are few supporting cast members in the film; beyond Mescal, Scott, Foy and Bell, there are almost no other people. Most scenes have a narrow depth of field, so that anything that isn’t Scott or Mescal’s face is smushed into the background. Again, all this adds to the dreamy, trance-like feeling of the film, but it also means that most of the film rests on the performances of its four main stars. That they entirely live up to this task is nothing short of remarkable.
In addition to some superb performances, heavy lifting is also done by the delicate screenplay, excellent editing and a phenomenal soundtrack, with some great needle drops. In that way, it seems reminiscent of another Mescal film, Aftersun, which featured a needle drop of Under Pressure that sticks out as one of the most profoundly affecting moments in the film. Several moments in this film, often accompanied by similar needle drops, left me similarly raw.
It’s a phenomenal achievement: in All Of Us Strangers’ small-scale and dreamlike narrative is contained a sweeping portrait of both familial and romantic love – rendered in all its regret, heartbreak and, ultimately, joy.
「今度は今度。今は今。」(“Next time is next time. Now is now.”)
So tells Hirayama (a masterful Koji Yakusho), the central character in Japanese-language film Perfect Days, to his runaway niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), when he tells her that he won’t take her to the sea that day. But this phrase could just as well summarise the film itself; I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ‘in the moment’ while watching a film as I did with Perfect Days, with its documentary-style handheld shots and meditative pace. Far from worrying about the past or the future within a conventional plot, Perfect Days provides us with a rare opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone who lives each day ‘as if it were an entire life’.
Directed by German director Wim Wenders, Perfect Days follows twelve days in the life of Hirayama, a cleaner of the architecturally striking and often high-tech public toilets in present-day Tokyo. Hirayama seems highly content with his solitary and minimalist daily routine, which he has followed for years. Waking up at dawn in a suburb by the Tokyo Skytree, he drives his blue Daihatsu minivan to work in Shibuya, takes pictures of trees in a park with his 35mm Olympus film camera, goes to the same bar in Asakusa subway station for dinner, and reads a book from the local second-hand bookstore – we see him reading Patricia Highsmith, William Faulkner and Aya Kōda – before going to sleep. While the film may initially seem repetitive, over time, it becomes clear that despite this apparently rigid routine, no two days in Hirayama’s life are the same; in fact, over these twelve days, we see the character experience the ultimate emotional highs and lows.
Hirayama is a man of few words, whose feelings and personality we come to understand partly through his choice of music: soft rock hits from the 60s and 70s (think Lou Reed, The Animals or Otis Redding), which he plays from cassette tapes during his drives to and from work. However, despite the relative lack of dialogue in the film, Yakusho manages to communicate, through just a single glance or change in facial expression, the profound empathy and tenderness of his character, as well as the possible pain in his past from which he may be shielding himself. This is particularly true in the final scene, when Hirayama is shown driving to Nina Simone’s Feeling Good (“It’s a new dawn / It’s a new day / It’s a new life”), with his expression rapidly switching between joy and sorrow, in what is perhaps the most impressive display of Yakusho’s acting in the whole film.
Perfect Days captures the joyful, humorous and poignant moments in Hirayama’s everyday interactions with people from all walks of life, from his lovelorn co-worker, Takashi (an almost caricaturish Tokio Emoto), to the hostess of the izakaya he frequents, Mama (Sayuri Ishikawa), to a homeless man (Min Tanaka) who is treated as invisible by everyone else around him. Although many of the comedic moments feel somewhat exaggerated – for instance, when Hirayama dashes down the staircase in his apartment to avoid being in front of Niko while she gets dressed – there are also some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, the chief one being when Takashi’s love interest Aya (a beguiling Aoi Yamada), who seems more interested in Hirayama’s cassette collection than in Takashi, says goodbye to a startled Hirayama with a kiss on the cheek.
Despite its generally whimsical tone, Perfect Days does not shy away from exploring darker themes, such as when Niko makes an off-hand remark to Hirayama that she “might end up like Victor”, the young boy in Highsmith’s short story Terrapin who is driven to murder his emotionally abusive mother, and also in the devastating climax, where Hirayama is confronted with the unbridgeable divide that has been created between him and another key character.
Franz Lustig’s precise cinematography greatly contributes to our understanding of Hirayama as a character: in one scene, the camera wordlessly scans across Hirayama’s large book collection in his otherwise austere apartment, prompting the audience to wonder whether there was ever more to Hirayama’s life than his current existence as a toilet cleaner. As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in Japan, I also found the film’s visuals and soundscape thoroughly convincing: from hearing the ringing of the closing railway barriers signalling the incoming approach of a train, to glimpsing the red paper bag of renowned confectioner Kamakura Beniya, to sensing the palpable excitement in a bar as a Yomiuri Giants baseball game is broadcast, watching Perfect Days made me feel entirely transported to Tokyo.
The daytime scenes of the film are complemented by brief experimental, black-and-white dream sequences produced by Wenders’ wife, Donata Wenders, which offer glimpses into Hirayama’s subconscious; in particular, they reveal his fascination with komorebi, a Japanese concept describing the beautiful yet ephemeral way in which light filters through tree leaves, which in turn serves as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of life. While these sequences provide an intriguing addition to the otherwise realist nature of the film, this message could have been expressed more subtly: given the constant appearance of komorebi throughout the film, not just in Hirayama’s dreams but also in his everyday routine, the audience was left in no doubt about its significance from early on.
Overall, I found Perfect Days to be a bittersweet and profoundly moving film about living in the moment. While the steady pace and loose narrative of the film may not initially appeal to everyone, Yakusho’s standout performance and Lustig’s immersive cinematography make it well worth a watch.
Emma Jeffries: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
It’s rare that I find non-fiction to be such a page-turner, but Tara Westover’s autobiography was just that. It reads more like a novel than biography, but the exciting passages of prose are interspersed with Westover’s reflections on the experiences she went through and her wider message about the importance of education in forming an individual. Despite being published in 2018, it is already a classic of our time; it was instantly a #1 New York Times Bestseller, as well as being positively reviewed by a number of major publications
Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho to survivalist Mormon parents, and was the youngest of their seven children. Her parents did not believe in public schooling, modern medicine, or the government, and it is these fundamental beliefs that shaped Westover’s life. Throughout, she also understands that her memories are clouded by her upbringing and beliefs, as well as the emotions that she ascribes to her experiences. She therefore provides a non-sensationalist account of her life with a nuanced understanding of how abuse, mental health problems, and emotional response altered her whole family’s recollection of her childhood.
Westover is a long way from rural Buck’s Peak now. She graduated with honours from Brigham Young University in 2008, after being admitted there on a scholarship despite having no high school diploma. She went on to earn a Master’s degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2010 she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She earned her doctorate in intellectual history in 2014, returning to Trinity College, Cambridge, and is now working at Harvard University as a Senior Research Fellow as well as writing for The New York Times and BBC News.
Westover’s unusual path to success in academia resonated with me in particular as a current undergraduate student at Oxford University. Reading this over the Christmas vacation motivated me to get on with my reading (!), but also put into perspective my own privilege. Education, as Westover’s title Educated suggests, was one of the defining features of her life which allowed her to escape the abusive environment of her Mormon upbringing. Access to education, particularly the education as provided at top academic institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, allowed Westover to change her future and take control of her life, as well as give her the platform to write about and share her experiences with others. It was also education that allowed her to relate to the world around her and understand the world she was in.
Educated would be a great read if it were a work of fiction, but its real-world applications and resonances make it a truly brilliant book that highlights the importance of education in our world today, and makes me more seriously understand the extent of inequality and diversity of background present at my own university.
Georgia Campbell: The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain
Antoine Laurain is not a name I had heard before coming across The President’s Hat in my local bookshop, but it is certainly not one I have forgotten since.
Described by its author as ‘a modern fairytale for adults’, the 2012 novel was inspired by Laurain’s own imaginings of the second life his hat might be enjoying on the head of someone else after he left it in a café in France. It traces the lives of four people: an accountant, an aspiring and love-lorn poet, a gifted perfumier, and a Parisian socialite, all of whom are transformed for the better following their discovery of the hat of then-President of France, François Mitterrand.
The novel is loosely episodic: the life of each character picks up where the hat is left- in a restaurant, train, or park bench- and with each change-of-hands Laurain paints a Parisian portrait more endearing than the last.
It is certainly not what could be described as a ‘difficult’ book, but throughout Laurain subtly reminds us of the powers of self-perception to alter the trajectory of our lives. Whether the hat is actually magic, as Laurain once suggested in an interview, or simply prompts its wearers to view themselves in a new light is left ambiguous, but the book is no less enchanting either way.
After reading, I was struck by how rare it is to find a book so resolutely life-affirming: in a world filled with online echo chambers and an increasingly individualistic ethos, the book suggests that our lives- whether we realise it or not- are always intersecting those of others. The stories of four radically different figures all become bound together by a single felt hat, and it is hard not to feel that- through the widespread popularity of the book itself- Laurain has fostered a new web of connections among an international audience.
At just 200 pages long, The President’s Hat is a quick, charming read that might be just the ticket after all the chaos of an intense Hilary term. It is full to the brim with character, connection, and all the delight of a certain French je ne sais quoi. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Adam Saxon: The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
“Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to say: I am happy”.
You almost undoubtedly will have heard of other works by Dumas Peré such as The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo. Admittedly, the latter was the first work of his that I read; still today it is my favourite of the books I have read in recent years. Despite such enjoyment, it took me far too long to pick up another of Dumas’ works, but when I finally did over the summer, I am glad it was The Black Tulip.
A much lighter (and shorter) read than the works he is primarily known for, The Black Tulip follows the story of a tulip grower during the tulip mania that occurred during the 17th century in the Netherlands. We follow our hero Cornelius as he becomes caught up in the cut-throat politics of the time as a harmless man whose sole desire is to grow the elusive ‘black tulip’. It is a story of jealousy, love, and greed, tied together in unsurprisingly fantastic style by the excellent Dumas. While extravagant and far-fetched at times, it is a fun story that I would recommend as a gateway into the works of Dumas, as it gives a good taste of his writing style.
While a good introduction to his style, The Black Tulip is not a typical Dumas Story. Works like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are known for their adventurous plots, with a certain level of mystery that is required to make such long books interesting. This recommendation is not that. However, it has other features that make it an underrated part of Dumas’ works, as a hilarious romantic comedy that is also a tale of betrayal and deception. The characters are lovable (in part due to their overbearing romanticism), and the slight insanity of the plot amplifies this further. It also explores love in a more serious way, however, and the lengths one is willing to go to in helping those whom they love. While I wouldn’t recommend it as a book for anyone fond of entirely realistic plots, The Black Tulip is an incredibly enjoyable read, and certainly an accessible classic, especially by Dumas’ standards.
Eager hands reach toward the ceiling as children at the Ismail Qemali school in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, desperately try to attract the attention of an author who has come to talk to the pupils about her new book. They want to know more about the central character – a young refugee who finds herself in a strange new country – and about how to be a good writer.
Such a scene was unthinkable before The Library Project began its work in the region, building new libraries, bringing books into schools for the first time, training teachers in new methods, and implementing ‘Reading Hour’, an activity in which the entire class participates in a discussion of a book’s themes, plot and characters. The NGO’s overall aim is to use group literacy activities to instil a love of reading and among children and young adults in Kosovo. This collective approach, which has collaboration, engagement and discussion at its heart, contrasts to the divisions and alienation which have hung over the region since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Last April, ethnic Serbs boycotted the Kosovan mayoral elections in a protest over broken promises of autonomy; in July the hospital in Mitrovica faced shortages in medical supplies due to the closure of border crossings; and by September four men had lost their lives in a confrontation between Serbian paramilitaries and Kosovan police. Symbolically, this last conflagration had taken place in an Orthodox monastery only twenty minutes away from the Ismail Qemali school in Mitrovica.
I came across The Library Project whilst desperately trying to understand what has been going on between Kosovo and Serbia over the last twelve months. Frustrated by my ignorance, which I sheepishly blame on a school history syllabus that rarely strayed further into the contemporary period than the 1980s, I plunged down an internet search hole.
By the end of my Wikipedia spiral, I came to the rather obvious conclusion that the legacies of the ethnic tensions and consequent wars which defined the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s refuse to disappear.
In fact, The Library Project itself was born from the founder’s experience of the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, in which campaigns led by convicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic resulted in the displacement of over one million Albanian Kosovans, and the deaths of thousands.
Safete Binaku was one of those forced to flee, moving to Sweden aged 13. Memories of her school days are not filled with novels and the opportunity to discuss literature, but of being taught in separate classrooms to the ethnic Serbs, and not being allowed to play with them at breaktime, before finally leaving Kosovo. She describes her flight in terms that convey the chaos, pessimism and tragedy of the era: “as we left everything burned down behind us, there was no return”.
Fittingly for someone who runs a NGO based on the power of books, she explains that the brutality of the 1990s was a consequence of the fact that Serbs and Kosovans had “two completely different stories”, and neither group sought to understand the other’s. It was partly her desire to make sure that today’s young Kosovans are able to engage and understand others’ stories, experiences, and opinions, that encouraged her to set up The Library Project in 2017 with some friends in Stockholm.
The charity’s overall aim is to use group literacy activities to instil a love of reading and among children and young adults in Kosovo. This collective approach, which has collaboration, engagement and discussion at its heart, contrasts to the divisions and alienation which have hung over the region since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
But she also insists that this crisis of mutual ignorance isn’t limited to northern Kosovo, but palpable in many of the conflicts we see today, cautioning that by “not reading, ever, that story of the other group, that is the easiest way to shut them off”.
Owing to her promotion of tolerance and dialogue, I wanted to know if her experience of the famed culture of acceptance in Sweden had also played a role in the establishment of her NGO. Her answer is nuanced.
On the one hand, she describes how proud she was to associate herself with Sweden up until 2015, recounting how she signed up to volunteer with Syrian refugees but didn’t get a spot because so many people had put themselves forward.
However, like in much of Europe, the country’s right-wing populist party has seen significant gains in recent years, and in 2022 it became part of a government coalition for the first time in its history. The innocuously-named Swedish Democrats’ doubt the viability of multiculturalism and often point to the situation in Malmo, a city with a 35% foreign born population, which has long suffered with high crime rates and has been described as having ‘no go zones’ for police.
Safete laments the rising trend of politicians laying the blame on immigrants, but feels that Sweden still has a “very giving culture”, highlighting that it is currently the fifth biggest donor to Kosovo.
But she also directly credits her experience of the Swedish education system as inspiration for the NGO, citing the injustice she felt when she was helped to pick out a book at secondary school, knowing that Kosovan children didn’t receive the same attention as she did. Understanding the transformative potential of a single book, she wanted to bring that empowerment to her homeland.
Safete believes that part of the value of being a lifelong reader is becoming comfortable with perspectives that challenge your own. She tells me how Wonder, a book about a boy with a facial deformity, and the orphaned Oliver Twist, have had a particularly strong impact on the Kosovan children who have received books thanks to The Library Project.
Nonetheless, Suzana, a teacher and Safete’s co-founder, highlights the children’s “hunger for more stories that speak to them”, a desire that is being met by The Project’s drive to get more Kosovan literature into the classroom. By seeing their own childhoods reflected on the pages of books, it is hoped that pupils will also gain the tools to articulate their own experiences to others.
‘Reading Hour’, similar to activities like ‘class reader’ in the UK, is unlike anything Safete experienced at school in Kosovo in the 90s, when the education system was strongly grounded in strict discipline and rote learning. In fact, today’s Kosovan children struggle with the concept initially as a result of comprehension and analysis skills still being completely left off the Kosovan curriculum. They are often uncomfortable with the concept of debate, answering questions intended to elicit their opinions with memorised paragraphs of the book, but soon begin to passionately advocate for or critique the central characters in every story.
All the books are handpicked by the Project, based on their ability to generate discussion on a pressing theme, whether that’s friendship, LGBTQ+ issues, or bullying. Some of the themes even allow teachers to tackle taboo topics in Kosovan society, and Safete explains how Anne Frank’s diary provided a surprising example.
“They didn’t know that you could talk about having a negative relationship with a parent”, she says, describing the shock the children felt when Anne expresses less than generous thoughts about her mother. It is not part of Kosovan culture to talk about feelings openly, especially any sentiments that might betray disrespect to one’s elders, and so it is unsurprising that several children told their teacher that they were going to start a private diary. For their sake, I hope their parents don’t read them..
Another female protagonist that proved inspirational was Kosse, who is based on real-life footballer Kosovare Asllani, who scored Sweden’s winning goal in the bronze medal match of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Asllani, like Safete, is part of the large Kosovan diaspora who lives in Sweden, and her story – which revolves around her brothers not letting her play with them – prompted several female pupils to ask indignantly, “why don’t we play more football?”.
But the impact of the project is felt far beyond the conversations during ‘Reading Hour’. In the absence of a clearly defined curriculum, Kosovan teachers are often left with little guidance on how to educate the children, a difficulty compounded by the scarcity of resources written in Albanian. One of the first ways that The Library Project sought to make a change in Kosovan classrooms was by training educators in small sessions, before sending them back to their respective schools and asking them to spread the new methods amongst their colleagues.
“We’re trying to put the system in place and then hand it over”, Safete explains, a philosophy which reflects the sense of independence, creativity, and initiative that she is trying to instil in the children themselves.
Image credits: The Library Project via Instagram (@libraryproject.kosova)
Testimonies all attest to the impact the project has had on educators’ professional and personal lives, with teachers Ermira, Donita and Merita all commenting on how it has revolutionised the children’s learning and their own approach to all subjects, and Naime – the very first teacher to receive the training – saying that Reading Hour, loved by the children, “has become very dear” to her as well.
But scrolling through the NGO’s Instagram account, it is striking that almost all the pictures of the teacher training sessions include only women. Though empowering the female educators the project works with, Safete admits that male teachers are often more resistant to learning new techniques.
This is only one of the challenges they face, the greatest of all being the scepticism exhibited by children, headteachers and parents when approached by the NGO.
“Kosovan kids are not like the Swedish kids”. “You are never going to manage to build us a library”. “They don’t read that way”.
The second of these statements of doubt was uttered by Ardian, a ninth-grader who was incredulous at the prospect of his run-down school having its own library.
A few years later, Safete was in a café in Kosovo and Ardian bounded up to her, excitedly telling her that although he had now graduated, his younger siblings were using the newly built library at the school.
Such success stories as this will fuel the project’s current plans, which will involve more teacher training and setting up a library in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. Like the other facilities set up by the NGO, it will have a rotating collection, so local schools will be able to take out a full set of books to run ‘Reading Hour’, and when they come back for their next set, their previous loan will be passed on to another school to borrow.
The plans are ambitious, but there are a huge number of people across Sweden and Kosovo propelling the NGO forward. Safete has never had to advertise for volunteers because people somehow find the NGO, something which she says was particularly surprising when it came to the building phase of several of the libraries, for which many unemployed Kosovans offered their help.
One of the volunteers, Leurita, says one of the most memorable moments was when she was able to personally deliver books to the children. Merely “seeing the joy in the children’s eyes” was what inspired her commitment to TLPK.
Last September’s escalation of violence perforates this sense of optimism, but also re-asserts why The Library Project’s work is so crucial. Serbian children still learn a different version of history to their Kosovan counterparts across the border, and without a mutual understanding of one another, it is difficult to imagine a context in which the two groups might be able to live in relative harmony. With 200 new UK soldiers joining the 4,000-strong NATO task force based in the region, and the US accepting Kosovo’s application to buy Javelin anti-tank missiles only two weeks ago, 2024 could see tensions boil over again.
Amidst this dark, uncertain backdrop, Safete insists she is no hero. But The Library Project’s mission, articulated by co-founder Suzana as using books to pave “the way to a brighter future for children and young people in Kosovo” certainly seems heroic.
Image credits: The Library Project via Instagram (@libraryproject.kosova)
