Sunday, May 18, 2025
Blog Page 923

OUSU condemn Trump presidency

Cherwell News
-
0
OUSU condemn Trump presidency

On Wednesday evening, the Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU) council voted to oppose the policy platform of President-Elect Donald Trump.

The motion to oppose President- Elect Trump was debated for over an hour, and passed with 37 in favour, 11 against, and four abstentions. The official proposition claims that some of the President’s policies during the election campaign of 2016 “represent a grave threat, especially to people of marginalised and disadvantaged… communities.”

Opposition to the motion was wide-ranging but ultimately unsuccessful. Some asked for the Council to wait until the administration was in office enacting policies. Others claimed that the council should not attempt to involve itself in US national politics.

St Anne’s second-year Thomas Zagoria, who proposed the motion to OUSU Council, told Cherwell: “I proposed this motion because, having lived in the US and having friends who are undocu- mented immigrants and from other marginalised groups, I didn’t want Trump’s rhetoric and policies to be normalised and legitimised, which will happen if people don’t actively speak out.

“While I recognise some emphasise respecting the office of the presidency, I also think America especially has a history of change emanating from below, from people standing up for others in their communities through civil disobedience and peaceful pro- test. That history also needs to be respected.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will take place today at 5pm GMT, a ceremony in Washington followed by inaugural celebrations.

Justin Wang, a first year student at Hertford college told Cherwell: “Whether one accepts it or not, Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States and trying to stymie him is undemocratic. Denouncing a leader before he has even taken office benefits no one. It is best to give him a fair chance, like we would have for Clinton, before we pass judgement.”

This news coincides with ‘Oxford Stand Up to Racism’’s planned protest against Donald Trump today at 5pm.

Breaking: Woman killed in “chemical incident” on Magdalen Road

Jack Hunter
-
0
Breaking: Woman killed in “chemical incident” on Magdalen Road

A woman has been killed in a house on Magdalen Road in what Thames Valley Police are describing as a “fear for welfare” which may have involved chemicals.

The road in East Oxford was cordoned off by emergency services following the incident, which reportedly happened around 8am this morning. Neighbours were evacuated and others were ordered to stay indoors.

Police have confirmed a woman, believed to be in her 20s, was found dead inside a property.

Duty Inspector Paul Coleman told the Oxford Mail the death was being treated as “unexplained” but not suspicious.

Police and the Fire Brigade are still currently on the scene. Firefighters wearing chemical protection suits are still going in and out of the building, although the house has no externally visible structural damage.

A fireman told Cherwell: “It went bang.”

The road was closed for three hours and reopened at 12:30pm in the morning. Police say an investigation into the events is ongoing.

Motion condemning NUS Vice President withdrawn from OUSU council after “conspiracy” claims

Benjamin Tan
-
0
Motion condemning NUS Vice President withdrawn from OUSU council after “conspiracy” claims

A motion put to Wednesday’s OUSU council to condemn Richard Brooks, the NUS Vice-President at the centre of an alleged plot to oust its President, was withdrawn after heavy criticism from Oxford Jewish Society (J-Soc).

The motion called for the resignation of Brooks, following Al Jazeera’s publication of hidden camera footage which allegedly shows Brooks admitting to efforts to unseat NUS president Mattia Bouattia.

Al Jazeera also claims that Brooks colluded with Israeli Embassy officials in his effort to remove Bouattia. Brooks referred himself last week for investigation by the NUS UK Board.

The motion, which asked OUSU to call on Brooks for a full apology, stated: “This incident takes place in a climate where student activists, NUS, and the NUS President have been systematically undermined, attacked, and harassed for expressing support for Palestinian rights.”

It said that the actions of Brooks have brought “the Union [NUS] as a whole into disrepute”.

In a statement, Oxford J-Soc described the motion as “disturbing”, stating: “It takes a conspiratorial video series and deduces further conspiracies from it.”

J-Soc claimed the motion aimed to “undermine the allegations of anti-Semitism that Bouattia has rightly faced and failed to adequately respond to. The pressure which has been placed on Bouattia by our own student union, who recently called on her to apologise or resign, and student leaders including Brooks should not be cast aside or undermined by this claim.”

The motion was later withdrawn from the council by its proposer, Sean O’Neill, who said in a statement that he intended to wait for the result of “investigations and enquiries” into Brooks’ actions by the police and other public authorities.

The Al Jazeera’s investigation claims that Brooks and Rob Young, also a NUS Vice-President, were funded by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) to travel to Israel.

Neither declared the trip to the NUS national executive council, which may violate the body’s affiliation with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Brooks has rebuffed the charges of conspiracy and receiving Israeli government support—calling them on Twitter “overextended with no proof”—while defending the right to publicly oppose Bouattia’s presidency.

“I, like every other elected officer in the NUS, politically organise,” he told Huffington Post UK last week.

Brooks, on social media last week, wrote: “I hope that a swift and thorough investigation can assure the membership that I have done nothing wrong and that the constant hounding by the press and others will end.”

“After two years of NUS I’m unfortunately not even shocked anymore by the way people conduct themselves in real life and on social media.”

Brooks denied Cherwell’s request for further comment, citing the ongoing NUS investigation.

OUSU, in a statement posted online, stated that it was “disheartened”, criticising the “toxicity” and “in-fighting” revealed by Al Jazeera’s report, though it stopped short of calling for his resignation.

“We are disappointed to see an officer supposedly responsible for supporting union development and democracy of the national body working to disable the NUS by planning to oust a democratically elected president.”

Campaign director for the Union of Jewish Students, Josh Nagli, denied accusations that his organisation conspired with the Israeli government, writing on Twitter: “The insidious suggestion that Jewish students […] conspire with or take direction from Israeli officials, is grossly offensive.”

UJS and others have accused Mattia Bouattia of anti-Semitism in the past, after she characterised Birmingham University as a “Zionist outpost for higher education” and repeatedly referenced “mainstream Zionist-led media outlets”.

She has, however, maintained that she remains committed to fight racism “in all its forms”.

A NUS spokesperson said: “NUS takes these allegations seriously, we are looking into them and, when we have all the information available, the behaviour of NUS officers will be reviewed and appropriate action taken.”

Head to Head: World XI

Cherwell Sport
-
0
Head to Head: World XI

The UEFA 2016 team of the year was dominated by La Liga BBVA stars; Champions League-winning side Real Madrid made up more than a third of the squad.

If the world was to face an outrageous extra-terrestrial football team today, what players would you choose to have on your staring XI?

Karl Frey’s World XI

I have gone for a 4-2-3-1 formation, which I believe accommodates the perfect balance of attacking and defensive talent.

Goalkeeper: Manuel Neuer

In goal it was a very easy decision. For me, Manuel Neuer is the best goal keeper of this generation. Some might argue that De Gea is a better shot stopper and others will tell you that the experienced Buffón is better at organising his backline. Whatever. Neuer is the simply world’s most complete goalkeeper.

Centre Backs: Diego Godin and Matts Hummels

As a centre back pairing I have chosen Diego Godin and Matts Hummels. Defensively, these are a class above Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique. I am willing to make a bold claim in saying that Godin is the best centre back I have seen since the likes of Fabio Cannavaro and Carles Puyol at their peaks. The Uruguayan captain is the keystone of the Atletico Madrid back line; one that never seems to underperform. Hummels has shown his consistent quality throughout his years at Dortmund, Bayern Munich and with the German national side.

Left Back: David Alaba

As my left back I have gone for David Alaba. The Austrian is arguably the most polyvalent player in today’s game, also playing at centre back, holding midfield and left wing. However, this may now change after Pablo Zabaleta proved to be unstoppable at a central midfield position against West Ham in the FA Cup tie last week.

Right Back: Serge Aurier

As my right back I have chosen an underdog. In my opinion, football currently lacks a world class right back. As Dani Alves’ and Philip Lahm’s careers are coming to an end, Serge Aurier has emerged as a growing talent. I am a big fan of full backs that play with a lot of freedom and don’t hesitate to move forward. And that is exactly what the PSG right back provides to my unstoppable XI. In my opinion, Jerome Boateng is too slow to cover that position.

Centre Mids: Marco Verratti and Sergio Busquets

My Centre Mid pairing consists of Marco Verratti and Sergio Busquets. The defensive mid-fielders have incredible passing abilities with a pass completion rate of 90% and 92 per cent respectively this season. The turning point in Verratti’s career came when former PSG manager Carlo Ancelotti scout- ed the Italian at Serie B side Pescara in 2012. Ancelotti fell in love with him and Verratti has been crucial to the success of PSG since. Sergio Busquets has been the first name on the team sheet for 7 consecutive years, of one of the greatest teams in the history of football. That’s all that needs to be said.

Wingers and no.10: Cristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi:

Cristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann and Leo Messi appear on both my team and the UEFA 2016 squad. Can’t argue with that. The FIFA Ballon d’Or finalists bring out the beauty of modern football like few others in the game.

Attacker: Luis Suarez

As my (all out) striker I have chosen Luis Suarez. I am still highly perplexed about his absence in the UEFA 2016. In the 2015/2016 season, the Uruguayan scored 53 goals (including 7 hat-tricks) and provided 21 assists in only 49 games for FCBarcelona. If that’s not world class I don’t know what is.

Charlie Gould’s World XI

I have opted for a 3-4-3 formation. This formation is the new fashion item in football. Popularised in Italy by Juventus, it has now been brought over to the Premiership by Conte who has transformed Chelsea into easily the best team in the league. The formation allows a team to both de- fend solidly with five defenders and then break forward with more numbers than most other formations allow.

Goalkeeper: de Gea

De Gea has become the best goalkeeper in the world, almost singlehandedly keeping Manchester United within the top six over the last couple of seasons.He is good with his feet which has become extremely important for goalkeepers in the modern game.

Defender: Pepe

Winner of the Champions League and the Euro’s last year Pepe has matured like a fine wine from a hot-head defender who could not be relied upon into a passionate, reliable centre-back.

Defender: Godin

The captain and leader of Atletico Madrid, a team that has recently broken through the duo- poly of Spanish football and have now reached two champions league finals in three years. He is unbeatable in the air and has a cool, calm person both on and off the field.

Defender: Boateng

Despite being sat down by Messi in the Champions League semi-final, Boateng has become Bayern Munich’s main man in defence as Lahm has grown older. Solid in the air and on the ground, Boateng is physically strong and not often pushed off the ball.

Midfielder: Hazard

This Belgian wizard can cast spells onto any defence. After a disappointing season last year, he has been rejuvenated under Conte and is one of the key reasons Chelsea have equalled the longest winning streak in a Premiership season.

Midfielder: Modric

Outstanding vision and passing ability are what truly define this Croatian playmaker. At Real Madrid, he has become a versatile player who can calmly bring the ball out of defence and into attack.

Midfielder: Kante

The most underrated man in football, this running man was the stand-out star of 2016 for me. After winning the Premiership with Leicester it is no surprise that since his move to Chelsea they are now top of the table.

Midfielder: Pogba

After an amazing season with Juventus, Pogba became the most expensive player in the world when United bought him for £89m. Pogba has shown during the Euro’s, and recently for Manchester United, that on top form he is virtually unstoppable.

Attacker: Messi

What is there to be say? He is the best player in the world now and maybe ever! He glides around the pitch, can nutmeg a mermaid and his goal scoring record needs to be seen to be believed.

Attacker: Suarez

For me the best out and out striker in the world right now. He scored the most league goals in 2016 and recorded the most league assists showing that he can do far more than just aim and shoot.

Attacker: Ronaldo

The perfect athlete, Ronaldo deserved his Ballon D’or this year by guiding Real Madrid to the Champions League title and then winning the European Championship with Portugal. It has been eight years since Ronaldo’s first Ballon d’Or, exemplifying his incredible longevity at the top of his game.

Old&New: Pascal Pinaud, Granny’s modern rival

Sophie Jordan
-
0
Old&New: Pascal Pinaud, Granny’s modern rival

Sometimes traditions are better left aside in order to make place for real comfort and practicality. This thought, which I weakly argue is taken directly from the good Modernist’s Bible, is often my last barrier against an over-enthusiastic Grandma’s generosity at Christmas.

The affection, meticulousness and varying amount of skill put into the knitting of the infamous Christmas jumper all appear in Pascal Pinaud’s short series of woolly installations.

Humorously, the Southern French artist cites the feared but painfully recurrent gift in three untitled works which altogether took him and a team of specialised craftsmen seven years to complete.

Currently exposed among the artist’s very diverse works—from large sheets of reused and spray painted aluminium to an installation of neon aureoles—in the Maeght

Foundation’s Sempervivum exhibition, these mock-canvas creations use a combination of the typical patterns of knitwork and crochet with patches of striped industrial textile for a heterogenous, disorganised look.

If the irregularity of the knitting, which leaves gaps and sometimes skips a knot or two, seems rather familiar, the two large openings at the centre of one of the works are too similar to sleeves for the resemblance to simply fade.

By placing this feature and other motives of traditional patchwork on the wooden frame supporting the wool, Pinaud invites the visitor’s eye to be attracted against its will to something it knows all too well.

Thankfully free of reindeer or any other recognisable figure, the untitled knits work each work around one base colour. Super- imposed onto this are clashing flashes of bright thread, red, pastel blue and pink, and orange making the outcome a serious rival to any octogenarian’s handiwork.

The series fits in happily with the rest of the artist’s playful work with cheap, common materials, copying directly and without questioning the aesthetic fail

The migration of the amateur poultry farmer’s daughter

Verity Bell
-
0
The migration of the amateur poultry farmer’s daughter

David, the duck, had died.

My little sister’s text glowed white against the late night library desk: “Mum’s really upset.” A dog had got him, apparently. At least it would have been quick, I sensibly counselled; he wouldn’t have known much about it, being a duck. I played at being grown up with the kind of unfeeling conceit that could only have been mustered by a law student with important exams next week.

“No, she’s like, really sad”

A pang of shame knocked me low into my seat, as I reeled from the acute awareness of the distance between us. Had growing up meant necessarily growing away, I wondered?

I had swapped the messy, tropical suburbs of Brisbane for the dreaming spires of Oxford, barely conscious of the space I had left behind. When, ecstatic, I received the offer for which I had worked so hard, my parents never once suggested pursuing higher education nearer to home. If the thought of allowing their eighteen-year-old to spend three years on the other side of the world bothered them in the slightest, they never let on; they were nothing but proud of me. In Australia, it is almost unheard of to move even interstate for undergraduate study. When well-meaning family friends heard I was off to Oxford, their reaction was not one of congratulations, but of pity. “Oh-ho” they would muse, “How does your mum feel about that?”

My mother quickly dismissed them; she too had moved away from her parents. Once for university, up to Sheffield in the North of England from the South and decades later to Queensland, emigrating for my father’s career with my sister and me in tow, aged two and nearly six. To this day if I ever feel irritation rise at the wails of sleep-deprived children on long haul flights, I push for a feeble attempt at atonement. This was you once, and your mum bore all twenty-eight hours of it. At my grandfather’s funeral, she thanked him for his unfailing, unquestioning support spanning the continents. In our family, enduring great separation is itself an act of love.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots. I recognised the supermarket chains and damp smells of England from the times my parents had flown us back for childhood Christmases. Much of what I remembered of those holidays came from what was glimpsed looking out the window along motorways and roadside convenience stops: the impressively wider variety of potato chip flavours called ‘crisps’, the greenness of the trees and fields, and the way it started to get dark in the middle of the afternoon. But these trips were always brief, and always temporary. Aunts and uncles would object to my sister’s broad vowels, but accept that the battle was fruitless; we were Australians now. Only she had the accent to prove it.

Yet back in Blighty I was, clutching a list of criminal law pre-reading and a sketchbook my school friends had filled with photographs. Textbook facts about the country came easily—it has a House of Lords instead of an elected senate, Queen Anne had been pregnant at least seventeen times but survived all of her children, the Guardian is the left-wing newspaper—but everyday familiarity did not.

In those first few weeks I felt like a fraudulent tourist, ordering coffee with an English accent but with tell-tale Australian phrasing and intonation, rising upwards tentatively at the end of every sentence: “can I grab a flat white, please?” instead of “may I have?”. I was obsessed by the prim voice of the self- service check outs and the very existence of The Archers, the inexplicably popular public radio serial (yes, radio!) involving cows and rural gossip. It routinely astonished me how much time in a day was devoted to pulling on heavy coats, and laboriously taking them off again. Feeling so foreign, it was strange to be berated by Australian schoolmates about how ‘pommie’ (English) I sounded.

I still hesitate when people ask me where I am from. Home can seem wherever I am not currently. With two passports, I perpetually migrate. My dual nationality emerged as ‘an interesting fact about yourself’ during the obligatory getting-to- know-you games of Freshers’ Week, and “But you don’t sound Australian!” became the refrain of my course mates. Convinced I was an admissions mistake, I was consumed by a confusing cocktail of imposter syndrome and homesickness, despite living in the country in which I was born, surrounded by extended family. I retreated into my books. If I couldn’t be English or Australian, then I would be a lawyer instead.

The news of the chickens came first, then the bantams, then the ducks. Less than a month after I’d moved to the UK, photographs of the coopwooden, with ‘Chook House’ picked out in friendly letters, handpainted red, began arriving regularly. I wanted to name the first two after Roman jurists, but the rest of the family were having none of it.

“No-one shouts ‘Ulpian! Ulpian! Come and get your birdfeed!’ within earshot of the neighbours and still lives with themselves.”

Mum probably had a point. They were, after all, female chickens who were expected to earn their keep at some point by producing eggs. My sister christened them Dawn and Beyoncé.

We fill our time with hobbies—cross-stitch, crossfit, gardening, contract law—when searching for something more absorbing than our own pain. Over that long first year, ‘how the girls were doing’ became a proxy for all those things my parents’ residual Britishness prevented them saying explicitly. “I was out watering the plants with the girls this morning”. “The girls laid us two lovely brown eggs yesterday!”. My sister and I had been ‘the girls’ in Christmas letters and emails before we grew up and moved away: ’With love from Debbie, Mark and the Girls’. Now we were women, and the girls were poultry.

Margaret and David came next: two lily white ducks, named for Australian film critics. Watching At the Movies with Margaret and David on a Sunday evening with my Dad was something of a ritual growing up. It functioned as a barometer for how well we had assimilated, measured by how accurately we guessed the number of stars they had awarded films. My friends appreciated the duck photos carefully curated across my social media accounts. Of course they wouldn’t get the joke in their names.

“So they replaced you with chickens?” “And bantams, yes.”

I boasted about the menagerie I had left behind to the excruciatingly cool student actor I fancied in a hopelessly misguided effort to seem more interesting: ‘bantam banter’, if you will. Bantam eggs are only small and don’t come nearly as frequently, I informed her. They’re really just there for cuddles and looking lovely, waddling around the garden and showing off their fluffy bottoms. She pretended to be suitably impressed.

I became hyper-aware of the control I possessed over how much of my life I shared on either side of the planet. Showering English friends with Australia facts as though I was zealously selling a holiday package, I guiltily stemmed the flow of details the other way. When I video-called my mother for the first time after cutting off all but a few inches of my long but hardly inspiring mop of hair, she flinched away from the screen at her end. By then I had stopped running my fingers over my bare ears and catching glimpses of the shape of my skull in shop windows. I’d forgotten it was news to her.

“Really suits you, darl. You don’t even look like a lesbian!”

My mother carefully avoided my glance sideways, as one of those well-meaning family friends cooed over my haircut upon my return to Australia for Christmas. She would chastise me later for making poor Caroline feel guilty, as I had hissed back that this was the desired effect.

As it happened, I was indeed one of those short-haired lesbians my mother’s friends looked upon with a mixture of pity and discomfort. My foray on tiptoes into a queer sexual identity was accepted without comment in College. But when my parents Skyped me the morning after the inevitable romantic disappointment of my second year, they were told that it was a ‘Howard’, not a ‘Hannah’, who had caused all the snot.

I would not awkwardly come out to my parents, over the phone in a noisy café, until I had almost finished my degree. I have never been sure whether telephone would have been my coming out medium of choice had I remained in Australia. A phone call manages to be less sincere than a letter or email, while more cowardly than speaking face-to-face. The words ‘fine’ and ‘lovely’ until any meaning they might have conveyed dissolved into phoneline static. Years would pass before my sexuality was mentioned again, even in jest.

The night terrors which woke up my housemates, me screaming the names of legal cases while sound asleep in the weeks leading up to my final exams, were difficult to relay. The debilitating weight of beliefs about my inadequacy was a burden, I convinced myself, which was best carried alone. The law offers little comfort to those who have difficulty categorising themselves.

Roman law is a map, my tutor had said. Once you know the landscape, you are never really lost in any jurisdiction or context. You could be studying tort law in Barbados, property rights in outer space, sixteenth century shipping law; you’ll always have some idea of how a sprawling web of rights and obligations can hold its shape. Roman law provided plenty of guidance about how to sue one’s neighbour in the event he stole your chicken, and speculation as to whether bees were by nature wild if they had the habit of returning. Nothing about where on the map I ought to be classified.

Flying the nest for everyone inevitably involves coping with a new kind of distance. Some families speak in code, with a tacit appreciation of the fact that there are darker and more difficult aspects of life than the debacle over the neighbour’s fence or Philomena getting broody. A shared fiction is no less intimate for omissions, but an acknowledgement of emotions too intense to share when apart. Egg counts served as tokens of my parents’ love, unrelated to my academic successes or failures.

Ironically enough, there was a pair of wild ducks who would visit my College year on year in the summer, around the time my English friends would scatter back across the country for the holidays. It was difficult not to avoid the conclusion that they had been sent deliberately—a physical reminder of the home I was missing.

It wasn’t until the first Christmas after my graduation I met Una and Fergus, the ducklings my mother meticulously hatched under an incubator light. A bird’s nest, whilst beautiful, is always a temporary structure. I was back in Brisbane to bask in the sweaty summer, having decided that returning permanently would be yet another seismic shift too soon. Despite the painful, dull confusion that had been the months leading up to my final exams, I could dimly recall being sent videos of a pair of fluffy chickens peep-peeping to each other in a familiar kitchen sink.

“They come running out to greet me, you know. They think I’m their mum”.

Two months at home, Brisbane home, came and went. My mother always bakes when my sister or I fly anywhere, right from the moment we take off until we land. Delightfully sloppy orange and almond cake, magazine-perfect raspberry soufflés in little copper pans. It is the most delicious, endearing coping mechanism I have ever witnessed, love whipped up in mixing bowls and baked to feed others. To use up the eggs, she insists.

Alternative funding methods will be salvation for the arts

Eimer McAuley
-
0
Alternative funding methods will be salvation for the arts

Cuts to the arts and cultural services hit the people who need it hardest- nowhere is this more-so the case than in Northern Ireland. As we come into the second half of a decade defined by austerity, the future of the arts and the quality of cultural life in Britain and Northern Ireland seem more in peril than ever. Perhaps in the UK we’ve become accustomed to having our cultural services treading water; but the question now is whether we’re prepared to watch them sink and, if not, whether we are prepared to take action?

Stretched local council budgets are set to have harsh implications on the arts. One council member, Ian Stephens, has said that the prospect of a £2.6bn social care funding gap by 2020 will mean that councils will have to “divert more money from other local services, including cultural services, to try and plug growing social care funding gaps.” This is a sobering reality for advocates of the arts—when services like social care are struggling to stay afloat, spending millions on a new classical music opera hall in London is a tough pitch.

Yet herein lies a part of the problem; the amount of funding allocated to the arts in London is still disproportionate compared to the rest of the UK, leading to a Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee warning that a “better regional balance” is what’s needed, considering that London has more opportunity to generate revenue through the Arts. This imbalance has meant that libraries are closing their doors early, art galleries are fighting to stay open, and, according to one survey last year, one in five regional museums has either closed or is facing imminent closure.

The social impact here goes beyond a mere lack of entertainment; there are major implications for social mobility. In Oxford University alone it isn’t a coincidence that every other person you know happens to be from London. If there isn’t a local concert hall for an orchestra to play in or a museum or gallery to host a new exhibition, then where’s the inspiration for state school students to pursue an arts degree in Oxford?

In Northern Ireland the imbalance in culture funding has been fuelled more so by sectarianism than regional bias. DUP Communities Minister Paul Given has cut £50,000 from an Irish language school bursary aimed at disadvantaged families. PBP MLA Gerry Carrol defended this scheme as it “helps underprivileged children, from all communities and backgrounds” and called on the DUP to “stop playing sectarian games.”

However, this new anger is the reopening of an old wound. Throughout the power- sharing executive’s history, culture and arts funding have been the victim of a political tug-of-war. Not only has this prohibited the celebration of our diverse culture, but it has also deepened the divide in our cultural identity by forcing one to compete against the other for survival. This has created a cultural battleground in Northern Ireland where one culture must have predominance over the other—neither ends up the victor.

The reaction of local communities in Northern Ireland to these cuts is comparable to that of regional communities in England who suffered similar austerity, for example the 25 per cent cuts to the Walsall New Art Gallery which have sentenced it to closure. In both cases, a wave of outrage proved to be transient and amounted to nothing

If, when cultural services are threatened in this way we lose out, why is no one suggesting innovative fundraising as the solution? Would it be so hard to get creative for the sake of culture?

In small doses across the UK this is already happening: the Bury Art museum coordinated a tour of British art in China and made £100,000 in the process whereas ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ schemes have proved effective elsewhere. Surely we can get behind crucial services which benefit our local communities through fundraising.

In turn, the arts sector needs to be more innovative when it comes to generating revenue. Presently the only alternative option is to be the audience who watch culture and the arts walk the plank singing and dancing. Maybe we’d better get out of our seats and do something.

Oxford future research hangs in balance after May’s Brexit speech

Benn Sheridan
-
0
Oxford future research hangs in balance after May’s Brexit speech

Oxford’s future as a world-leading academic institution may be on the line following Theresa May’s announcement of a “red white and blue Brexit”, which will see an end to freedom of movement across the UK border.

On Tuesday the Prime Minister spoke of new border restrictions which will affect total migration from the European Union, a figure which includes students.

However, signalling that the government remains firm in its commitment to sustaining the UK’s reputation for academic excellence, she stated: “We will continue to attract the brightest and the best to work or study in Britain—indeed openness to international talent must remain one of this country’s most distinctive assets—but that process must be managed properly so that our immigration system serves the national interest.”

“A global Britain must also be a country that looks to the future. That means being one of the best places in the world for science and innovation. One of our great strengths as a nation is the breadth and depth of our academic and scientific communities, backed up by some of the world’s best universities. And we have a proud history of leading and supporting cutting-edge research and innovation.”

Britain’s membership of the European Union grants it access to nearly €80 billion in research project funding as part of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation: Horizon 2020.

An exit from the European Union would mean that, without alternative arrangements agreed, British universities would lose access to this funding.

It is possible that Britain will adopt a similar model to Switzerland, which has associated country membership of Horizon 2020 on the condition it continues to accept free movement of peoples.

Speaking to the Education Select Committee about the likely impact of a hard Brexit last week, Professor Alastair Buchan, Oxford’s incoming head of Brexit strategy, said: “We’re giving up 500 to 950 years of exchange—I think we need to be very cautious [about what type of Brexit is pursued].”

He compared the issues facing Oxford and other leading British universities to Premier League Football clubs.

He commented: “Our problem is the Manchester United problem… Every student and every staff member that comes to Oxford is a benefit for this country, because we recruit quality, people that play in the top league.

“We need to be leading, and we have been leading as universities in the past 10, 20 years. Thirty or 40 years ago we weren’t, when we joined the EU. To lose that would be absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot—we must not do that.”

At the same committee, held at Pembroke College (Oxford), Catharine Barnard, a Professor of EU Law at Cambridge, warned that if Britain did not act fast to secure its academic future, it could have dire consequences, with “Germany … working very hard to see if they can attract British academics or academics from British universities to Germany, offering positions that have no teaching connected, research-based posts. Germany is snapping at our heels”.

William Rees-Mogg, President-Elect at the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA), told Cherwell: “[I] am glad to hear that the government will seek to maintain a fruitful relationship with Europe in the Education Sector.”

The Vice-Chancellor was unavailable for comment.

Author of the week: Paul Beatty

Ellie Duncan
-
0
Author of the week: Paul Beatty

Our author of the week is Paul Beatty, winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize for his fourth novel, The Sellout, and the first American to claim the award.

Born in Los Angeles in 1962, Beatty holds degrees in psychology and creative writing, and started off his career as a poet, publishing his debut collection Big Bank Take Little Bank in 1991. He published his first novel, The White Boy Shuffle, in 1996, a postmodern look at coming-of-age, identity, and race.

The Sellout is driven by energy and lyricism, a sharp satire on themes including the legacy of slavery, segregation and the American justice system. Set in a fictional Los Angeles suburb and narrated by a character known as Me, Beatty’s novel has drawn a variety of different critical responses, but one word seems to resound: hilarity, exemplified by simple but brilliant devices like a court case named ‘Me vs United States of America.’

Reviewing the novel for Cherwell last autumn, Benjamin Davies praised Beatty’s “ability to make both the comic and tragic uncomfortable, just clauses apart, making this book feel unique.”

Though certainly not unknown in American literary circles, Paul Beatty has been credited with widening and challenging expectations, reflecting a desire to write honestly and originally and firmly reinforcing the importance of satire in the sight of publishers and critics.

Fashion and fitness: our unhealthy obsession with a healthy lifestyle

Natasha McCabe
-
0
Fashion and fitness: our unhealthy obsession with a healthy lifestyle

Last week, Rosie Huntington-Whitely launched her new active-wear line for M&S. Designed for cardio work-outs and inspired by ballet and yoga, the range follows on from her collection geared towards lower intensity routines released last year. It’s affordable and sleekly produced in flattering minimalist tones of charcoal, aubergine and rose: it may be just the inspiration you’re looking for to fulfil those over-optimistic New Year’s resolutions.

The collection is a natural move for the model, who is an outspoken advocate of fitness. She has recently spoken to ELLE about her passion for well-being, saying she regards the gym as a form of meditation—and she has the body to prove it. Yet as I scroll through her shoot for the collection, looking enviously at her toned abs and perfectly sculpted arms as she manages to gaze at us seductively through her post-workout glow, I cannot help but feel a little frustrated.

Somehow, she manages to look like a Greek-goddess, when most of us bear more resemblance to an overripe tomato after a hard-core cardio session, which has me wondering: is all this fitness frenzy really a plus for body confidence?

Don’t get me wrong, exercise is an essential component of stress-relief, longer life expectancy, not to mention that six-pack we all dream of being able to sport on the beach. But we’ve been bombarded by images and fitness fads over the past couple of years that have very little to actually do with mental as well as physical well-being. Kayla Itsines took Instagram by storm a few years back, inspiring thousands of women worldwide with her Bikini-Body-Guide. A gruelling set of daily reps and a corresponding eating plan, the guide is exactly what it says. Its ultimate goal is not to make you healthier, but to help you achieve the fashionable “fit” physique.

The effort required to maintain this physique is life-consuming, as proved by millions of fitness accounts documenting every gym session and kale-filled meal plan. Rather than teaching girls to respect their bodies, these feeds dictate to them what they should look like and how they should live. We’re exercising to look good, to prove online that we’re doing better than others—but not to feel good.

It’s not just social media that’s responsible for this unhealthy promotion of health. The fashion industry has jumped on the fitness bandwagon too. The women’s active-wear market is currently valued at $20bn and hundreds of fashion-conscious fitness labels have been born recently, such as Alala, The Upside, and Beyond Yoga. Supermodels swear by their workout routines to get them runway ready. Victoria’s Secret rigorously promotes their gym range, and the image of the ‘strong, empowered fittie’—yet the models who pose prettily in boxing gloves and on yoga mats do not have the bodies that any other woman would if her career didn’t depend on working out and eating a highly controlled diet. Fitness is a fashion at the moment, but right now it’s doing little to improve body positivity.

I’m not saying don’t exercise—go and have a kick-about, or join a yoga class. What I am saying, is that I think perhaps we need a gentle reminder that the women in fitness adverts are models advertising their own fashionable bodies.

Don’t feel disheartened when you throw on Rosie’s running leggings and don’t look like the next VS Angel herself. But most importantly, don’t punish yourself for it. You’re doing wonders for yourself whether you end up looking like Rosie Huntington-Whitely or not. So next time you go for a run, bear that in mind. Do it to feel good about yourself, not just to look good.

1...922923924...2,496Page 923 of 2,496

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley