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Month: April 2022

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Maasai Diaries part 3 – KOKO

Maasai Diaries Part Three: Koko

Laura Hutchinson

Koko is perhaps the most honored woman in the village. But it’s not because of her age – which she believes is over 200 – or her 40 plus children and grandchildren, her healthy herd of cattle or even her generous but tenacious spirit. She is most revered because she is the village circumciser.
‘Of course it is by choice. It is my living, young girl, but also our maasai way of life. I have cut nearly 500 girls, all of them are now women. I saved them and their families from a life of curses and death…’
‘Yes, I have had many girls die from bleeding. That is Gods way…’
‘When I was a girl, white man came and tried to put us in school, taught us of money and clothes, tried to change our culture. When Kenya received independence this was not so much. But now, you see white man coming again to change our ways – this time in the name of Christianity. My people have allowed them to educate us of the dangers of circumcising, but only because in return they give us food, medical care and help with more urgent problems. But some people are bowing to Jesus, leaving behind our local Nkai and traditions. The white man is stealing our culture again.’

It was both humbling and harrowing speaking to Koko. She raised some very mute points – who are we, as the collective west, to tell the Maasai that what they do is wrong, however barbaric it seems in our eyes? At what point does fighting for human rights cross the line into cultural degradation and insensitivity? What the Maasai see as the essential passage from girl to woman, we passionately condemn as mutilation. Educational campaigns and anti-FGM movements often vilify the villages where the practice takes place, denigrating the culture as primitive, rather than trying to understand the communities need for circumcision.

It is a practice that can mean the difference between life and death for a Maasai girl,regardless of what path she takes. Whilst the surgery may likely kill her and leave her with a lifetime of pain, turning her back on her culture and refusing the procedure would see her exiled from a community that is all about the collective whole. With both of those instances and Koko’s words in mind, I invite you to think about one thing; when approaching the topic of FGM, do we respond in terms of cultural relativism or politely informed outrage?

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Why has HIV been central to the conversation surrounding spiking?

Why Has HIV Been Central to the Conversation Surrounding Spiking?

Katie Rutter

 

The rise in reported cases of spiking in university towns over the past week has justifiably caused mass hysteria, particularly within the female student population. Central to this hysteria has been the emergence of the use of needles as a new tool of spiking and that it is this spiking by injection which has really shaken people up. However, the vast majority of conversations I have had regarding fear surrounding being injected with a needle in a club hasn’t even centred on the potential drugs being used but the transmission of disease. The use of a needle to spike girls in clubs is scary for so many reasons which do not incorporate the transmission of HIV yet for some reason the possibility of contracting this virus in particular has caused a hysteria which has fogged our conversation regarding spiking. A needle represents an unimaginably calculated attempt to spike someone as well as innovation in methods to enact violence against women.

From a young age, we, as girls, have internalised the obligation for US to never leave a drink unattended and to not accept a drink from a stranger. If we do this, we are as safe as we can be and the risk is minimised. However, when it comes to spiking through injection, the fallacy of a safety net woven together by precautionary tips is torn up. The protective measures which have been deemed sufficient prior to this new phenomenon no longer apply. The premise of agency which has given us the options to protect ourselves has become different. The victim-blaming rhetoric which has previously undermined the spiking of girls through drinks, supported by the precautions we’ve urged girls to take, has been completely torn up due to the nature of spiking via injection.

Interestingly, this idea that we cannot protect ourselves and that spiking is now affecting those who protect themselves as well as those who indulge in “riskier” behaviour also intersects with the conversation which has surrounded HIV. When many think about HIV they think of a distant and vague historic tragedy, an AIDS crisis which affected the LGBT+ community. While incredibly saddening, it doesn’t apply to their current reality or really intersect with their sphere. The narrative surrounding HIV in the late 80s and 90s and which to some extent persists today, is that HIV affects risk-takers. Suddenly, due to the rise in reported spikings using needles, many people have been hysterical regarding the fact that this alien virus could potentially affect straight women who have indulged in nothing riskier than heading out to a club.

The hysteria surrounding the contraction of HIV is fogging our conversation regarding violence against women. Not only this, but the conversation surrounding HIV is fuelling the misconceptions which follow the virus around and damage those affected by it. Yes, HIV can be transmitted through the use of contaminated needles. However, as tweeted by the National AIDS Trust, ‘getting HIV from a needle injury is extremely rare. A diagnosis takes weeks’. Furthermore, they have shared that if you do fear that you have been exposed to HIV in the past 72 hours, you can access a medication called PEP from a healthcare professional which reduces the risk of acquiring the virus. The NHS recommends blood testing for HIV and says that they ‘can normally give reliable results from 1 month after infection’. Much of the hearsay surrounding the spiking has claimed that those who have been spiked with needles have had confirmation of their contraction of HIV. This is incredibly unlikely. The NHS does not recommend blood testing until a month following exposure. HIV may well not show up in some individuals’ blood tests for 6 months following exposure. It goes without saying but HIV and AIDS are not synonymous. HIV can develop into AIDS if left untreated however treatment is available. People living with HIV today can take a single tablet daily which not only stops the virus from developing but also reduces the viral load to undetectable in the bloodstream. Not only this, but undetectable = untransmittable. People on effective HIV treatment cannot pass it on. If you are going to fuel fear regarding contracting HIV, you have to contextualise it with the facts. This does not invalidate fear surrounding spiking. It is an incomprehensible and very real fear. This fear though, should centre violence against women. Scaremongering regarding HIV de-centres the actual conversation which needs to be had and harms many groups of people.

The transmission of HIV shouldn’t be central to or allowed to obscure the conversation surrounding gendered violence through spiking. It detracts from the real fear felt by women and girls yet also fuels the already well-lit flames of stigma surrounding the virus and its link to the LGBT+ community. HIV shouldn’t be a dirty subject which is drowned in hysteria and misinformation. Yet, this is a different point. Female fear surrounding spiking is valid, justified and deserves every second of attention it has been garnering.

Recommendations: 

Gareth Thomas: HIV and ME
Terrence Higgins Trust website
It’s a Sin

 

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Perspective

Echoes of a Religion

Echoes of a Religion

Emma Simon

 

I might be wrong but it’s possible that the emotional and social similarities of environmentalism and religion might not have crossed your minds much recently. With the Black Lives Matter movement fighting for social justice, as well as Coronavirus ravaging the “global stage”; it’s almost impossible to see beyond the pandemic tunnel vision that has developed. Coronavirus has completely dominated politics, the media, the economy and seems to transcend the ever-changing public focus; and I am hopeful that BLM can do the same. However, unlike these two public discussions, environmentalism is very much a victim of the media’s short attention span.

This sounds like a rather hopeless tone to be setting, but actually it’s the opposite. Where previously environmentalism has been chained to the confines of media trends, it’s now leaving those chains behind. Environmentalism may not be the apple of the public eye right at this moment, but it seems to have established itself beyond that, as something with a right to exist on its own without the crutches of news coverage. It has become a movement, an entity with which more and more people are identifying. To be environmentally mindful has become less of a fashion statement and more of a lifestyle with values and practices and beliefs – something with the echoes of a religion.

Now, these echoes weren’t something I’d previously thought much about and, at first glance, they felt strange to me. Having thought about it though, there is something beneath this which might be quite important. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t found it easy to understand, and I don’t expect you to either, but bear with me, I’m going to walk you through it and it might become clearer and potentially even interesting – but don’t hold me to that.

Before I start let me address one thing: whether you read this from a perspective of belief, disbelief, uncertainty or indifference to any faith, we can all agree that religion is unavoidably, and often beautifully heaped, with emotion and ambiguity. The battle between empirical evidence and faith is the essence of religious belief and it often causes an intensely personal struggle for anyone who spends even a minute thinking about it. This is one thing I want to make clear; religion is difficult and complex which is why I’m having a hard time putting it into a little box without subsections or branches. But, what I refer to here is religion as a social structure, a set of movements made up of various component parts, from belief and hope to ideals and perfections. This isn’t a ploy to undermine religion’s intricacy; and anyway, there is no world in which I have the kind of power to do that. Instead I want to make religion our reference point, something identifiable and contained despite its complexities. It is in this case that the yardstick against which environmentalism is to be measured.

It might sound like I’m taking the emotion out already, which I said was an unavoidable symptom of this discussion – but the clue is in that word – I can’t and also don’t want to avoid it. I’ve realised that for environmentalists , emotion is unavoidable as well. Their campaigns, global strikes and lifestyle alterations aren’t just the result of scientific research that proves the disastrous effects of our consumerist and industry-driven lifestyles. The motivation for these environmentalist practices are inherently emotional, driven by a belief system that sometimes goes unnoticed even by those who adopt it.

The term ‘belief system’ might sound out of place in a social movement inspired by empirical knowledge and scientific testing. Not only that but, in what is widely considered an increasingly secular society, believing in something unquantifiable has become a peripheral notion. We are working and thinking in a time defined by tangible truths and a post-enlightenment emphasis on evidence and facts. As a result, the concept of believing in something beyond oneself has become something almost exclusively associated with religion. But I would argue belief is, by definition, something entrenched within everything. It doesn’t just refer to the ethereal world of a God or set of gods but underlies the interactions of everyday life. You do not have to identify with a religion to be driven by a belief system – but to be driven at all does require belief. It is the basis upon which we make our decisions, back up our arguments and direct our actions. The belief behind an environmentalist perspective reclaims this broader definition as the basis for successfully navigating life.

Belief systems have and always will be innately connected to religion but, looking closely it seems they’re essential to environmentalism too. This notion of belief is quite important – just keep it in mind – it is the scaffolding for this whole discussion, and this is where the colour green comes in handy.

I can easily sit here and assure you that there is a belief system behind environmental protectionism – that’s all very well – but it’s also immaterial if we don’t actually know what these beliefs are. Here, the notion of believing in an ideal comes into the limelight and looking at it through a green lens is quite interesting. Now, I know that green might seem like a particularly uninspired choice for this article, but I’ve come to think that it might be more significant than just a generic environmental poster-colour. Greenness represents nature; now hear me out because I resent that cliché just as much as you do. What I’m saying is that the nature it represents is uninterrupted, uncorrupted by industry, pollution, plastic or deforestation. It illustrates an ideal of a self-contained perfect nature, without negative human disruption. You may even consider it a nature pre-human, before what we now ironically call civilisation’s ‘natural’ global progression.

Looking at it like this, Greenness begins to inhabit a multidimensionality that is normally overlooked. In a sense, Greenness is the ideal towards which environmentalism is steered. It is the image of a perfect world in which progress is sustainable and the environment is untarnished by the hand of human commerce.

Striving for a certain perfection isn’t something only environmentalists do; it is the basis of almost every established world religion, and I would argue, is the thing around which beliefs revolve. It’s funny because so far, I’ve displayed these two entities as similar but separate, but arguably their common ground isn’t limited to their development patterns. In fact, one central Christian ideal coincides quite remarkably with environmentalism. The idea of unharmed nature is at the heart of the Christian understanding of the Garden of Eden. It is a Paradise which Christians believe to be untouched by sin and the knowledge of evil, which echoes the environmental hope for the world, untouched by pollution and ecological destruction.
Shintoism and Animism also take root in these shared environmental principles, understanding nature to be a collection of spirits and gods which dwell within all living things. In these traditions, respect for nature is paramount and cultivates the utmost care for the environment simply by considering it as something other than a means to a human end. We shamefully perpetuate a culture in which nature is often considered an obstacle in the way of human development, when really, for nature, we are the obstacle. I am not here to preach, but that sense of human superiority that seems to have developed is undeniably unsettling.

The importance of ecological protection is evident in many religious traditions – whether it be Christian stewardship, or Animism’s approach to nature – to the point where it could just be seen as a subset of religious traditions. However, I’ve noticed one important difference, and that’s spirituality. Environmentalism has no need for a divine or spiritual otherness, whereas religion depends almost entirely on a belief in something outside provable scientific boundaries. This differentiation is important, but regardless of the contrasting nature of their belief systems, there is an underlying similarity which I have kept back until now. This is the striking power of hope which is essential to both religious belief and environmental belief. It is hope in the possibility of actually achieving the ideal of perfection being aspired to, whether that be a spiritual or an ecological paradise.

Of course, it may sound obvious but, without this sense of hope, the change that’s happening in lifestyle, politics, laws or traditions would be aimless. If there’s no hope of change occurring, why change at all? Hope is what spurs the global and personal action which has become increasingly evident in the news, on social media and from person to person. If you’re vegan because you know the environmental impact of dairy farming and meat production, it is because you have hope that a change in your lifestyle might help to achieve an environmentally ideal world. It is this hope which incites the change in the first place. As a social structure, environmentalism depends on this optimism as it develops into bigger and stronger movements like strikes and global campaigns.

Funnily enough, this isn’t a completely new concept. The French sociologist Bordieu explored this idea in depth and ultimately came up with what he called habitus. Habitus is the collective adoption of a perception of the world. It is the very normal way that we all assess the world, understand it in a particular way and then navigate it accordingly. He goes on to say how this becomes a pattern; by nature, we’re programmed to develop approaches to certain circumstances and then gravitate towards others who approach the world in the same way. People with shared perceptions and reactions are drawn to each other and become groups with a collective sense of purpose. This comfort and strength in familiarity is not a completely foreign concept; it’s the basis of any value structure and worldview, from environmentalism to Hinduism. It’s evident also in rituals across thousands of traditions; Extinction Rebellion, vegetarianism, Ramadan, Hajj, and Shabbat, to name only a few, and although they differ in origin, they display elements of that same habitus.

As this sense of collective environmental purpose grows traditions start to form, just as with established religions. It seems to me that when celebrations or practices become officially associated with a set of beliefs, it consolidates the purpose and meaning of the movement. The creation of Earth Day in 1970, celebrated on 21st March, is just one example of this. In a sense, I’ve come to think of environmentalism as a structure which people identify with and live their lives according to. It’s so unusual to consider a new belief system forming in the 20th and 21st century when often, and I’m no exception to this rule, people see belief as something potentially dated and historical. But, having looked into this more, environmentalism seems to be an example of just that; a scientific, post-enlightenment, unspiritual ‘religion’ which will endure for the attainment of an environmental paradise. And it’s with that thought that I end this article; religion and environmentalism are cut from the same hopeful, sociological, emotional cloth. One of collective beliefs, deeply held ideals, and ideologically inspired intentions.

 

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Reputations and Realities: Racism in Durham

Reputations and Realities: Racism in Durham

Izzy Gibson

 

In 2020, Black Lives Mattered.

Last year, our news platforms, social media accounts, and educational institutions were sparked by the tenacious fires of social change. A long-overdue campaign for racial justice had begun. It seems, however, that we have collectively decided to plant this campaign on the backbenches. We posted our black squares, we raised our cardboard signs, and agreed that the job was done.

One year attending Durham University would prove otherwise.

I was, and to a certain extent always will be, sheltered from the realities of racism in the UK. Of course, I continue to educate myself as best I can. To question the pre-existing institutional, governmental, and social dogmas concerning race must be a conscious activity that we all partake in. If one simply accepts the progress already made, then how can we possibly learn what more there is to do?

In early 2021, I decided to post a survey, asking current Durham students about their experience of discrimination whilst at university. Whilst my survey addresses more general concerns regarding all forms of discrimination, sexual, homophobic, classist and so on, it is necessary to address each social issue on its own. Racism, it appears, runs persistently and inherently through Durham’s cobbled streets.

I am particularly interested in Durham’s reputation – how my university is perceived from the outside and whether these perceptions persist within. Students’ anecdotal accounts of their perspectives before beginning their course revealed two primary beliefs:
Durham has an overwhelmingly positive academic reputation
Durham is a white, traditionalist, and toxic environment

As one participant put it, Durham is a “great uni for academics but awful for diversity and full of privilege”.

90% of survey participants agreed that Durham’s reputation for distrimination is worse than other UK universities. No student claimed that the university’s reputation is better. The issue begins here.

Whether through friends, family, teachers, news, or social media, students were aware of Durham’s lack of diversity and likelihood for discrimination before even moving onto campus. It is widely believed that the university has “a very toxic culture regarding race and sexism” with “a reputation as a private boys club, with a lot of sexism and racism”. One participant simply wrote: “classist, sexist, racist.”

It appears to me that BAME students are thus forced to wiegh the university’s undoubtably negative reputation for discrimination against their academic opportunities. That is, BAME students are deterred from joining Durham through fear of their own safety. They are compelled to accept a place on purely academic grounds, risking their own wellbeing for a fulfilling education.

Student’s affirmed this situation, stating: “I had heard it was a very white university and had concerns about diversity and if I would be accepted into social groups”. Another student poignantly suggested that “People had expressed their concerns with me attending Durham university to the point they had tried to stop me. I have lived in a deprived area, with high gang culture and very diverse. Coming from a poor family background and being a black woman, there were so many things that I could experience (racism, sexism and just being from “poverty”). I felt I was going to be alone. And I prepared to face my time in Durham alone.”

Such fear of racial abuse echoes throughout the survey. Another black student wrote that “Many of my friends back home were warning me about coming to Durham, being that it has mostly white students. They thought I was going to experience racism on a daily basis and that nothing would be done about it.” The phrase, “concerned for my own safety” was all too apparent.

To force a student to choose between personal safety and academic opportunity is abhorrent.

White students were aware of these issues and were “very apprehensive about being in a toxic environment”. One expressed that “I didn’t have concerns for my own safety because I have priveleges from my sex and race.” another states that “I had no concerns of my safety as I know I am a white privileged male.” BAME students meanwhile feared for their own wellbeing.

White privilege is thus certainly evident throughout the university; it is the difference between perceiving a “toxic environment” and becoming a victim of that environment itself.

On discerning Durham’s negative racial reputation, one must ask themselves a more sinister question: Does this university’s external reputation accurately encompass the reality of student experience there? Are the rumoured threats to BAME students real? Could it all just be “talk”?

On further investigation I am afraid to report that, put simply, Durham is just as racist as rumoured.

Only 30% of Durham students aren’t white. This means that 70% of students will not experience this racism first hand. Despite this, 57% of students surveyed had either personally been subject to acts of racism during their year at uni or had heard of such events occurring to friends and fellow students. ⅓ of students suggested that racism is the most pressing issue in Durham at present.

What does this mean? Racist culture persists throughout the university – there are few BAME students present to experience it, but this does not negate the sheer quantity of abuse reported. As one student put it, “A lack of diversity inevitably leads to bigotry people feeling comfortable in perpetuating racism. It’s not a ‘rumour’. It’s a fact.”

Students reported constant “Racist jokes”. Two students surveyed were called the N-word during their first week at Durham. Another stated that “a friend was told to go back to being a slave”. Even more sinister, a student admitted that “my teacher used the n word during a lecture”.

Durham has, in some areas, attempted to combat its diversity and discrimination epidemic. The University’s newest college, “South”, is advertised to stand for “Freedom, Equality and Global Citizenship”. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The college is evidently the most ethnically diverse in Durham – far from an impressive feat but progress nonetheless. However, response to such attempts at diversifying the university have been very telling. Both survey participants and myself alike have heard that “students in Hatfield call South College the ethic college […] it is not exactly diverse.”

It is therefore clear that Durham has a problem not only with diversity, but with its attitudes towards diversity too. Durham’s racist culture is as much provoked by its own white students as it is by the institution itself.

With an astonishing 38.7% of Durham students having attended private school, it seems that most of the university’s population have been exposed to the intricacy of Latin conjugations more than they have to a regular and representative society.

I am aware that some may view my writing as a smear campaign of which Durham is at the receiving end. This is not my intention. Durham university fosters creativity, opportunity, education, and free-thought. The university is enriching, stimulating, and (in my experience) incredibly fun. My aim instead is to present this anecdotal evidence before those who need to see it. There is no winner when an excellent student is deterred from enrolling in an excellent university due to racism. Students, staff, and alumni alike should take action to ensure that, in the future, one is not forced to choose between racial equality and education. Durham’s efforts against racism must be a priority. If not, I fear that the university’s toxic, threatening, microcosmic thought-chamber will only perpetuate further.

 

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Can you draw the clitoris?

Can You Draw the Clitoris?

Katie White

 

What started as a light-hearted question to friends quickly became a major concern. Not
a single person I asked could get anywhere close to drawing the clitoris. Most people
couldn’t even say the word without laughing. The ones who did manage to say it
subconsciously lowered their voice to a whisper. The clitoris is a gift that evolution felt
important enough to not deny us, so what has gone wrong?

I’m not shaming anyone here; I was exactly the same and it’s no accident that we are
iclliterate. The clitoris is the only organ in the human body (male or female) that exists
purely for pleasure. By taking importance away from female pleasure, society could
flatten the role of women exclusively to rearing and raising children and make them
secondary to men.

Today the clitoris is ignored. In the past it was actively feared. A large, visible clitoris
was a sign of being a witch and was enough to merit death. People genuinely believed
that it was where the devil sucked your soul out from. Bikes were (and still are)
designed to be more upright for women from fear of provoking an orgasm; another sign
that most people don’t know the first thing about them.

Words are a signal of importance. Most people (women included) can’t say the word
clitoris without giggling; we are taught to be embarrassed of the one part of our body
that is designed for pleasure. Meanwhile we are given a buffet of words for the penis,
which has more synonyms than any other word in the English language – 174
synonyms to be precise. There are none for clitoris and the ones that exist for vagina
include the rudest word in the English language. So many are immature – pussy, mini
moo, poonani. Others are misogynistic – bang hole, cock pocket, snake den, sausage
mitten. The rest are just outright unattractive – beef curtains, fur burger, bearded clam.

This problem is far more than words and a drawing. Feminism is rooted in the belief that
men and women are equal. How do we ever expect to have gender equality if we know
nothing about this uniquely female organ? Being iclliterate is just one example of how
society has normalised misogyny, setting a dangerous context for micro-aggressions
and far worse in terms of sexual harassment. We can’t write the clit back into the script
without knowing what it looks like, or having the language to discuss it. Yes, the vast
majority of it is inside our bodies, but most people can draw the lungs.

None of us learn about it at school. Education on the female reproductive system has
ignored the clitoris. The most cliterate among us can identify it as a floating magic bean
within a sideways eye. Being cliterate is relevant for everyone – whether you have a
clitoris, engage with one or consider yourself an ally to anyone who identifies as a
woman.

Understanding the anatomy of this organ scientifically proves the importance of
foreplay. All female orgasms are caused by the clitoris – whether it’s the external ‘bean’
or the internal bulbs. But the internal part is only activated once the external part is too.
On top of this, saying the word clitoris has actually been proven to lead to better sex.
The problem here is lack of awareness, which should theoretically make it an easy one
to solve. The cliteracy crusade’s mission is to make the world cliterate. Educating the
globe is no easy task and we need as much help as we can get.

The first, and easiest thing you can do is start conversations. Ask your friends,
colleagues, grandma and supermarket checkout assistant if they can draw the clitoris. If
you’d like, use the simple diagram in this article to help you. If you don’t feel comfortable
bringing the question up, wear one of our tote bags to prompt the conversation. Each
one comes with the drawing and diagram inside. Give these to your friends and
encourage them to do the same.

Our next aim is to get the conversation going on a much wider level. We want to talk at
schools, events and workshops. This is going to take time and we are just at the start of
our exciting journey. Please stay with us, take a look at cliteracycrusade.com for more
information/to see our tote bags and give @cliteracycrusade a follow on Instagram.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant to see a spray-painted clit on the pavement in ten years’ time?

 

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A Response to the South College Formal

A Response to South College Formal

Izzy Gibson

 

I had no idea who Rod Liddle was prior to last nights events, but perhaps I would have been given the chance to educate myself on his views beforehand if Tim Luckhurst had informed us of a guest speaker being present, as he has done on several other occasions. Those who had found out he was speaking had already planned a walk out at the beginning of his speech to save themselves from his harmful views. Upon their exit, our once very calmly spoken Principal began to scream at them, proclaiming them as “pathetic”. This is not the type of aggression you expect to be an audience of at what was meant to be a jolly Christmas formal. Myself and my peers then sat through what was a very painful, and uncomfortable speech. I don’t quite know what Liddle was trying to get across to us last night, but his speech consisted of a strong anti-left narrative, with sprinkles of sexism, homophobia, classism and transphobia: [TW – “those with an xy chromosome…are scientifically a man”, with a mention of “dangling penis[es]”. His speech was entirely inappropriate. Afterwards, the Principal thanked the speaker and addressed the remaining students with gratitude for staying. I will make it clear, myself and my friends did not stay out of respect of Liddle or interest in his comments, but for most of us, out of fear of the Principal and perhaps another outburst. Several students I spoke to last night were in distress due to Liddle’s comments, with many becoming emotional. Our students well-being should not be put on the line for our Principal who I once thought to be welcoming and progressive, to invite a “good friend” from his previous years, who has a very public controversial past. Luckhurst’s bias towards Liddle was at the detriment of our students welfare. As someone who was a pioneer for South College, and has worked closely with Tim, this has shocked and appalled me. I can securely say, that I am no longer proud of South College as an institution. Instead, I am proud of my peers and the college’s student body for standing up for what they believe in and not putting up with bigotry.

Testimony 4:

I am disgusted and also saddened by the manner in which our principal and his wife conducted themselves at the Christmas formal. The last formal of the academic term in which children were present, in which international students were experiencing their first British Christmas at a time where everyone wanted joy and some college patriotism. This was not the case. To even let Rod Liddle stand and speak with the prior knowledge that this would upset many students, yet this was considered “acceptable” under the codified law of free speech, was (1) not amusing, (2) hypocritical in its very nature. The fact our principal has defended this man in countless articles. Defending his opinions on child pornography and various transphobic ideologies is very telling of situations in which the freedom of speech has been prioritised over other codified human rights laws. Freedom of speech in itself includes the right to listen or not listen to the said speaker, the European Convention on Human Rights protects the rights of assembly and in this case disassembly. The principal has acted in a highly unprofessional highly political manner whilst preaching the right to speech has impeded upon many of his students rights. Southies have been left mentally scarred and some traumatised. This is unacceptable and must be acted upon now.

Testimony 5:

At the South College Christmas formal last night, an event at which we were expecting to experience a heart-warming Christmas dinner, our college President Timothy Luckhurst invited Rod Liddle (an openly racist, homophobic, and transphobic journalist) to give a lecture to the room on his political ideology. Before the formal, some people had seen an article from Rod about child pornography and as he began to speak decided to walk out of the room. In response to this, Tim shouted ‘Pathetic!’ at them, because of their decision not to hear from an individual they knew was about to offend them. The speech opened with a joke about prostitution, was followed by inappropriate comments about ethnic minorities, transphobia in which Liddle tried to argue that science proves trans people not to exist, a claim that is fundamentally wrong, and a comment made about single parents not being capable of raising their children. At this point, more and more people including myself began to leave the room, as the speech was so offensive and uncomfortable, even driving some students to tears. Following the speech, the JCR president of South got up and combatted some of the claims made by Rod, clarifying that these are not views of the JCR and arguing that the Christmas formal was not the correct environment for them to be expressed at, which has since been re-enforced in an email sent to college residents today. Many people had returned to the hall to support the JCR president, and then we all left again. On the way out of the room, Rod and Tim were confronted by students who were appalled by the speech and questioning why the speech had been allowed to be given. In response to this, the college President argued that ‘freedom of speech’ must prevail, however, he did not account for the fact that most of the speech was hate speech, incredibly offensive, and that people had not paid for a Christmas formal to then be lectured on political ideology of the right wing. The President’s wife was labelling student ‘assholes’ and repeated the sentiment that trans people don’t exist. Since then the college has been quite shaken and the elitist and discriminatory reputation that Durham has as a University has been re-enforced.

Statement 1:

“Rod Liddle can speak until his face turns blue, and he will because he is who he is and does what he does, but to inflict that on a group of students who did not willingly sign up for it, were not given a forum to argue back or discuss and were clearly expected to just sit there and put up with it given the ‘pathetic’ comments is ironically deeply anti-free speech and anti-free choice”

Statement 2:

“There is an appropriate and inappropriate way to present an idea. This probably sounds dramatic but say they were going to give a speech on war, they wouldn’t bring in tanks and immerse the students in a war situation, so why should they be able to present ‘tolerance’ like that?”

Conclusions and Suggestions for future action

Following the speech given by Rod Liddle at South College’s Christmas Formal, entailing transphobic remarks, we would like to hold a meeting in which all participants (from university staff, to students), may express their sentiments regarding the treatment of events prior to, during, and following the Formal (03/12/2021). Our aim is to be able to discuss this sensitive issue in a structured setting, allowing all points of view to be recognised and to suggest how we may collectively learn and move forward from this event. Each participant’s opinions may vary, but we want to highlight that our ultimate goal is shared: to interrogate the events of December 3rd and suggest a positive way to move forward from them and prevent further outrage.

The best means to address an issue of such emotion and proportion is through discourse. Through creating a structured environment in which we can all express our sentiments as a college and university community, we can make valuable progress in understanding each other and exploring possible options for future action under a united desire to remedy Friday’s events.

Events similar to the South College Christmas Formal have unfortunately become all too familiar within the Durham University community. We now have a chance to create a sustained and central discourse surrounding the University’s attitudes towards minority groups. Whether Tim Luckhurst and his counterparts will accept the opportunity to respond constructively to Friday’s incident is yet to become apparent. If Luckhurst does not acknowledge the gravity of this situation, I fear that the double standards he has imposed on the South College community will further perpetuate. In the case that the events detailed do not instigate positive discourse in the University community, one must ask themself how dire the suppression of minority groups’ may get before they are finally given the formal platform to execute their own freedom of expression?

 

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Perspective

New Year’s resolutions – futile or fundamental for self-improvement?

New Year's Resolutions: Futile or Fundamental for Self-Improvement?

Holly Downes

 

It has become that time again – the time of looking back on the rather mentally and physically challenging year of 2021. The year plagued with countless coronavirus variants, cancelled events and infinite disruptions to our daily routines. 2021 was birthed in a bitter lockdown and is dying around more restrictions.

Yet, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Many people have found themselves this year. Have achieved things they never thought they could’ve. Have surprised themselves. However, no one is perfect – everyone has a bad habit, a personality flaw, something that causes others to internally grimace at. So as tradition follows, we grab our pen and paper, or in this digital world, our notes app, and write a long list of self-improvement goals for the twelve months of opportunity 2022 has to offer.

After indulging in too many mince pies, the whole box of Lindor’s, and enough cheese to feed a small village, the Christmas festivities are sadly temporary. We realize that this utopia cannot prolong into the new year, so we make a resolution to give up chocolate for the month. To go on a brisk walk every morning. To stop procrastinating when we have mountains of reading. The ending of Christmas celebrations comes with a dread of the new year that forces us to confront the reality of life – one which does not allow us to watch Christmas movies all day.

So, we prepare to deep clean our routines. We craft a narrative for 2022 – to stop over-consuming and buying the whole of Zara’s new-in section, to stop spending 20 hours on the PS5, to stop using Tesco Clubcard price as an excuse to buy cake. We become the admirable characters in our own stories as we create the perfect fictional tale for the new year. A year where we become the person everyone idealises – that person who wakes up before sunrise to mediate, prioritises healthy eating and never fails to miss an essay deadline.

Yet, as we all know, fiction never becomes a reality. Whilst the first week of January may be comprised of efforts to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality, trying to become the idealized version of yourself, the January blues soon roll around. You try and do that twenty-minute workout every day, resist the urge to eat the entire tube of Pringles and not grab your phone every ten seconds, but all these little resolutions slowly dissolve away. You begin to become your 2021 self – the ‘old you’ you tried to lock away in the past.

And this yearly cycle is inevitable. Making unrealistic resolutions that never make it past the second week of January, agreeing to improve yourself and remove past habits to only fall back headfirst into them. Being driven to become the perfect person only ends in disappointment when this goal is unattainable. It has become easier to break than create resolutions – no one is there to scold us for neglecting them, they are our own creations, so we are automatically granted the permission to let them slip away.

Self-improvement will always be fundamental in society. To ‘better ourselves’, to become the person everyone wants to be. We are programmed to think we are not enough, that there is always something to improve upon – to change. Whilst self-improvement is key to maturing, to realising your faults and becoming the best version of yourself, it gets dangerous when unrealistic ideals flood your mindset. To be more positive, active, and happier than last year – ideals that when temporarily broken, create inevitable feelings of failure and disappointment.

Yet, these feelings can be easily avoided by simply changing your mindset when sitting down to write your New Year’s resolutions. Do not enter 2022 with the intention of transforming into a whole new person – a new year does not equate to a new person, but an individual who is eager to learn and change for the better. An individual who perseveres and has willpower to reach their realistic personal goals.
With this mindset, New Year’s resolutions are not futile, but are an important opportunity to reflect on the past year’s faults and victories – to make use of the clean slate 2022 so generously provides.



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Perspective

Social Media: A Friend or Foe in the Increasing Digitalisation of Politics?

Social Media: Friend or Foe in the Increasing Digitalisation of Politics?

Callum Loveless

 

The advent of social media has had a consequential effect upon our generation, essentially creating a subordinate world where you can communicate to multiple people, in multiple places. It loosens the restriction of one-to-one telephone calls and dialect, to allow communication to become plural, which people can then ‘comment’ on afterwards. In a way, it allows the individual to begin the narrative, or ‘hold the floor’, in light of the linguistic term, where they otherwise wouldn’t be able to due to social anxieties or structural oppressions. It equalises the playing field to distribute who has a ‘voice’ in society. Therefore, its role in forming or solidifying an identity, or more narrowly a political identity, is paramount in the age of the internet. However, whether this comes to benefit, or detriment society is a question laid bare to answer.

Social media and the transcendence of information and ideas it harbours, across populations in different geographical locations, is what largely accounted for the ‘Arab Spring’ or ‘Arab Uprisings’ of 2011. Social media allowed individuals, particularly the younger generation who made up the majority of the population at that time, to share their simmering discontent with the corruption and poorly managed governments in many Arab countries, who fostered neo-liberal economics only to keep the majority of capital at the top and create stark inequalities within society. This discontent turned to concrete actions of protest which, through social media, influenced others to follow suit and effectively had a ‘ripple-effect’ across the Arab world. A collective dismay among how many Arab states were oppressing their people was expressed and subsequently shaped the politics in these countries. Therefore, the collective ‘Pan-Islamic’ identity was formed through social media, which brought people together to achieve the similar mission to root out oppression.

On the other end of the spectrum, yet nonetheless significant in forming an identity, Twitter has seen the creation of a sub-culture of tweets which feature nonce formations to reflect the Scottish accent, known as ‘Scottish Twitter’. This type of ‘netspeak’ is humorous in its outset due to its non-standard and unusual formation – ‘Mad how yie get 6 points and a £200fine for being on yer phone yet there’s folk oot there way eyelashes on there motor n getting away wae it’ (@McneilAlexander, 3 March 2017), but nonetheless connect a set of people who commonly find that the written standard-English doesn’t reflect how they actually speak. Social media is thus a source of individualistic expression, which can form its own informal online idiolect, to cement an identity often forgotten in the standardisation of language.

This informality has allowed politicians to utilise social media to appear reasonable and approachable to their electorate, not least by President Trump in the 2016 election and during his presidency. President Trump used the platform of Twitter to conduct diplomacy and politics; he did this to appeal to grass-root voters, albeit strategically or unconsciously, which makes the political narrative more accessible and engages more people in politics. Therefore, the use of computer mediated language on social media platforms encourages the removal of social barriers and creates an equanimity of understanding across generations and social classes, rather than making something like politics exclusively understandable to the elite minority.

However, with the expanse of analytical tools, social media firms like Facebook and Twitter have been able to track what you engage with most, what you find most interesting and what you ‘like’ as opposed to skip pass. It then curates your feed, so that you’re only shown what you enjoy and find interesting. As social media is increasingly being used as a platform for politics, this mode of curation effectively extinguishes debate and polarises communities into distinctive political identities. The spread of ‘fake news’ amongst this, has led to many people believing falsehoods by people they tend to enjoy ‘following’ or ‘liking’, which has had a detrimental effect on democracy and the principle of objective facts. So, whilst social media has been beneficial by making politics more accessible to the wider electorate, it has equally polarised communities into opposing groups which is starting to deconstruct the basis for facts and debate.

Whether this is a wider, more pressing systematic issue that overrules the multitude of benefits that come with social media, including the fact that ideas can transcend hierarchies and social barriers, is arguable. However, what is certain is that social media firms are becoming more powerful and their presence more influential, so this debate won’t be dying down soon.

 

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Perspective

Casual Instagram is an even greater performance

Casual Instagram is an Even Greater Performance

Elizabeth Nowak

 

A comment left underneath a video inspired TikTok user @cozyaliki to argue that those seemingly candid photos, posted on your favourite influencers’ pages, are an even better performance than the posed celebrity portrait. He explains the difference between a casual and a posed Instagram using the analogy of reality TV versus the typical television programme: both are staged, scripted programmes, yet reality TV aims to convince its viewers they are watching real life. Contrastingly, any other TV show is consumed by the viewer with a ‘suspension of disbelief’, a term coined by Samuel Coleridge that describes a transaction between audience and entertainer, where the audience chooses to believe an implausible story in return for being entertained. Like reality TV, a casual Instagram feed undergoes ‘scripting’ as its images are often strategically shot and are the perfect image selected from many. Intended to be consumed as a narrative of one’s life, these performances are often the very opposite of casual. The relevance in this topic is found in its participants – it is not only celebrity personalities and influencers who ask their viewers to believe in a scripted reality, the average Instagram student user does too.

The casual Instagram trend has undoubtedly taken off amongst the Durham student body, a trend that has seen a move away from solely sharing the highlights of their lives to a more casual approach, increasing exposure of their day-to-day life. A key component of the casual Instagram is the ‘photodump’, a utilisation of Instagram’s carousel post feature, posting up to 10 ‘candid’ photographs per post. The photodump can initially be seen as a means of liberation, an alleviation of posting pressure, affording the Instagram user freedom from the scrutiny and filtering of photographs to be selected for posting. Rather, the term ‘dump’ goes beyond this, with its connotations of a complete lack of thought in the pictures shared. This is not the case in practice. So very often the ‘dumps’ we see are slideshows of carefully curated images, selected for their aesthetic quality. Concern with the ordering of carousel posts can be seen in online tutorials providing instructions on how to adjust the order of images after posting. This demand for retroactive editing is evidence of the intentionality that goes into posts, intentionality that is passed off as effortlessness.

The average student is far more likely to use Instagram for personal sharing, that is if they choose to post anything. After all, Durham is better known for its other stereotypes than being the home of influencers. However, irrespective of one’s posting habits, every Instagram user consumes the content of other users and is thus susceptible to the old comparison game. Comparison to our peers is hardwired into us, a part of human nature. The late psychologist Louis Festinger, of the University of Iowa, developed the ‘Social Comparison Theory’, revealing that we compare ourselves to those around us to self-evaluate. In short, the impressions you take in of those around you are the basis of comparison which hold power to shape the way you think about yourself. And so, the casual Instagram trend not only leads us to believe in a false reality of our friends’ lives but also negatively affects the way we see ourselves.

A picture may say more than a thousand words, but it cannot tell them all. Photographs of aesthetic quality are not harmful but can become so when they are used to fuel comparison in the belief that they can accurately tell an account of any person’s life. Just as reality TV is scripted, so is the casual Instagram feed. Awareness of the even greater performance a casual Instagram post demands can help keep that habit of comparison in check. Enjoy it as entertainment rather than reality.

Categories
Culture

Kraf Twerk

By Grace Marshall.

Imagine you are in a silver box surrounded by dancing men and women in dagger collared shirts and PVC trousers.

Imagine flashing lights, streamers and a disco ball – imagine a voice on the loudspeaker giving thanks to Uncles Ralf and Florian and then blasting Numbers. You are in Detroit in 1988.

In fact you don’t have to imagine. You can go onto YouTube (everything I write comes back to videos on YouTube), type in ‘Kraftwerk New Dance Show’ and be transported. I’ve seen Kraftwerk live, but actually that didn’t really come close to watching this 144p video. I saw them a long time ago in the middle of East Anglia with my middle-class dad and surrounded by other middle-class men who looked like my dad. Not surprisingly, ‘80s Detroit seems very different to ‘10s East Anglia. There was widespread unemployment, a crack cocaine epidemic, and a ‘Devil’s Night’ on Halloween of every year. It doesn’t seem to matter too much to the people dancing. As YouTube user Alexlesexe observes, it is rather ‘Rare footage of people having real fun!’

The link between Kraftwerk and west coast techno has been wheeled out before. The stories are fun.  There is one about Ralf and Florian going into a club in New York and being confused when ‘Metal on Metal’ started playing only to go on for ages after it should have ended. Ralf asked the DJ what was going on and found out he had two copies of the record which he was mixing together. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Kraftwerk invented techno. You can hear the beginnings of four-on-the-floor and synth tech in Timmy Thomas and Lee Perry and Funkadelic – it might be time to reassess these kinds of reductive ‘handing the baton’ narratives you sometimes hear cropping up around techno. Juan Atkins does emphasize the influence Kraftwerk had on him, but he also says that “Kraftwerk got off on the third floor” and the elevator kept going up.

Whether it would have happened without Kraftwerk or not – Detroit techno went way beyond its European influences in the ‘90s. One of the things I really like about this movement is the sense of “scenius” – an ecosystem of Roland T808 and monosyllabic samples. Juan Atkins talks about listening to a Detroit radio show called Electrifying Mojo, which aired at midnight every night, and just before it came you would hear people honking their horns and turning their bedroom lights on and off. The 90s duo Drexciya would also have been listening to Electrifying Mojo as well. They really picked up on the idea of the techno ecosystem. Between 1992 and 2002 they released five records imaging an aquatic fantasy world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, based on the micro-apocalypse of the Zong Massacre. A slave ship on the middle passage ran low on supplies and white slavers killed over 130 enslaved African people. Drexciya reimagined the atrocity by creating a sound-world in which the slaves who were thrown overboard didn’t die but gave birth to children who could breathe underwater. It’s not really comparable to Kraftwerk at all in my opinion – there’s more to electronic music than the Autobahn.

WAYZGOOSE (n.)

Pronunciation: ‘ˈweɪzɡuːs

An annual festivity held in summer by the members of a printing establishment.
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