Monday 6th April 2026
Blog Page 480

Society Spotlight: The Oxford Forum for Questioning ‘Extremism’

Asma Waheed
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Society Spotlight: The Oxford Forum for Questioning ‘Extremism’

In Phaedrus, Socrates warns against the latest invention of writing, fearing that this new tool could spell the destruction of the oral tradition of learning and communication. Certainly, Socrates understood the utility of writing in recording information and making it distributable, however he feared that humanity would become too reliant on this invention and would descend into engagement with the page, as opposed to one another. Perhaps Socrates’ forecast has not aged well with regards to writing. However, his overarching concern on the social impact of a new apparatus that changes our process of acquiring knowledge seems relevant now more than ever. Modern technological advances were intended to bring us closer together, giving us access to more information than ever before. Yet in today’s internet age, many of us cannot help but feel disconnected, polarised and isolated. How is it that social media and our online presence has engulfed us in a sea of misunderstanding, with islands of truth few and far between? The answer seems to lie in the monetising of our digital presence and the manipulation of the consumer to profitable ends.

Advertising is a central tenet of the capitalist model of consumerism. Motivating people to buy your product has been an essential part of business strategy since Edward Bernays pioneered public relations by integrating glamor into promotions. Billboards and television commercials have always been an arena for corporations to persuade large audiences to choose their commodity, however with handheld mobiles and personal social media accounts now, ads can be increasingly more tailored to the individual consumer. Search for a camera on Google, and  you might see ads for a camera on Instagram the following day. In-built microphones can track conversations and background noise to build a profile of the consumer which social media platforms like Facebook have access to – a writer at Vice conducted an experiment to test this phenomenon in mid-2018 and showed that our conversations are being tracked. The existence of webpage cookies, which hold a significant amount of data specific to an individual user, are also undoubtedly important in tailoring ads to the individual. Such targeted ads might come across as innocent and even convenient, but the algorithm behind this mechanism can be used for more sinister ends than one might immediately anticipate.

Our online presence exists within an echo chamber. The algorithm used by Facebook and other platforms tailors news feeds specific to each account. By analysing our previous attention patterns, our news feeds predict what material we are most likely to engage with to maximise our time spent on its platform. For example, if you have already engaged with politically left-wing content, the algorithm will continue to reproduce similar material for you to consume. These companies are not primarily concerned with the accuracy of the information that is being disseminated, but more so with monetising your time spent on their service. This positive feedback loop of only seeing content that you are likely to engage with creates an echo chamber where outside opinions and views are blocked out. Not only does this harden one’s views without any effective counterbalance or credible fact-checking, but it often misrepresents the views of others, leading to hostility and distrust of those with differing opinions. But what users fail to realise is that no one person will see the exact same feed that they themselves will see. The media that we all consume on these applications are completely different. Due to social media, political leanings have become increasingly polarised, with the middle ground slowly dissipating and opposed groups less willing to engage each other in debate.

Social media companies have been operating with little regulation and transparency until relatively recently. They have capitalised upon a new marketplace which trades on our personal and private experiences. This is made possible by the mass surveillance facilitated by cookies in people’s internet usage. Shoshana Zuboff coins the term ‘surveillance capitalism’, defining it as “…parasitic and self-referential. It revives Karl Marx’s old image of capitalism as a vampire that feeds on labour, but with an unexpected turn. Instead of labour, surveillance capitalism feeds on every aspect of every human’s experience.”  Often without an individual intentionally consenting, our data has become a commodity that can be sold to the highest bidder. 

The insidious results of what happens when our data is not protected, or even seen as private or personal, is exemplified by the Cambridge Analytica scandal during the 2016 Brexit vote and the US election in the same year. The Vote Leave campaign supposedly laundered around £750,000 through the data company and a Canadian data company called AggregateIQ. This was done, via offshoots of the campaign such as BeLeave and Leave.EU, to intentionally release a barrage of targeted ads to those that Cambridge Analytica had identified as “persuadable”. These were ads of misinformation, used to sow fear and hatred of migrants and refugees to manipulate the electorate into favouring stricter border control. And it worked. These targeted ads swayed the small fraction of people needed to swing the vote to leave the EU. Similar tactics were used in the 2016 US Election: Cambridge Analytica illegally harvested 87 million Facebook profiles in the US under the guise of academic research, and manipulated them through targeted ads to sway the vote in Donald Trump’s favour.

Cambridge Analytica took advantage of the fact that these social media platforms did not have a fact checking service (however, Twitter has recently introduced one and Facebook is in the process of launching one) — the algorithm does not care what the users consume as long as the users spend a long time consuming. This mechanism was exploited to spread fake, sensationalist information to a consumerist population that barely bothers to fact check for themselves. Whether a fact checking service will be of any use is highly disputed —a study at Yale found that informing users to potential fake news was not effective with helping users to correctly identify fake news, with only a 3.7% improvement. Regardless, such platforms should take accountability in providing such a service, and consumers should take responsibility in confirming the news that they read.

Political parties haven’t just been using social media to manipulate elections to their own benefit, but also to destabilise other countries. A more popular example of this is Putin’s Russia: the Russian government was able to exploit already existing political divides in order to cause chaos and spread more misinformation during the 2016 US election and Brexit, paying particular attention to racial divisions. In the countdown to the US election, they directly reached 30 million accounts. Through hacking Hillary Clinton’s emails and posting them online via Wikileaks into the public domain, the Russian government directly aided Trump in smearing her campaign. Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) also had some influence on the EU referendum: studies have shown that around 15 to 150 thousand Russia-affiliated Twitter bots collectively sent tweets regarding the Brexit vote in “an effort to spread disinformation and discord”; the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) calculated that these Twitter bots were responsible for 1.76% of the Leave vote share. Although the effectiveness of Russian interference during the 2016 US election and Brexit is highly contested, this nevertheless serves as undeniable proof of the ease and intention to manipulate a population’s voting patterns through unregulated social media platforms. 

Currently, the future looks bleak: if we continue on this path where personal data and privacy are valuable commodities, the already faltering notion of democracy will cease to exist. Society itself has become fractured and divided, to the extent that the middle ground is scarce, and compromise seems off the table. What can be gleaned by the abuse of social media and surveillance capitalism in manipulating our mindsets is that we must increase awareness of targeted advertisements, encourage consumers to question the accuracy of the content they receive and engage in discussions that need to be held. Strategies have to be constructed and implemented by governments to challenge the misinformation pandemic and restore some sense and trust into our democratic institutions.

You can find out more about the OFQE’s events and activity at www.OFQE.co.uk.

A Letter To Those Whom my Light Will Guide, In Honour Of Those Whose Light Has Guided Me

Pax Butchart
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A Letter To Those Whom my Light Will Guide, In Honour Of Those Whose Light Has Guided Me

First, I will say close your eyes.

Lock them tight shut and look at the phosphenes

That whir and dance in the darkness.

Colour and noise are within you.

Next, I will remind you

You are not wrong.

You are not too much,

Or too little.

What you are, is complicated.

And I love you for that,

Because you are complicated,

Because you are raw, and soft, and broken.

Yes even you, and your scarred hands,

Your shaking heart’s bloodrush

And your endless glorious failures.

I will not stop my faith in you.

I will bathe you in goldglow like a searchlight,

Illuminating roiling oceans and the safe path

To shore.

Yes, you can grow beyond this. 

You will and you must.

You do not have to sit in this alone,

You can open a window

To let out the noxious brown fog

Of your anger. You can pull up a chair,

To relieve the pressure

On your suppliant knees.

Also, I will tell you to remember that 

Your light will guide others,

As mine guides you.

As others’ have guided me.

Do not discount the possibility

That the very people whose light brightens your path,

Might be those for whom you gleam

As a wayfinder.

It is not always a hierarchy or a chronology.

Sometimes it is two lamps burning

Across a dim and silent street,

And where the lights cross,

There is home. So grasp my hand,

The candle flames of my fingers,

Let the sun blaze out from your palm.

There is light in your voice and your soul

And your hope, even when you cannot see it.

You are only blinded by its brightness.

Honour your light, as you honour mine.

For where there is light, the darkness cannot come in,

Though it beats and howls at the window.

And the hollow pools inside you

Where the dark has made a home,

Will not vanish with time. They are part of you,

A backdrop, a contrast to make the light

Burn more wild and true.

I name you lux aeterna, in defiance of our transience.

I call myself leoht ecelic, laughing at my end.

Beacons in the night, reaching for one another,

Until we are absorbed into the greater daylight

That comes, as rest, on the wings of the morning-birds,

In the song of the cold dawn rain.

Artwork by Rachel Jung.

BREAKING: University reports 208 cases this week

David Tritsch
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BREAKING: University reports 208 cases this week

The University’s testing service has confirmed 208 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff for the week 17th-23rd October, with a positivity rate of 24.5%. This is a slight increase from last week’s 197 cases and brings the total number of cases since the implementation of the testing service on August 20th to 496.

The University’s Status and Response website states that the figures released do not include positive test results received outside of the University testing service. It notes further that “due to the time interval between a test being done and the result becoming available, it is expected that there will be a mismatch between actual results and those confirmed to us on any given day”.

The new rise in cases follows a number of outbreaks at individual colleges, as well as matriculation day last Saturday, where crowds of students were gathered around the Rad Cam. The Oxford Mail reported “anger” from fellow students, staff, and residents about large numbers of students drinking and partying in the streets.

On Saturday, The Oxford Student reported that St. John’s College had paused all in-person teaching for the next fortnight. An email sent from catering staff confirmed that as many as 150 students were receiving meals in isolation.

Councils across Oxfordshire have urged the UK Government to move the county into Tier 2 COVID-19 restrictions. In a statement, leader of Oxfordshire County Council Ian Hudspeth said: “In light of the escalating situation across the county, we are pushing hard for Oxfordshire to be moved to a high alert level. This would be a preventative measure to stem the spread of the virus and protect the county’s most vulnerable residents.”

However, speaking to the Oxford Blue, a spokesperson for Oxford City Council stressed that “it was not the COVID situation in the city that led to the collective decision to seek Tier 2 status across Oxfordshire. It was the rise in cases across neighbouring districts and among non-student demographics that was of particular concern.”

In a press release on Thursday, Oxfordshire County Council’s Director for Public Health Ansaf Azhar urged the public to “limit their social interactions” and reminded residents that “with half-term approaching, as well as events such as Halloween, Bonfire Night and Diwali coming up, it’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement of meeting up and celebrating with friends and family. But we mustn’t forget about COVID. We need to do everything we can to keep our families and communities safe and stop the spread.”

The University has implemented a four-stage emergency response, depending on how wide the spread of COVID-19 is. The current status is Stage 2, which allows the University to operate “in line with social distancing restrictions with as full a student cohort as possible on site”, with teaching and assessment taking place “with the optimum combination of in-person teaching and online learning”. A Stage 3 response would imply “no public access to the University or College buildings” and “gatherings for staff and students only permitted where essential for teaching and assessment to take place”.

Government blocks Oxford from Tier 2 status

Sonya Ribner
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Government blocks Oxford from Tier 2 status

According to Oxford council leaders, plans to place Oxfordshire under Tier 2 COVID-19 restrictions have been “blocked by the government.” This comes after Ansaf Azhar, Director of Public Health of Oxford City Council, applied to the government for higher alert status. The additional COVID restrictions would prohibit people from socialising with anyone outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting.

Both city and county officials have been pushing for Oxford to be put under “high risk” status, but no decisive action has been taken by the government. While the Department of Health and Social Care reported to be in “close consultation” with local health experts, Director Azhar continues to warn that, based on its current trajectory in Oxford, the virus could take hold of huge swathes of the community, impacting those who are vulnerable and overtaxing health care systems.

When council leaders advised the government, the most recent data from the Oxford University Early Alert Service reported there had been 288 positive tests since August 20, 2020 with a tripling of cases in Freshers Week. Since the week of 17th – 23rd of October, the number of new cases has escalated to 208 positive tests, for a total of 496 positive tests since the August start date.

Susan Brown, Labour leader of Oxford City Council, said she supports Director Azhar’s recommendation to move Oxfordshire to Tier 2 and was “disappointed that a decision has been made in London” to ignore his considered view as well as the position of the county’s six councils.

Oxford County’s four Conservative MPs, Robert Courts, John Howell, David Johnston and Victoria Prentis, said in a joint statement that there was insufficient evidence to make the case for the whole county to be put under Tier 2 restrictions, though they could see a case for potentially putting Oxford City under higher alert.Green Party town councilors of West Oxfordshire, Andrew Prosser and Liz Reason, reinforced the views of council leaders in their recent statement “the longer this Government sets itself against local government leaders,” the more citizens and businesses will suffer. To date, there has been no further response from the government to local leaders’ concerns.

BREAKING: University reports 197 cases this week

David Tritsch
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BREAKING: University reports 197 cases this week

Data from the University’s testing service for the week 10th-16th October has confirmed 197 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff. This brings the total number of cases since the implementation of the testing service on August 20 to 288.

The University’s Status and Response website states that the figures released do not include positive test results received outside of the University testing service. It notes further that “due to the time interval between a test being done and the result becoming available, it is expected that there will be a mismatch between actual results and those confirmed to us on any given day”.

The numbers reported by the University follow a number of COVID-19 related escalations this week. On Friday, in the first known case of accommodation-wide isolation in Oxford, University College told all students at their accommodation site in North Oxford to stay within their households. This has now been partially lifted. The college told Cherwell that the lockdown had been caused by “a spike in the number of students at University College who have tested positive for COVID-19”.

An email sent to students from Magdalen College states that there are currently “no positive cases in College, and a very small number of students self-isolating as a close contact”. The college also announced that they will be lifting additional restrictions on guests imposed on first year undergraduates and suspending any fines handed out to members of the JCR, as a result of “the more or less model behaviour of the first-year cohort”.

On Saturday, freshers in sub fusc attire gathered in the city centre to celebrate matriculation day. Despite the ceremony, which marks formal admission to the university, being moved online this year, crowds of students have been accused of ignoring social distancing regulations. The Oxford Mail reported “anger” from fellow students, staff, and residents about large numbers of students drinking and partying in the streets.

The University has implemented a four-stage emergency response, depending on how wide the spread of COVID-19 is. The current status is Stage 2, which allows the University to operate “in line with social distancing restrictions with as full a student cohort as possible on site”, with teaching and assessment taking place “with the optimum combination of in-person teaching and online learning”. A Stage 3 response would imply “no public access to the University or College buildings” and “gatherings for staff and students only permitted where essential for teaching and assessment to take place”.

Image credit: Alfonso Cerezo/ Pixabay

Playing the (Long) Game: Starmer’s party address

Jasper Evans
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Playing the (Long) Game: Starmer’s party address

“We’re not going to win back those we’ve lost with a single speech, or a clever policy offer” argued Kier Starmer to the empty room. This was fortunate because he had not much of either. Starmer’s party address had been merrily filled with a series of well-constructed arguments, neat little lines, and charming family stories, but it would not be remembered as a great piece of rhetoric, and was devoid of policy. If one overall theme emerged from it, it would be this: we are going to play the game this time, and we are going to try to play it well.

Starmer’s speech addressed exactly all the points it had to for a Labour leader dealing with the fallout of the most recent election. It made no attempts to defend the Corbyn era, instead accepting a ‘deserved’ defeat with its head bowed, and started to repent. Starmer’s repeated references to his love of country pushed hard against the unpatriotic representation the Labour party had received in recent years. Similarly, he made clear how his leadership, his ‘new leadership’, would better deal with Brexit (‘the debate […] is over’) and more importantly the anti-Semitism plaguing elements of the party. There were not one, but two targets of the speech, blundering Johnson and the ghost of Jeremy Corbyn.

That’s not to say he didn’t get a good few licks in at the Tories. A strong right hook drew comparisons between Johnson’s career as a lying journalist and Starmer’s as a terrorist-busting lawyer. There were also repeated jabs at the government’s incompetence, a now well-established method of attack, admittedly made easier by their current propensity for self-inflicted foot injuries. Yet there was no thorough indictment of Conservative ideology. No argument that a new society would be needed after the experiences and lessons of the pandemic and the recent protests in response to the unlawful killing of George Floyd, and even less of a clear plan of what such a society would look like. To radical proletariats, Starmer offered little.

But as the speech pointed out, there have only been three Labour winners in the last three-quarters of a century, and none of them have been radical prepubescent proletariats. After over a decade of Conservative rule, the country desperately needs new leadership, and Labour’s previous offers of radical change have yet to be accepted. Labour has not appeared competent or patriotic and has had multiple unacceptable instances of antisemitism dilute its ability to criticise racism within the Conservative party. These issues have to be addressed before it can properly argue its case. This seems especially true given the long wait we have until the next election. Who knows what policies will be most relevant in 2024? Right now, any big policies risk criticism or reversal, and offer little reward.

Napoleon famously said never to interrupt your enemy while they’re making a mistake, and current polling shows Starmer has been wise to follow this advice. Still, though, Starmer’s first speech did not offer a clear alternative world. Eventually your enemies stop making mistakes, as the deposed Napoleon could attest. Starmer’s speech showed Labour is getting ready to set sail, now they just need to decide where they’re going.

image attribution: Rwendland

Report thy neighbour

Emily Rosindell
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Report thy neighbour

CW: some linked sources make mentions of rape 

Why do we adhere to our social contract? Do we feel morally obligated to? Or do we feel threatened by the risk of punishment? The question has plagued our society for years, being put by The New York Times, in 1964 as: “Does the individual have the right – or perhaps the duty – to disobey the law when his mind, his conscience, or his religious faith tells him that the law is unjust?” 

On 14 September, MP Kit Malthouse, Minister for Crime and Policing, announced encouragement to the public to “report their neighbors for any suspected breaches of the new ‘rule of six’”. The ‘rule of six’ refers to new regulations that make it illegal to meet socially in groups of more than six indoors and outdoors in England and Scotland, and indoors in Wales.

While members of the public have wondered if they are being called upon to make up for lack of enforcement, officials are calling for nation-wide camaraderie in keeping COVID-19 levels low. In an interview with BBC Breakfast, Martin Hewitt, the National Police Chief’s Council’s chairman, stated that new restrictions “[rely] on all of us being responsible” when asked about Malthouse’s statements.

What does this mean for the public? Will we peer out of our windows to call 101 on the old woman with seven family members visiting? Or will only illegal raves be closed down quickly with responsible actions from good civilians? A new emotional challenge in this pandemic will be combatting the cognitive dissonance of our moral compass. Those who feel morally obligated to follow restrictions may feel uncomfortable reporting their neighbours, while those following the rules for the betterment of the community may feel distressed by those with blatant disregard for the pandemic.

It’s unclear whether the government wants to bring together communities to fight COVID-19 or are just making up for the difficulty in enforcing the restrictions. Asking the public to report neighbors is not a new tactic in emergency situations.

Cuba’s model of social control relies strongly on the public.  Cuban citizens have long been asked by their government to report neighbors participating in any illegal activity in an attempt to curb black market trade. The threat of a possible report by neighbors creates a fear that reduces the amount of illegal activity publicly and visibly happening. Cuba’s model is somewhat reminiscent of Soviet social control due it’s threatening nature. However, the Cuban model is unique in that it produced an incentive to report suspicious activity and actions that seem criminal in the name of ‘contributions to society’. Cuba is not the only nation with a history of neighborhood watch though.

Looking at the United States, we find another long held culture of reporting illegal activity amongst neighbors. American ‘neighborhood watch’ culture has been a prominent aspect of community living since the early 1960s. Shortly after the infamous murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York City, many civilian groups created local watch schedules to protect their residents from crime by liasing with the police. Seeing this response, the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA) created the National Neighborhood Watch Program in 1972 to allow for a standardized structure to enhance legal enforcement. However the intensity of this program in America has directly contributed to gentrification of neighborhoods and stereotyping what a “dangerous” person may appear as. There are proven inadequacies when law enforcement is put into the hands of the people. Conversation around these inadequacies resurfaced in 2012 following the murder of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, after a neighborhood watch member deemed him to be suspicious through racial profiling. 

Essentially, neighbourhood watch programs that are used long term in Cuba and the United States have shown to create communities that are hostile to one another. However, could this tactic work for a specific purpose, such as short term enforcement of COVID-19 regulations?

We can look to South Africa, where there has been a long standing requirement to report others who may have serious and infectious diseases, including plague and anthrax. There are intense repercussions for not notifying healthcare providers of noticeable viruses, including up to 10 years in jail. This rule has sparked a new conversation in South Africa around its effectiveness to battle pandemic situations, such as COVID-19. South African government officials report this rule to be effective in identifying cases in a short period of time. Could this method be the origin story of new government guidelines in the UK? Historically, this ‘report thy neighbour’ strategy seems to have been implemented in extremely partisan nations (like the US) suggesting a link between asking civilians to watch their neighbours and the creation of an adversarial environment. The British public, although at times divided, would most likely have little incentive to report neighbours they otherwise get on well with. 

COVID-19 cases are continually on the rise with business re-openings and movement as its catalyst. This new guideline to report neighbours with suspected cases is an attempt to push home the importance of following restrictions. Perhaps police are having difficulty enforcing new restrictions, so in turn civilians are called upon. While a facade of community engagement is created, divisions are only strengthened by turning on one another.

The Coming A-pork-alypse

Jennifer Zhou
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The Coming A-pork-alypse

In early April, an Iowan farmer, Al Van Beek faced the hardest decision of his life. For months on end, the COVID-19 pandemic had been ravaging the meat industry: disrupting supply chains, delaying processing facilities, and single handedly causing the closure 40% of America’s pork plants. Nearly 8,000 pigs were crammed onto Van Beek’s farm—and now they had nowhere to go. Faced with mounting pressure, Van Beek made a desperate choice. Abortion injections were given to all pregnant sows on his farm; their dead babies, meanwhile, were composted for fertiliser.

Van Beek’s dilemma is just one example of the nightmarish crisis facing farmers across the world. Over the past few months, recurring outbreaks of disease have combined with the general economic downturn to produce a disaster unprecedented in the history of the industry. Demand is dropping. Slaughterhouses are shutting down. Farmers are left stranded, every day, with a backlog of animals numbering in the millions. Official organisations (like the USA’s Department of Agriculture and the UK’s Compassion in World Farming) have responded in the only way they know how: by issuing directives on the “depopulation” and “euthanasia” of animals.

These titles are deliberately bland. “Depopulation”, after all, doesn’t sound so different from the routine killing that maintains the day-to-day supply of our supermarkets. But behind the unassuming names lurks a slaughter of nearly unimaginable scale. Around 70, 000 pigs and 60, 000 chickens are killed each day because of lack of space and workers. To maximise efficiency, farmers are depopulating using a method known as heat strangulation: after cooping hundreds of animals in a barn, a switch is flipped to turn off the airflow and increase the heat. Birds and pigs, trapped en masse in what is essentially a livestock oven, die over a period of hours from a combination of heat stress and suffocation.

“Euthanasia” is a gross misnomer for this type of death. There’s nothing humane about heat strangulation—and there’s something troubling, in fact, about our willingness to hide behind sanitised labels. After all, aren’t humans mostly to blame for the emergent crisis? Our rapaciously carnivorous diet creates an incentive for mass production, forcing most farmers to boost productivity by using breeds with unnaturally fast growth rates and keeping animals in intensive confinement. The meat industry operates to maximum capacity, at maximum speed, with the maximum number of livestock—leaving farmers with no flexibility to hold animals longer than planned.

This train of thought becomes even more disturbing when we remember that animals have nothing to do with the pandemic. Farm animals aren’t affected by COVID-19, nor do they transmit it; we can’t justify killing them in the same way that we justify, for instance, killing poultry during outbreaks of avian flu. The outbreaks at meat plants and slaughterhouses weren’t caused by animals, but by overcrowding, poor hygiene, and employers’ lack of concern for sanitation. In other words, we’re not killing animals because they’re sick; we’re killing them because humans are.

This article began by calling the meat industry a victim of the “COVID crisis”—but perhaps that phrase is misleading. Our habits as consumers have pushed factories and farms to the breaking point, creating a culture where unclean workhouses and high-speed slaughter are treated as the norm. The conditions were already in place for disaster: we just needed an unexpected event like COVID to trigger it.

The mass killings now taking place are a graphic illustration of how wrong the system has gone. With the economy in shambles and the vaccine still a distant prospect, there’s no telling when the animal killings will end—but once they do, we’ll need to make major reforms to the meat industry to make it more resilient against disaster. Hiding behind words like “euthanasia” and “depopulation” represents a gross denial of guilt. The first step to ending the animal apocalypse may be recognising our own culpability.

Return to Oxford

Luke Bateman
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Return to Oxford

A peal of percussive raindrops tumble from towering heavens.
A lonely leaf joins the fray in a willowing, whispering wash.
Oh, to wander through carbuncle cobblestone alleys
And be caught in a rattling autumny swash.

Verbalisation

Flavia Velasquez Cotini
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Verbalisation

There is a feeling I experience over and over – an urge to say something meaningful. My hands reach out expectantly for pen and paper as if performing a lucky ritual. Like a growing undertow, my urge rumbles, gathers and gathers. The urge brews in the depths, builds momentum. The urge whirlpools passing passions into lasting currents. Emotions swell towards the paper like the tide seeking the moon, reach out, demand expression. 

Then there is a sudden pull – my loose thoughts spill over the pebbly surface of the page. Images crashing and breaking against sobering stillness, propelling seafoam into the air, rumpling the Edenic crispness of the page.  

The passing of time holds a distilling power upon matter. It extracts the message, I tell myself. I put my faith in it, await its effect, pace my heart to its ebb and flow. Only at my low tide do I return to inspect the page’s dishevelled shore. Once waves have receded from it, the paper resembles the sight of a shipwreck – mine. I inspect whatever is left. Lone, crystallised words; the reduced remains of an ample mess. Solidified phrases from an evaporated sermon. Anything rough, anything rock-like and grainy endures. Something to say, one hopes? Something meaningful among the rubble?

Grit. Lumpy words of brine and crumbled seashell I can hardly recognise as mine. What is it that they spell out – if anything at all?

Artwork by Anja Segmuller.
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