It feels essential to state that ‘short-form’ media, in its clips and images, is inevitably never a short-term experience. We’ve all opened our phones searching for some momentary respite, only to look up after what feels like seconds to see the hours have flown by, a deadline has been missed, your window plant has died, and the seasons have changed. Our phones provide an immediate escapism, an instant detachment from an intellectual hole we have dug for ourselves in some dark corner of our degrees. We used to read books; now we just close the eleven SOLO tabs and open Instagram Reels.
Oh Reels! Where would I be without you? Probably more in control of my life. I was never one for the Tik Tok craze, since the Gen Z energy smothering it reminded me too much of a Musical.ly childhood (and that’s trauma I’m yet to unpack, trauma that can be left behind in the world of Reels). Snuggly tucked into my Instagram homepage, countless worlds zoom past at my fingertips; the best National Trust spots in Somerset that you must visit this summer, three mistakes you’re making with bacon, and an absurdist collage of mournful racoons staring out of windows to Olivia Rodrigo’s Driver’s Licence. As you can see I’ve kept these examples intentionally vague – allowing someone to scroll through your Reels feels as violating as finding out your parents have been through your browser history.
I used to spend hours staying up chatting to friends on my first phone, an Alcatel Pixel that didn’t have the capacity to download apps. Now my friend and I exchange Reels about bowel movements and tarot card readings without a word passing between us. Liking it suffices. Sharing with someone something they’ll relate to, find enjoyment in, or take offence to – well, that takes a personal understanding of who they are. Is sharing Reels simply a new form of communication, or should we decry this new way of expressing friendship? Humanity survived the transition from stamping letters to instant, direct messaging. So why not this?
Perhaps because its speed and pace makes us prone to overload and overstimulation. In no time, we’ll all be downloading compressed Reel compendiums into our brains at 1000 TB a second. In my degree we (my tutors) ask whether there is a limit to growth we should not exceed. Never mind all that economic bullsh*t, is there a limit to the amount of content we can consume? I can just about cram a few hundred references into my mind palace before feeling like an academic aneurysm is approaching. Yet, how come I can watch a few hundred Reels (is that a shocking amount? It’s certainly an honest one) and feel nothing but glee, before the Reels come-down hits hard. My essays remain unwritten and emails unanswered. The reason is dopamine, and he’s a mean guy. I give it agency only to abandon all responsibility for my own lack of self-control.
Over the past 20 years, young people have been spending more and more time on our phones, and yet we face the same challenges and daily to-do lists. While the scrollaholic may struggle to complete these tasks, more often students are getting less sleep as a sacrifice to time spent on social media. Flicking through BeReals, losing ourselves in a Youtube Shorts rabbit-hole, or in a Vinted shopping basket – it’s often the last thing we do before going to bed and the first thing we wake up to in the morning. Perhaps this reveals more about my own behaviours than I’d care to admit, but I am not the only one. Chronically sleep deprived, and yet doing nothing to change it.. I’m that guy face-down in the library or precariously swaying in the back of a lecture. Far from ground-breaking, but if I put the Reels aside and took a break from that infamous ‘blue light’ (did you just roll your eyes?), then perhaps I’d have more energy to talk to my friends with words, not just Reels.
In Rishi Sunak’s recent Downing Street Interview, his words and promises were certainly not the star of the show. Showing off his Adidas Sambas, the Prime Minister took British media by storm. News outlets broadcasted a sudden decline in sales of the once popular shoe and young members of the public expressed outrage at the wealthy leader’s attempt to be a ‘regular every man’. The fashion community was genuinely disgusted by Sunak’s choice of footwear, suggesting that he had simply ruined the trend for everyone. However, the Samba has a much longer track record than Rishi’s short time in office, which illustrates the deeper connection between the PM’s choice to wear them and the social connotations this gave. Was he successful in his stylistic decision, or cause a crash faster than Truss did?
The fashion origin of the famous 3-stripe Sambas lies in the football stands of the 1970s. Although it was created in 1949, intended to be a football shoe equipped to survive icy conditions, it became a statement of class culture only 2 decades later. Famously a working class shoe, alongside the Reebok classics, the Samba has strong roots in the British community as a durable and affordable option for playing sports that could also be worn more casually. 20 years later, their functions expanded and they became a staple of the skater community. This was a strong marker of their transition from sportswear to streetwear as they were a clear indicator of this aesthetic. Meanwhile they were famously shown off by artists like Oasis, which gave them a strong platform in English culture throughout the 1990s and maintained their roots in the working man’s style. They maintained some popularity by the 2010s, but were overtaken by Converse in sales due to their pedestal in the fashion community. Nowadays, however, the Samba has returned in an american resurgence. Supermodel Bella Hadid and pop icon Rihanna have both expressed a devotion to the trainers, often papped sporting them in their casual looks. By early 2024, Sambas were selling out at every release in a rapid comeback instigated by the ‘it-girls’ of the 21st century.
By April, even the Prime Minister was swept up by the trend, flaunting a pale pair with navy chinos and a white shirt. Immediately, fans of the Samba took to social media to express their outrage at Sunak’s fashion statement. Footwear stores quickly expressed their concern that the politician’s love for the retro trainers had massacred their resurgence. Defending himself, Rishi claimed to have always loved the look of the Adidas Samba, reminiscing on receiving them as a gift from his brother one Christmas. Although he issued an apology for his fashion choices that day, the PM’s decision to wear Sambas may have been more complex than a Christmas present. In a desperate attempt to be perceived as a regular civilian, he may have switched out his Oxfords for Adidas. Rishi is well aware of how his image has been damaged by Tory sleaze and elitism, so his Sambas may have been a political move to appear less isolated from the general public. However, all he did was tarnish the image of the Adidas Samba.
Since the interview, Adidas have released a statement expressing their huge profits in the first quarter of 2024, which has put young minds at ease about the sudden death of a trend they may have just bought into. Despite this, Sunak has certainly left a mark on the iconic appearance of the Samba. Whether that is for better or for worse is not completely clear, but it is evident that the Sunak-Samba controversy is an unforgettable moment where politics and fashion aligned.
I recently attended my first production at the Donmar (https://cherwell.org/2024/01/24/review-of-tennant-as-macbeth-an-auditory-experience/ – shameless self plug!) and fell in love with the energy of the space and the risks the writers and directors were taking within it. So I was excited to see that they were doing a production of one of my favourite modern playwrights, Lucy Kirkwood’s, plays: The Human Body. A British playwright who has received acclaim for many of her plays, including (my personal favourite) The Children, shows here that she is not done in her brilliance yet. Published only a few months ago (29 February 2024), The Human Body is new to the drama scene yet it definitely holds its own on the Donmar stage.
A Socialist exploration of healthcare and romance is perhaps an unexpected way of defining a play, but this is essentially what it was. We follow Iris Elcock (played by Keeley Hawes), a practising GP, Socialist, Labour party councillor and aspiring MP, in her efforts to implement Nye Bevan’s National Health Service Act; a revolutionary change in healthcare, making it free for all. She is the exemplary post-war woman, working hard in a day job whilst maintaining a happy home with her daughter and ex-Navy husband turned GP Julian (Tom Goodman-Hill). But everything starts to change when she meets apolitical and apathetic George Blythe (Jack Davenport), a local boy who has now made it to Hollywood but is home visiting his sick mother, turning her world inside out as she is given the glimpse of “more”.
Keeley Hawes takes on the role of Iris and embodies her completely. I was captivated by her from the beginning. I could have spent the whole play just watching her face, subtle in everything she did but emotive, powerful and strong. We see her marriage be tested, questioning whether love can survive against politics, when partners have different views. Love vs Politics being central to everything in this play. And I felt for her at many points, her down moments felt particularly poignant to me. Kirkwood keeps the story blurry but we can only assume she attempts to take her own life near the end of the play, as she cannot deal with the demands put on her both professionally and emotionally. I could have cried when she woke up in the hospital bed, or even more so ten minutes earlier when she turned away from her future with George, lying and telling him she would have never left her husband, despite just doing so in the scene prior. The dramatic irony Kirkwood employs here can only be described as heart wrenching.
The play was undoubtedly brilliantly acted but I also have to commend Michael Longhurst (Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse from 2019 – 2024) for his execution of such a well written script. The set was dynamic with a circular revolve base that sped up and down throughout the production in moments of tension and calm. There were crew members holding cameras with a live feed of the action on stage projected across the back screen, fog machines, sound effects – succinctly timed to perfection – and a striking all NHS-blue set from the furniture, to the cigarettes the characters smoked, all the way down to the small blue canapes they ate at the dinner parties. This reminded me of the Old Vic production of Caryl Churchill’s A number that I saw a few years ago, with an all red set; perhaps a modern theatrical choice these female, British, playwrights have chosen to share. Thanks to Longhurst’s direction all of the scenes happened seamlessly and the actors moved around, on and off stage with ease and a certain unmistakeable elegance. I enjoyed how the live stream effect created a very cinematic feel to all of the moments between Iris and George, a fitting style to their dramatic and forbidden romance, as well as serving to emphasise how the play is about how the left tells stories, or sometimes fails to.
As concerns rise in the news now surrounding the future of the NHS, The Human Body reminds us exactly what we could be losing by putting it directly in front of our eyes on the stage. Does Iris win in the end? In some ways yes, in others no. The bill gets passed, but she turns away from her political pursuits, she gets divorced from her husband but doesn’t end up with George, and she remains a GP but with the implied new and overbearing demands a free healthcare system will present. The play is about how difficult it is to have a revolution both politically and in our personal lives, and this is emphasised by Iris at the end. The play ends with Iris centre stage, doors opened to the general public, and she projects ‘Who’s next?’ to the crowd as we cut to a final blackout. We end with both loss and a way of looking forward for Iris, and for our societal system in general. It was a play well suited to showcasing the benefits our free healthcare system offers without being overly showing-it-down-your-throat political. I look forward to what grand idea Kirkwood has in store for us next.
The Human Body is running at the Donmar Warehouse 17 February 2024 – 13 April 2024
There is a new sushi restaurant in town! More than just another Wasabi and Itsu, Sushi Bowl in the Covered Market is a well-located new spot for a roll or poke bowl on the go. On the corner of the Covered Market, next to the fruit stand and Sartorelli’s, the restaurant opened fairly recently yet has already been getting busier and busier. I stopped by on a Saturday afternoon in search of a little treat to celebrate finishing my collections.
Sushi Bowl had only been open for a few hours by the time I arrived on their opening day. The fish looked fresh and bowls were flying out the door. I was most intrigued by the salmon poke bowl displayed on the counter – pieces of salmon and avocado arranged into a flower-like swirl on top of warm sushi rice. They had other bowls with more ingredients, but I thought the salmon-avocado bowl best fit my cravings. Sushi Bowl also has a refrigerated shelf offering other Japanese foods: steamed and fried gyoza, mochi with ice cream, and even fried chicken. All the food was made fresh and some even fresh to order, with veggie options in both sushi and sides.
Sushi Bowl is a grab-and-go restaurant, with the fridge and counter taking up most of the space on the corner. Compared to most of the other restaurants’ large seating areas within, it certainly was cramped, with the only seating being some small tables outside of the restaurant. The indoor space was still cozy, well-lit, and it was certainly entertaining to watch people come and go outside. Unlike Wasabi and Itsu, which make their food in the morning and set it out until the night, Sushi Bowl consistently cooked throughout the day and was willing to make food on the spot, which alleviated my worries of having unfresh fish.
The owner, Yaning Xiao, was just setting out samples of her chicken gyoza. The tantalizing savory scent had me take a bite; immediately I was hooked. The gyoza had umami and a bit of broth, with a crunchy outside – just what a gyoza should be. I ordered a full order of six immediately and Xiao quickly made a batch of gyoza for me. They were hot out of the fryer and stayed warm on a chilly day all the way to Christ Church Meadows. Despite being a rush job, the gyoza were just as good as the sample. The sushi bowl’s rice was not too sticky, and the fish was cold and fresh, with the perfect texture. Paired with the avocado and a bit of soy sauce, it was delicious and not too heavy on sauce like many other sushi bowls. The fact that the bowl didn’t have mayonnaise made me feel like it was more authentic. The overall experience of ordering and eating good sushi in less than ten minutes was phenomenal, and I was so happy to catch the restaurant on its first day.
Xiao and her husband run Sushi Bowl as a family business. Their daughter attends university here; the restaurant is connected to the community. You can see the love they have for both their business and their craft in every dish. The owners source Scottish salmon and pacific tuna, pairing high-quality ingredients with great techniques learned from years in the restaurant business. Their bowls and dishes are more than just your standard Itsu, and for not too expensive of a price tag (£10 for a bowl is only a few pounds more than Wasabi for a higher quality, quick meal). The gyoza was a bit expensive, but the taste made up for it. If you’re in the Covered Market, why not stop by just to try one of their side dishes, or make a quick meal of it – you can’t go wrong!
Summer has arrived! Well, not quite, but as the weather picks up, more and more of us will be needing icy cold beverages for fuel and refreshment. Fortunately, my iced coffee addiction is non-seasonal, and I’ve been generous enough to try a plethora of iced lattes and rank them so you don’t have to.
Some disclaimers before we get into the list: firstly, this list is entirely based on my opinion. Secondly, I am yet to try every café in Oxford, so if your favourite is missing, that’s probably why. Finally, prices may vary depending on how you like your lattes; I have judged the list based on the price for a medium drink with no additions.
Perhaps it’s because I drank way too many of these when I had a subscription, but I really don’t like the taste of Pret’s coffee anymore. However, if you do have a subscription and buy a lot of drinks, this is the most economical option.
The Starbucks on Cornmarket Street not having seats is a shame. That being said, I consider Starbucks’ speciality to be their extremely sweet and customisable Frappuccinos, not their basic coffee, which is nothing special and generally regarded as overpriced.
This is where the list gets good! Taylors’ coffee is nice and their cafés can be found all over Oxford, which is great for an independent shop, but I have nothing too special to say about the iced lattes in particular.
The iconic Vaults & Garden café right next to the Rad Cam is a must-visit for its delicious food and beautiful interior, but their iced lattes are great too. I would probably not go here just to get a coffee, but if you wanted some food or a pretty space to sit along with it, then this is your best bet.
6. Black Sheep Coffee
Price: £4.09 (£2 on Mondays with UNiDAYS) Taste: 7/10 Experience: 7/10 Overall: 7/10
Personally, I only ever go here on Mondays to take advantage of the student discount, because I think the drinks are otherwise overpriced. I really like their digital kiosks and the fact that you can choose which beans you want your drink to be made with.
The iced lattes from here are creamy and tasty, but unjustifiably expensive. It is also relatively far from the city centre, located at the back of Westgate. However, if you are willing to go the distance and to pay more for your coffee, then I do recommend it.
Ole & Steen makes a really tasty iced latte, as well as great sweet treats. I also never have trouble finding a seat there. It is quite pricey, but if you download their app you can earn free drinks.
Definitely one of my favourite coffee shops to sit in, Society Café has a wide choice of beans if you like to customise your drink. Although it does get busy inside, they do have outdoor seats too, which are great now that the weather is improving.
You can really tell that they care about their coffee here, and this is reflected in the incredible taste of their drinks. Unfortunately, they don’t have that many seats and their iced latte is quite pricey, but for a takeaway while you shop around the Covered Market, there is nowhere better.
I always find myself coming back here because the iced lattes are just that delicious, refreshing and creamy. All of the Caffè Neros in Oxford are nice spaces to work in, but the one inside Blackwells is a particular favourite. They also have a loyalty system: if you get the app and link it to your uni email, you get 15% off, and every 5th drink is free if you use a reusable cup.
On Thursday night, the Oxford Union voted in support of the motion ‘This House Believes the EU has a Bright Future.’ The final count had 105 members voting for the motion and 71 members voting against.
Speakers in favour of the motion included Ambassadors Ferenc Kumin and Karel Van Oosterom: the Hungarian and Dutch ambassadors to the UK respectively. They were joined by Union Librarian Isabelle Horrocks-Taylor (Balliol).
Speaking last for the opposition was MP Mark Francois; former Shadow Minister for Europe and the current Chair of the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG). Francois was a part of the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 and during the following years, he called for the UK to leave the EU’s single market and customs union. He was joined by Union Treasurer Robert McGlone (St John’s) and Director of Strategy Santiago Bedoya-Pardo (Regent’s Park).
Speaking first for the proposition, Horrocks-Taylor considered how the EU has evolved with time, beginning “I am here to take you on a journey.” She explained that the EU was formed in response to times of crisis and argued that the EU has continually brought “stability” and “security” during these times. She cited the financial crisis by developing financial security; the refugee crisis with improved border security; and the COVID-19 pandemic with a combined vaccine development as examples.
Horrocks-Taylor concluded her speech by looking more directly at the future and arguing that similar resolve would result in effective responses to issues such as the climate crisis, ageing continental populations and the digital revolution.
She argued that likely expansion of the EU would integrate more perspectives to help mould its future, sustainable growth and economic collaboration would continue, and a potential labour government could strengthen ties between the UK and the EU. She wrapped up by concluding that the EU has a “future that is full of potential,” considering that “to be an optimist is not to be naive.”
Opening the case for the opposition, McGlone argued that “the EU has become a time-capsule for a bygone age.” He said that the EU had gradually become an outdated institution since its conception, citing how the share of global GDP made up by EU member states had dropped from 30% in 1995 to just 17% in 2020. He also pointed out how the EU currently contains under 6% of the world’s population, an ever decreasing figure.
McGlone continued with an affront on the “structural deficiencies” of the EU. He underlined how an opaque governance structure led to a lack of accountability for citizens of the EU, and pointed out that “a quarter of MEPs are currently implicated in judicial issues or scandals”, citing this as a consequence of this apparent lack of accountability.
McGlone then disputed the notion that the EU had successfully combated issues such as the migrant crisis, Brexit or the eurozone crisis, citing these as further reasons to lack confidence in the future of the EU. Drawing these points together, McGlone reasoned that “such a project cannot have its most prosperous times ahead of it.”
Furthering the case for the proposition, Van Oosterom underlined how the EU is the “biggest consumer market in the world [with] 450 million people and growing.” He argued that the size of this market led to plenty of opportunities for further economic growth.
Here, he stressed the importance that the EU fundamentally reconnects with the UK. This stemmed from his belief that one of the key strengths of the EU is that it “offers safety in numbers”, citing the response to the Ukraine war as an example of successful collaboration.
He also argued that the EU provides ease of access for young people to travel across the continent because of the lack of borders within the EU. After considering how freedom of movement within the EU has led to improved youth mobility, he concluded by declaring that the “EU is a catalyst for opportunities for today’s youth.”
Speaking next for the opposition, Bedoya-Pardo centred on the idea that the EU is plagued by internal bureaucracy. He argued that so-called EU elites in Brussels – home to the European parliament – have ignored the common man, leading to policy failures and protests across the continent.
EU agricultural policy, for example, had a detrimental impact on European farmers and jeopardised food security. “Europe herself is sick,” he said, “And her ailment is terminal” to underline his bleak prognosis regarding the future of the EU.
He further said that the EU runs in authoritarian manner. He referenced Article 7 as an enforcer of this apparently authoritarian governance, saying that nation states face “political exclusion unless they align ideologically with [central EU] values.”
He said that leaders of the EU “blackmail” democratically elected governments into obeying the demands of the commission. He concluded by blaming EU leaders for the institution’s failure, repeating the phrase “the rot comes from within.”
Speaking last for the proposition, Kumin pored over the semantics of the motion, noting that it considers the future instead of the current state of the EU. He argued that future enlargement of the EU would bring increased stability to the continent and told the house “it is our duty to believe in the bright future of the EU.” He also considered the democratic foundations of the EU and argued that voters have a voice: “member states have internal democracies” he said, which can be used to express discontentment with the EU.
He also argued that the EU was likely to have a prosperous future, provided greater control of illegal migration, a crack down on criminal gangs and “competition between the nation states.” Summarising three key concepts that the EU was founded on: peace, democracy, and prosperity, Kumin concluded saying “if we stay true to these ideals … then the EU has a bright future.”
Speaking last in opposition, Francois expressed concern with three areas where the EU had failed: economically, socially, and military. Economically, he believed that the EU is not competing successfully with the Asian market, highlighting how its “share of world trade is shrinking, not growing.” Socially, he emphasised the problem of ageing populations and falling birth rates in most European countries. Militarily, he argued that NATO has kept the peace, not the EU and how key EU member states such as France and Germany invest only a tiny proportion of their GDP into defence spending.
Francois also refused the idea that the EU is democratic. He expressed a concern with an over-centralisation of power, arguing that the EU had become a “supranational state” that lacked “affinity” from the “demos” of its member states.
He cited a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as an example of the undemocratic decision-making nature of the EU, emphasising that although the “EU could have a bright future”, this will not be the case “if it keeps going the way it’s going.” He finished his speech by declaring “vote for freedom, vote for prosperity … oppose the motion.”
Taylor Swift’s impact as a singer-songwriter is astonishing, but so too is her impact on the planet. Despite quietly downsizing to one private jet in January 2024, her carbon footprint cuts deep: generating in two weeks 14 times more than the average American household emits in a year. Her response? To send a cease and desist to the university student who publicized flight data on the basis of “stalking and harassing behavior”. This did not help her case. In classic billionaire style she used the legal system to dispel criticism, a move camouflaged by a feminist smokescreen. Which begs the question – does being a female billionaire make you a ‘feminist icon’, or does it protect the idea of the billionaire under the veil of the ‘girlboss’?
In her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, Taylor Swift describes her ‘choice’ to endorse Democratic candidates. But politics is not an opt-in opt-out situation, especially at her level of fame, wealth, and influence. Politics, and political oppression is all around us. Complicity is found in silence, and we expect more of public figures whose voices carry further. So they trip over themselves to be seen as one of the ‘good ones’. The question of what they communicate to their millions of fans is essential, and telling. In the case of Taylor Swift, the way she behaves and the way she thinks matters. For instance, in ‘The Man’ she sings:
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man” / “I’m so sick of them coming at me again, ‘cause if I was a man, then I’d be the man”
The lyrics do little to challenge hegemonic masculinity, or the legitimation of traditional masculine ideals and their dominant place in society, rather they lean into it. Though the speaker suffers under the patriarchy, she doesn’t challenge its hierarchical nature. She is jealous of ‘the man’, more specifically an ‘alpha type’ who would assert masculine dominance over other men as well as women. As she cannot achieve this, she increases her power through amassing personal wealth. Once she has ran as fast as she can, won the rat race, and broken the glass ceiling she takes her place at the top: she is a billionaire. Taylor Swift’s journey may have been different, but her destination is the same. In this neoliberal form of feminism social hierarchies are untouched. While one ‘girlboss’ is empowered, she leaves her peers in her wake. No one is truly liberated.
For Swifties, I imagine, this must be difficult to hear. I understand, to some extent, the knee-jerk urge to protect her. To be a woman in the public eye is to be a victim of sexist virtriol – or bitterly harsh criticism on a misogynistic basis. Particularly with Kanye West’s ‘Famous’ lyric controversy, there were swathes of people who insisted Swift must have agreed to being presented as “that bitch” who “owes” Kanye West sex for “making her famous”. For the Swifties who actually made her famous, whose support put her in the public eye (and the line of fire), the guilt must be substantial.
Though guilt does not justify the endorsement of superficial “girlboss” feminism, the authenticity of Swift’s music calls for us to connect with her on a personal level. A level that, for some, supercedes political allegiances. Taylor Swift makes it clear: whatever you are going through, you are not alone. Or, are you? With her ‘easter eggs’ and relatable lyrics she may feel like a built-in best friend, but, to put it bluntly, Taylor Swift has no idea who you are. This sense of adoration is parasocial, entirely unidirectional. Though this is certainly not a new idea, nor one unique to Taylor Swift, the impact of parasocial relationships has been enhanced by social media and pandemic loneliness. This has transformed some of Swift’s fans into a force to be reckoned with – an army entirely convinced ‘Blondie’ is their bestie, who are eternally prepared to mobilise in her defence, even when they shouldn’t.
Taylor Swift’s billionaire status, endorsed by neoliberal feminism, is built on the one-way adoration of her fans who consume everything she creates – and she knows it. Her latest album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, has four different vinyl versions. Each one has a different bonus track and each one is priced at $34.99 – meaning that, if a fan wants to listen to all four tracks, their total will be just short of $200. Similarly, her ‘Eras Tour’ tickets are notoriously extortionate (averaging at $1,088.65), and the fans who couldn’t make it were asked to pay $19.89 to rent the Eras Tour movie for just 48 hours. At the end of the day, we are free to do what we want with our own money. But there is no denying Taylor Swift’s business strategy exploits the leagues of fans who would do anything for her.
To Swift’s fans, I must ask – is her behavior that of someone who cares more about you, or your money? Is it right that Taylor Swift is a billionaire who is almost entirely immune to criticism?
Ultimately, if someone does something damaging, we should be able to criticize their actions. Even if that person is a woman, even if that woman is Taylor Swift.
“Yes, I love flowers and I love landscapes, but I am far away from that. When we talk about political art, I didn’t even know I was doing political art until somebody pointed it out to me.”
Houria Niati grew up during the Algerian War of Independence. Amidst this backdrop of violence, which lasted seven years, and claimed the lives of over one million Algerians, one thing remained certain: she was an artist. She is most renowned for her 1983 piece No to Torture, which questions the French artist Eugene Delacroix’s Women of Algiers (1834). Inextricably tied to both Algeria’s history and her own multicultural identity, Niati’s work was recently featured in the Tate’s 2023-4 ‘Women in Revolt!’ exhibition.
Niati’s love for Algeria radiates from the warm description of it she gives me. “[When I think of Algeria] I think of my family. I’ve got six sisters, and one brother. We have a very big bond. In Algeria, we have the landscapes, the sea, the Sahara is amazing. We have different types of cities – we had so many invasions in the past, so each city has a different stamp, different colours. It’s really amazing that we have different places in Algeria that express the past, basically, the history.”
“We have [had] so many problems in the past, the history, the wars. But we have an amazing sense of humour. Despite all odds, that’s who we are. We love art, too, and music.”
Under French rule since 1830, Algeria became a part of France, yet was simultaneously viewed as a racial and cultural ‘other’. The prevalence of European influences in the period can be seen in Niati’s own childhood: her father was a landscape painter influenced by Paul Cézanne, and she was educated in a French school amongst French classmates.
“When the war started, I was six years old […] We all had French friends, you know, we were kids. We didn’t know exactly what the war was about, it didn’t concern us in the beginning. But gradually, when you grow up, and you see people are killed […] it was really, really shocking. You’re in the street and suddenly people [tell you] to hide, to go home, because there are bombs in the cafe next door.”
Niati tells me about her experience protesting the French colonial authorities, which happened when she was only 10 years old, in the late 1950s. Though it’s been over 60 years, she still remembers it vividly. “One day, there was a demonstration in France, people [shouting] ‘stop the torture!’ – it was everywhere. My father used to read the newspaper – whatever he used to read I used to read.”
“Automatically, I stood with the Algerian people. I stood up and I wanted to fight, believe me.”
Outside her French school, Houria and 3 friends staged a protest. “We were saying, ‘French out, stop the massacre, stop killing!’. Everything was spontaneous, we did not plan it… [Afterwards] we calmed down a bit and returned to our other school for Arab class. The moment we were entering, a car stopped. It wasn’t a police car, it was a normal car. And there were three policemen in it.”
“They started interrogating us. They invited our parents to come and meet us – they thought: ‘They’re children, it must be coming from the parents.’ But it wasn’t coming from the parents, they never asked us to do anything.”
“They put us in jail. I [found] myself in a cell. I was very, very scared. One by one, they were taken [to be] interrogated with their parents. I was the last one. So I was the longest in the dark […] And believe me, that stuck in my mind. I was a child. You know, for many, many years, I couldn’t stay in the dark on my own.”
Niati was interrogated by the French authorities who demanded she supply them with the names of who had instructed them to protest. “They interrogated me in French, but I didn’t want to speak in it. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to speak French! I was speaking in Arabic.”
“I was really proud of what we’d done,” she says to me. “It was for our country, for independence, you see? From that day on, [the school] treated us like delinquents. It wasn’t considered an act of politics, because – [they thought] that was impossible! They didn’t think kids could do that.”
By her 20s, Niati knew she wanted to study abroad and pursue her dreams. “I was counting the days until I could go somewhere to do art.” That place ended up being England, where Niati balanced English classes, working, and an art foundation course, before enrolling in Croydon College of Art.
“[The interviewer] said to me: ‘Look, it seems you don’t have money. You don’t speak English very well. How are you going to do it?’ I told them I had time [within the 3 year degree] to learn the language – I had already started. When I think about it, I was really very, very incredible. I cannot believe where I got the strength, you know. And they were very compassionate.”
It was there that Niati produced her work, ‘No to Torture’. “The idea started growing in me in art school, in the 3rd year. We had a lecture about Delacroix. He did sketches in Algeria, taking artefacts with him [to France], installing them in his workshop and hiring women as his models.”
“I started getting really nervous. I said: ‘Women don’t look like that in Algeria. They’re hard. They fought during the war. Why are you saying that they are idle, they do nothing?’” Playing into the Orientalist representations Said described in 1978, Delacroix’s work showed women as passive, romantic and sensual. Yet, as Niati had experienced, women had played a significant role in the struggle for Algerian independence, both violently, and non-violently. Niati’s work was born of this disconnect, subverting Delacroix’s depiction with fierce colours, and erasing the identities of each figure to highlight their dehumanisation.
Niati’s spirit of resistance, born out of conflict – both in terms of colonial violence in Algerian history, and the clashing gendered artistic representations of women – have guided her work ever since. “I wanted my art to confront, and bring solutions to things. Yes, I love flowers and I love landscapes, but I am far away from that. When we talk about political art, I didn’t even know I was doing political art until somebody pointed it out to me. I was doing without actually knowing it.”
“What I had in my heart was to do art, to actually support my country in some way. Algerian women, after the war, [were sent] back to the kitchen. They didn’t have any role in the government. But why? We’d been fighting for seven years, and a lot of them died.”
“I submitted the work. Lubaina Himid came to see it. I was hiding it, rolled up under my bed, because I thought nobody would be interested in it.” The work has not been hidden since, having been exhibited internationally since 1983.
The atmosphere of the 1970s and 80s was one of transformation: “in the family, work, the politics. Thatcher came along and the [funding for] art schools started to be cut. Croydon College of Art started to close down. There were so many things going on.”
One of these things was the emergence of second-wave feminism, with women artists creating art to make political commentary on reproductive rights, equal pay and race equality. “Women, we started really fighting for our identity as artists. [At the time] no woman was exhibiting in the museums.”
It was an exciting time to be a young artist in London. For Niati, London was a “melting pot, of all kinds of things, people. I was nurtured there. […] The music was amazing. I was going to shows, to see rock music. The Rolling Stones, that was my thing. There were a lot of women too, playing rock and roll too. We used to go out, going to raves. I loved it so much.”
Combining the two art forms of music and art, Niati experimented with performance art by using her haunting, melodic singing in the 9th-century ‘Arab-Andalusian’ style, to accompany her art. “The music I sing came from the Arabs who lived in Spain. After the Inquisition, they came to North Africa with this music. [I thought], ‘What am I going to do with this music?’. Then I realised I would perform it in the galleries and museums.”
“The gallery was a stage, which was amazing. Performance singing started in the 1980s. People would ask: ‘What’s she doing, singing in Arabic in a museum?’ I wanted to make a point, about the culture, about my cultural background.”
“There were problems, but the 1970s and 1980s [were] the starting point of so many things. I’m so glad I came.”
Though Niati’s work is exhibited internationally, and she is now represented by the gallery Felix & Spear, the journey wasn’t easy. “I was really lucky to be invited to many exhibitions. Groundbreaking exhibitions.” She points to the exhibition of 1993, titled ‘Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World’, which displayed 160 works from 70 artists.
“But I have not been represented. We had other issues in Algeria – the war just finished, we didn’t have those institutions in place yet. I had to do it by myself […] I’m not complaining because it can be such a good thing to struggle in some ways. It challenges you even more, you know?” Even now, she remarks there are financial difficulties: “it is the trouble of any artist, I suppose”.
Turning to more recent years, Niati expresses excitement at the revived interest in feminist art, and her work. In a full-circle moment, the Tate curators discovered her from her very first exhibition, ‘Five Black Women’ (1983). “They said, ‘who is Houria Niati? Where is she? We want to know her!’”
Installation view, Houria Niati ‘No to Torture’ exhibition. Image credit: Houria Niati and Felix & Spear Gallery.
“It’s very exciting. In French, we call it ‘le second souffle’ (a second wind): a second time of my life. I’ve been so, so grateful to be a part of these groups [such as the ‘Five Black Women’ group exhibit] because now they are reappearing. I met many, many artists through the Tate’s ‘Women in Revolt’. It’s amazing. Because now it gives me this conviction and confidence to carry on.”
Niati also notes the power of art to unite communities, which she wishes to continue through working with charities who support victims of domestic violence. “You know, you can say ‘I work alone’, fine. But believe me, it makes a big difference to make people happy. A lot of those women have never painted, had never drawn. They produced amazing pictures. They couldn’t believe that they could see their work framed and [exhibited]!”
After a career of over 40 years, Niati expresses the same perseverance and optimism, revolutionary spirit and creativity from her earliest moments in politics and in art. “The future is art, art, art. I would love to promote the music I’ve done. And I’ve started a series of paintings, but I won’t tell you the subject. I want to keep it a secret!”
To end the interview, I asked Niati for some words of advice for young people, and young artists in particular. “Never, never give up,” she says. “Never! There is hope that you can carry on no matter what. For me, I was myself. I [knew] what I wanted to do, and nobody blocked me. I just did it […] Have courage, really persevere. If you are an artist at heart, you can actually do it. That was always my motto, you know. Never give up.”
Like most people who’ve read accounts of the 2016 campaign and Trump’s White House, I’m sure he never really wanted to win. Losing to Hillary Clinton would have transfigured him into a nationalist martyr for his endlessly re-rallied fanbase. Trump wanted to be the most famous unemployed person in the world when the votes were counted, free to phone his friends on Fox News, tweet, and watch three TVs at once while eating hamburgers in bed. When it became clear he was winning, he was horrified, his wife even more so.
Perversely, when he finally lost an election he was equally horrified. Trump put incredible pressure on US institutions to cling to power, attempting to bully his own vice president into setting aside the election results. On January 6th 2021, Trump whipped up a crowd to attack the Capitol with the same goal, leading to five deaths. Trump had gone from cynically calculating the benefits of coming second, to a kind of desperate, dead-eyed denial of the reality that he had lost, a reality he came close to overturning.
I think I might know why. It is not about the rallies, or the brand, or the art of the deal any more. He’s been out of his depth for a long time and he is afraid that the sharks are finally closing in. Three years after the Capitol attack, Trump is appealing civil court judgements against him of hundreds of millions of dollars. Allegations of sexual assault have also been upheld. He faces 40 criminal charges related to handling classified documents, four related to the January 6th insurrection, 13 related to election fraud, and a criminal trial that has just begun in New York where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
These cases are coinciding with the election, and we have not yet reached “Peak Trump”. Former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy tweeted in April that Trump’s trials are politicised and “a threat to the rule of law”. He’s right, but not in the way he means. Polling consistently shows that a significant cross-section of US society believes that Trump is being persecuted by prosecutors. Of the 96 original jury candidates for the NY case, 50 immediately recused themselves because they felt they could not be impartial. 12 jurors were finally selected and cautioned in court that the case is “not a referendum” on Trump’s presidency. It may be difficult for Trump to get a fair trial in the atmosphere he has created. There is also the danger that guilty verdicts will lead to violence, perhaps the danger that he will unfairly be found innocent is even more serious.
For years Trump and senior Republicans have been warning of widespread civil unrest if he is convicted, arguably an encouraging dogwhistle to Trump’s supporters. Trump has verbally attacked members of the court and their families on social media and has paid $9,000 in fines for making intimidating statements in contempt of court. These outbursts have led his supporters to threaten the safety of people connected to the case and seem designed to undermine and delegitimise the proceedings. Legal observers note that defendants have been jailed for much less. Indeed, most defendants with Trump’s history (if not his profile) would have awaited trial in jail.
All of this comes in a wider context of the fragility of democracy. Investigative organisations have been reporting a decline in democracy globally for years, and the US is not exempt. Leaving aside Clinton’s dire campaign and flaws as a candidate, Trump’s election was swung by a successful Russian interference operation. This operation which capitalised on internal division and out of control contradictions – peace through war, growth through inequality, image without substance – led to a victory that has been a loss for Trump and for US society. In office Trump weakened the judicial branch and the Justice Department through cronyism and back-channel personality cult building. This mafia leadership style enabled him to almost overturn an election and continues to be a strong element of his support base today, highlighting further vulnerability of the system.
Trump seems like the kind of person who would crash a car to scratch his nose. His actions do little to show respect for the rule of law, much less a willingness to defend it. I strongly suspect that he has no stable values at all apart from a kind of avarice. Despite this, Trump coming through these trials and remaining electable would be an indictment and a warning for institutional decay which demands a response. The fact that he almost certainly will not remain electable much longer, and that we may all soon get to see him in a prison jumpsuit to match his makeup, remains grounds for cautious optimism. If the US is able to convict Trump and put him in prison despite his power and money, maybe we can have the audacity to hope that it will go further, reform its institutions and protect them from a very American kind of fascism. Nowadays we’re less comfortable with the image of the US as the world police force, unless delivered with a measure of satire. Maybe a more appropriate metaphor is a canary in a coal mine. The next year in the US will show us something of the next decade everywhere else. May we all continue to live in interesting times.
“Batshit crazy”, was how one cabinet minister (James Cleverly) described the Rwanda policy. In his former role as chancellor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was characteristically more reserved, saying “it won’t work”. Human rights organisations are less kind: “This would be a clear breach of the refugee convention and would undermine a longstanding, humanitarian tradition of which the British people are rightly proud.”, said the UNCHR when the policy was announced. When announced in 2022 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson it was branded by most (including initially Johnson himself) as a laughable concept that would never be implemented and yet here we are two years later. All norms of parliamentary and legal process have been tossed out, the right wing of the Conservative Party continues to call for Britain to withdraw from the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR), and the Sunak will have you believe that “No ifs, no buts, these planes are going to Rwanda”. So how did we get here, what planes might actually go to Rwanda, and will they have anybody on them?
The only place to start is more than two years ago on 14 April 2022 when Boris Johnson announced his plans to deport those arriving in the UK on small boats to Rwanda for their claims to be processed. Independent human rights organisations disagreed but Johnson insisted that the country was in fact “one of the safest countries in the world”. How that would also provide “the very considerable deterrent” that he claimed it would was a mystery at the time and continues to be today. Importantly, the plan that Johnson outlined at the time would allegedly have seen “the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead”. Fast forward to June that year and the first flight bound for Rwanda was grounded minutes before takeoff after an injunction issued by the ECHR. That plane only had seven people on board.
After that, the plan somewhat vanished from public consciousness until Suella Braverman rekindled it at the Tory party conference in October, telling a crowd that “a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession”. (It is also worth pointing out that Braverman is against the current plans, which she doesn’t see as extreme enough).
In March 2023, Home Secretary Braverman introduced ‘the illegal migration bill’, which became law in July. It was there that the home secretary was given ‘a duty in law’ to detain and remove those arriving in the UK illegally, either to Rwanda or another ‘safe’ third country. Notably, detainees were not entitled to any appeal, bail, or judicial review for the first 28 days of their detention.
In November of that year, the Supreme Court ruled the policy unlawful, upholding a court of appeal ruling that there hadn’t been any proper assessment of whether or not Rwanda was safe, with ‘substantial grounds to believe that deported refugees are at a risk of having their claims wrongly assessed, or of being returned to their country of origin to face prosecution’. That might surprise the more trusting of you, who believed the government line that sthe policy had been “designed with empathy at its heart”. It did not surprise Sunak. Rather, he already had civil servants working on a new treaty to get around the ruling and that ‘he was willing to change the law’.
And so to December, and perhaps the most barely believable moments of the saga to date. James Cleverly became the third home secretary to travel to Kigali and announced a new treaty that he said ensured migrants would not be returned to a country where their lives would be threatened. The next day, the government introduced the ‘Safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration bill)’, perhaps the most extraordinary example of government overreach into our judiciary in memory. Former Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption, said at the time that “it would be constitutionally a completely extraordinary thing to do, to effectively overrule a decision on the facts, on the evidence, by the highest court in the land.” This bill rules that Rwanda is a safe country and must be viewed by politicians, judges, and anyone else as such. There is no time limit on this judgement, there is no scope for its review. Despite the attempts of various crossbench and Conservative peers in the House of Lords last month to add amendments, the government refused to compromise on any. That was when, once again, Sunak stood behind his podium in Downing Street emblazoned with ‘Stop the Boats’ and said that Parliament would sit for “as long as it takes” for the bill to pass.
Now, this is a lot of information to take in but it is crucial to acknowledge the context of this policy, why it was suggested, and why such unprecedented measures have been taken to secure its passing. Just like the EU and the United States, there is no doubt that the UK faces a substantial problem with illegal migration. Last year, 52,530 irregular migrants were detected entering the UK, up 17% from the year before. 85% of these arrived in small boats and since 2014, some 245 migrants have tragically lost their lives in the Channel. Far more important to Sunak however, is the significant proportion of the electorate who he believes could be persuaded to vote Conservative again at the next election if he manages to get this plan in action. On this, it is nevertheless hard to claim that Sunak is anything other than extremely out of touch. Just 11% of voters cited immigration as a priority issue at the end of last year, the lowest level in two decades. Even worse for Sunak is that if this plan does actually come into force, he will all of a sudden be left with no-one else to blame and nowhere else to hide. All of a sudden, failing to fulfil one of the ‘five pledges’ central to his leadership will be entirely on him.
Now it cannot be denied that there is a genuine economic debate to be had on migration. Modern Britain has been built on immigration; from the post-war Windrush generation and as an out for our most serious economic problems ever since. Between just 2000 and 2011, according to a UCL study published in 2014, “the net fiscal balance of overall immigration to the UK between 2001 and 2011 amounts therefore to a positive net contribution of about £25 billion.” Immigrants were also 39% less likely to claim state benefits than natives during that time. Economists tend to agree with this pattern with The Migration Observatory stating in 2022 that “immigration had little or no impact on average employment or unemployment of existing workers”. Evidently then, the problems with the UK economy are not the fault of the comparatively small number of people driven to make tragic journeys across the channel. Only 6% of immigration to the UK in 2022 was attempted via the channel (most of those journeys would be unsuccessful). If the government wanted to limit migration (which is bizarre, given the labour shortage in countless areas of the economy) then it would be able to via other methods which aim to better control legal migration.
Likewise, if the UK government wanted to stop hundreds of innocent children dying in the channel and eradicate the criminal gangs at fault it could straightforwardly establish safe and legal routes to asylum from France. Similar efforts in Ukraine and Hong Kong have been rightly praised but the fact remains that there is absolutely no legal way for someone in a war-torn country to apply for asylum in the UK without crossing the channel. It would also be wholly disingenuous to suggest that those coming do not qualify for support: 92% of those who made the crossing between 2018 and 2023 applied for asylum and of those who received a decision, 86% were granted protection.
Has there been any immediate, observable change since the Rwanda bill has passed? Tragically not. On the 23rd of April, five more people lost their lives in the channel, crushed whilst French police watched on from the beach in Wimereux. On Wednesday alone, 700 people made the journey to bring the total since the bill’s passing up above 2000. The initial deal with Rwanda would see only 300 people travel there.
Perhaps the only tangible impact so far has been in Ireland, where foreign minister Micheál Martin has said that increases in asylum applications are as a result of the Rwanda bill passing in the UK. When the government in Ireland confirmed that they would be returning asylum seekers to the UK, as per an agreement in November 2020 and the UK Common Area Travel policy agreed more than a century ago, Westminster rebuffed it. Instead of honouring the agreement or talking compassionately about the hundreds who have set up camps in Dublin, Rishi Sunak claimed that it was an example of his policy changing immigrants’ behaviour to deter them from entering the UK (one of his own ministers later disputed this).
This comes as little surprise. Many have pointed out that having made the journey from war-torn countries, across multiple continents, the odds of being one of the 1% of people who are sent to Rwanda is unlikely to serve as much of a deterrent. Numerous interviews with prospective asylum seekers have rubbished the idea that it would make any difference; most fail to understand the complexities of the policy and the gangs profiting from illegal migration devote significant efforts to paint the scheme as nonsense.
It is in its impracticality and economic irresponsibility, where the Rwanda policy is at its most shameful and most disappointing. Whitehall’s official spending watchdog found in February that each and every one of the first 300 people would cost £1.8 million to send to the country. As Sophy Ridge pointed out to the Chancellor this week, every such payment could fund the education of 234 schoolchildren for an entire year.
For the government, this has never been about finding a workable solution. Instead, it is about standing behind aggressively emblazoned podiums, claiming to be “up for the fight” against human rights law, and showboating non-existent solutions. Instead of wholesale reform, investment, and the establishment of safe and legal routes in an attempt to save lives, Sunak’s government has chosen impractical showmanship.
