Zahir 7.3 by The Zahir

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7.3 The Zahir Summer 2012

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The Zahir

7.1 7. 3

Contents / Issue 7.3

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

I hope you will agree with me after reading this issue that it is one of our most exciting editions to date. I was initially eager to see how people would respond to the theme of tradition and the opinions that would inevitably arise over the Diamond Jubilee; the reaction did not disappoint. This issue, the features section is also proud to present photographs from guest photographer Ama Samra from hapticworld.co.uk. Whilst politics deputy editor, Beau Rahim seized the opportunity of an exclusive interview with R.A.W.A (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) to find out about the issues of human rights and injustice that effect women’s daily lives from the Afghan women confronting this oppression. I’d like to thank the Zahir team for battling through essays, exams and self-absorbing panic to fizz out an issue worth fanning away the sun’s rays. Week 8 promises further days of fun filled frolicking as the Zahir covers Arts Awareness Week hosted by SAASY and the Norman Rea Gallery. Visit zahir.org.uk for information about the upcoming events and daily updates.

Front cover by Ama Samra (www.hapticworld.co.uk) 2

The Zahir Is Lovingly Edited By... Editor: Helena Davies Deputy Editor: Oliver Wheatley Literature Editor: Sophie Taylor Deputy Literature Editor: Jamie Beckett Art Editors: Lizzie Baxter and Ed Grande Film Editor: Alex Cochrane-Dyet Music Editor: Ed Grande Politics Editor: Josephine Harmon Deputy Politics Editor: Beau Rahim Photographer: Jack Western Illustrations: Beau Rahim

POLITICS

FILM

LITERATURE

4 6 8 10

Flaws

28 Laureate

Nolan

Outcry

Matriarch

RAWA Criss-Cross Fetish Damascus

31 Dream

There are rich pickings for political debate this term: the Jubilee, and the class issues therein; the Olympics and Britain’s international status. But other issues outside of the news stream remain constants. Deputy Politics Editor Beau managed to get an interview with RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan). To think a small student magazine in England could get a response from such an important organisation is staggering. A friend complained recently that modern life hinges on technology, but without it we would have never communicated with this inspiring organisation of women who operate in an environment in which they aren’t even lucky enough for a pay gap to exist. This is surely what student politics is about.

With an impressive array of high production films due to be released this summer, including Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’, Woody Alan’s ‘To Rome with Love’, and Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, in this edition we focus on the role of mainstream cinema in society. Edward Shannon explores the way in which Nolan has revolutionised the traditional film structure through his non-linear sequencing and blurring of conventional morality, in order to produce complex and artistic blockbusters. In addition, Alex Cochrane-Dyet assesses the intrinsic ideology inside contemporary films, hidden behind the blindingly spectacular images that cinemas bombard us with.

ART

MUSIC

11 Controversy 12 Clarity 13 Icon

25 Spotify 26 Planets

Public opinion has been the silent driving force behind the reception of art. This issue’s Art section questions our relevance within the successes celebrated today.We are quick to form strong opinions, influenced by those around us, jumping on bandwagons, backlashing or praising; the world of art is forever under scrutiny. The recent phenomenon of low and high fidelity art is explored, argued down to its rawest form exposing its muffled and nostalgic beauty so sought after in today’s society. We also pry into the wardrobe of style icon, Diana Princess of Wales and question the controversy surrounding Anish Kapoor’s Olympic tower. It seems our thoughts on art will always be strong; we will either be horrified or, we will glorify.

This edition’s music section deals with music and its relation to society. Any work of music is at once both a product of its social context, and also therefore part of the fabrication of society. Frank Stevens deal with how one of the great events of the twentieth century impacted upon the music of the time, showing how such art can never be separated from its social environment. Edward Grande shows how society is constantly reforming how it profits from and educates music, and that we as listeners must adapt to these evolutionary changes.

Feature 14 15 16 18 19 20 21

Jubilant Vintage Photographs Pacifism Anti-tradition Adage Historian 3

The literature section explores many avenues this issue with Jamie Beckett channelling the Jubilee influence and examining the strong matriarch figures often applied in literature, whilst Andy Davis explores the crossing over of the American Dream in film and literature. Ellie Swire continues the edition’s focus on tradition by questioning the role of the Poet Laureate and Literature editor, Sophie Taylor, delves into the politics behind Israel’s ban of Günter Grass.

The Zahir

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Winter 2011

Politics

RAWA Beau Rahim talks to RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), the independent organisation of Afghan Women fighting for human rights and justice in Afghanistan since its establishment in 1977 in an exclusive interview.

BR: What are the problems currently faced by Afghan women? RAWA: Afghan women still lack basic rights. Violence against women and forced marriages has increased. Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. Financial problems and poor security mostly affects Afghan women as they can’t even work outside. Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate usually because they don’t have access to health care centres. Education is not available for most women due to lack of security (kidnapping, assaults and harassment are common for girls attending school) and also the standard of education is very low. Lack of justice is one of the biggest issues for women. The judiciary is made of fundamentalists no different from the Taliban, so of course they will pass misogynist sentences. Our Parliament is made of the same people and they pass laws which deny women their basic rights. Rape victims are usually jailed for “moral crimes” when they come to the police for help. Gulnaz, was such a victim who was forced to marry her rapist as she sat locked in a jail with her child.

“Rape victims are usually jailed for “moral crimes” when they come to the police for help.” 4

Usually such attacks are done by people of powerful commanders who the law can’t touch. A young Afghan woman Istorai was killed by her husband for bearing three girls (girls are seen subordinate to boys and backward families prefer sons over daughters). The husband was an Arbaki (member of a militia) and he faced no arrest or prosecution. Similarly, women who complain of domestic violence are denied divorce and blamed instead. That’s why the rate of suicide, especially by self-immolation, is increasing year by year: most women don’t see another way out for their miseries. Domestic violence is another big issue for afghan women. Beatings, sexual assaults and tortures by families, especially in-laws, are all very common in Afghanistan. Recently a 15year old girl named Sahar Gul was locked in her basement and brutally tortured (hair tore, nails removed and flesh cut from her body) by her in-laws for refusing prostitution. Again there is no justice for most women in such cases. There are countless problems women face but the most significant are those mentioned.

BR: How is RAWA helping Afghan women? Can you give any examples of progress? RAWA: RAWA has several projects for Afghan women. We have literacy courses for women. We want to educate women and give them political awareness and believe education is the key to emancipation. We have income-generating projects like sewing and handicraft centres for women to teach them to be independent and earn money to live on their own. We have health care centres and mobile health care groups for needy women.

Many women have been educated in our centres and now have their own courses where they teach other women. A lot of widows’ lives have changed as a result of our help as they can earn money for their families instead of committing suicide which majority women see as a solution when they are left alone. We also had orphanages for children and hope to raise a generation of children who will fight for an independent and free Afghanistan and try to help their bleeding nation in any way possible.

BR: Who or what are the obstacles of change that RAWA faces? (The Taliban, the foreign forces, Karzai, the tribal codes, for example.) RAWA: For the moment as an occupied land, the root of all problems is the United States which supports criminal fundamentalists like Fahim, Khalili, Sayyaf, Qanooni, Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Atta Mohammad Noor and others. The current administration of Karzai is also composed of Khalq and Parcham (two pro Soviet groups). They are the main obstacles in RAWA’s work in trying to bring change and progress for women because awareness of people can annihilate this Mafia system and they will not allow this to happen. The Taliban have always strongly opposed RAWA so they can hinder our work in areas where they have a lot of power. RAWA’s work can be lifethreatening for our members when our enemies are so powerful. We can’t work openly and have to cancel a lot of our projects due to these security threats from warlords in Karzai’s government and Taliban.

“The Taliban have always strongly opposed RAWA so they can hinder our work in areas where they have power.” leave our country and the warlords are disarmed from their position of power and prosecuted in national and international court, we can hope for a brighter future for Afghanistan. We strongly believe that our people will rise against their sworn enemies one day, and get their freedom, establish a truly democratic government based on values like equality, justice and secularism. We are truly hopeful that peace and stability will return soon if the fate of our country is placed at the hands of our people and not foreign countries (US, Pakistan and Iran) or a bunch of criminals.

BR: Do you love Afghanistan? Why is it a beautiful land? RAWA: We love our homeland and will struggle till the end to free it from its enemies and occupiers. Homeland is like our mother, we don’t think there will be anybody not loving his/her mother.

BR: What can we do to help - as concerned individuals? RAWA: Thank you for your kind feelings, you can help and support us by giving awareness about the real situation in Afghanistan to those who don’t know anything about our country. You can set up a network of supporters in your area for the same purpose. Fund raising for RAWA projects is also a way to help us.

BR: How brightly does the light of hope shine for Afghanistan? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future? RAWA: Until the time these fundamentalist warlords are not in power in Afghanistan, we cannot hope for a free and democratic Afghanistan. If the foreign troops

For more information on RAWA and its founder visit www.zahir.org.uk

The Zahir

7.17. 3

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

CRISS Mylo Scurr investigates the implications of the Taliban’s drug war. The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is not just being fought with guns and bullets, but also with crops. A United States Institute of Peace report estimated that in 2008 alone the Taliban netted $50 million from exporting heroin refined from Afghan opium to the West. $50 million to spend on rifles, ammunition, landmines, briberies, and amongst other things, more opium. In 2009 Helmand’s Governor, Gulab Mangal, introduced an initiative with the Department for International Development. Farmers would be provided with wheat seeds and fertilizer for free, and in return would give up growing opium. The initial plan entailed the Afghan government guaranteeing the farmers a competitive price for their wheat, incentivising them to abandon opium. But financial constraints and corrupt officials with shady drug-links have meant the price is not as competitive as it might have been. Nonetheless, slow progress was being made in starving the Taliban cash cow. But this progress has now stunted. Not long ago I was speaking to man who has completed three tours of Afghanistan, as a Captain in the 9th/12th Royal Lancers Regiment. As we chatted about what his life had been like ‘On tour’, he recounted to me a story, about a village he and his unit often patrolled due South of Camp Bastion. The village in question, being in Southern Helmand, was a hotly contested quagmire, covered with landmines and IEDs. The Taliban, whilst collecting ‘Ushr’ – unofficial taxes (read, protection money) – from the farmers, threatened that if the locals switched to wheat, they would come and burn their crop to the ground. As such the local authorities, in conjunction with the Allied forces, agreed that the local farmers should

be allowed to grow opium without coercion until the Taliban forces had been dispelled from the area. Though at first the villagers were suspicious of British patrols, relations improved as the locals helped soldiers identify and remove landmines, hugely beneficial for all involved. The battle with the Taliban for the area raged, but communication and trust between the villagers and British patrols stayed strong. One day, early in the morning, an Afghan security police patrol rolled into the village, and before the locals realised what was happening, they had set the poppy fields alight. The fire raged throughout the day and into the night, and the villagers were left with nothing. They said the Afghan police told them they were no longer allowed to grow opium, and that they had to grow wheat instead. One young local male was shot and killed as he tried to attack one of the policeman who had burnt his family’s livelihood to the ground. They blamed the British for not protecting them, “We did everything you asked”, they said, “We told you where the landmines were so your men would not get hurt on their patrols, and this is how you have repaid us, why should we trust you?” The subsequent investigation did not reveal which policeman had burnt the crop, nor if the order had come from higher up. But a few weeks later an informant reported that the Taliban had bribed the Afghan police patrol to burn down the opium. The opium the Taliban themselves had supplied to the locals. But why?

“In 2008 alone the Taliban netted $50 million from exporting heroin refined from Afghan opium to the West.“

Politics

“Reform and closer supervision and cooperation with Afghan state institutions is vital to stamping out the corruption.“ That opium, represented a lot of money for the Taliban, had they gone on to refine it and export it. Why burn it? That oft used phrase, which came to notorious prominence during the Vietnam War – the Taliban were radicalising the hearts and minds of the locals against the police and the foreign troops. The Taliban subsequently visited the village and supplied them with AK-47s. They told the locals they would protect them, and that they should shoot at police or British patrols that came by. A few days later two villagers spotted an British patrol, and started spraying their AK-47s at the ‘Foreign devils’. They were no match for a unit of trained British soldiers. Both men were shot in self-defense. What followed was exactly what the Taliban had hoped for. The families and friends of the dead men declared they would never cooperate with the Allied forces again, and they sought more rifles from the Taliban to ‘protect’ themselves. They had been radicalised. Within a matter of weeks the village had become a Taliban stronghold. So what do we take from this? Certainly, that the Taliban are not just some brain-dead insurgents that run around firing AK-47s in the air because they are too stupid to see the attraction of democracy. They are a cold, cruel, calculating assembly, with an army fighting on their own territory. They are well funded. They are capable of forming complex, flexible, non-military plans. They have a vitriolic, unflappable hatred of the West.

But the war is winnable, though we must start closer to home. Reform and closer supervision and cooperation with Afghan state institutions is vital to stamping out the corruption which has seen many of the development projects in the last few years fail. Closer cooperation too with the Pakistani authorities policing the border to intercept drug traffickers and the flow of opium where it is most vulnerable. As soon as shipments of heroin cross the border they are almost impossible to stop. And we need to invest more money. Not money to be spent on weapons, but money to be directly wisely and astutely into the communities and social structures of Afghanistan. The Afghan police force and army require heavy investment to kit them, train them, and turn them into a professional outfit capable of fighting the Taliban. They need education and decent wages to stamp out corruption. Western nations must work together to agree a competitive market price for Afghan wheat to encourage further uptake. Those that do must be protected at all costs. Further investment is needed schools and hospitals, especially in rural areas ripe for Taliban infestation. We need to get smart on the crop war. We need to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. We need to foster a sense of trust and companionship with them. So I urge you Mr Obama, Mr Cameron, to act. More money now means less money (and fewer lives) in the long term. This war is winnable. If I haven’t convinced you through reason, allow me to appeal to your sense of vanity. If you win this war, you will be remembered like Reagan was for ending the Cold War. And he’s had a fair few streets named after him. These elements should always take precedent above ticket sales and commercial hampers.

CROSS 7

The Zahir

7.1

7. 3

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

Jack Western enters the realm of York University’s most secretive society. Something unique has happened at York University. The fetish society at York is being ratified. The only other ratified fetish society in the country seems to be at Birmingham University, and that has been running for around five years and has around 160 members signed up to the Facebook group. Currently, York has nearly a third of that number of members after only a few months. Despite memes stating that UoY students don’t get enough action (according to YSJ propaganda sources and the studentbeans.com ranking of 2011, putting York at 59 out of 61), this proves that York students certainly are an interesting bunch of people to be around. It has certainly caused a buzz, and before I revealed I was doing a rather hushed up interview with a member of FetSoc, I heard from several of my friends excitedly chatting about it, and how they wanted to join up. So far, it has been controversial, as you expect. The founder, who wishes to remain anonymous, has received numerous threats from other university students. On the other hand, those in the know see it in a positive light.

FETISH JW: So why was FetSoc set up?

JW: What do friends and families think about this?

FS: Predominantly because we felt like there are a lot of people here who do take part in the fetish scene and it is difficult for people to go out on their own independently and look for groups privately in the city.

FS: The truth be told, many families don’t know their kids are part of fetish societies. Friends have been so awesome about it. Friends from courses have been supportive as well, which is great. Actually, when we were all having drinks and we were discussing who would be officers for the society, there were several people who were “yeah, I’ll help.” There have been people helping put out flyers. We’ve had people who have contacted the society and now we have gained more friends and supporters.

JW: So they feel intimidated? FS: Yeah, it can be quite intimidating and I think for a lot of people I don’t think they know where to start and, if you don’t know where to start it can be difficult, it can be hard, it can be time consuming and possibly unsafe. So we figured it is beneficial as it can help like-minded individuals and it helps with their safety. And obviously there is some stigmatism with the scene.

JW: There are some negative views on it. The question now is, how are prospective students going to view the university in light of this interesting development in on-campus activities? Personally, it won’t really affect many people overall but will obviously cause a buzz every Fresher’s Week each year. Obviously, there will always be some animosity towards FetSoc, but that will just come down to a mixture of ignorance and a cliché of ‘morality’ and what is considered ‘proper’. Many people do have an interest in fetishes but don’t like to disclose that. Maybe the haters are secretly lovers.

“there will always be some animosity towards FetSoc, but that will just come down to a mixture of ignorance and a cliché of ‘morality’ “ 8

Politics

FS: There is some negative association with fetishes, kinks and BDSM. Essentially, it is a safe place, for people to meet like-minded individuals, and to get away from that stigmatism with non-hostile, nonpressuring areas without judgment.

JW: When did you actually officially start the society? FS: We’ve had a meeting with YUSU just the other day; they talked about their concerns but it looks like it’s going to be ratified. No, it hasn’t been officially ratified yet, but in the meetings they’ve gone through the concerns, and the health and safety. There has also been a legal liability team meeting. They finally sat us down the other day and said “here are our concerns, make us feel better” and it would seem that we have so now we’re just waiting on the last email to try to get the society ratified and we’re hoping that this will come through early next week.

JW: It sounds like it is really well organised and has a lot of support.

FS: Yeah, the mailing list is big, and we thought that forty-five was a pretty small number, but there are societies out there with only, twenty members, and people were telling us that 45 was more than a lot of ratified societies. Forty-five seems like an incredible number, considering that it hasn’t even been ratified yet!

JW: Has there ever been anything like this before on campus? FS: No, from what we understand, there hasn’t. Birmingham University has a big one. They have 50 members, and have been running for five years. There are some other universities with smaller ones, but nothing like it at York before. It is a first, andh we’re taking things in new directions.

JW: Niki, the founder, was defending the FetSoc idea. FS: Yeah, he was defending it against the concept that it was just a massive orgy every week. He did definitely say that it was about safety, about consent, and it wasn’t about the sex. The society is more about the underlying complications of the scene such as using equipment and what is considered part of the unwritten rules of BDSM; what is deemed acceptable and what isn’t.

JW: How are you teaching people to be safe and how are you protecting their privacy? FS: We have a secret group that you have to request to join, and you have to be friends with the administrators. You can’t see any other members either, for privacy. Someone asked us for explicit instructions on how to use a certain piece of equipment. A lot of people just have ideas but don’t know where to go. They don’t know where to buy certain stuff. That in itself deems it right for the FetSoc to promote safety to help people avoid these problems. There could be a lot of people who would buy a load of stuff and not know how to use it and get themselves into a lot of trouble. Or they could buy incorrect stuff or buy from a dubious seller. As a group, we know a fair few independent sellers online that we can trust. Quality of equipment and if it’s working properly is a big deal, of course.

“Essentially, it is a safe place for people to meet like-minded individuals, and to get away from that stigmatism “

JW: How do you perceive the aims of the society? FS: We, the society, would feel like we would be cutting off a whole section of ideas by not having this society. So it’s great that this is happening. Of course, we’re encouraging people to join so that we can promote safety and ideas, rather than pushing them away, which may cause accidents and other problems. And on the controversial nature, we should all try and be as tolerant as possible. If we’re not forcing you to partake, then you should have absolutely no problems with people participating in activities with other consenting adults.

The Zahir

7.1 7. 3

Art

Winter 2011

Summer 2012

Controversy.

DAMASCUS

Florence Fudge reveals her personal journey towards liberalism. But she still won’t go near Poundland.

I, like Saul, have been converted. Now, if you don’t know the story of Saul, he set out to Damascus to persecute Christians and, to give you the condensed version, after turning blind he ended up a Christian. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go to Damascus under Jesus’ instruction and I didn’t go blind in the process. I’ve also never fallen off a horse although I did crash my Vespa into a fence once.

I grew up believing in money; money was bible. I also grew up believing that poor people deserved to be poor because they were just too lazy to do anything about it. Why should my hard earned cash pay for lazy people to buy their tracksuits in somewhere as high end as JD or sit around and watch Jeremy Kyle on ITV all day? Sitting slight right of UKIP and laughing at David Cameron’s communist agenda, I was capitalism’s number one supporter and I really hated poor people.

“Why should my hard earned cash pay for lazy people to buy their tracksuits in somewhere as high end as JD?”

But then I came to university, and I began to read. Actually read (and I’m not talking about upping my weekly hours spent looking at Grazia and Heat). First year modules opened me up to concepts like social mobility and Marxism.

Two years ago, I would not have been caught dead reading Marx; but

I now see you can’t actually understand capitalism without Marx. Marxist discourse demonstrates and explains the intricacies of the flow and accumulation of capital in a truly extraordinary way; it does so in a much more eloquent and in depth manner than any capitalist could hope to achieve. Marxists probably understand the capitalist argument better than capitalists do themselves, and this is what makes them so brilliant at deconstructing and challenging neo-liberal discourse. University is a liberalising place. The longer you stay and allow yourself to be exposed to these influences, the more left wing you become.

The liberal discourse subtly engrains itself on your mind and pulls you back towards what one might describe as the ‘correct’ end of the political spectrum. And this, quite frankly, is something we should all be hugely grateful for. My conversion has taken place in other ways too. In Sixth Form I would rather have died than be tarred with the feminist brush. After reading Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to be a Woman’, everything seemed to click into place. You don’t have to be a shouty, manhating lesbian with short hair and no bra to be a feminist; you simply have to want gender equality.

Once I got over myself, I really started to see how much gender inequality still exists in our society. I sometimes catch myself shouting at the news because I find it unbelievable that no one seems to be blinking twice at the (often subtle) oppression of women. Take for example FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women List. There’s so much wrong with this concept that I hardly even know where to begin. The list reduces women to no more than a pretty 10

face and a nice pair of tits. In a perfect world women would be judged on their talents and abilities. However much I want to look to like a Victoria Secrets model, I understand that the way those women look is a male construction of what beauty should be, and why should I conform to the unrealistic standards of the patriarchy? In the words of Moran ‘I am a strident feminist!’ and I’m not ashamed of that fact. I may well be on the road there, but I haven’t quite reached Damascus yet. Some days when I have no patience with the world or all the people in it, I find it hard to shake off my right-wing roots. Shopping in town hungover is always a thrill: ‘I don’t want to go to Poundland’, I wail. ‘It’s full of poor people. Can’t we stay here and look at the pretty Vivienne Westwood shoes instead?’ But I’ve come to realise it’s much easier to accept the Leninist in the corner if you allow yourself to be exposed to his beliefs. He may not be successful in converting you to ‘the cause’, but if you let him try, you’ll learn something new. In the same brush stroke, you don’t have to be Germaine Greer to be a feminist. I’m not going to denounce men or cut my hair short, and I’m certainly not going to burn my bra. I haven’t quite made the giant leap over into the Marxist camp yet, but I’m certainly on my way.

University is the blinding light on my road to Damascus. I still have my sight, I haven’t fallen off a horse, and I haven’t been filled with the Holy Ghost, but I have been converted. And it’s something I’m not ashamed to shout about.

Lizzie Baxter discusses our discomfort with the new Olympic symbol of hope.

Public art has frequently come under the scrutiny of the public eye; we have an unnerving desire to question and beat down the artist, we are never seemingly happy. It seems the plinths at Trafalgar Square are yet to be praised by an overwhelming majority, despite being created by some of the most renowned artists there are. It seems the general public are scared of the controversial. When it comes to art, the works of mundane, middle of the road painters take priority over the wild and unexpectedness of great designers and orchestrators. One of which is Anish Kapoor.

‘Arcelor Mittal Orbit’ looms over the site of the Olympic Village, its helter skelter like formation sprawling out across the ground, reaching towards the main stadium, gripping at its visitors. Constructed from two thousand tonnes of steel, sixty per cent of which is recycled, this vast sculpture is to be seen as a beacon of British design, and not as critics have coined it, a ‘monstrosity’ and another jagged outreach, blurring the skyline of the capital. The maroon twisting pulse contrasts with the white crown of the main stadium; I’d imagine against the inevitably blue skies found in Britain, the Olympic Village could potentially appear as a riot of quintessential Britannia.

Why is it then, we had such conflicting emotions when presented with the proposal? Admittedly, I was one of those thousands of people who complained, labelling it the ridiculous and perhaps even pointless. Looking at it now however, I would like to retract my initial opinions; it was never that bad. Art of today is meant to shock, to impose an opinion onto you and this work certainly does that.

The Olympic village can be read as a child’s playground; great formations of twisting curves and edgy corners, it invites its audience to a spectacle, the orbit taking central stage. Its controversy has ironically elevated all status of this predicted ‘monstrosity of design’. People will flock from far and wide to encounter its vastness, ready to cast a scornful eye upon it. Kapoor is used to this however. Previous sculptures and installations have suffered the wrath of the unsettled general public, yet despite these possible blows he seemingly thrives on it, spewing out yet more, great, but daring works.

Riding your way up the tower, climaxing at a viewing platform, Kapoor cleverly involves the dynamic city within the work. Peering from the platform, the vastness of London’s panorama unfurls in front of you and you are presented with the starkness and realities of modern day Britain. It’s refreshing and a true showcase; ready for the potential backlash of the world. It is as much a statement about our country as it is a recognisable beacon of the Olympics.

‘Discomfort is OK’ states Kapoor, likening the structure to Paris’ Eiffel Tower. Whilst unveiling his designs he communicated the critical backlash to the Parisian monument in comparison to his; claiming that even the great Eiffel Tower was hated by many for a period of almost fifty years. Yet now, when thinking of the French capital, we instantly associate the great work as its symbol. Perhaps this is what Kapoor hopes for with Arcelor Mittal Orbit; for it to become a great landmark within the ever growing skyline of London and not to fade away into the background, disregarded by a society governed by the conventional.

I will be the first to admit I jumped on that old bandwagon, dismissing this striking piece of architectural sculpture as a flaw within the Olympic design, even that of national embarrassment. However, I shall now humbly grovel and claw my way back to the admiration playing field; it should be celebrated and embraced. Kapoor has masterminded exactly what he intended; to create a wild, modern pinnacle within Britain, translating the sporting prowess of all Olympic hopefuls, whilst simultaneously setting new standards within British Public Art. He has captured a pent up energy and gone against conformity, elevating both Britain’s sporting and cultural status as well as his own. Perhaps one day we will all adapt to public art like this. Now, wouldn’t that be controversial.

“Kapoor hopes for it to become a great landmark with the ever growing skyline of London.”

The Zahir

7.1 7. 3

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

CLARITY A new found obsession for the much loved, nostalgic feeling found in ‘lo-fi’ art, is brazenly discussed by Jack Caine.

‘Lomography’ is a school of amateur photography that emphasises spontaneity and analogue silliness over rules that have traditionally informed the taking of a good photograph; rules like, “use an appropriate shutter speed”, “don’t point your camera into the sun” and, “don’t move your camera when you shoot unless you want your photograph to look terrible”. ‘Lomography’ proudly defines itself as a sort of anti-photography, and embraces things long abhorred by professionals. In fact, the “Ten Golden Rules” of Lomo (according to lomography.com) encourage amateurs to take their (plastic) cameras everywhere; to shoot from the hip, and to shoot quickly, resulting in photos that are often blurry, saturated, leaky or worse. DIY photography may be non-conventional, but its populist principles have sown the seeds of a popular and commercial appeal that big companies are willing to pay big for. Instagram, the smartphone app that attempts to digitally replicate that oh-so-exquisitePolaroid-feel, certainly represents the final nail in Lomography’s alternative-art coffin. In April, Facebook purchased Instagram for a cool one billion dollars, a move which prompts me to consider, just what exactly is so appealing about low fidelity art? Lo-fi photography (particularly the lame Instagram kind) often emphasises peripheral effects that deliberately obscure the creative content of a photograph, and this obscuration is a worrying trend we can also trace in lo-fi pop and film. Lo-fi pop has a particularly long and interesting history in particular in the deliberate use of low fidelity production, traditionally achieved via “bedroom recording” style which may feature some, or all of the following: swampy sound with a dense low end, cluttered stereo spectrum, lack of fancy overdubs, one take spontaneity and distortion, or audible ‘clipping’. Basically,

pretty much anything by the Velvet Underground. Or it can be seen as a side effect of ‘Loudness War’, a production traditionally achieved by employing Rick Rubin to dramatically mash up the production of your album, and may feature some, or all, of the following: generally loud mix, heavily compressed high and low end, loud mids and distortion, or audible ‘clipping’ (particularly if you turn your stereo up). Or, in other words an overwrought production by Rick Rubin. Interestingly, I reckon there’s a new, third school of lo-fi that’s emerged in the wake of Justice’s debut album †. Music by Skrillex, Justice and Sleigh Bells actually incorporates those widely loathed ‘Loudness War’ acoustics to create a sound which, in the memorable words of one Pitchfork reviewer, squeezes “everything into a mid-range frequency band so loud”, it “practically slaps you in the face”. Now, I’m not a guy that’s afraid of loud, messy albums, in fact a whole bunch of my favourite records are actually enhanced by crude production methods, because, as with photography, there is something beautiful in that kind of ugliness. But the reality is that swampy, loud production can also actively disguise poor song writing; consider the unashamedly high-fidelity recording of Girls’ ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost’ and Bon Iver’s ‘Bon Iver’ – released last year. Both albums have big, breathy mixes, show off detailed microphone placement, and use tasteful overdubs. Quite honestly, listening to these sophomore efforts on a decent stereo is akin to coming up for air from underwater. Both of these albums work because their primary songwriters (Girls’ Christopher Owens and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon) have written songs that stand up to high resolution scrutiny. Conversely, if their respective debut albums (Girls’ Album and Bon Iver’s ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’) were recorded in the same way, the limitations of those albums would 12

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be highlighted in shiny HD; a criticism devastatingly true of Album. Low fidelity film is perhaps the least deserving of criticism, because let’s face it – how many lo-fi films actually enjoy serious mainstream success? The low budget film and the low-fidelity film are often one and the same, both representing a realm in which directors and screen writers are able to indulge their artier instincts. Hence we have something of a reversal here - most of the movies from major studios tend to be offensively hi-fi, and such excessive polish actually ends up detracting from the creative content of the film. This tendency towards unnecessary postproduction-sheen has manifested itself most disturbingly in Hollywood’s recent obsession with re-mastering movies in HD or 3D. Big budget examples include the re-release of James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ and the prolific re-mastering (and general hash) of the Star Wars movies by billionaire-tyrant George Lucas. Now, although the ‘Titanic’ re-release didn’t radically increase its already glossy sheen, the original Star Wars movies have an integral smuttiness essential to their original appeal. Lucas’s incessant need to re-edit his original trilogy and clean up this smuttiness is radically detrimental to his legacy as a film maker. Perhaps the sad truth of the matter is that, for all its claims to anti-elitism, low fidelity art should be employed professionally or not at all. Only Hollywood films seem to fall prey to excessively high fidelity prettiness inhibitive to its quality. In most other cases, the Instagram-style aversion to traditional composition and carefulness simply reflects a reluctance to engage seriously with art, and suggests an unfortunate desire to disguise a lack of quality.

From March 26th to September 2nd 2012, Kensington Palace is exhibiting some of Princess Diana’s finest dresses. The aim of the exhibition, ‘Diana: Glimpses of a modern princess’, is to track the illustrious princess from a young woman to the fashionable Royal that won her celebrity status. Illustrations, photographs, and bespoke wallpaper (designed by Julie Verhoeven) will decorate the walls, highlighting the key fashion moments in the life and times of Diana, one of the most loved English princesses. On display will be several dresses made famous by the princess, ranging from a shocking pink evening gown by Catherine Walker, to a black strapless evening gown by Emanuel which has never been on display before. Exhibitions of Royal fashion are no longer unusual, however. With a renewed interest in the British monarchy following the Royal wedding last year, progressively more exhibitions of this kind have arrived in the UK to exemplify British fashion in partnership with the Royal family. The open days at Buckingham Palace hit record numbers of visitors in 2011 when the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress went on display as an exhibition of pieces she wore at the Royal Wedding. The exhibition ran for ten weeks in which the previous record of 420,000 visitors in 1994 was beaten with over 600,000 people visiting from around the world and over £10.5 million being made in revenue. There was such demand for tickets, that the exhibition stayed open for two weeks longer than originally planned. Catherine Middleton’s shoes, earrings, veil and the famous ‘Halo’ tiara borrowed from the Queen were all on display, alongside the famously anticipated dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. Kensington Palace is home to the Royal collection of Ceremonial dress, and its website offers an exclusive insight into the repairing and exhibiting of these pieces as well as a look at the wedding dresses of historic princesses. Perhaps

“Why are we so interested in the fashion collections of the Royal family?” 13

Noor Dawson delves into one of the most sumptuous wardrobes Britain has to offer whilst recalling past and present Royal icons. the most notable wedding dresses displayed on the website are Princess Charlotte’s dress (from her wedding to Prince Leopold Saxe-Coburg in 1816) and Princess Mary’s dress (from her wedding to Prince George, who later became King George V, in 1893). These two dresses are beautifully tailored with lace and flowers that are not too far away in elements of their design to the most recent Royal dress of Catherine Middleton. An interest in Royal fashion is not a new phenomenon however. In 2006, the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace opened an exhibition of a selection of the Queen’s dresses and jewelry from throughout her reign. Dress for the Occasion showed glamorous dresses from the young Queen Elizabeth II, to the more demure dresses of the Queen Elizabeth that we are more accustomed with. But why are we so interested in the fashion collections of the Royal family? Are they not just a wardrobe choice; a store of costumes? It seems to me, in the case of ‘Dress for the Occasion’ in particular, that a great part of the fascination comes from having an insight into the past tastes of those more privileged, and more suited to occasion than us. ‘Dress for the Occasion’ exhibits dresses that the young Queen wore, and thought of as suitable enough, to wear for Royal portraits and Royal addresses. The evolution in the Queen’s wardrobe from the dresses worn in the Official portraits of 1957 to those we are used to the Queen wearing (such as the primrose yellow dress she wore to the Royal wedding) is astonishing. It does not follow the evolution in fashion that wearers of high-street fashion are used to. It is far more glamorous, more decadent and more exclusive than someone like me could ever imagine. ‘Diana: Glimpses of a modern princess’ does something similar. This rare glimpse into some of her most famous outfits comes with a sense of privilege. There is something quite personal in the choice of an outfit, particularly one that will be seen by millions of people around the world, such as, inevitably, those chosen by Diana. They radiate her self-confidence and the woman she was projecting for the rest of the world to see; they are an intimate insight into her individuality whereas many of the dresses exhibited only share a glimpse of their royal lives.

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vintage

Josephine Harmon tears down her bunting. I’m not feeling jubilant about the diamond jubilee. The monarchy is a costly and embarrassing feature of our society. It’s surprising that we still have them. The monarchy is the apex of the class structure. Class in Britain is all-consuming -determining people’s accents, social protocols and educations as well as income. We continue to struggle with our rigid class structure as we approach the 100-year mark of technically the first socialist revolution. The August Riots in which youths raided shops for items of entertainment, was an inadvertent political outcry. The child-rioters were the poorest in society, dumped into high-rises no better than battery chicken farms. No wonder their anger spilled into pleasant middle-class neighbourhoods; the desire to move and disrupt is surely a reaction against being contained. This is all off the point of course - but it attests that underclass and under-privilege are with us, and that there are consequences to systematic cruelty. Monarchy is not directly causal in this sense but it is an emblem of heredity, class and tradition. To retain these traditions is to justify heredity and wealth in a period in which the British welfare state is steadily eroding. Though they are adornments rather than rulers, the royals are a symptom of our attitudes towards social equality; though they emblemise, rather than cause, social inequalities, there is little reason to celebrate the monarchy. The jubilee is a curious marriage of celebrity enterprise and retrograde parade. To hear that the winner of the BBC’s ‘The Voice’ will sing in Her Majesty’s honour was a curious intersection with ‘popular culture’ which you would presume is antithetical to tradition. In fact, celebrity is implicit to the appeal of constitutional monarchy. Television, rather than transforming royalty, has tapped into its essential elements. The monarchy has been digested into a popular reconstruction of Britishness - one that self-consciously feeds off antiquated forms of nationhood, often from our obscene imperial past. Consider the warbling of ‘Rule Britannia’, an army song, at the Proms. The monarchy preserves its archaic elements: the Order of the Garter is a strange parody of a Dan Brown brainchild, with passwords and Freemason secrecy. The durability of OBEs (Order of the British Empire) indicates that archaism is the bedrock of modern monarchy. The desire to be old-fashioned is a symptom that our international influence is in real terms dying away. The tradition of the monarchy is a construct. The pomp and circumstance that pervaded the jubilee is common to other forms of ‘celebrity culture.’ Tradition reassures the present by reconstructing the past. The celebrity appeal obvious in the ‘Kate and Wills’ soubriquet; the intimacy of these pet names the press use, indicates the Royal Wedding was a step away from ‘Hello’ coverage of any trifling celebrity wedding. This impulse for ‘the antiquated’ results in 14

Feature

Jasmine Willis longs for the simplicity of yesteryear. reconstructed images of the past - like the multi-million-pound Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster Bomber flyover at Buckingham Palace. The financial arguments against the monarchy are selfevident. I learned from a Norwegian friend that Norway - despite being more egalitarian than Britain - has a monarchy. Unlike ours, they cost relatively little to the taxpayer and do not stage spectacular forms of indulgent pageantry. It is unclear from where neo-monarchism derives. The hysteria of royal occasions suggest it is not generated merely by the royals’ impressive PR machine. The enduring voyeurism with which people observe the monarchy’s parade of pomp and pageantry rests on a belief in the importance of the monarchy. People feel humbled to stand in the same spatial parameters as royalty: people love being subordinated. This British masochism underpins national identity. People love being part of a hysterical crowd. The monarchy is a locus for these energies. Why else do people interminably refer to the Blitz spirit? Why else would emblems of WWI exist at a wedding? War, like monarchy, is a locus of patriotism.

“People feel humbled to stand in the same spatial parameters as royaly: people love to be subordinated.“ The monarchy’s reconstructed archaism is essential to its survival - and it’s nothing new: consider the Windsor-name change. Monarchy’s survival is symptomatic of a collective desire to live out our glorious past. This emphasis on tradition distracts us from the pragmatic failures of constitutional monarchy. Royals are museum exhibits waving in real time. Their appeal is mired in class hierarchy: its pre-existing “poshness” underpins the Queen’s appeal as an otherwise pointless public figure. Media coverage of royal occasions throws up a hideous reality. Half of the US fawns over the Queen, the other reveals the British love of pomp. If there’s any incentive to do away with the royals, it is to give Americans one less reason to patronise us.

Queen Elizabeth II is only the second monarch in history to celebrate sixty years of reign – a Diamond Jubilee. Whilst this might not seem particularly exciting to some people, the rest of the country seems to have embraced it wholeheartedly. Jubilee themes can be seen just about everywhere; look in every shop window and the British flag is proudly flying high. A great sense of pride, a new wave of patriotism appears to have swept across the British Isles and a celebration of our heritage is currently taking place. Leading up to this event is the ever-growing trend for all things vintage. The two aren’t exactly interconnected, of course, but could it be that this trend has intensified our interest in the Jubilee celebration? This may not be the case for the older members of society, but there has always been a struggle to engage young people with old traditions such as this. And with fashion and aesthetics becoming increasingly present and influencing in all areas of our lives, this just might be the case. In the lead up to the celebration, we see recipes for quaint little cupcakes, ideas for street party decorations and traditionalstyle memorabilia. We are celebrating in the exact same way as in days gone by. Not for a while has this much patriotism (not associated with football!) been seen. Vintage fashion has always been an interest to many, but it was not until the nineties that it began to step into the mainstream spotlight. This turnaround was certainly helped along by the arrival of Cath Kidston, and since then, our obsession with all things vintage has blossomed. So why has this trend become so huge? It’s kind of an odd turn around in terms of feminism. Suddenly the idealistic 2.4 children lifestyle has returned, complete with pastel coloured cake stands and spotty tea towels. But with it comes a contradiction; the opposing force that is the modern world comes in and the reality of the life of a woman fifty years ago just doesn’t seem to fit with it, yet it still persists. Could it be that we are yearning for the life and times of yesteryear? A return to the Glory Days, as some call it, when advanced technology was in its infancy and couldn’t be seen just about everywhere you turned. It’s the post-war style that most people seem to love, that time from the late 1940s to the early 1960s when people still dressed up for dinner. What is it about this era that so many people love?

The root of this lies in our view of it. It’s that common concept of distorted memory that means we only remember the good things. We remember the glamour, the fashion; we think of men smoking cigars in tuxedos and women in floral dresses, clinched in waist-lines and cherry-red lipstick, they are both immaculate, not a hair out of place. Women like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Jackie-O were celebrated in magazines and on television. Women with ample curves and seductive smiles – not stick thin models or trashy reality TV stars. They were women with class and sophistication, a million miles away from many of the role models presented to us today. And the men were the same – dashing, charming and looking dapper in perfectly pressed suits. Are these the images we want to see again? Perhaps it has something to do with the so-called fashion that is on offer to us today. Nowadays, clothes are being designed for the young and the slim. Most high-street stores hold a selection of garments that could easily be seen on the runway. Short skirts, crop tops, skinny jeans and bodycon dresses all look fantastic on those that can pull them off, but they don’t exactly cater for the majority. Perhaps it is this that has led to a return to vintage clothing – clothing that is designed for the Marilyns and Jackies of this world. It’s classy and elegant, but sexy, showing off the natural curves of a woman without even trying. And it’s not just the sizes we don’t like. Clothes are cheaper than ever thanks to the boom in clothing manufactured overseas, but as the price goes down, often, so does the quality. Throughout recent years throwaway fashion has become the norm. Whilst fifty years ago, people tried to make do and mend we seem to not think twice about disposing of clothes. If it’s out of style or lost a button, it’s in the bin. Somehow this is acceptable when the cheap prices mean that a replacement costs just as little. There is a niche here in the market. We want good quality clothes at a reasonable price. And that’s where vintage steps in. The mainstream revival of these former fashions is our call for simpler times. Yes, we acknowledge the short-comings of those times, but we long for the simplicity that they represent. Not just in what we wear, but how we live as well. After all, fifty-odd years later and it’s still good enough to wear – there’s definitely something worthwhile in that.

With York celebrating its 800th year as a city this Summer, Jack Western explores some of the legendary sites.

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Guest photographer Ama Samra from hapticworld.co.uk celebrates the diversity of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural traditions in her work.

Tradition

The Zahir Winter2012 2011 Summer Feature

The Zahir

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PACIFISM

Alfie van den Bos asks why our tradition of pacifism has been neglected. Mr. Galloway’s triumph in Bradford West has been put down to several factors, but one that prevails in all analyses is that many voters were still resentful over the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I feel that this also relates, not only to the wars themselves but also the way we as a nation treat conflict. It should serve as a reminder that we have forgotten our once proud pacifist heritage. Given that Christmas is meant to be a time of goodwill to all humanity, it was somewhat strange to see that it was used as a celebration of war. Military wives got the Number One, whilst Doctor Who, and many other holiday television, were set in the First or Second World War. The Queen and a horde of politicos fell over themselves to remind us of the great sacrifices made by those who would not be home at Christmas. This follows a recent trend, with the Prime Minister now reading out the names of lost servicemen before Prime Ministers Questions, giving Wootton Basset a royal title, and the continuing celebrity status attributed to events such as Help For Heroes fund-raisers. Our society and culture are increasingly becoming obsessed with war and the armed forces, and, for me at least, this is both dangerous and morally inconsistent. Do not get me wrong. I hold the deepest sympathy for any family that has lost a loved one, soldiers included, and I appreciate that many of these troops are just following orders and doing their jobs. I understand the need for armed forces, and am thankful for the services they provide to us all, but this does not justify the sycophancy that surrounds them. There is a fundamental difference between the rightful sorrows of events such as remembrance day, in which we remember the horror of war, why it should happen “never again”, and these modern spectacles, where soldiers are celebrated excessively as ‘heroes’ and war portrayed as both morally correct and glorious. The Sun awards, for example, offer celebratory prizes such as ‘Best Unit’ or ‘Best recruit’ which appear to attribute glory and encouragement to those who have best learnt how to harm their fellow humans.

“If one cannot question an issue as overtly political as warfare, it is a severe indictment upon our so-called democracy.” 18

Equally, the recent populist parade of features on commercial television stations had celebrities like Cheryl Cole experiencing army life in Afghanistan and had various troops on talent shows and a Help For Heroes concert, performing alongside celebrities. This is simply corrupt. These events not only celebrate rather than mourn war, but they trivialise and bring it in to the everyday, no doubt giving children a grossly wrong impression of how a just civilisation should perceive conflict. There are dangerous political ramifications emerging from this new obsession. Now one cannot question militarism without facing torrents of abuse and unreasoned criticism. Politicians are already too scared to offer an alternative line. Ed Miliband can be seen to timidly repeat the Prime Minister’s praises of the army, terrified of any backlash if his patriotism is in any way called into doubt and The Mail rallies against anyone not wearing poppies. Inevitably, this spills into the political realm of military policy. If one cannot question an issue as overtly political as warfare, it is a severe indictment upon our so-called ‘democracy’. We once had a proud pacifist tradition. After the Great War, conflicts were remembered in a sombre spirit of “never again.” In the 1930s, even trains stopped on the tracks to mark the Armistice. Neville Chamberlain is criticised for not stopping the rise of Hitler, but for me, he was a hero, desperately trying to stop war; the blight on humanity that had claimed so many and that would claim so many more. Unfortunately, because we ‘won’ World War II, such attitudes are marginalised as ‘cowardly’ and the orgy of war once more looms in the national consciousness. The very totalitarianism and militarism we fought against is now used to attack all critics of any element of defence policy. Perhaps the greatest crime of this modern jingoism is that it dehumanises war. In the late 20th century conflicts were shown on TV for what they really were. The human costs of war were clear for all to see. Limbless troops, gassed civilians, bodies lying face down in the mud. This showed that there is no glory in war. But we are no longer allowed to see this, hence the cover up of the Lancet’s report that 665,000 people died because of the Iraq War. This would change people’s attitudes towards the military, so this cannot be allowed. Nor do we hear of the dead foreigners. The Taliban may be cruel but they are still human. The sympathetic socio-economic reasons for why people join them are ignored, and the deaths of innocents are quickly skimmed over as necessary. This creates the impression that only we Westerners are human, and that the enemy is somehow not worth our time. Such a selective view echoes throughout the annals of history as the greatest crime of the patriot. It is time for the fetish to end, and for us to remember that, in the great dice roll of chaos and blood that is war, there are no heroes, no winners, and only one loser; humanity.

ANTI- noitidarT Feature

Michael Tansini confronts English literature’s rejection of tradition.

Tradition within literature, wrote, T. S Eliot, “involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence… a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. Eliot’s argument, that any poet must not only be aware of this tradition, but subsume himself utterly to it, will chime with any English Literature student who mainly became aware of tradition when it came to writing out their UCAS Personal Statement. The sleek black covers of Penguin Classics weigh heavily on your desk. The editor’s introductions merely reaffirm their cleverness and your stupidity; the annotations are plump with ideas and references you couldn’t possibly have seen. Very quickly the student becomes aware that what they know of literature is buried between what they don’t know. The most obvious solution is to gain knowledge by reading the canon, the group of writers that are considered best because they are the best, traditionally, their works are considered aesthetically to be the best. In 2011 Michael Gove the Education Secretary in Westminister, pledged to get Britain reading again. In particular the author he wanted to be on the syllabus was John Dryden, the first Poet Laureate who flourished in the late nineteenth century. He stated that he wished to emulate Gladstone and other Victorian statesmen, and their intellectual and cultural self-confidence, and in particular the great ambitions they harboured for the British people”. But what Gove ignores is that the canon has always been shifting, never static – a “bolus”, as Eliot defined it in his essay. In the late nineteenth century Milton was seen as one of the high points of literature – Tennyson claimed that in the poem Lycidas there was no equal, yet his star has somewhat waned since then. Ben Jonson was considered superior to Shakespeare in the years after the latter’s death, with Nahum Tate famously changing King Lear’s ending. To try and force literature on a population to recapture lost public sentiment echoes the days of the Late Roman Empire, where orators aimed to speak in the style of Cicero, born 400 years before them. Gove might not yet be suggesting that we speak Shakespearean English, but his sending of King James Bibles to schools in Britain hints it might be on the future. This aim within certain parts of the establishment within Britain – to hold up certain points as pinnacles of British culture, unable to be equalled or rivalled – ignores the relatively late 19

formation of the canon in Britain. We consider Chaucer the father of English poetry, yet Chaucer was the most un-English of his contemporaries. Rather than the northern alliterative romances of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the politically contentious Piers Plowman, which could trace their cultural heritage back to Anglo-Saxon roots, Chaucer’s has his Parson in the Canterbury Tales disdain the “ram, raff ruff” tradition and pleads for northern scholars not to misspell Troilus and Criseyde. And far from English antecedents, Chaucer emulated the French devotional poetry of Machuat and Froissart, the Italian tales of Boccaccio and name drops Dante into his pilgrim’s conversation.Whole books have been written on these sources and analogues, with the implication in many being that Chaucer’s use of continental ideals was superior to an insular backward English tradition. Modern A-Level students will only study the Canterbury Tales from Middle English Literature, because much else needs substantial glosses. Tradition rarely moves serenely from one movement to the other. The break between movements is violent and sudden. Within two years of Thomas Hardy’s death, Ulysses and The Wasteland were published. Authors live long enough to see their movements torn down – or even as Browning berated Wordsworth for in The Lost Leader – turn against them entirely. Tradition then cannot be the impersonal experience that Eliot desired. Tradition is by nature personal and anti-canonical. Each movement within English literature does not consolidate the previous literary vagaries but rebels against them. If there is a tradition within English literature, it is an antitradition, a refusal to be confined to hodge-podge definitions of genre and “cultural relevance”. Even as boundaries are made within literature, literature subsequently undermines them. Thomas Middleton’s Game At Chess used its theatrical form to anarchically deconstruct boundaries. The play starts off with a Chess analogy used to loosely represent power struggles between England and Spain, but the chess game quickly falls apart. The chess board allegory is simultaneously deconstructed – the stakes of the game are too high to follow traditional rules – and binding – The Black Side is damned, sinful, demonic and corrupt by virtue of its very nature. Middleton can be seen as symbolic for English Literature’s unorthodoxy. Far from the French Academy or the Library of Alexandria, where literature is rarefied, judged aesthetically above all else, commodified, English Literature gains the ascendency by pushing those down before it. Rather than accumulating, it disperses. Gove’s notion of blindly following aesthetic worth based on cultural parameters more than a century old is more than nostalgic. It is profound un-English.

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Feature

historian.

Adage: (

Stephanie Milsom questions the origins of our traditions. Ain’t it just a family thing?

There’s a code of conduct strictly adhered to by my family, namely at birthdays, family gatherings, and the epitome of all family events, Christmas. Invariably, my step dad will end up asleep on whichever surface he sits down on; Nan will thrust the nut tray annoyingly under everyone’s noses; my brother will eat an indecent amount of food and still ask for a second helping of dessert; and my mother will get incredibly stressed for no apparent reason, which usually results in some form of crockery being smashed. Each family has them, from the brilliant to the embarrassing to the mildly infuriating; whichever way you look at it, these are the aspects of our life that hold us together.

But when does tradition become habit? In fact, when does it stop being habit and become something tangible and important? It’s slightly worrying, as a student of English language, that I had to look it up in the dictionary, but apparently tradition is technically defined as ‘the passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation; a time-honoured practice or set of such practices’. Well Nan’s been passing round the nuts for years, so surely that counts?

The Jubilee and the recent royal wedding and all that I’ve never been particularly that much of a Royalist, and I mainly watched Kate and Wills walk the aisle for my own voyeuristic desire to see the dress, have made me think that actually I have this deeply ingrained value of traditionalism. It’s ‘traditional’ to wear white, it’s ‘traditional’ to marry before having children (contentious, I know, but I’m a sucker for old-fashioned-type romance), it’s ‘traditional’ to give your first boy the family name. And then there are other traditions, like putting your Christmas tree up on December 12th (also this is argued vehemently in my family), mothers passing on jewellery to their daughters, fathers teaching their sons how to cycle. But in this day and age, when society is so multi-faceted and multi-cultural, what even is tradition anymore?

Tradition for many is lining the streets for the Notting Hill Carnival and celebrating our rich history and cultural roots, yet this simply didn’t happen before the Sixties. If tradition has to be handed down from generation to generation, do these count when they’ve barely been around long enough?

“When does tradition stop being habit and become something tangible and important?” Of course they do: tradition is what you make it. It’s that peculiar fire running through the blood of the British - in fact, through the blood of humanity - which makes us glory in all things old and grand and shiny, and turn our noses at things ignoble. Not that my step-dad falling asleep slumped against the sofa on Boxing Day is in any way noble, but it’s that little, reliable quirk which helps to make things enjoyable. We celebrate tradition because we’re proud of what we have, and even prouder of what we had. I make a less-than-rousing speech, I’m sure, and I wonder sometimes whether it’s simply a deeply ingrained naiveté rather than a stirring, burning passion for Queen and country that makes me believe this. Whatever it is, I like to think that, in fifty years time, I’ll be the one irritatingly thrusting festive snacks under the noses of unsuspecting family members; it’ll be my daughter who can’t handle the stress of basting the turkey and breaks down under the mistletoe; it’ll be my grandson suffering from indigestion after his third helping of meat and gravy. I’d like to think that life won’t change so much that we’ll end up leaving all the good stuff behind.

)

For those of us missing the historian Tony Judt’s brilliant scholarship, this year has brought a fine treat. Judt died in August 2010, totally paralysed but still in command of his mind. He was therefore able to create a final book through the transcripts of conversations with his Yale colleague Timothy Snyder.

True deprivation and poverty is, for the most part, a thing of the past in the developed world. We now seek to cut back the state, equating it with socialist tyranny – and deprivation – without fully appreciating the cost, both economically and socially. Similarly, our disconnection from the realities of war, especially in the USA, means we think little of conflict overseas; the memory of Europe immediately after World War II has faded sufficiently for the thought of bombing campaigns not to bring revulsion. In America, the experience of war as a civilian simply doesn’t exist. These two disconnects show our selective understanding of the past: Saddam Hussein was “Stalin on the Tigris,” but Iraq’s sectarian divisions were not anticipated; we want trains that run on time, but demand tax cuts.

The volume, Thinking the Twentieth Century, is an autobiography-cum-intellectual discussion, with Snyder’s promptings and contributions included. Their discussion is hugely varied, as is fitting for Judt, the man behind the monumental Postwar, but it also reflects Judt as an individual. As Snyder notes in his foreword, he has been both an insider and an outsider for much of his life. As a Jew who went from teenage kibbutzim to controversial critic of Israel; a descendant of Eastern European immigrants who felt underqualified to attempt to understand the region; an enthusiastic American who opened a centre for the study of Europe in New York and vehemently opposed the Iraq War, Judt was a complex man.

Judt’s concern that we remember may be down to his background. In his own words, “You don’t have to be Jewish to understand the history of Europe in the twentieth century, but it helps”. He also regarded himself as a European, something that few brought up in Britain really do. Yet Judt was certainly English, and regarded himself to a large degree as so. At school, whilst standing out as Jewish, he acquired an understanding and respect for the Church of England as an institution, and even more for English literature. This affinity is recognised in his work, some of which touches on the issues of identity, traditions and memory.

Much of Judt’s work focussed on memory and perceptions of the past. He felt that one of his purposes as a historian was to make sure that the past was not oversimplified. For him, the expansion of “heritage,” rather than improving public understanding, was hindering perceptions of a wider history. The twentieth century was being reduced to tragic sound bites – Munich, Auschwitz, Rwanda – and triumphalist monuments, rather than appreciated as a whole, in context and in detail.

Yet to be English was problematic, particularly as the heritages industry creates, in Judt’s view, an ersatz history. Indeed, Judt describes the English ability to “feel genuine nostalgia for a fake heritage” as a defining national flaw. Rather than seeking to understand the past, heritage recreates a simplified version. The past is ever-present, but in a shallow form, broken down into monuments and memorials, with no sense of relevance. We tell “Our Island Story”, but it is a selective narrative, rather than a sympathetic understanding. The feeling that we live in a time without precedent is linked to this, but it is also the way we consign recent events so quickly to history. history, to be recalled but not understood.

Part of the reason for this is the perception that we are living in a time without precedent, and that such horrors will not happen again. Judt believed we had lost a sense of a collective past, alienated from its experiences. Two examples he cites are our relationship to the state and our perception of war.

In the reasonably comfortable twenty-first century, we have lost our understanding of the need for the welfare state and government in our lives. 20

Christian Drury misses the lost voice of Tony Judt It joins the list of historical occurrences to be cited when something relevant happens – but we learn nothing constructive about industrial relations from it. Perhaps it is our distance from true suffering now; strikes become a nuisance, a minority issue, and the anger at Orgreave cannot be appreciated. Judt sees the current generation of politicians as responsible to a large degree: “ours is an age of the pygmies”. He holds particular scorn for Tony Blair, whose shallowness he believes reflects the English treatment of its history. The loss of the twentieth century as a genuine example for us is palpable.

In 2010, Judt published Ill Fares the Land, a call to arms for social democrats to embrace true social equality and create a new type of politics, based around respect and the desire for a better society. He was seriously ill by the time he wrote it; the book feels like Judt passing the baton of social responsibility to a new generation, and appealing for them to do a better job than his. In our time of depression and austerity, Judt’s social democracy is a necessary antidote to the status quo of markets and cuts.

Tony Judt posed us a question before he died: can we use the past to create a better future? It is a question we need to answer before it is too late.

“You don’t have to be Jewish to understand the history of Europe in the twentieth century, but it helps.”

The Zahir

flaws

7. 3 7.1

Winter2012 2011 Summer

Film

Alexander Cochrane-Dyet analyses two high-grossing Hollywood productions in order to highlight the detrimental ideology that too often lies in mainstream cinema.

Why place a lesbian scene in a film exploring contemporary female sexuality? Take Black Swan for example, a film that won an array of awards last year and was described in the Washington Post as a ‘near-masterpiece’ that ‘delivers the most sensitive and observant portrayals of female ambivalence in recent memory’. The answer should be straight forward: since historically women have not had the freedom to pursue homosexual relationships the emergence of lesbianism in the 20th century has come to symbolise their new social freedom and the beginning of female independence from an inherently sexist and patriarchal society. Such a scene should reflect this, and it should receive no different treatment from a male homosexual love scene.

Whilst he perhaps felt this was necessary in order to finance the film, there a various problems with such a scene: it suggests that lesbian sexual activity is rebellious behaviour, more suited to the evil black swan than the well-behaved white swan; it’s apparent gratuitousness implies a connection between bulimic, suicidal, psychologically damaged young women and lesbian behaviour; and its shamelessly voyeuristic imagery of two voluptuous young women making love purely for male gratification depicts them as sexual objects, merely there to fulfil patriarchal desire(you would never see an unnecessary sex scene involving two men). The scene undermines the film’s otherwise complex and fascinating study of contemporary female sexuality and inevitably will overshadow its best scenes.

Black Swan is a film that engages with the virgin/ whore dichotomy, the conflict between female perfection and female purity, the indistinct boundary between art and reality, and manner in which strong patriarchal figures can attempt to dominate women. Nina, the innocent ballerina, lives in, with her protective mother, a mazelike environment, with its various closed doors and long passages representing the repressed parts of her character. Her pink, girly bedroom reflects her sexual immaturity and naivety. Under pressure from her sexually imposing male dancing instructor she begins to explore the darker side of her character in order to better portray the black swan in Swan Lake. A lesbian scene might well serve a thematic purpose then, something to do with female independence or perhaps as a twist when Nina rejects her male dancing instructor in favour of a woman.

My point is not that Black Swan is a bad film. It’s a brilliant film and Darren Aronofsky is a genius. My point is that Black Swan is a flawed film and it is dangerous to ignore its flaws, or worse, to not even to be aware of them. Film and television have become the major cultural media in modern society and as a result they have the power to create or dismantle stereotypes, to influence what sort of language we use in everyday conversation, and even to shape the way we interact we other human beings. Lesbianism is not sexually rebellious behaviour that men should get a thrill out of, and should not be portrayed as such.

Sadly this is not the case. Darren Aronofsky’s motivation for shooting a vaguely pornographic scene involving Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis was purely financial. YouTube won’t even allow you to watch the scene without signing in to verify that you are over 18 years of age (it still has one and half million views though). Darren Aronofsky knew that the most effective way to get men to watch a ballet movie is to place two of the most attractive female actresses in bed with each other.

Take another example, take a more mainstream film. How about the highest-grossing film of all time - James Cameron’s Avatar? Released in 2010 Avatar was presented as an eco-critical film that destabilizes racial categories and criticises colonial exploitation. Through his interaction with the native Na’vi, the ex-marine Jake learns that the distinction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ is imaginary and so he helps the primitive, but physically superior, humanoids to fight back against their colonial oppressors. While this brief outline of the plot seems praiseworthy, when examined in detail it is clearly flawed. Jake’s motives for helping out the Na’vi are not so noble – he helps them largely because he has fallen in love with the leader’s daughter and therefore out of self-interest rather than any moral purpose.

Only Jake’s transformation into a Na’vi allows him to start his romantic relationship, physiologically reinforcing the imperialist fear of mixing racial groups. The Na’vi have little agency in the film: Jake the white hero, an American marine, liberates them and, with their leader and his son conveniently dying, is left in charge because he is better than them at all their own skills. The Na’vi are left being ruled by a foreigner from the inside rather than the outside; they simply play a small part in a white man‘s fantasy.

Despite appearing a post-9/11 film that critiques the jingoistic American ideal of militarism and conquest, with the Robinson Crusoe like voyage into ‘the final frontier’ of space being condemned, it is also a film that endorses retaliatory violence. The destruction of the Tree of Eywa at the heart of the Na’vi encampment can easily be interpreted as a symbol for the Twin Towers and Jake’s successful counterstrike would appear to support America’s aggressive response. American ideology pervades the film. Jake is typical, pioneering American hero, harking back to American Westerns. In Westerns heroes ride horses, in contemporary films they drive cars, and so in Avatar Jake rides a flying lizard. His ‘Banshee’ is the largest and most dangerous, which gains him respect from the Na’vi. Ironically, Avatar was actually criticised in America for being anti-American. This demonstrates how implicit ideology can be in films – reinforcing the anxiety that cinema is colonising our subconscious. Avatar presents a façade of critique whilst endorsing retaliatory violence, illustrating a colonial fantasy and furthering America’s cultural hegemony. Again this is not to say that it is a bad film. It is a ground breaking film that revolutionised the use of 3D technology. The fusion of the camera and the virtual camera systems has entertained millions of people worldwide. But if its flaws are thoughtlessly ignored amidst the entertainment when the entertainment comes at the cost of damaging the way we interpret the world.

The Zahir

7. 3

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

7.1

Music

Nolan

Edward Shannon makes the case that Christopher Nolan’s achievements mark him out as the best contemporary director worldwide.

With the highly anticipated Dark Night Rises fast approaching, and the end of the re-booted batman series, could it be that Christopher Nolan is the best director currently working? Born in 1970, the English film director has now firmly established himself as one of the directing heavyweights - his last two films, Inception and The Dark Knight, totalled a combined gross of $1825 million worldwide. But what marks Nolan out more so than his ability to produce large profits, is his ability to retain his own non-linear, thought-provoking style inside commercial, mainstream cinema. This unique style was established in his first two feature films, Following and Memento. Based on the short story Memento Mori – written by his brother Jonathon – the film follows Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), who after a severe head injury is unable to make new memories beyond his last – seeing his wife dead. The film begins by showing the ending, and entwines two stories of Leonard, one of which works in reverse, similar to the way his memory functions. It follows him as he tries to unearth the murderer of his wife, while at the same time battling with his condition. It’s the movies neo-noir, non-linear story telling that made this a cult film and firmly established Nolan’s directorial style and pedigree. After directing the successful American remake of the Norwegian film Insomnia – a critically acclaimed film about two Los Angeles homicide detectives (Al Pacino and Martin Donovan) sent to assist a murder case in Alaska – Nolan, together with David S Goyer (Director of Blade), convinced Warner Bros to allow him to re-boot the Batman franchise, tarnished by the flop that was Batman & Robin directed by Joel Schumacher.

Nolan took the Batman story in a very different direction, a much darker and grittier version, concentrating on the moral dilemmas posed by being a vigilante, and at the same time a moral force, in a corrupt city. Batman Begins was a box office hit earning a gross $372 million worldwide. A strong central performance by Christian Bale, depicting the sense of fear and duality central to this version of Batman earned him a Best Actor award at the 32nd Saturn Awards ceremony, and a Best Writing award for Nolan. Another success was with The Prestige, a story of two rival magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) struggling against each other and their own inner turmoil, again told the non-linear fashion that is Nolan’s signature. After this came the sequel to Batman Begins - The Dark Knight, which grossed just over $1000 million worldwide. A career defining performance by Heath Ledger, depicting Batman’s archenemy the Joker in a ruthless, anarchic and twisted portrayal earned him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor – one of the eight categories the film was assessed for. Ledger tragically died in January 2008, just shortly after finishing filming for The Dark Knight. Next for Nolan came Inception, an idea he had been developing for a long time before the production of the film. Inception is perhaps Nolan’s most important work because it shattered the illusion that big box office movies need to be dumb in order to make money. Based on the idea of dreams, and the power of ideas on dreams, Inception is a heist movie and so much more. It challenges the audience to keep up, as it moves between different levels of reality.

Action-packed and multi-layered its enormous box office success – grossing worldwide $825 million – was significantly increased by repeat viewings as audiences came back a second and third time in order to piece together the twisting and complex plot. When the Dark Night Rises is realeased on July 20th it is sure to be a box-office smash. The real question though, at least for those with a passion for film, is whether or not it will mark out Nolan to be the very best director working today.

Spotify

Edward Grande discusses how society is constantly reforming its handling of the music industry.

In much the same way as in the literary world, the march of technical innovation is constantly changing the music world, for both listeners and musicians. With 2.5 million subscribers listening to over 15 million tracks, Spotify is undeniably a serious influence in how online and downloadable music is mutating the way we as a modern audience listen, and indeed what we listen to, and, inevitably, is shaping the career of today’s musicians.

The dynamic of listening has changed dramatically. The image of record shops which have been so prevalent in the music literary scene and biographies are a dying breed, and with each generation become more and more archaic. Collaborative listening is similarly paling into insignificance. When music was a commodity of notable value and relative scarcity the onus was there being a communal aspect of sorts, but this has dissipated. Instead, Spotify and the like offer us a tailor-made and individual listening microcosm, snuggly within its realm of 15 million tracks, precipitating a much more solipsistic – and indeed, intensely personal – listening experience. Despite the contrived social integration through its associations with Facebook and Twitter the idea of “sharing” music has truly lost its meaning.

As is to be expected in lure of any technological step, criticism has at times been rife. The mercury-nominated artist Jon Hopkins spoke for some when he controversially tweeted “f**k Spotify,” after 90,000 plays granted him the grand total of £9.00. When compared to Radio One paying out £50 for each play, there can appear to be a degree of injustice. But when examined, such criticism by Hopkins et al. is unfounded: each airing on Radio One is transmitted to 9 million listeners, meaning that for each individual listening, Spotify’s mathematics is in fact more lucrative.

Yet the more pertinent question: how does this affect artists? The aforementioned outbursts by some seem to be an all too conservative take on the developments, and indeed, many artists can see the potential Spotify offers, allowing listeners to explore an artist’s oeuvre beyond the purchase of one album. Among artists such as Hopkins there appears to be the potentially misguided presumption that a single stream is equitable to a single purchase on iTunes, overlooking the fact that there will doubtlessly be numerous streams of a song that the listener won’t contemplate shelling out to purchase. It opens up the possibility of discovering – and potentially buying – music one hasn’t previously contemplated.

“Jon Hopkins spoke for some when he tweeted “f**k Spotify!” after 90, 000 plays granted him the grand total of £9.00”

Yet Spotify also eliminates the visual aesthetic facet of popular music which has been so significant. The physical browsing of music will soon be an obsolete idea, and whatever attempts by iTunes and Spotify to render album art online cannot imitate the presence that 12 inch album cover can hold. Some purists may maintain that this leaves the entire focus on the music, but it will also unquestionably mean that those albums that have iconic and hugely symbolic album art – The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Nirvana’s Nevermind being two classic examples – will lose part of their aesthetic attraction. Likewise, the legacy of concept albums is being deconstructed as individual songs are cherry-picked from albums such as Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. There are of course sound arguments that such albums contain stand-alone songs which merit more listening, but the fragmentation of such albums which were destined to be seen in part as a whole work dissolves part of their artistic heritage. The changing face of the music industry thus poses some deeply problematic issues, but the new ideas it brings forth and the changes it makes cannot be seen to be wholly negative. The art world, almost paradoxical to the evolutionary nature of art, often seems to resist change, but this an all too naïve and misguided approach. The authenticity of records is, of course, at times a luxury – the oft-quoted ‘crackle’ being such an example – but when all is said and done, it can detract from what is truly important. With a fear of sounding just too much like Oscar Wilde, it is the very music that matters.

The Zahir

7.13 7.

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

Music

Not to be read without music.... Not to be read without music....

Planets The impact of the First World War on poetry and art is well documented, but its influence on classical music has been all but ignored.

This may be down to timing – the war came at the birth of popular music just as classical music was becoming ‘modern’. Perhaps it is this perceived lack of relevance that has led it to be maligned, but classical music can tell us just as much about the time of its creation as any other art form.

Not to be read without music....

– is this Holst’s way of saying there is a beauty and peacefulness at risk at the heart of both countries?

Indeed, touching upon the Wagnerian infatuation of his younger years was a brave move. As the war progressed, music from Germany fell from favour and there rose a demand for ‘English’ music. In an example of art imitating life, due to the widespread anti-German sentiment, Holst first changed his name from Gustav Von Holst in 1916, dropping the Von officially in 1918.

Frank Stevens examines at the First World War is reflected in Holst’s ‘The Planets’ Suite.

Not to be read without music.... Not to be read without music.... Not to be read without music.... and that the words themselves were the exact opposite of Holst’s view, being a lifelong socialist and opposed to such jingoistic patriotism.

One of the very few pieces that anyone does mention is Holst’s Planet Suite, but most only go so far as mentioning Mars’ militarism and leave it at that. If one just digs a little deeper, a subtler, more complicated, picture emerges. Given that the suite was written from 1914 to 1916, and premiered (albeit privately) in 1918, the shadow of the War is unavoidable.

‘Mars - The Bringer of War’ opens the suite. It has long been seen as synonymous with WWI and it is easy to see why. The ominous 5/4 march makes heavy use of the tritone (known as ‘The Devil’s Interval’) and it is hard not to picture thousands of soldiers marching ever onward with shells howling through the sky.

Although Holst always refuted that it was in any way a premonition; the unease of a Europe on the brink of war will have certainly dictated the tone of the piece, whether consciously or not.

The beauty of ‘Venus – The Bringer of Peace’ is a marked contrast to what came before. The cool flutes and solo horn set an idyllic scene. There is a quintessential Englishness here, but also a subtle Wagnerian influence

The light air of the next piece (Mercury – The Winged Messenger), from beautiful chiming celesta and harps, gives an incongruous sense of joy. Could this be the calm before the storm? Or perhaps it is intended as ironic, reflecting the ‘Tipperary Spirit’ of the young men joyfully marching, not yet aware of the horrors in store. This was the first war of a new age after which there would never be any glory in battle.

This sentiment returns in ‘Jupiter- The Bringer of Jollity’. One wonders if Holst felt guilt over his involvement in the war. Having been denied enlistment due to bad his eyes, lungs and digestion, remaining behind as all the other men left for war must have been a shaming experience. I think we can hear this in Jupiter; the jolly march has that edge of melancholy to it (very much like Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches, or indeed everything Elgar ever did) which mars any truly joyful or morale boosting qualities it could have.

Jupiter’s opening then gives way to music later used for ‘I vow to thee my Country’. It is easy to see this as being played completely straight, as Holst himself put the words (written by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice in 1918) to his own music in 1921. However, is it interesting to note Holst only picked this music in a scramble to reach a deadline,

As such I think it is ‘Saturn – The Bringer of Old Age’ that is Holst’s exploration of the war’s impact. Harps and bass flutes toll a knell for the passing of youth. Given the young age of many of the soldiers, the piece no longer is merely a paean to the passing of time and the loss of one’s youth; it is a grief-stricken eulogy for the death of youth itself – a whole generation of young men wiped out.

It was the first war to extend beyond the battlefield. Nowhere was safe. Saturn’s wild jangling of bells howl at this injustice before dying out to a procession winding relentlessly to its goal.

If Saturn marks the cold realization that the world has changed, then ‘Uranus – The Magician’ is a bitter view of the new model. It is a twisted ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ style battle march, its grotesque form mocking the ominous yet regimented parade of Mars. This is Holst expressing the futility of it all, the sickening distance between the Generals’ outmoded concepts of war and the horrifying reality.

A climax, complete with glissando for the organ from top to bottom of the keyboard, gives way to ‘Neptune – The Mystic’, the most haunting piece in the suite. The orchestra has a sound of uniform greyness (“dead tone” according to Holst’s personal notes). Over this almost transparent backing, ethereal female voices sustain a high G.

It is interesting here to consider another way in which WWI was a sea change. It was the first war where there would often be no body to bring back – now the dead were just gone. It is around this time in history that we see a rise in the popularity of a belief in a spirit - people wanted this to take as small comfort for the total atomisation of a loved one.

Concurrently, radio technology was being developed and spreading to people’s homes. There was a deep mistrust of a disembodied voice in one’s living room – what if it was the dead trying to make contact?

The disembodied chorus in Neptune is a musical manifestation of this, and it certainly has lingering poignancy that last longs after it fades away – Holst’s way of showing this as the true legacy of the war?

The Zahir

7. 3 7.1

Winter 2011 Summer 2012

Literature

OUTCRY!

Laureate. GSCEs reveal all sorts of gaps in one’s knowledge. As Ellie Swire discovered. “But what is a Poet Laureate?” I stare dumbly at my sister. Having offered to help with GCSE revision over Easter, I have already had my hazy knowledge of chemical equations, German verbs and the Treaty of Versailles sorely tested. However, I had thought that at least as far as English was concerned, I might be slightly more useful. Apparently not. Poet Laureates are something that I have heard about of course, but now I realise that I have little idea of what they actually do, or rather what they do apart from what they are already doing anyway – that is, writing poetry.

It turns out that the word ‘laureate’, roughly meaning ‘crowned with laurels’ (from the Latin ‘laureatus’), is a reference to the Classical tradition of wearing a wreath of laurel leaves as an emblem of success. A Poet Laureate then, by literal definition, is a poet recognised and celebrated above others for their work.

As ‘Versificator Regis’ or the ‘King’s Poet’, Peregrinus was granted fees and a pension in return for composing poems to mark court and national occasions. It became a tradition that continued throughout the late Medieval and Tudor periods, upheld by poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser and John Skelton.

It was not until 1668 that John Dryden adopted the official title of Poet Laureate and the position was established as a formal and regular institution. Since then, famous poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Cecil Day-Lewis, John Betjeman, Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion have been granted the honour of laureateship.

The appointment of Poet Laureate was traditionally held for life, but it is now a position held for a fixed 10-year period. Our current Poet Laureate is Carol Ann Duffy, who became the country’s first female Laureate in 2009.

But where does the idea of a Poet Laureate come from? The concept is one that dates back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century, after a man called Gulielmus Peregrinus was selected as official poet to the king. Poets and bards had of course entertained royals long before this, but Peregrinus was the first to be given a distinct role at court and a certified place within the royal household.

This is all very well, but critics have remained sceptical about the role of the Poet Laureate in today’s society. After all, are they truly necessary? Is it that the laureateship functions as a way of identifying and commemorating the work of our best poets or conversely as a form of elitism, celebrating some poets at the exclusion of others? Does it ultimately matter if a poet is made a Laureate or not?

female poets in general and highlighted a number of other poets who were equally deserving of the role.

Being the Poet Laureate in any case has its burden as well as its blessings. The Laureate is still expected to write for special events such as royal births, marriages, coronations and jubilees. Yet as an art that depends largely on imagination and spontaneity, writing prescriptive poetry can often lead to mediocrity, as critics of Motion’s work have indicated. With the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games coming up, Duffy has her work cut out this summer.

But if we put aside the expectation to write for significant occasions, the role of Poet Laureate can be seen also an opportunity for the poet to affect positive change in other areas. If he has been criticised for some of his work as Poet Laureate, Motion has been equally praised for his commitment to promoting poetry, particularly within schools. From sitting on committees to making public appearances, Motion has demonstrated that the role of Poet Laureate is really as much as you choose to make of it. If our Laureate has no specific duties which he/ she is compelled to fulfil then there is much more freedom for he/she to make a difference in their own way.

And that is not so much of a bad thing, is it?

“the role of Poet Laureate can also be seen to affect positive change in other areas.”

The answer to this must be ‘no’. There exist a plethora of renowned poets who have been just as successful without any royal recognition. Duffy herself was keen to point out that her appointment was not so much a success for herself but for

‘But through a fear of what may be conclusive, I say what must be said.’ Political and literary voices were in uproar recently with the publication of the controversial new poem ‘What Must Be Said’ in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on April 4th. The Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai consigned an instant ban on Günter Grass entering Israel due to his apparent attempt to “inflame hatred against the state and the people,” which was also denounced by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There has been widespread condemnation between Jewish and non-Jewish groups and public figures alike all over the world. But what is it exactly about this poem that has raised so many tempers and questions?

winning The Tin Drum. Grass has since then sought redemption for the secret which he kept to himself for sixty years, admitting that he had not revealed his past sooner in the fear that he would be accused of antiSemitism. Netanyahu has attacked the poet, likening his critique to “the slander against the Jewish people in the time of the Holocaust.” Netanyahu’s father-in-law’s family was among the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust, and the Prime Minister spoke in an interview recently about how he never recovered from the loss. Israel’s foreign minister described the poem as “an expression of the cynicism of some of the West’s intellectuals who, for publicity purposes and the desire to sell a few more books, are willing to sacrifice the Jewish nation a second time on the altar of crazy anti-Semites.” Indeed, it is not merely the Israeli authorities who have been up in arms over the poem. Many commentators have said and continue to say that Grass has disqualified himself from any kind of criticism through his short service as a Nazi officer.

First of all, ‘What Must Be Said’ criticises Israel immensely, identifying the Jewish state as a threat to world peace through what Grass deems as the country’s aggressive war-mongering against Iran. The issue arises from Grass’s identity as a German, and therefore an individual who carries the weight of the guilt of German history upon his shoulders. Without a doubt, the reception of this poem would have been very different if its creator had a different nationality, had he been born in, say, Britain or France. It seems that seventy-years on, the unspeakable atrocities of the Second World War still remain unspeakable for members of the German population. Grass accuses them of hypocrisy and condemns his own government for supplying Israel with nuclear submarines, breaking the German taboo of criticising a state which is predominantly Jewish.

The subject remains very sensitive to many. Grass himself has dedicated a large part of his life in visiting the country and supporting its citizens, wishing Israel to “exist at last and find peace with its neighbours.” In the aftermath of ‘What Must Be Said’ he has also made it clear to his critics than he was merely expressing his opinion of Netanyahu’s government and was in no way trying to undermine the people.

Part of Netanyahu’s outrage stems from a revelation Grass made in 2006, when he confessed to his past as a tank gunner in the Nazi Waffen SS when he was seventeen. Though he stated he has obliged to join the force “without having a say,” the exposition proved to be understandably damaging to his moral authority as the voice of Germany’s post-war conscience after the publication of his Novel Prize-

Sophie Taylor looks at the ethics behind Israel’s ban of Günter Grass.

In the aftermath of ‘What Must Be Said’ he has also made it clear to his critics than he was merely expressing his opinion of Netanyahu’s government and was in no way trying to undermine the people. Though it is clear to see from the perspective of the citizens of Israel why this kind of commentary from an ex-Nazi officer could be taken as a large offence to the state, Grass’s judgement of Israel appears to be stripped of all religious and racial agenda, being to my mind, simply a proposal of peace. In his interview with Welt am Sonntag, Benjamin Netanyahu prided himself on Israel’s policy of “free speech” and so it appears contradictory to forbid him from the country on the very same grounds he, if not encourages, at least affirms. It would also be deplorable to pronounce any German an anti-Semitist for criticising Israel’s policies and rendering all German citizens’ opinions void in this context, especially when that opinion is denouncing the very violence which has so bloodied their own country’s past. Though Netanyahu defends the strikes against Iran as necessary, describing Israel as “the firefighter and not the arsonist” in its conflict with the Muslim state, the view that Günter Grass exerts is one held by many around the world. Grass perceives the case to be one of urgency, and the most pressing threat existing to an “already fragile world peace,” believing that he as a German should expose the danger and allay the threat before it is too late to do so. In the Nobel Laureate’s words, Germany has no “excuse” for assisting another conflict to take place, merely to repay the guilty debt which lies heavily on the nation, summed up in the following lines:

‘...Because we- as Germans burdened enoughCould be the suppliers to a crime That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.’

The Zahir

7. 3 7.1

Winter 20112012 Summer

Matriarch

Jamie Beckett observes the Queen, and her literary forebears. If you haven’t already noticed, this year marks the Diamond Jubilee – six decades since Elizabeth II came to the throne. The Queen remains a part of our public consciousness, many view her – for better or worse – as the matriarch of our nation, yet the importance of this role at the time of her birth offers even greater interest. In the 1920s, the figure of the aging aristocratic woman was a familiar one throughout contemporary literature – an elder matriarch, distinctive, divisive and subversive in equal measure. In the society novels of Virginia Woolf, P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh we see extremely diverse styles of narrative and genre, yet all introduce strong older-female figures as characters of great significance. First and foremost, the elderly matriarch is a figure of upmost authority, powerful in a way which younger persons of her gender could not be during the era. In Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’ we are presented with the strong society figure of Lady Bruton, raised from strong aristocratic stock and wielding formidable political power. “..if ever a woman could have worn the helmet and shot the arrow, could have led troops to attack, ruled with indomitable justice barbarian hordes and lain under a shield noseless in a church, or made a green grass mound on some primeval hillside, woman was Millicent Bruton.” Lady Bruton is a reverent figure, seated next to the Prime Minister at the novel’s inevitable party and driving fear and awe into the hearts of those who opposed her. We see this character mirrored whimsically in Wodehouse’s novels, most potently in his Jeeves and Wooster series. Our dim-witted-upper-class-bachelor protagonist and his double-barrelled friends are often grounded by the powerful influence of his two formidable aunts, Dahlia and Agatha. Whilst the two seem at times to be oppositional forces, the former a “thoroughly good-egg” and the latter an infamous “nephewcrusher”, both figures command considerable respect and put into motion actions which Bertie must bluster to resist – with Jeeves’ considerable assistance, naturally. “When Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.” In both examples we see elder aristocratic women of considerable personal influence and – possibly overbearing – power. These women are mature and highly connected, offering an alternative to the masculine power structures normally noted in early 20th century society. The elder matriarch was a present and

powerful figure in the 1920s, demonstrating a potency of character reinforced further by the extension of franchise to propertied women in 1918. The power of these women is grounded in contemporary political limitation however, meaning that much of the authority which they demonstrate is proffered through social, rather than overtly political, channels. It is clear that Lady Bruton could have led armies or ministers, but must channel her strength and ideas through male acolytes; Aunt Dahlia uses her nephew Bertie to commit minor acts of vandalism, with hilarious consequences; Aunt Agatha is always conspiring marry him off, also with comical results. The power which these women wield is pragmatic, rooted within the gender limitations of their generation. Yet the power of these women is of sexual maturity and social power. Marrying well, they control their husbands and build social networks from which they gain power. In Waugh’s Vile Bodies Lady Margot Metroland is the dominant social figure, organising the most lavish balls and bringing together the “Bright Young People” and the older members of high society. Lady Metroland is a formidable character, darkly connected to the prostitution industry in South America – like Clarissa Dalloway, she uses parties to establish her authority and power. Older, aristocratic women are portrayed as figures of power within the literature of the 1920s, suggesting the influence of the archetypes for such figures in contemporary society. However, the aristocratic matriarch appears to never be far from humour or ridicule. In Waugh’s novels the older generation, often portrayed through an elder matriarchy, are derided for their pretensions or caricatured for their grotesque age – showcased through the comedy of Lady Throbbing’s wig or the penny-grabbing Mrs Beaver in A Handful of Dust. Just as with the eccentric and prim Lady Bracknell of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest a generation before, the power of these aging matriarchs seems often to be something comical or laughable. Likewise, in Wodehouse’s works, Bertie’s aunts are the bringers of farce – we question their authority whilst laughing at the situation which they have often caused.

Literature

Dream... An eclectic mix of odd family members driving across the US, in an old camper van that can’t start without a healthy push, sounds like the perfect recipe for a heart-warming indie film. And indeed the advertising and cool directing style of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ would suggest that too, but underneath the sun drenched cinematography lies a mirror to one of the greatest pieces of American literature: ’The Grapes of Wrath’.

Andy Davis explores the relationship of families and the ‘American Dream’ in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and the indie comedy classic Little Miss Sunshine.

While this new American dream of vanity and fame is the underlying aim of the film, individual characters sublimely embody caricatures of oppositional forces within society. Steve Carell superbly plays an academic who has just failed to commit suicide, bound in a spiral of depression. The camera uses him as a lens through which to see the family in the same way that Steinbeck’s narrative voice follows the ex-convict Tom Joad. A stylish inversion of a newly released prisoner looking to make his way in the world replaces Joad with Frank: a leading Proust scholar who is losing everything and becoming disillusioned with his life. It seems that American culture is mourning a lost time when it was greater than it is now. The national optimism of the mid-twentieth century is now a chronic pessimism.

Steinbeck’s epic novel seeks to reveal the depths of inequality and suffering in a time when capitalism was king. Through the heartwrenching difficulties which the Joad family face, Steinbeck undermines the conceptions of what made America great – troubles which ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ successfully transfers through polemic force to the modern age. In The Grapes of Wrath the Joad family travel across America in an old jalopy to California, searching for good honest work picking fruit: the American dream. When they arrive they find that market forces have determined that the fruit-pickers get paid next to nothing, with many unable to work at all. In ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ the Hoover family struggle against adversity to reach a new American dream: a child beauty pageant. Unsettlingly, pure shallow vanity and fame have become the source of aspiration, the idol that is worth risking everything to achieve. Yet when they reach it, the dream is revealed as worthless; subtle tones of paedophilia demonstrating its repulsive nature.

The parallels between the two stories are too many to mention, but whereas ’The Grapes of Wrath’ ends with no resolution and no hope of one, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ leaves a glimmer of optimism. The Hoovers seem to realise that their dream to win the beauty pageant is empty, yet the once fractious family has now become united and a symbol of hope. It feels as if all became at peace with themselves and each other only when they released the ideologies which were holding them down. For Dwayne it is his angry nihilism, for stepfather Richard it is his fad self- improvement scheme ‘the 9 steps’ and for our depressive central character it was the fixation on a past forsaken love.

The elder matriarchs of 1920s literature demonstrate the power which such women held in early 20th century society, yet as with the Queen now, their authority is ever threatened by inevitable decline.

Steinbeck sought to show that 1930s America was not the land of the free; that even for the most united family, the core values which it asserted were the cause of suffering and loss. ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ seeks a way out, a light at the end of the tunnel. They drive toward a brighter future where people can put aside the self-destructive, harmful ideas that current culture is filled with and learn to fuse together, like the family which we used to know.

“The national optimism of the mid-twentieth century is now a chronic pessimism.”

The Zahir

7.13 7.

Winter 2011 Summer2012