The Kiwi
Editing team
Editor Georgina Ogilvie Online Editor Georgina Ogilvie Co-Editor Lin Li Photography Clara Buxton
Contributors Ayrton Dhillon Yu Wei Clara Buxton Alan Beaumont Francis Scarr Meena Masood Zoe Debess Georgina Ogilvie Maheen Behrana Scott Summers
04-05 Editor’s Comments and ‘Always Waiting’ by Ayrton Dhillon 06-07 Cultural Hegemony by Yu Wei 08-09 Clara Buxton in Sao Paulo 10-11 The Benefits of Improvised Comedy by Alan Beaumont 12-13 Francis Scarr in Russia
14-15 ‘But Where Are You Really From?’ by Meena Masood 16-17 The ‘F’ Word by Zoe Debess 18-19 In defence of pacifism and Jeremy Corbyn by Georgina Ogilvie 20-21 The Importance of Debate by Maheen Behrana 22-23 Trans day of Rememberance by Scott Summers
Contents
Editor’s comments Hello and welcome to another edition of The Kiwi. In light of on-going attacks around the world, I call for people to be empathetic, to learn and accept other ways of life and in particular - not to indulge in discrimination based on gender, 4 religion or ethnicity. In times such kiwi as these we must speak out against Islamophobia in particular. As with all things that wish to remain relevant, The Kiwi has undergone a transformation; both in content, and in form. The Kiwi will be published online as well as in print in order to reach the widest and broadest possible audience. My hopes are that the content is better emphasised and the design more effortless. It wouldn’t look as good as it does without the work of my co-editor, Lin Li.
The theme is chosen to be interesting and to capture the imagination of contributors and audience, and also something more ergonomically applicable to art, design and photography: ‘Contrast’. I’m thrilled to introduce to you another set of talented thinkers that will make you question and challenge. I spoke to a wide variety of people both within and outside of Selwyn to bring to The Kiwi a diversity of design ideas and writing styles. My hopes for the Kiwi are that one day it is an established platform where alternative opinions can be expressed by under-represented individuals. We can only do that if people feel comfortable, and come forward. The Kiwi is looking for a new editor that shares this vision. Please get in contact with me if you’re interested: gmeo2@cam.ac.uk Georgina Ogilvie
Always waiting. Not sure, what for. Just waiting, calm, annoyed, anger, bubbling, rising to the top, slows, recedes, Uncaring. But, what am I waiting for? A person, place, emotion, relief. A change? Back to what it used to be? Or away from everything? Why does time creep so slowly when I’m waiting? Did it happen? A blink of an eye. Time has strangled me into submission again. What I was waiting for, Was not what I was waiting for. But yet, I’m always waiting. …always waiting.
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Cultural hegemony yu wei
Dear fresher me, don’t tell everyone in the first week that you’re called Elaine, or Elayne - it’s not even on Facebook. If there was one thing I could change in fresher’s week two years ago, it would be not to confuse everyone by giving myself an English name and then give up, because My English Name continued to haunt me in my second year and, despite my efforts at exorcising it, I see the ghost of it creeping into my third year. In first year, I’ve heard people casually remark, “It’s quite common for Chinese people to have an English name isn’t it?” or “I don’t know why Chinese people like to give themselves English names.” Hear my reason: a year before starting uni, when ordering a smoothie at a Jamba Juice in California, the service staff asked for my name to write on the cup, like what the barristers do in Starbucks. I told him, “Yu Wei.” Pause. “Can you repeat that?” he asked politely. Me: ”Oh, it’s Yu Wei – Y-U, W-E-I” I waited as another guy blended my drink and when it was done, he looked at the cup,
looked up at me bemusedly, held out the cup with “Y-U” written on it with a thick black marker and asked tentatively, “Are you… You?” I was so embarrassed. I realised the first staff had left out half my name. That’s fine, some Chinese people only have one character in their name, like one of the sworn brothers to a feudal lord in the Chinese Han Dynasty, Guan (last name) Yu (first name). The problem was there was no phonetic equivalent in English for ‘Yu’, and it’s commonly mispronounced ‘You’. So basically, I didn’t want people calling me ‘You’. That’s not me. But why change my name? Was I sure I wanted to change my identity? Halfway through Fresher’s Week, this was what a friend living on the same corridor (that was when Old Cripps still existed) asked me. I realised that by changing my name, I was acknowledging that English is superior to other languages. Undeniably, English is THE language for cross-boundary communication and commerce, and also the language used in
academic publications. Admittedly, a huge proportion of humanity’s knowledge is recorded in English, but another culture cannot take form in English, like how it is impossible to translate a poem from one language to another without losing some of its meaning. Despite its importance as a global language, English has no claim to being the ‘best language’ or the most efficient one – in fact, no language can. Its use as a global language only reflects the power of its speakers, historically with the colonialization of East Asian countries by the British Empire and in more recent times, the rise of America as a global superpower. But even now, the rush for people worldwide to learn English continues the cultural hegemony. Singapore, where I’m from, struggles to maintain a balance between practicality and identity. Language policies drafted out after Singapore’s independence implemented the learning of English as a first language and mother tongues as a second language in order to eradicate language barriers within the community, and crucially, to put Singaporeans in an adequate position to interact with foreigners. However, promoting English as a first language turned out to be more difficult that it seemed, especially in an environment where there was already a mixture of languages used by the community. Singapore
English acquired borrowed words from mainly Malay, Chinese, Hokkien (a Chinese dialect) and saw a complete revamp, or demolition, of English grammar (How ironic that despite its fame for law abiding citizens and stringent laws, Singapore failed to command adherence to the linguistic rules of English!) to the extent that native English speakers find baffling. At the same time as Singlish, a morphed, mangled English, thrived, there was a worrying drop in the standard of mother tongues. Today, with dwindling numbers of Chinese dialect speakers (mainly within the pioneer generation), and as the Chinese population switch to using English/Singlish over Mandarin even at homes, we can see with hindsight the threat that English posed to our mother tongues. This situation is not unique to Singapore. Within the United Kingdom, Welsh is dying out. Attempts to revive the language have not seen much success as youths find less opportunity to use it and much less need for it, for they are constantly bombarded with English. However, while English may be sufficient and even desirable for all our practical needs, the culture embodied by the English language does not represent all the diversity in the world. The endangerment of languages as English takes the world stage is a cause for concern,
because in what other language other than Welsh can you find a place named Llanfair-pwllgwyngy llgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch? And how many people in the world outside the village of Tuva, Russia, think about the future as behind them, unknowable, and their past deeds, unchangeable, in front of them? As languages vanish, so does the culture, and along with it invaluable ways of perceiving the world. Let’s go back to the corridor in Old Cripps. There, I explained my encounter at Jamba Juice. But my friend didn’t accept that. He didn’t think I should change my name to make it easier for native English speakers like him, and what he said in reply was “Let us try.” So, My English Name didn’t even last a week. Now, when I sign off my emails with Yu Wei and get a reply beginning with “Dear Yu”, I cringe as I imagine the sender typing it and mentally reading out “Dear You…” complete with an English accent. (Surely it’s rude to address someone this way...) But do I regret sticking to my birth name? Definitely not. Can the beauty of mother tongues survive the onslaught of English? Can heavily accented English not be perceived as incompetence? And is it too idealistic for English to embrace the cultural diversity of the world? I think we can try.
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It’s 8am. I wake up and almost blind myself by looking out of the window. It’s thirty degrees already and the power of sun streaming through the glass is unbelievable. It couldn’t feel further away from the dreary grey skies of the English autumn that I’m used to.
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Sao Paulo Clara Buxton
Time to ar-strength
apply
my nuclesun-cream.
challenge: British people tend to think that people approaching them on the street means they are about to be robbed. You get used to it. Quickly, you realise that people here simply value family and friendship to the extent that it’s practically indiscriminate. Sometimes the initial connections I’ve had with people have been pretty tenuous: my-uncle’s-cousin’sfriend, my aunt’s-friend’s-parents, the-guy-who-stood-behind-me-inthe-queue-for-a-coffee: but it didn’t matter one bit to them, and I was promptly whisked away to restaurants, clubs and parties, treated like one of the family within five minutes.
I’ve been living here in São Paulo Brazil for a while now. As the largest city in South America with a staggering 20 million inhabitants living in the metropolitan area, it presented quite a contrast to the Norfolk countryside where I live with my family. One of the most important things here is taking time out to explore. At first it feels like you’re impossi- For a city that’s generally labelled bly far from home: for Brits who are “ugly”, there are pockets of incredraised to be practically allergic to ible urban and natural beauty and public displays of affection, the Bra- the most impressive thing is that zilians seem absurdly full-on. Step- these natural and man-made eleping out onto the street, I am sur- ments coexist harmoniously somerounded by couples snogging and times even within the same street. frequently approached by strangers Parque Ibirapuera is a sprawling riot who genuinely just want to have a of palm trees, an oasis of tranquilchat and make friends... with an- lity, encased on three sides by the yone, anytime. Initially, this was a modernist skyscrapers and the fran-
tic busyness of the commercial and financial districts. The neighbourhood of Liberdade feels like a world of its own. It’s the city’s Japanese district and is in fact the world’s largest Japanese community living outside of Japan. Frequented by the self-styled “Japa-zilians”, the neighbourhood is the perfect example of São Paulo’s ethnic and social diversity. Like the rest of the city, it teems with life 24/7: full of opportunities to experience music, food and the local culture. São Paulo’s street-art subculture is also particularly impressive. Instead of being repressed, here, graffiti and street-art is embraced fully. The city’s dull, grey concrete jungle is brought to life by the imaginations of the local street-artists, scattering their work all over underpasses, subway stations, pavements and tower blocks.
forget about the monumental social problems that Brazil faces: poverty, inequality, violence. However, later on, further down the road it’s as if somebody has taken two entirely contradictory images and spliced them together, simultaneously running scenes from holiday brochures and horror films. On the one hand what I see before me is a South American dream - stylish, tanned business-people leading fabulously affluent and exciting lives, but they walk briskly past scenes of desperate poverty. Homeless men and women, some with obvious disabilities, line the pavements of the city’s most affluent and famous Avenue. It’s hard to watch everyone walk past them, as if they are ghosts. I stop after I spot a man who I’ve seen sleeping outside my apartment building and I run into a coffee shop and buy him a sandwich for lunch with less than the equivalent of an English pound. He asks me my name and I ask his;
I’ve left the apartment a little late and I’m supposed to be having lunch with a friend. Walking down “I’m Clara, what’s your name?” some parts of Paulista Avenue, the “God bless you Clara. I’m Eduardo.” city’s most famous boulevard, on my way to the metro, it’s too easy to I don’t catch all of the rest of what
he’s saying. He speaks quickly with a thick accent but I hear him make a joke about how pale I am. He recommends I stay in Brazil forever – he says the sun will do me good. He says that one day he’ll buy me a sandwich in return. I carry on walking feeling like we’ve both made each other’s day a little better. I realise that that’s what I love most about Brazil, its joie de vivre and its optimism. It feels like a country that tackles its problems with irreverence and good humour and surrounded by people like that, you can’t help but fall in love with it.
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Past shows
It may have a dubious reputation in the world of entertainment – improv is variously criticised for being easy, contrived or immature. But improvised comedy isn’t just a cost-effective means of manufacturing laughter – it’s also a highly effective weapon in the battle to maintain our sanity.
Interpersonal contact 10 kiwi
The benefits of improv comedy Alan Beaumont
For those of us who are perhaps less socially proactive than others, Cambridge, despite its abundance of activities and of people our age, can sometimes be quite a lonely place. Crippled by the relentless avalanche of work, we all need an organised outlet to save us from yet another evening of brooding and guilt-ridden Netflix binging. But what do you do if you don’t fancy sport, you were never that great an actor at school, you think nightclubs are ear-melting hell-pits where hedonism goes to die and your musical efforts have produced nothing but frustrations and occasional complaint from the neighbours? You might be interested in meeting up with a group of very friendly people whose common interest is meeting up once or twice a week to talk nonsense.
A Healthy Ego “But I’m not funny!” you say. To which I respond “Have you ever made anyone laugh?” The answer is rarely “No.” It’s much less about inherent funniness and a lot more about being comfortable in certain contexts. We’re all funny when we’re at the pub with our mates. Improv training just takes that level of comfort and transfers it to the workshop or to the stage. Our ability to make people laugh is often a big part of our selfesteem, so it’s nice to be reminded that we have it.
Physical Exercise Okay, I mean it won’t replace your gym sessions. No-one ever got their perfect beach bod through improv. But scenes are at least done standing up, usually, and the good ones tend to involve some kind of movement (though American improvisers sometimes lament the British emphasis on laconic quips over stagecraft and well-executed object work.) And the benefits even short periods of movement speak for themselves. Those few extra weeks you might gain in your late nineties could be the best of your life!
Creativity and Spontaneity It’s tremendously satisfying to build something. The bonus with improv is, if it’s crap, you don’t have to go away and perfect it. You can start on something new. In fact, you have to. Some sceptics of improv seem to doubt the authenticity of the spontaneity in improv shows, suspecting that perhaps entire narrative frameworks are pre-set, or certain characters are workshopped beforehand, or maybe even the dialogue secretly rehearsed only to be slipped into future shows. In fact, shows in which anyone tries to bring in pre-planned constraints or material are invariably less funny for it. Spontaneity is funny, because it allows a glimpse into the workings of the human mind as they happen. It’s also liberating for the same reason – it allows the mind to breathe. You can’t afford to be guarded in improv – consider your words too closely and the rhythm of the scene will be compromised. You have no choice but to be free. Luckily you don’t go it alone – someone else is constantly giving you new ideas to work with, and together you can create something beautiful. If the Socratic Method is good enough for education and philosophy, why not then for comedy?
The License to be Silly An unfortunately large proportion of our degrees seems to revolve around reading or listening to very serious people talking very seriously about very serious things. This seriousness frequently bleeds over into our term-time conversations, which have a depressing tendency to be about work, or about other Very Serious Things. The constant process of education and self-improvement that we put ourselves through is a tremendously important part of our development as academics, as citizens and as human beings, but the brutality of this regime can sometimes drive us into rather dark corners. A brief bout of mild depression I experienced in Lent of second year might have been more brief and more mild had I not had recourse to allocated slots of silliness. Mental health, as we know, is a massive issue at this University of ours, so if regular injections of absurdity can help us to cope with the absurdity that surrounds us in this ridiculous place, I say it’s well worth taking them.
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Join them: Workshops at 7pm on Thursdays in the z-basement of Christ’s college Watch them: AT the selwyn snowball! In week 7 of lent term in the corpus playrooms! Find them on facebook at ‘The Cambridge Impronaughts’ 5 STar rating from the kiwi
SVERDLOVSK FRANCIS SCARR 12 kiwi
Although I awaited my departure to Yekaterinburg with immense excitement and impatience, it was undoubtedly coupled with a degree of trepidation. After all, I was set for the land of Putin, resurgent Slavic nationalism and frankly speaking, a second world country where vodka has a more than discernible and not at all comical effect on life expectancy. But to paint Russia in such pessimistic terms would be a grave mistake, as I was soon to discover. While this country does harbour a great number of pressing social issues, these problems and the general state of the nation are seemingly far more nuanced than much of the Western press would have one believe.
receive my bedsheets, pillow and blanket in the morning, consigning me to a jet-lagged night on a sunken bed of worn-out wire with an inchthick mattress. The following day presented me with a trawl between several faceless offices to sign, collect and pay for documents amid hours in queues. This included a trip to the local hospital to receive my second HIV test. I was much dismayed that as my blood was taken, the door remained closed for my privacy, but for the Tajiks and Uzbeks it remained open for the corridor to see. I was very dismayed as she clearly perceived them as inferior to me, a fellow white European, and took a clear measure to distinguish me from them.
The city formerly known as Sverdlovsk, is a major industrial city nestled in the Ural mountains. After just six weeks, I have already collected a plethora of bizarre experiences.
I witnessed the creation of some of Russia’s many scarcely credible Youtube and Vine productions. Picture a motorcycle parked in one of the city’s main squares during surrounded by a crowd and a cameraman. Upon this motorcycle sits a scantily clad woman throwing her hair back in a great brunette cascade. My only assumption is that this was being filmed for some Russian R’n’B music video. These videos seem to be played non-stop in canteens and arguably symbolise Russia’s absorption of Western popular culture since the fall of the Soviet Union. This is the country of which Putin finds himself in charge - torn between those who
Awaiting my transfer flight at Domededovo airport in Moscow, I received the unrestrained wrath of a babushka for an unintentional brush from my arm on hers as we sat beside one another on a bench. It wasn’t the warmest welcome as I arrived in my new home. In my student halls, I was indifferently directed to my uninviting new bed. I was subsequently told that I would
are deemed unwilling to adapt to a ‘democratic’ country and those of the younger generation who crave the ‘modernisation’ and technology courtesy of Western values. It would be wrong to denounce Russia as a backward country, for its culture is unfathomably rich, but in many respects it is clear that it has not yet made the strides towards ideals of ‘modernisation’ that were promised by many of its leaders in the past. After no more than a morning of rain, the city’s lack of adequate drainage becomes apparent when the roads flood. After such a morning I found myself in a suburb of the city known as Uralmash (Mash being short for ‘mashinostroiteliy zavod’ or ‘machine construction factory’, so called after an enormous plant built in 1933 as part of the Soviet Union’s heavy industrial drive). Standing at a pedestrian crossing waiting for the green light, I noticed a man standing just to my side, and although initially I paid little attention to him, I suddenly stopped and turned around after cautiously beginning to tread through the puddles, since he had decided not to follow me across. He muttered something and without warning sprang onto my back and told me to lift him across the road so that he could keep his feet dry. Almost too much in shock to respond adequately, I continued across, trying to shake him off after clearing the first set of puddles, but
he insisted on holding on to me. Having reached the other side, he stretched out a hand to thank me, and with alcohol-riddled breath declared me a ‘silniy paren’ or ‘strong lad’. I suppose I was glad to receive such a pleasantry after what had begun as a quite disconcerting experience. It seems that everyone at home wants to know how Russians really view Putin. What I have discovered in my brief time here is that the situation differs not only from the widely-held fear that he has an entire nation under his propagandistic spell, but also from the vain and misguided hope among those in the West who presume that Russians crave a democracy like ours, and furthermore, that with a little Western interference, Putin will be toppled in a fantastic democratic victory. Rather, it would seem that the truth is more ambiguous. In short, a lot of those Russians who for many years lived under Soviet rule are very content to continue consuming the output of the unequivocally proPutin, state-owned press, whilst the overwhelming majority of people are indifferent to a political situation which, in their eyes, has little potential for change, so isn’t worth their time, energy or concerns. To adopt the cliched view that Russia can only function with an autocratic ruler is an unnecessary and negligent over-simplification,
but equally to assume that a helping hand from the ignorant West can ‘solve’ the situation holds little water in any meaningful consideration of the Slavic world order. Aside from the initial unwelcoming coldness manifested by a small number of Russians, the people of Yekaterinburg have been largely magnanimous and cordial to me, an often confused and somewhat defenceless foreign student. I am still yet to encounter another British national, and whilst the 13 warmheartedness shown to me often kiwi seems a direct result of my apparent ‘exoticism’ in these distant parts, the friendship offered to me, someone often left stranded and exposed on the vast beach of inter-linguistic misunderstanding, has so far proven genuine and sincere. Nonetheless, whilst wishing to combat such stereotypes of Russians, I must concede that a beating in a sauna with a thorny branch of heather, moments before a chilly plunge in a nearby stream is not quite what the English would deem a great show of friendship. But I do appreciate their willingness to involve me in their ancient traditions. After all, the birch and pine branches didn’t cause me too much discomfort, so I’ll just opt for one of those next time.
‘Where are you really from?’ is something that is often asked of me. It is a question that for most of my life I did not think much of, however, recently I have been thinking more about the presumptions and intent behind such a question. I am originally from Afghanistan, my parents and I were refugees in Pakistan, until we came to the UK, when I was aged 10. Growing up with the varying cultures of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UK meant that I grew up with a sense of being the ‘Other’. I am perceived as not being Afghan enough, not Pakistani enough, and not British enough. I did not really further examine this beyond awkward interactions when kiwi I would not know how to respond to such a question. This was until I studied theories of identity formation and the creation of state. It was fascinating that despite states
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and the creation of their boundaries being a relatively new phenomenon, the concepts of national identity and patriotism is so widespread. Previous to the creation of states and the myths that now surround this, people identified with their tribes, their cultures and shared experiences which arose from shared locality. It was after this that I have been more interested in the foundations of questions like these. This does not mean to say I believe the people who ask such questions have malicious intent; rather it is perceived as being a harmless query. Yet these questions relate to vastly bigger issues surrounding identity and the created myth of the ‘Other’. I suppose the people who ask such questions just really want to categorise new acquaintances. However, this does translate to them being a Eurocentric colonialist, who will make vastly racists assumptions regarding your character. Similar questions
‘But where are you really from?’ Meena Masood
were asked of me during my visits to Afghanistan, and the short period where I resided there during my gap year. Despite the fact that I spoke fluent Farsi and some not so fluent Pashto, I would get asked the same questions after which I would get dismissed as being ‘not Afghan enough’. This again addresses similar concerns, despite a lack of malicious intent these questions show that however much we would like to believe in our forward thinking natures and our developed capabilities when it comes to issues of race and identity. There is still reminiscence of certain preconceived notions, which should be examined further, if we are to truly consider ourselves multicultural and more importantly progressive. Perhaps what we should instead ask is where people are local to. This has different connotations; and it was the purpose of writer and photog-
rapher Taiye Selasi’s Ted talk. She argued identity is formed from experience which established locality to a region rather than reiterating statehood. This to me seemed like a better way of categorising. My formative years were predominantly situated in Manchester, where I have spent most of my life, I have more in common more with fellow ‘Mancs’ than I do with an Afghan immigrant, of similar background residing in London or New York. This is due to my experiences in Manchester rather than my nationhood or my status as a resident of a particular country. Examining my identity in this manner means I am firstly I am a local of Manchester, specifically to Moss Side and Hulme, because of the familiarity of the routes I have been taking for the last ten years or so, and the memories of my schools and friends. Also it is the place where most of my identity has developed in. Addition-
ally, I am a local of Sheffield, where I have been studying the past 3 years because of my appreciation for the local falafel place everyone praises, and the shared hatred of walking up and down treacherous hills, especially on freezing winter mornings. I am a local of Kabul, Afghanistan, where the scents and common language is pleasantly familiar. These were not places I was familiar and local to from the start, instead they are places I have formed bonds with, because of the experiences I have there and through the people I have formed connections with. I guess the purpose of this is to then make people examine their intensions, next time we want to ask someone where they are from, per- 15 haps we should pause and examine kiwi why we want to ask this, instead enquiring where people are local too as that is significantly more informative.
The ‘f’ word Zoe Debess It’s satisfying when we can tell things apart. The more different two things are, the easier they are to distinguish from one another, and thus understand as separate entities. That’s why we raise the contrast in photographs— to make the blacks darker and the whites brighter. But in doing so, we mute the grey. That’s fine for a picture, less so for people. Our grey matters. Particularly when it comes to sexuality.
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Another issue I have with the term bisexual is that, in my mind at least, it doesn’t leave much room for non-binary individuals. There are many reasons why the gender binary and its dismissal of androgyny is deeply flawed, but from a purely idiosyncratic perspective it doesn’t make much sense to describe my sexuality as split between men and women given I have been attracted to people who identify as neither.
A third problem I have when deciding what to pigeon-hole myself as is that, despite going to an all-girl’s school, I didn’t realise my ‘potential’ to be attracted to anything other than men until I was 18. Until then, I’d identified as straight. Does the fact that I then went on to feel attraction towards more than one gender invalidate my previous identity? I don’t see why. People change. All the time. Changing doesn’t make the way you were previously incorrect. And while some people do experience their gender and sexuality After much deliberation, I’ve come as fixed, overall, change in regards to realise that I don’t feel com- to sexuality is grossly underestifortable identifying as bisexual mated. The prevailing assumption because the prefix bi means two, still seems to be that sexuality is and I don’t see my sexuality as di- pre-determined, rigid, and in most vided into two contrasting halves. cases exclusive to one sex. On All I know is that I am capable of the latter point in particular, this feeling attraction towards people could not be further from the case. who do not necessarily have a set gender identity and expression. Studies into sexuality really took off in the 1990s in the form of ‘coming out models’, which examined the I’ve always had a problem with calling myself bisexual. Initially I thought it was because I wasn’t comfortable with my sexuality— that I hadn’t experienced enough with ‘both’ genders to come to a solid conclusion of ‘bisexuality’. And for a long time, I didn’t know what to say when people asked me about what I identified as. I would give myself labels I didn’t feel 100% comfortable with, and then go away and compulsively replay and reword my answer.
developmental trajectories of people’s sexuality. The work of psychologist Carla Golden which hinted at the more fluid nature of women’s sexuality, led Lisa Diamond on a quest to discover a relatively untapped area: that of sexual fluidity. Since physiological arousal is only a very crude measure of sexuality, it’s more constructive to work along self-defined categories. When it comes to self-report measures, the results from 12 studies into sexuality conducted between 1992 and 2010, with hefty sample sizes ranging from 800-20,000, consistently show that in a group of people who are not heterosexual, approximately only 5% of women and 21% of men identify as exclusively homosexual. In other words, 95% of women and 79% of men who have felt same-sex attraction have also, continuously or at some point in their lives, felt other-sex attraction. That’s an awful lot of non-exclusivity and sexual fluidity. Even among those identifying as exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, there seems to be a considerable amount of flexibility. In a 10year longitudinal study conducted by Diamond, nearly half of lesbian-identified women and 40% of gay-identified men reported some degree of attraction to the opposite sex in the previous year, with 42% of the women and 31% of the men reporting having masturbated to
fantasies about men and women respectively. But that’s just the beginning. A quarter of the lesbians and a fifth of the gay men reported actually wanting to have sex with a member of the opposite sex in the previous year, with 9% of the women and 12% of the men doing so.
In the same study, fluidity of identity was also explored, with 11% of lesbians and 18% of gay men saying they also currently thought of themselves as bisexual, while three quarters of bisexual women and over a half of bisexual men said they had previously identified as homosexual.
When it came to the straight people, she saw a similar picture: half of women and a quarter of men reported same sex attraction, a third of women and a quarter of men reported same-sex fantasies, and finally 2% of women and 9% of men reported same-sex contact.
It seems slightly queer, then (if I may) that the letter F doesn’t feature more prominently in the LGBTQ+ acronym. It should be made better known just how common sexual fluidity is—both in terms of seeing gender as fluid, as well as accounting for temporal fluidity. And that change over the lifespan
doesn’t necessarily make your previous identity wrong, or a ‘phase’. For many, many people, sexuality isn’t black and white. It’s grey. Disclaimer: It feels wrong of me not to acknowledge the glaring contraction that the above studies fall prey to: that of talking about sexual fluidity, whilst completely ignoring gender fluidity. The samples referenced divide participants into cis-gendered men and women. In no study mentioned is there any consideration of trans and non-binary peo- 17 ple. I condemn this and studies of kiwi any kind must start accounting for trans* and non-binary people if we are to have a better understanding.
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In defence of pacifism and jeremy corbyn Georgina Ogilvie
With a 60% constituency majority and just under 60% of the ‘firstpreference’ votes in the leadership election, Jeremy Corbyn has been and continues to be ‘electable’. The Labour MP’s that put Corbyn on the ballot box may have done so ‘to open up the debate’ but they were also in touch with their constituents. Such is the proper role of the people’s representative. They were aware of the people’s will thanks to the modern and highly organised socialmedia campaign behind Jeremy that went on at the level of individuals united over Facebook and Twitter. The constant and unrelenting attack of the mainstream media on Jeremy Corbyn only resolves supporters even more - but to persuade others, social media is the best form of subversive media we have.
bridges with Scotland and the North. Jeremy Corbyn will go head-to-head with others in Parliament calling for air strikes in Syria. In light of recent events, it is now more important than ever to understand that peace is an option. Those asking for war are not Syrian, watching their homes burn from the sky. They are not the innocents who are going to die, or live with their children dead from faceless, inaccurate explosions. Such attacks will achieve nothing besides a higher death toll and worsening ethnic and religious relations. We’ve been in this situation before and it is now consensus that the Iraq war was wrong. So why are we asking for more ‘intervention’ that we know to be devastating and ineffective? There’s already an attack right here in England. People perceived as Muslims are being assaulted Young people who are now coming in England at a higher rate than into their twenties, fully articulate in ever, with the majority of victims Twitter and Facebook are amongst the being women aged 14-45 wearing ranks of those driving the movement. Islamic dress, such as the hijab. The Yet here we have another common perpetrators were mainly white myth surrounding ‘Corbyn-mania’; males aged 15-35. (Source: The namely that it was the realm and Independent) passion of the young. To those who attended the events of his campaign, Jeremy Corbyn is fighting a very it was immediately clear that it was difficult battle to save lives and not only young people who were counter widespread fear as a interested in the politics of Corbyn. politician. We must be right behind As a twenty year old, I was amongst him and help protect innocent the very youngest at the event – my people, please speak out if you see parents, both retired teachers – were it happen in England – and speak much more unremarkable amongst out against those calling for more the huge crowd, the likes of which attacks on innocent people, under the other political figures dream misguided understanding of the of. It is up to Labour now to come matter at hand. together as a party and repair broken
Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots War Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. - Wilfred Owen
Charalabos Akrivopoulos imprisoned for concientious objection in Greece‘I refuse to bear arms and harm total strangers’
fire
High-wired and fuel ridden their toes withdraw in fear of dying. What do you hear? Gun shots, army trucks skidding tires whose squeaks were once minaret adhan Your grandparents are now buried beneath the mountains of your sacred pasts, the rubble of disturbed memories and American deeds, what can we heed? “Saddam, Saddam!” They cry out for the despot whose regime was better than the conditions are now. Iraqis are dying, hundreds by the day and here we stay watching films whose figures spit on the fires of war from so far away, I cry to help put out the flames. - Farrah Sarafa
19 kiwi
The importance of debate 20 kiwi
Maheen Behrana
Everyone loves a good debate. Or do they? Many people say that they fear getting up and arguing for something they are passionate about more than they fear death. This position, though it sounds extreme, is not so unusual, and it seems (in my biased opinion) a real shame. We’re always debating, all the time - we debate with our friends (otherwise known as ‘banter’), our supervisors (proper banter), and even ourselves, when making those difficult decisions about whether to stay in and work, or do the alternative: procrastinate. These may seem like very minor instances, and I’m not gong to pretend that they aren’t, but realistically, I believe that we all have it in us to get up and debate - and further to that, I think we all should. It won’t take much for me to make this article fit into the theme of ‘contrast’; in fact, I don’t even have to - debating is all about celebrating exactly that. This term, the Union held a referendum on whether Julian Assange should be invited to speak via live video-link. The result was an overwhelming yes vote from its members. Now, whatever your views on the Union, or on the outcome of the vote, one great thing about all this is it provoked yet more debate. And Assange’s appearance at the Union (still to happen at the
time of writing), is bound to provoke even more. I appreciate I might be starting to sound a bit like a serial debater; someone who wants an argument just for the sake of having one, but what was great about it was that people from all viewpoints got to have their voices heard - through the student newspapers, the radio, and even in an Emergency Debate at the Union itself. Fair enough, the circumstances surrounding the whole referendum were mired in controversy, but at least there were so many different avenues for people to articulate exactly how they felt. So why does this matter? I’m perilously on the verge of writing a highly cliched article about the importance of free speech, and how we should exercise our rights to it, but that isn’t quite the essence of what I want to get at. It is the actual act/art of debating that I want to champion here. Being able to exercise our rights to free speech is all well and good, but sometimes, you need an arena to do it in. If for example, I wanted to make it known that I thought football was essentially a demonstration of hooliganism (not necessarily my view, just the first thing that came into my head), then where would I go? I could tell my parents, but they might just agree; I could tell my
friends, but they might just laugh. If I wanted a real argument, you might suggest that I go tell a crowd of football supporters, but they might just beat me up. Now if I tell people who I know will agree, my views will go unchallenged, and if I tell people who I know will disagree in a non-neutral environment, both me and my views might be subjected to more than just scrutiny. That is why I would say it is important to have neutral platforms where people can express their views, and contrasts can freely emerge. That is what I think debate is all about, and I think it does us all good every once in a while to subject (not ourselves) but our ideas to rigorous verbal attacks. Usually, you end up realising that neither you, nor the opposing side is exactly right, but sometimes, it is nice (for the ego) to smugly come away, thinking yourself even more right than before. A debate should ideally take place on a neutral platform - without this, it’s not really a proper debate at all. We’re always going to find views that we don’t like, and even those we genuinely don’t want to hear but if we don’t hear these views in
a safe space where they can be challenged, then where will we hear them? These views don’t just disappear because we don’t wish them to be heard, but simply slip underground to passive, and accepting audiences - and that is where they become harmful, insidious ideas, which can grow and develop unchecked. If we don’t allow for our differences, if we don’t actively seek to find the contrasts from person to person, we will never understand each other, or ourselves properly. We should debate, and enjoy our debates. We should debate things both big and small, so we can work out where our reasoning is wrong, and where it is right. And most importantly, we should all do it, because everyone has opinions and thoughts which make them who they are - and it is the best way for us to get to know each other, and realise that, just because we disagree, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still talk to each other, or even, like each other. And so, if you do disagree with anything I’ve said, then please tell me - I want to know; I’m always up for a good debate.
21 kiwi
Sermon trans day of rememberance
Scott Summers
1 John 4 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
The reading we just heard was all about love; But I often think that we use the word ‘love’ far too often. I love bourbons and Harry potter headcanons. I love my parents. If you’re in a relationship you might say that you love your partner or partners. I love my friends, I love your dress, I love ice cream, I love this show; the words ‘I love’ encase and frame our every-day lives; But what do we understand them to mean? In a Christian context, I wonder how often we stop and think about what it means for God to say Ze loves us. For me, Christ symbolises perfect, radical love. We are not loved in a way which is over-used and maybe even meaningless, but in a way which is inexpressibly meaningful, such that no amount of re-stating the sentence “you are loved” can even begin to touch the deep wells and mines of God’s love for us. We are not loved in spite of who we are. You are, each and every one of you, unique manifestations of the ever-varied and ceaseless outpourings of God’s own heart. In the prism of each human soul, the divine light is fractured, so that from each of us, a different colour shines forth. In every single one of us, Christ’s love and beauty can be found in a way different to any other human person. There isn’t any one way to be human, and there isn’t one true Im-
age of God. Each of us is a mirror, reflecting different facets of the ever-moving, ever-loving Godhead, overflowing into infinity. This God, the God of truly wide and all-encompassing love cannot be limited into binary structures of gender, or patriarchal favouritism. Ze is not rigid. Ze is alive with fierce and abundant, pure and burning love for all Zyr children. And when we stop imposing narratives on Zyr children – when we step back and give individuals the space to let their own unique divine colours flicker forth into life, then we will see more and more and more of Christ in this world. We must dare to see the divine, not only in others, but also in ourselves. For, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” In the verses between those read out the words run, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” It is a rebellion against the forces of this world when we choose to love ourselves and others in the face of hatred. It is a revolution in the shape of torn hands and feet, and arms open wide on a cross of love. This revolution of love will sweep away the old barriers between us and within us; in Christ’s love we can all be made one. It is not enough to mourn and remember those who are gone, although this is important. We must learn to love not only those who are alienated and demon-
ised, but we must also dare to do the same for ourselves. We must take off our blinkered glasses and revel in the beauty of Christ which flows uniquely from every single person. Christ is present with trans people in the unspeakable suffering they experience. The weight of the cross is carried by those who are burdened by the prejudices of our cisnormative society, the sour wine and the jeers of the onlookers can be found in the hatred and harassment which trans people – and especially transfeminine people and WOC experience every day just for walking down the street. What people do not realise is that the crown of thorns is also a halo, and when we rise in love, we rise in glory and splendour, and God shines forth from our stigmata. There is an overflowing of Easter in every soul, waiting, waiting. Our God is the God of light, but Ze is also the God of darkness, of the periphery and the margins. For those who have been alienated and accused, avoided and misunderstood, the God of darkness enfolds us in Zyr warmth, in the darkly loving womb of the Divine heart. As the words of that hymn go, “The God of the day is still God in the night”. So then, let us love and be loved, because of and not in spite of our differences. These are merely different ways of manifesting Christ, after all. And if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.