18.01.07 back at the oxford union

courtesy reba's cell phone

This week has been relatively mellow... attending the new classes, meeting my new study group, doing readings without 10 projects hanging over my head, etc. Some of the new subjects and professors are actually pretty darn compelling. The Macroeconomics prof looks like an Israeli Christopher Walken, and is totally deadpan in class. Very serious and very knowledgeable. The subject itself is really interesting, I'll get miles of use out of it at cocktail parties. The other winner this term is Operations Management. This appears to be about designing and improving business systems, creating processes, and generally how you make things work well. After all the endless pontificating about innovation in my other classes, a class with a focus on efficiency and control is really refreshing. That probably sounds weird.

One of my professors is also a fellow at Merton, and wants to have me and some of the dudes over for High Table. That will be fun. I've done it one time before, and it's quite an experience. Basically, in the older Oxford college dining halls, there are long tables with benches that the graduate and undergraduate students sit at. At one end of the room, and often on a raised dais, there is a smaller table (the High Table) that the fellows, warden and various mucky mucks sit at. The Hogwarts dining hall in the Harry Potter stories has a similar setup. And it should, as the Hogwarts dining hall scenes are all filmed in the dining hall at Christ Church (the most famous and fanciest of Oxford colleges). At Merton, there are two sittings for dinner every night. One is regular hall, where everyone sits at the benches, and wears whatever they like. The other is formal hall, which occurs right after regular hall, where everyone has to dress in suits, ties, and robes. At the beginning of formal hall, a small, kind of hidden door at the back of the dais opens, and the fellows all come striding out and stand at their places on the high table. Everyone else has to stand at this point, and somebody (usually a vicar, I think) reads a prayer in latin. When the prayer is done, everyone sits back down and starts their meal. The folks at the high table get wine, and fancier food than the rest of the room. Also, you can't leave the hall until after the warden and fellows leave. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The whole high table process is more complicated than this, even. For people dining at the high table, the evening starts out with sherry and typical smartypants Oxford discussion in a room (the "queen's room"... long story) behind the dais. Then the high table people come out, the prayer etc., ensues, then dinner, and then after desert, they leave for the Saville Room. This is a room off of the main dining hall. In this room, "second deserts" are served. This is where everyone from the high table sits at a big long table, and chows a second desert and passes desert wines around the table. For a LONG time. After about and hour and a half of this, the party then goes up a staircase to ANOTHER room and drinks more: cognac, scotch, etc. I don't know what this room is called, but it's kind of what you would imagine a back room at an old Oxford college would be like: tall engraved ceilings, fancy old antique furniture, white walls, paintings of old guys with sideburns, and oh yeah, a whole room full of people in dark suits and robes drinking. Yup, that's my school! Crazy. The last time I did this, I went to formal hall at 7:30, and didn't get home until after midnight. Totally DRUNK.

I suppose I'd better get on to the subject of this post: the union. I wrote a bit about the Oxford Union in a previous post. Tonight I went to see a Tory member of parliament, a play-write, a UK govt official, a woman who was captured by the Taliban and set free and then took up Islam, and a bunch of students debate about whether or not veils (ie Muslim veils) are a barrier to integration. There were two sides, one for the assertion (yes it is a barrier) and one against (no it's not a barrier). My review of their performance:

Student debator 1 (white english undergrad): Poor. Lots of hand waving, witty comments, very groovy velvet tuxedo jacket, but a poorly constructed argument. Main point was that the veil "is a barrier" (whatever) and incites violence against muslim women.

Student debator 2 (black african grad student): Killer. This guy was so polished, I couldn't believe it. No notes, sharp wit, logical points, completely skewered #1. His basic point is that the reaction against the veil is not actually against the veil, but a racist reaction against brown people and an islamophobic reaction against muslims. Also pointed out that Britain is multicultural and pluralist, and therefore should support citizens who want to wear veils.

UK govt official (white south african): Poor. Had a couple of good points, but ran on and on and on. Bellowed at people when the audience clearly wasn't convinced by his arguments. Did point out rather inelegantly that in British culture covered (masked) faces are typically equated with criminals. Swerved into a semi anti-islamic rant, and quoted some cuckoo imam that justified rape of scantily clothed women with an elaborate metaphor about cats and meat in your back yard.

Play-write (white english super liberal dude): OK. Had some pretty good points, clearly has a heckofa grasp of the English language, but sort of read from a script and didn't annunciate well. Usual liberal stuff about how people should be able to do what they want and we should respect them even though he's actually an atheist (go atheists!) and a bunch of obscure British historical references that I didn't get.

Tory MP (white english dude): Pretty good. This guy was clearly an accomplished public speaker, but focused too much on humour. Pointed out that Britain has it's own traditions and cultural norms, and people should respect them too. One of these is that masked people get a weird reaction. Also pointed out that if you can't see someone's face, it is somewhat of a security risk. This made sense in light of the current security issues in the UK and also just for the fact that some criminals recently have eluded the police by wearing full burkas. This guy was still pretty right wing for me.

Chick who got captured by the Taliban (white middle aged English lefty feminist in a headscarf): Awful. A couple of good bitchy comments, but mostly a shrill feminist rant with an islamic bent. Refused to accept debate from the audience... in the union, when you are speaking, others can stand up and make a comment or clarification, but only if you say they can. while you can keep out dissenting opinions this way, you look pretty poor if you're not willing to take and argue others' points. A lot of the typical "you don't know anything about Islam so shut up" and "you're a man, so what business have you in telling women what they can wear so shut up", ranting about "sisters" and "movements", and bla bla.

Various comments from the student audience: pretty good, actually. Some really interesting for and again points. Not always super elegant, but pretty darn good.

My thoughts, culled from the evening's points...

1. If you want to wear a veil, fine. Knock yourself out.

2. You're wasting your time because there IS no God, and wearing a veil because some medieval dude wrote down that God wants you to wear a robe and a billowy hat is just pointless. Just as pointless as the crazy getups that christian clergy wear... "purple robes and a pointy hat" as our ex-Taliban prisoner pointed out tonight. But then you'd expect an atheist to say that. And, I go to Oxford where they make you wear LOTS of silly pointless outfits, so I can't really be too judgemental here. :)

3. If you move to Britain and think that you're just going to "fit right in" because you out to be able to, even though you're wearing a getup that is totally weird to most Britons, and in fact, makes most Britons feel a little bit uncomfortable, you're deluding yourself. This shouldn't prevent you from achieving all sorts of great things in your life, but it certainly WILL prevent you from fitting it, integrating, etc. to some extent. Is that really a surprise? How about this: how well do you think you'd fit in in Saudi if you wore a typical Friday night Oxford townie boobieshirt, muffin-top-miniskirt and high-heels getup?

4. Faces and facial expression are most certainly a huge component of communication. That's why we have so many muscles in our faces, and that's why we look at each other when we talk. Our faces do a lot of the communicating. You CAN communicate w/o seeing the other person's face, but much of the context is lost. There's a reason that people with Aspburger's syndrome don't get on well with others, and that's because they are incapable of reading others' non verbal cues, many of which come from facial expressions. Get used to it veiled ladies: this is just how it is, facial expressions are a big part of how we communicate. If you're wearing a veil, it's hard for me to see how you're reacting to me. And you can probably assume that a lot of Britons will also have this problem, because they're used to seeing people's faces when they talk. It's not sinister, it's just how it is. Think about it this way: I bet when a burka'd woman has a serious conversation with her husband at home, she take that thing off and gives him the hard assed "you better be listening to what I'm saying, suckah" right-in-the-eyes stare. If this doesn't happen in Muslim homes, then there really are some pretty fundamental differences... but I don't buy it.

5. UK (and other) security systems and forces use facial recognition, be it via CCTV or just a cop's eyesight, to do their job. If you can't see someone's face, that screws things up for the folks trying to do security. PLUS, you have no idea what's behind that veil. It could be the dude who just knocked off a liquor store that you're trying to find. Security is big these days, for lots of reasons, and wearing a mask around just throws a wrench in the works. Apparently, one of the 7/7 bombers actually escaped the country wearing a burka. No shit.

6. People dress differently to separate themselves from everybody else. It's that simple. I don't care if you're a goth, a punker, a G, one of the "posh" English, a Sihk, or a Muslim. If you're dressing really out of character relative to the vast majority of people in the country you're living in, then you're purposely choosing to not fit in to a certain extent. Not that there's anything wrong with that: I've spent a lifetime perfecting my not fitting-in-ness. Just be honest that you ARE trying to make a point of being different.

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