Letters
Sensitivity Needed
Dear Sir,
I am writing in response to Peter Cardwell’s new feature “Oxford People” in 0th week’s edition of The Oxford Student. In it, Cardwell asks us to “spare a thought” for a Wadham student who delivered a barrage of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish abuse on St Patrick’s day in a crowded Irish bar. Poor him! What a caper that mischievous but loveable scamp got himself into. It was neither particularly amusing nor particularly necessary to replicate the sectarian abuse aimed at the Pope.
At the current time, I consider it inordinately insensitive. The reported rant also targeted Sinn Fein and the IRA, and while civil minded people will look on all terrorist activities with disgust, it is important to recognise that the organisations have both become the diction of choice for random and unprovoked anti-Irish Catholic abuse. Many will agree that the tone of Cardwell's article severely underplayed the offensiveness of such behaviour.
Attentive readers of the national newspapers will remember Cardwell’s face adorning the front page of The Daily Telegraph in a story that was surveying the politics of the young. Cardwell expressed support for the Ulster Unionist Party but admitted that his main priorities in voting were to keep Sinn Fein out.
I am not arguing against Cardwell’s political beliefs but, if we consider that the anecdote displayed absolutely no censure for the sectarian abuse that its subject “bellowed” and the fact that Cardwell surely only heard the anecdote due to his acquaintance with its subject, his motives for including it in this light hearted feature seem pretty questionable. In another anecdote Cardwell quipped “She may be a Labour voter, but she’s not all bad."
I was starting to wonder whether this was more party political propaganda for the Conservatives and/or Unionist Party. It would be nice in the future if the article did not masquerade serious issues behind the guise of its inane style and format and showed more sensitivity.
DOMINIC WEEKS KEBLE COLLEGE
OxWip Event
It was with great dismay that I opened the Union timetable last week to find an all-male panel debate pertaining to the upcoming general election ( "This House would make New Labour's second term its last" ). In an election where so much attention has been put on the women's vote (with particular attention to the "high heeled vote", a category which many Oxford gradutes fall in to) it seems absurd that not one of the seven ofthe panel would be female.
This only serves to reinforce the sterotype that women politicians and leaders strive to combat. Thankfully Oxford is a forward thinking University in many respects, and for this reason such organizations as Oxford Women in Politics exist. Countering the all male Union debate, OxWip is holding an all female panel event on the General Election next week. It is clear that Oxford still has a long way to go, but at least OxWiP represents a leap in the right direction.
KATHLEEN BOTTRIELL LINACRE COLLEGE
28th Apr 2005