Category: Online Articles

The Anatomy of a Genocide

There is no imminence to unrest, its origins can be plotted like old genealogy maps. When unrest arrives it bears down in the same way the heaviness of thunderclouds breaks, there is almost a sense of satisfaction when the anticipation finds physical release. The transition of Sri Lanka from colonised to liberated was made with… Continue reading The Anatomy of a Genocide

X Men Immigrants

We don’t know it yet, but our streets are being lined with mutants That’s right, Cyclops, iceman, angel and storm Are reborn, unworn and not yet torn, And they walk between you and me, They sit beside you on the bus and the tube, They man CCTV and fight adversity They guard gas stations, sell… Continue reading X Men Immigrants

Mindfulness and Violence

Over the past few years, interest in mindfulness meditation has exploded in the West: there is now a ‘Mindful Magazine’, the NHS recommends mindfulness as a treatment for depression and anxiety, and courses in mindfulness are popping up all over the country, including here at Oxford University, where much of the rapidly growing body of… Continue reading Mindfulness and Violence

Eight Years

There is a wooden desk with a wooden chair. If I close my eyes, the table and the chair could be in a warm room full of books that belong to an old man who knows that dark wood has a simplicity that feels timeless. My eyes are not closed, and I see furniture that… Continue reading Eight Years

Policing: the Most Dismal Science

“Wherever the law is, crime can be found.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ Our society is predicated on the assumption that law, as we experience it, and statistics, as we utilize them, are impartial and objective by design. Yet law in a democratic society is derived from its constitutional regime, analytics only as useful… Continue reading Policing: the Most Dismal Science