There is only one of course. This Saturday was the 158th official running of the Oxford Cambridge Heavyweight 8s and like many things sporting had both its share of unexpected drama and political implications.
Not that there haven’t been dramatic events in the past. Over the years there have been 2 mutinies (1959 and 1987, both Oxford), 7 sinkings, and one tie because the Judge was sleeping under a bush (a not uncommon collegiate experience).
This year the race was disrupted by a lone swimmer, Trenton Oldfield.
Before we get to the politics, I’d like to talk about the race which I only saw from the restart. As far as I’m concerned the Umpire showed a distinctly pro-Cambridge bias. Despite Oxford leading by a quarter length the boats re-started even. When Oxford lost a blade the Umpire ruled it Oxford’s fault and blamed it on their female coxswain.
Asshole. He handed it to Cambridge.
Also the lead oar of Oxford collapsed from exhaustion but was left untreated for several minutes because everyone was too busy patting themselves on the back.
Against which I offer this statement from the notorious Trenton Oldfield-
(T)his reach is (…) the site of a number of past and present elitist establishments; Fulham Palace, Chiswick House and St Paul’s Schools and a large collection of other ‘independent/public/free schools’. It is also where Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minster of the Government lives with his family, despite his constituents living hundreds of miles away in post-industrial Sheffield. Most notably and most importantly for today, it is a site where elitists and those with elitist sympathies have come together every year but one for the last 158 years to perform, in the most public way, their ambition for the structures and subsequent benefits from elitism and privilege to continue. (They even list in the programme which public school the rowers attended before Oxford or Cambridge)
The boat race itself, with its pseudo competition, assembled around similar principles of fastest, strongest, selected …etc, is an inconsequential backdrop for these elite educational institutions to demonstrate themselves, reboot their shared culture together in the public realm. It is also inconsequential to the performance that the overwhelming majority of the population continue to remain interested in their own lives and disinterested in the boat race. The boat race, while accessible to everyone, isn’t really advertised or promoted as something for the general public to attend, you know when it’s on because it is part of the social networking calendar. This is a public event, for and by the elites with broader social relations aims. The fact that it happens in the public realm (visible) almost exactly as it has done for the last 158 years also becomes important; the untouched; the unchanged is significant. Most standing alongside the Thames today are in fact the pumped-up though obedient administrators, managers, promoters, politicians and enforcers; functional, strategic and aspirational elites.
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When hasn’t elitism lead to tyranny? When hasn’t the belief of being ‘more’ than another person led to tragedy? Who benefits from elitism? One won’t be surprised to learn the etymology of the word ‘elite’ derives from ‘the elected’ … unfortunately not elected by democratic means, but rather, elected by god. Yup…’elected’, ‘selected’, ‘chosen’ … by god … inherited. When has this understanding of oneself or by a group of people ever been a good thing? When has this understanding not resulted in tyranny? Is tyranny surely not the inevitable outcome? And in contrast, when hasn’t the pursuit of equality, not resulted in these long passages of tyranny being overcome, even if temporarily?
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To enclose and to enslave requires the audacity, cunning and daring to take advantage of our natural kindness, our belief in others, our respect for authority, our desire to please, and our apprehension about ‘causing waves’, our hope for all to have a better life, somehow. It also depends on our disbelief, despite having experienced it, that other people would purposefully set out to harm us for their own advantage. More recently we have also been encouraged, though the evidence displays the opposite much of the time, that a whole raft of institutions exists that work to prevent human catastrophes like our right to protest being denied, detention without trial or charge, the monopolisation of industries, and essentials like food and water. These institutions were established to prevent slavery, genocide, indentured labour and groupings of indices of deprivation and poverty from occurring. It is likely many in the western Baby Boomers generation (large percentage of the UK population), who have benefited so much from these institutions, are finding it very difficult to consider that these institutions might now be turning against them, their children and their grandchildren?
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Do we resist now setting out to avoid something akin to slavery and imperialism? Or do we hesitate and find ourselves and our children without agency once again and in a long battle to gain it again? How long might it take and how many lives might this demand?
Some more corporatist sympathetic links-
- Tradition and Boat Race Both Upended on the Thames, The New York Times
- Cambridge defeat Oxford after Thames swimmer forces Boat Race restart, The Guardian
- Protester halts Boat Race by swimming into path of the Oxford crew, The Guardian
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