Finding Soho

  The recent independent inquiry by Prof. Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work in Scotland, into the child sex abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 that shocked Britain’s conscience has led to a spate of articles and reports expressing outrage, anger and disbelief in the UK and Australia. New understandings of the purported link between 'cultural sensitivity' and state failure to tackle social problems have flooded British and Australian online portals. Examining media coverage and the commentary on online articles, one finds a palpable sense of betrayal, distrust of state and media institutions and frustration with what is perceived as a noxious regime of unofficial censorship. In Australia, the fact that one of the top bureaucrats responsible for Rotherham child services between 2005 and 2008 is now employed by the Victorian Education department has also prompted some debate. Prof. Jay’s inquiry report offers a stunning indictment of South Yorkshire...

You walk along the edge of a forest filled with the song of lyrebirds and the frantic laughter of kookaburras; you look at sunlight through canopies of green and squint as it makes patterns on your face; you saunter behind an old couple walking arm in arm and catch bits of their whispered conversation - 'And before you know it your lives are so entwined'; you're entranced as you shuffle past hordes of tourists milling around a flock of parakeets and cockatoos, feeding the trusting birds sunflower seeds and squealing in delight when one of them perches on their shoulder; you march deeper into the woods, the silence now deafening, the solitude overpowering. The sun overhead descends into clouds and the chatter of birds grows less frenetic, more cautious; you slip on moss-covered logs obstructing steep downward slopes and you climb again, further and further up until you've ascended all the thousand steps of the Kokoda Walk; you're n...

Of late, I have come across several discussions whose main theme is the issue of positionality: who is saying what, and to what effect. For instance, several essays about the Wendy Doniger case bring up the issue of western academics writing about non-western subjects - while refraining from making unambiguous claims about the writer's intentions, they nevertheless cast aspersions on the same by intermittently evoking 'Orientalism'. So, while we are told that we are not to misconstrue their take on the Doniger case as a critique of her purported 'Orientalist' position, we are constantly nudged in that direction. Similarly, a few critiques of the film Blue Is the Warmest Colour tell us that the director's male gaze produces a rendition of female sexuality that is reductive and exploitative. These critiques excoriate the specifically 'male' depiction of sexually voracious female characters and locate the work within a paradigm of 'male' control o...