Arday’s Death Really Was a Tragedy

Andy Burnham has called Arday’s death a “tragedy on so many levels”. We are entitled to ask “What levels?” – and when Burnham tried to explain, he got it wrong. He said: “It’s a tragedy on so many levels, but particularly just for everybody who knew Jason, his family obviously, his friends. We think of them today.” First of all, it is not a tragedy at the family level. Doubtless, the family are “in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son”. But this makes it sad and shocking, not tragic. The word “tragedy” needs defending from folly and ignorance. A bit like the word “refute”. The death of Arday is not tragic at the level of family. It is shocking and sad. It is a bereavement. It is regrettable. In fact, it is a sin at the level of family. He should not have done this to his family. It is a shame, not a tragedy – that is, he has brought more shame on his reputation for not living to shoulder his responsibility to his children. I wonder that we have not seen this said by the great and good, sorry, I mean ‘great and good’.

However, you are right, Burnham, for the death is tragic at other levels. In fact, it is tragic in the most pure sense: where a “tragedy” is understood to be a self-destructive process whereby redemption comes out of catharsis, and catharsis comes out of destruction, and destruction comes out of the consequences of one’s capacities or incapacities as they are inked into incident – irreversible incident.

That is my definition of tragedy, for what it is worth. It is about a situation in which someone’s capacities and incapacities are inked into irreversible incident and where the irreversible incident somehow inevitably culminates in self-destruction. NB: the further features of redemption and catharsis are not for the tragic figure, but for us, who have watched the tragedy – and perhaps for the others in the tragedy, the Albanys, Kents, etc., who are still alive at the end of the play, and for the entire situation: perhaps the University or the entire United Kingdom achieves catharsis through the death of Arday. That sounds harsh to say, but, damn it, I wasn’t the one who started talking about his death being a tragedy. And if you start, I will continue.

It is a harsh thing to say just after a man’s death, but Arday’s death was tragic – and not merely sad – because Arday’s incapacities were inked into incident in a way that had consequences and led not only to the destruction of a status and office, that of professor, but also of the man who held that status and that office.

Also a tragedy of the university, as the university, too, has been revealed to have inked its own capacities and incapacities into irreversible incident to the point of destruction. You know: DEI, plagiarism at a national and international level. Indeed, it is this apparent tragedy that is the reason why some of us made such a sound and fury about Arday’s case. For the university was not a mere university but one of the most renowned and ancient. So it was a symbolic grand tragedy on the greatest scale.

Sadiq Khan said: “Jason Arday was the victim of a pernicious public shaming that other people in his position simply wouldn’t have faced. His death was a tragedy, but once again it should be a wake-up call for all of us.” Khan is correct for once: exactly. A tragedy is meant to be a wake-up call for all of us who are not the tragic figure – we who witness the tragedy; those of us for whom it is a play.

I happened to be in the United Kingdom when the story broke and I was surprised to see the BBC, when reporting Arday’s death, turning first to Kehinde Andrews, who was unimpeded in his claim that it was racism that had led to the death, and then to Simon Baron-Cohen, who was also unimpeded in his claim that autism had played a significant role in the story. That is: 1. racism, 2. autism, but 3. not plagiarism. “Plagiarism” was translated into “alleged plagiarism”. I was a bit surprised: where was BBC balance? Why was there no one saying “fraud,” “theft,” “status grift”? And yes, thanks Sadiq Khan, we know it was a grotesque public shaming – and in some ways unsupportable – but the media did not make any of this up: nay, even the Guardian went around fact-checking for England and had to disdain the tragic hero. But do we need a public inquiry into the presentation of the story? Well, I think not. The other thing is that Andrews and Baron-Cohen had both been in touch with Arday in his last week, making them involved and parti pris. So let them on to cry and lament and tear their clothes. But not to issue judgements. Very odd of the BBC. I would have had some balanced old Lord or Dame to say, “Well, on the one hand and on the other hand.” Or have someone antagonistic say, “No false notes.”

False notes. The first one, let me repeat: “tragic” especially for the family. No, not tragic. It is sad. (Tragic only in the other sense.) Second: “serious questions to answer”. No, because this implies that the situation was not tragic – whereas in fact it was. If it was a tragedy then Arday did it to himself and the University did it to itself. But if there are “serious questions to answer” then we let in the administrators and moralisers, and the suggestion is that Arday did not destroy himself by inking his capacities or incapacities into irreversible incident but that others did it for him. Which is not the case. He did destroy himself. “Serious questions to answer” implies that it was everybody’s fault, or at least somebody’s. (Nathan Cofnas’s? The Telegraph‘s?) Then, third: “a duty of care.” We heard this a few times, that the university had a “duty of care.” Here is Baron-Cohen: “He was a vulnerable child, a vulnerable teenager and a vulnerable adult, so he needed and deserved safeguarding and support and reasonable adjustment every step of the way.” But “duty of care”, though it bureaucratically describes something, does not describe it very well, and is in fact a bureaucratic impertinence. No doubt I have a duty of care to my children – but, no, I love them and look after them, and when in Scotland (as I now am) try to find non-physical ways of chastising them (that’s a joke). Only a bureaucrat, or a Sturgeon, would say “duty of care” without having to scratch themselves afterwards. And it is a lie. An institution has some sort of vague duty to care for its staff, but it does not have to protect them from all the consequences of their own actions, even if those actions come out of what we would nowadays call fantasy, or Shakespearian derangement.

A bit more about “duty of care”, as it irritates me. “I have a duty.” Yes. “I care.” Yes. “I have a duty of care.” No. A duty is specific. To say the University cared for Arday is ridiculous. To say Arday had a duty to the University is not: for he was an officer of the university. But “a duty of care” turns a vague hope – that everything will be alright – into an overbearing bureaucratic claim and purported imperative.

Here is someone else, quoted by the Guardian:

The National Education Union general secretary, Daniel Kebede, said Arday had been subjected to “a public and brutal takedown that unleashed a tirade of racism”. “I don’t believe this was ever simply about ‘professional conduct’ or ‘plagiarism’,” he said. “There is a profound difference between scrutiny and a sustained public campaign that turns an individual into a symbol of everything the right believes is wrong with DEI.”

Well, Kebede thinks it wasn’t a tragedy, just a takedown. He should probably use the word “scapegoat”. And here is Jeremy Corbyn: “Jason was a human being with friends and family.” Yes. But at that level it is sad, not tragic.

James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.