Antigone, the Greek tragedy by Sophocles, is probably not so familiar to most of us but despite its age has resonances today, not least within our university. In a rare moment of cultural broadcasting, the BBC televised a performance of the play a week or two ago. The story tells of Antigone who buries her disgraced brother in defiance of the tyrannical ruler Creon. She is observed by a sentry who gives her away to Creon in order to save his own skin. Her punishment is to be buried alive in a cave. Despite the urgings of his son, who was to be married to Antigone, and the dread warnings of the seer, Creon refuses to relent. When at last he does, he finds that Antigone has killed herself. Learning of this Creon’s son and then his wife commit suicide too and the ruler is left in abject despair at his foolishness.
We are no strangers to tyrannical rule at Kingston. We are familiar with the edicts from Ratty that brook no objection or dissent. We hope that his actions do not lead to the fate of Creon’s family — although this has already happened at Imperial — but the beleagured staff at Kingston may well feel as helpless as the people of Thebes. Experience suggests Ratty is unlikely to repent his evil ways and will never appreciate Antigone’s sense of natural justice — the will of the gods — nor that of the staff.
But the character that most interested Dissenter was that of the sentry. His sense of self preservation overrode any duty to justice or the feelings of the populace. The melodrama at Kingston is not so intense as that depicted in Antigone, but the newly endorsed APs, the complaisant staff at Business & Law, and others who keep quiet while their colleagues fight the injustices of Ratty and his sedulous corporate apes remind us of the sentry even more than Ratty reminds us of Creon.