The McGill Daily Vol. 109 Issue 11

Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

The McGill Daily is located on unceded Kanien’kehå:ka territory.

Volume 109, Issue 10 | Monday, November 18, 2019 | mcgilldaily.com I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 1911

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table of Contents

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Table of Contents 3

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EDITORIAL

• Do No Harm, Take No Trips

4 • NEWs Divest McGill Holds Protest • • • •

Student-Run Support is “a Band-Aid” AUS Legislative Council New Shelter in Cabot Square On Femmes, Mes Sœurs

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7 • Sports McGill vs. Western Lacrosse Semi-Final • A History of Colonial Lacrosse

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Feature • SSMU, AUS, and SUS Leaders Offered Free Propaganda Trip by Pro-Israel Organization

CuLture • Mapping Worlds • Trans-Inclusive Media Recommendations • Loyle Carner is Letting You In

Sci+TecH • Out of Site, Out of Mind

Commentary • Madama Butterfly • History Books are Xenophobic • One Hundred Days Too Long

CompendiuM • Survey Soiree • Prom Royalty Results!

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EDITORIAL

Volume 109 Issue 10

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Do No Harm, Take No Trips

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Felix O’Connor contributors Amanda Chiu, Zach Coury, Mika Dukar, Kate Ellis, Sara Hashemi, Nabeela Jivraj, Michaela Keil, Yasna Khademian, Tala Khaki, Angelina Mazza, Kelsey McKeon, José Noé De Ita Zavala, Phoebe Pannier, Ally Pengelly, Abigail Popple, Daisy Sprenger, Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, McGill Chapter of Independent Jewish Voices, Rosa SundarMaccagno, Aarthy Thiruthanikan, Union for Gender Empowerment, Luke Welton, Pandora Wotton le délit

Grégoire Collet Published by the Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

The views and opinions expressed in the Daily are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of McGill University.

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lobal Medical Training (GMT) and Medicine, Education, and Development for Low Income Families Everywhere (MEDLIFE) are groups at McGill that allow students interested in medical careers to travel to what GMT calls “poor” areas and provide them with healthcare services. GMT representatives spoke in several undergraduate science lectures in September, with one claiming that the trip was a “life-changing experience” that made them realize how lucky they were to live in Canada.

Both NGOs have trips taking place during winter break, with more planned for next semester. On November 14, GMT held a vitals workshop, conducted by practicing nurses, to train participants in basic first-aid techniques, among other clinical skills. While undeniably useful for a student pursuing a career in healthcare, these workshops do not certify participants to practice medicine in Canada. Despite this, the only further requirement before participants interact with patients abroad is a fee paid to the organization in question. Rather than requiring the typical four years of pre-med studies, the four additional years of medical school, and the residency which is needed to practice medicine, GMT instead sells its trips on the idea that “students will be exposed to a medical environment where they will be allowed to observe AND actively participate in the medical assessments / treatments of patients who have scarce economic resources, poor access to healthcare, and have to live within various primitive types of Public Healthcare systems.” The use of the word “primitive” in this quote, taken directly from the organization’s website, exhibits the racist and classist framework that is central to these trips. The $1,250 USD fee that students pay to go on these trips would be more beneficial if donated to community organizations.

GMT and MEDLIFE are both prime examples of “voluntourism:” a phenomenon where people use the excuse of providing services to inhabitants in order to travel to other countries. In reality, these trips are thinly-veiled neocolonial projects that further a white saviour mentality.

GMT, in particular, plays into these ideologies, stating that one of its “prime corollar[ies]” is to offer “healthcare students, professionals, and interested others a truly international experience that will expand their understanding of medicine, dentistry, and life outside of North America.” The organization also claims to “provide [...] free Medical and Dental healthcare services, and free medicines to the needy in Latin America” as another of the three main goals. The vocabulary in this, an official statement, reveals much about the position of the organization. Referring to certain people as “the needy” is othering, paternalistic, and condescending, while the entire phrase presents an image of gracious, benevolent (and implied professional) participants stepping in to alleviate these problems. GMT posits that future healthcare professionals will “best maximize their potential

by globalizing the vision they have of their careers and lives.

This means that they must expose themselves to other ways of living, and providing health care in contrast to that in their own societies. It is ideal to do this within the intimate milieu of other cultures.” In this statement, other countries, cultures, and lives are framed as tools: areas which North American students visit only for their own personal and career gain.

Going to another country – described only as “poor” and in need of saving – for a finite period of time will neither help the people in that country, nor produce better healthcare professionals. The students attending these trips are allowed to interact with patients in capacities that would require years of training to perform in North America. Organizations like GMT and MEDLIFE promote the idea that people with limited access to healthcare should take what they can get, even if that means being “treated” by an underqualified 18-year-old looking to boost their resume. In some cases, those unqualified volunteers are actually pushing trained medical professionals out of their jobs.

These types of programs are predicated on the idea that “poor” countries do not have existing healthcare systems or professionals in the community who are combating medical inequality. The fleeting nature of these projects means that participants are not learning from the community, but rather imposing their methods on their “patients.” There are no longterm benefits for these communities. MEDLIFE claims to be addressing this by offering more long-term care in the areas to which it sends students, and their website acknowledges the fact that many other such NGOs offer trip-based care rather than establishing healthcare options that can benefit communities in lasting ways. MEDLIFE also claims to teach participants about the causes of health inequality, but neither organization engages with how Western imperialism creates the issues they claim to address.

Any student using this opportunity to “expand their worldview” is participating in and contributing to a system that positions certain countries, regions, and individuals as beneath others, to the extent that even untrained young adults are trusted with critical interpersonal care. It is especially abhorrent that these groups target first-year lectures, preying on new students who are more likely to believe that this opportunity is critical for a successful medical school application.

Withholding donations, educating others on the nature of these groups, and avoiding their trips is critical. We must boycott GMT and MEDLIFE, and any other organizations which perpetuate white saviour narratives through voluntourism. Students hoping to make a difference should look to their own communities first by supporting organizations such as Head and Hands and the Open Door Shelter, who do important work in providing health services to the Montreal community.

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NEWS: McGill

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Divest McGill Holds Protest

Mid-Day Protest Gains Traction Despite Snow

Aarthy Thiruthanikan News Contributor

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n November 12, the McGill Community Square, located just outside McConnell Engineering, found itself filled with environmentally-minded students declaring their demands towards the James Administration Building. At the forefront of the demonstration was Divest McGill, an intergenerational student environmental group with one major goal in mind: to demand that McGill divest in their fossil fuel investments for the betterment of the climate crisis.

“The reasoning is clear,” stated Audrey Nelles, one of the student speakers. “We urge our university to stop supporting coal, oil and gas companies.”

She continued, clarifying that while divestment is “not a panacea,” the choice to divest is “part of a large range of actions needed to fight the climate crisis.” While serving as a means of informing the public, the demonstration was primarily aimed at gaining the attention of McGill’s Committee

to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR).

While the protestors made their demands clear, CAMSR met in the James Administration Building to finalize their recommendations to the Board of Governors with regards to divestment. The Board of Governors – responsible for McGill’s academic, business, and financial affairs – will convene on December 5, where they will render a final decision on divestment. The call for divestment is not a relatively new movement at McGill. In 2016, numerous McGill alumni returned their undergraduate diplomas as a sign of disapproval to McGill’s lack of divestment. Amongst the alumni was Jen Gobby, a PhD holder in Economics for the Anthropocene program at McGill. She currently organizes with Climate Justice Action McGill (C-JAM).

Hoping that the decision to divest would occur at the beginning of her PhD, Gobby expressed her frustration with the university, stating: “It’s 2019 and this institution is financially benefiting from an industry that’s threatening the future of all its student body.”

Kelsey McKeon | News Photographer In addition to the protest, Divest McGill has offered students another opportunity to show their solidarity – by pledging not to donate to the

University until they choose to divest. Current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and donors are all welcome to sign the petition, which

can found on their Facebook page.

For more information on the efforts of Divest McGill, visit https:// divestmcgill.wordpress.com

Student-Run Care is “a Bandaid”

AGSEM, SSMU Hold Demo for Accessible Healthcare Ally Pengelly News Contributor

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On Tuesday, November 12, representatives from SSMU University Affairs and AGSEM hosted a demonstration outside the Brown Student Services Building in order to protest McGill’s notoriously inaccessible clinical care. Though rescheduled at the last minute, Tuesday was originally designated as the formal launch and open house of the Rossy Student Wellness Hub, a combination of Counselling Services, Psychiatric Services, and

“The international student health plan that you are on at McGill is the most expensive international student health plan in all of Canada, and that’s not okay.”

–Madeline Wilson, SSMU VP University Affairs

Zach Coury | Photo Contributor

Student Health Services. Despite this, the demonstration continued as scheduled.

Organizers Madeline Wilson, Melissa Marquette, and Rine Vieth laid out their formal demands, requesting that McGill provide adequate services and timely communication; financiallyaccessible, culturally-sensitive and time-sensitive healthcare; and actively support students with disabilities. The extent of inaccessibility surrounding clinical care at school was emphasized by discussions around McGill’s Eating Disorder Program and longterm counselling being cancelled without warning, the sheer length of wait times, and the inaccessibility of the Brown Building for those with physical disabilities.

Alongside guest speaker Bee Khaleeli, attendees took turns sharing their personal experiences and struggles within McGill’s healthcare system. Protesters touched upon issues of financial strain, bureaucratic lack of empathy, and the dire need to expedite wait times. Many speakers also discussed their failed attempts to communicate concerns with administrative healthcare members at McGill. The demonstration’s organizers made clear that they will continue to voice their demands and criticisms, revealing that another protest will take place once the Wellness Hub’s formal launch is rescheduled.

News: McGill & Montreal

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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AUS Councillors Raise Concerns Last 15 Minutes of Council Reserved for Discussion

Yasna Khademian News Editor

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US held its sixth Legislative Council of the year on Wednesday, November 13.

On the agenda were a number of motions to change the design of departmental logos, as well as a presentation from the Associate of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).

The presentation informed AUS councillors about the ongoing unionization drive (which is open to graders, markers, tutors, note-takers, and “any non-unionized academic casual job on campus”) and to ask AUS for their support. Per AGSEM’s presentation, notetakers at McGill have seen their compensation per semester decrease from $425 in Winter 2017 to $0 in Fall 2019, and nonunionized teaching support staff at McGill receive substantially

lower wages than their unionized counterparts.

A large portion of the meeting was also spent discussing the results of the AUS Accountability Survey. The survey closed on November 9, and the AUS Secretary General noted that turnout was low – only around 22 people had taken it out of the approximately 200 people eligible (Arts departmental executives and members of Council).

Only at 8:45 p.m., with just 15 minutes left of Council, did councillors have the opportunity to enter moderated debate on the reason that many gallery members attended the meeting in the first place – the participation of a number of AUS councillors in an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, news of which had been published in The McGill Daily that same day.

The trip, slated to take place over winter break, is paid for by Hillel Montreal. More than 40 other trips

sponsored by Hillel chapters across North America have been funded

by Maccabee Task Force (MFT), an anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) organization that states on their website that “students are more likely to work against BDS activities, protests and resolutions on campus” after returning from these free trips. As the Daily article, co-authored by Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and Independent Jewish Voices, notes, MTF expanded to Canada last year, the same year that Hillel Montreal began offering these trips to student leaders at McGill, making it “reasonable to suspect that MTF is providing much, if not all, of the funding for Hillel Montreal’s initiative.”

The generative discussion began with statements by the three (known) AUS councillors who plan on attending the trip – VP Finance Stefan Suvajac, Representative

Adin Chan, and Representative Andrew Chase, who emphasized the “personal nature” of the trip. A full list of questions from concerned AUS councillors was then projected on the screen. Religious Studies Undergraduate Society (RSUS) Representative Mo Rajji read aloud the questions, the first being “Are you aware of the organization funding this trip, being the Maccabee Task Force, and their explicitly anti-BDS goals in promoting trips to visit to Israel, and do you think that this presents a problem?” As there were only nine minutes left in Council, the entire list of questions was uploaded to the Facebook group for further discussion.

“I understand that many of you consider this to be personal [...] but a lot of us here don’t see this as being entirely personal, and it should’ve been in your reports, we believe, regardless of how you view this,” Rajji stated. In addition, the

RSUS representative added that “I know for a fact that there are other students in this room who were offered this trip.”

The placement of this discussion at the end of the meeting was decided before the meeting began

by AUS Council Speaker Marie Fester and the AUS Executives – including VP Finance Suvajac, Representative Chan, and Representative Chase, who plan to attend the trip and who other councillors had concerns about that were not addressed (due to the lack of time at the end of the meeting).

In an email to the Daily, Fester stated that “next meeting, [she] plan[s] on putting the discussion time earlier in the meeting, before reports and maybe before motions.”

Ghida Mawlawi contributed reporting in this article. An extended version of this article will also be available online.

New Shelter in Cabot Square

14 Have Died Since Former Shelter Forced To Relocate Pandora Wotton News Writer content warning: colonial violence

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new day shelter is set to open near Cabot Square this month, in order to address the lack of resources for the homeless population in the neighbourhood.

The shelter, called Resilience Montreal, is a culmination of efforts from the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, the Nazareth Community, and Architecture Without Borders Quebec. It will be located on the corner of Atwater and Ste-Catherine, in a three-storey building that was previously a sushi restaurant. The shelter secured a one-year lease of the property, but its directors are already looking elsewhere for a permanent location.

Fourteen people have died in the area this past year, as a result of violence against homeless people,

as well as the lack of services following the forced relocation of the Open Door Shelter to Parc Avenue to make space for a new housing development. While the presence of Open Door in the Milton-Parc community has been a crucial resource for the homeless population there, the move left a huge gap in services in Atwater.

Gentrification in the neighbourhood is a contributing factor to the housing crisis in the area. Across the street from Cabot Square, luxury condominiums and chain stores are being built, increasing the cost of living in the area and displacing many former residents in an area that once housed a largely Indigenous and low-income population.

“There’s always concern because there’s so many beautiful condos going up, but where’s the social housing?” asked Sheila Woodhouse, executive director of the nonprofit Nazareth Community, in an

While the presence of Open Door in the Milton-Parc community has been a crucial resource for the homeless population there, the move left a huge gap in services in Atwater.

interview with CBC. “There are people sleeping outside. There’s people unwell.

There’s been an increase of aggression,” Woodhouse continued.

“It’s not a healthy environment. It’s a health crisis, actually.”

A high percentage of homelessness in the area is experienced by Indigenous women and trans and two-spirit people, who are statistically more likely to experience violence. Intervention workers in the area say that some of the homeless population in Cabot Square moved from Inuit communities in Quebec to Montreal – often for medical care – but without a support system in the city, many have been abused.

One of the NWSM’s programs, the Iskweu Project, aims to reduce the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and trans and two-spirit people in Quebec, acknowledging the role that colonial violence plays in causing homelessness. “The context of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (trans, two-spirit), interlocks with the trauma lived by Indigenous peoples and the various attempts, by the government to assimilate them,” the website states.

“The staff that are going to be hired are going to have background in sexual assault and addiction.

We’ll have a psychologist that is

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor going to be there, and we’re also going to make sure that we’re going to have a lot of community organizations coming through our doors,” Nakuset said to CBC. The shelter will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., 365 days a year, providing a place to sleep, a place to shower, and three meals a day to anyone who is in need. Other

programs offered will include substance abuse counselling, yoga, reiki, manicures, and haircuts.

Visit http://www.nwsm.info/ resilience-montreal for more information, including how to support the shelter. They are currently in need of skilled and unskilled volunteer labour.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

NEWS: Montreal

On Femmes, Mes Sœurs

Nadine St-Louis Talks “Healing Trauma Through Art”

Abigail Popple News Writer

content warning: gender-based violence, death

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very Wednesday, beginning on September 4 of this year, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women have gathered at the Ashukan Cultural Space to tell stories, sew, and heal from trauma. This meeting – the Femmes, Mes Sœurs workshop, organized by Sacred Fire Productions – is an opportunity for survivors of violence to share their experiences and seek support from one another, while creating art to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Led by Melanie Morrison and Sedalia Fazio, participants join in a Mohawk prayer, recount how violence has affected them, and embroider an image symbolic of their trauma.

In spring 2020, the works of embroidery will be sewn together into a piece called the Memory Quilt, which will be revealed at a march along with a book titled Women are Sisters. The book will feature photos of the embroidery, alongside explanations of the images these women chose to depict.

The workshop is the creation of Nadine St-Louis, the Executive Producer and founder of Sacred Fire Productions. In an interview with the Daily, St-Louis, who is herself a survivor of violence, has long wanted to create an opportunity for women to tell their stories; she asserts that storytelling is a powerful healing tool, both for the storyteller and their audience. By sharing their personal journeys, she said, women not only liberate themselves of the silence about gender-based violence which many are subjected to – they also end the isolation of navigating their traumatic experience, and build a sisterhood with other survivors.

“It’s first and foremost a healing project […] the idea behind this project was to bring awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women, and to come together as women of all nations and say, ‘break the silence,’” St-Louis said.

Quilting is a custom shared

“It’s first and foremost a healing project.”

-Nadine St-Louis by women from cultures all over the world, according to St-Louis.

She hopes that in the tradition of quilting, women can find solidarity with other survivors, regardless of their background.

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor The activity of sewing takes on a metaphorical nature for St-Louis, as women are “sewn together” in expressing their stories and healing through art. Furthermore, the medium of quilting is a way of “rematriating” history, St-Louis told the Daily: “The quilt has always been in my head; instead of history, it would be her story.”

In spite of the pain that comes from sharing stories of violence, the workshop is intended to remind women of their strength and resilience. “Women are strong. Women are the backbones of their families, women are the backbones of society,” St-Louis stated. In breaking the silence which typically surrounds instances of gender-based violence, women can reclaim their stories of resilience and promote a dialogue in which Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls – a topic that is often marginalized in contemporary culture – are the central concern. This reflects the mission of Sacred Fire Productions – to create visibility for Indigenous peoples in a contemporary context and to promote awareness of Indigenous issues, especially in an urban landscape like Montreal, where there is little exposure to traditional Indigenous culture.

St-Louis attributes this ignorance about Indigenous peoples which she has encountered to a lack of opportunities for Indigenous cultures to be properly exhibited and appreciated: she stated that more than 85 per cent of the socalled “Indigenous items” sold today are made in China, and there’s little opportunity for modern Indigenous artists to enter the market.

The ultimate goal of the Femmes,

“Women are strong.

Women are the backbones of their families, women are the backbones of society.”

-Nadine St-Louis Mes Sœurs project, according to St-Louis, is to educate the public on the impact that violence has on women, their families, and society as a whole. When asked what women can take away from the workshop,

St-Louis replied firmly and without hesitation: “Empowerment.

Solidarity. Being able to walk out of these workshops knowing that you’re making social difference, social change; you’re breaking the pattern for your children, for your neighbour, for your cousin.” In attending the workshop, women can also receive guidance on how to navigate their trauma from Melanie Morrison, one of the aforementioned leaders of the workshop. Morrison’s sister, Tiffany, was murdered in 2006; Morrison uses her painful experience recovering from grief to help others cope with their trauma.

What is shared in the workshop will remain confidential; St-Louis stresses that no names will be published in the Femmes, Mes Sœurs book. Nevertheless, the publication of the book as well as the presentation of the quilt is meant to bring awareness of gender-based violence to the general public, so women may anonymously share explanations of their embroidery if they choose to do so.

Ultimately, the workshop is an opportunity for individual women to find a sisterhood and cope with their traumatic experiences. As StLouis said, “It’s not a project for discovering art, but it’s a project for healing trauma through art.”

When asked what women can take away from the workshop, St-Louis replied firmly and without hesitation: “Empowerment.

Solidarity.”

St-Louis invites women at McGill who have experienced violence to attend the Women are Sisters workshop. It takes place at the Ashukan Cultural Space, 431 Place Jacques-Cartier, every Wednesday from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.

She would also like to emphasize once more that the workshop is confidential, to make women as comfortable as possible in sharing their stories. St-Louis can be contacted by email at nadine@ productionsfeuxsacres.ca.

Sports

Luke Welton Sports Contributor

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he weekend of November 8, McGill University had the opportunity to host the 35th annual Baggataway Cup. The Baggataway (or “Bag”) Cup pits three of the most elite Men’s Field Lacrosse teams from both the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) Eastern and Western conferences against each other in a single-game elimination style playoff. The Cup represents the pinnacle of achievement in Canadian university field lacrosse.

The tournament is structured such that the first-place team from each conference is given a bid into the semi-finals. Neither McGill (10-0) in the Eastern conference, nor Brock (10-0) in the Western conference were required to play in Friday’s quarterfinals, which concluded with Trent University taking a 11-5 win over Guelph and the University of Western Ontario beating Nippising University 12-5, setting up Trent to play Brock, and Western to play McGill in the semi-finals.

After McGill’s devastating loss to Western in the 2018 semi-finals, it was clear that some serious changes needed to be made. Assistant coach Nicolas Soubry told the Daily, “The players asked for more and we gave them a lot more. We watched more film, we ran more, we worked out, we did more team events, the list goes on.” These changes were not only led by the coaching staff, but also by a

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

McGill vs. Western Lacrosse Semi-Final

strong leadership group who worked as hard as possible to realize the vision head coach Tim Murdoch had for a championship team in the 2019 season. What truly became a rallying cry for the men of McGill Lacrosse was the notion of “five more.” “Five more” means not wasting mental energy on the past or the distant future, but instead living in the moment and doing everything possible to own the next five minutes. The “five more” mindset was evident during the 2019 semifinal against Western, as well as in the season as a whole. As 2019 marked the 17th and final season for Murdoch as head coach, it was one filled with emotion. Murdoch built the McGill lacrosse program from the ground up - from a club-level team to a varsity program that can now compete with division I NCAA teams.

The semi-final kicked off at 1 p.m. in Molson Stadium. Despite the brisk temperature, the stadium was electric, with just under 500 fans attending the long-awaited rematch between McGill and Western. The game began with McGill’s Colton Campbell scoring an unassisted goal, followed by another scored

by Kerian McKay. With incredible defensive performances from standout players, captain Tanner Baldin at long stick midfielder and Connor Plante at short stick defensive midfielder, Western struggled to have any productive offensive possessions in the first half. Captain and graduating senior Liam Macdonald had an

exceptional second quarter potting two goals, assisted by Murdoch and McKay respectively. However, the momentum began to shift when Cody Ward of Western finally managed to get a shot past McGill goaltender Michael Gallo. Despite this, Gallo had an outstanding performance for which he was awarded player of the game. The score was 4-1 for McGill at halftime. Ward’s goal was the first of six unanswered points for Western. Even throughout Western’s productivity on the scoreboard in the second half, the McGill men stayed composed, with the defense continuing to put up a hearty resistance to Western’s advance. McGill did not go down easily, with Hunter Zawada scoring a goal with 55 seconds left to bring McGill within one. The coaching staff called a timeout as an attempt to tie the game with their final possession, but it was too late.

Western went on to defeat McGill by a score of 6-5, and after beating Trent, won their 4th consecutive Baggataway Cup. When asked about the game, Soubry admitted that “it’s very hard for me to talk about.” His frustration is due to the general sentiment held by the team that “we were very well prepared, we knew what they were going to throw at us and I think we executed the game plan very well.” However, in lacrosse there is a fine line between being prepared and being so prepared that deviation from the game plan results

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Daisy Sprenger | The McGill Daily in complications. “Sometimes too much structure can be restrictive,” and in this case may have inhibited McGill from being “a little riskier on both sides of the ball.” Western “kept it simple, got separation and took a lot of shots” and “we didn’t until it was too late.” Despite an unsatisfactory end to “one of the most successful seasons for McGill lacrosse,” there is a bright future for lacrosse at McGill on and off the field. Soubry hopes to use his NCAA experience to “bring more of an offseason structure” by implementing team-building activities, training such as team lifts, as well as a

continued commitment to recruiting players that “fit the team culture we strive towards.”

In his final speech following the loss, Murdoch drew parallels between sport and life, explaining that losing is often just as valuable, in some cases even more so, than winning.

Seeing tears in the eyes of my peers, and realizing that the time we have to be a part of something as special as sport is finite, truly puts into perspective just how lucky I am to be a part of it all. McGill men’s lacrosse will continue its relentless pursuit of academic and athletic excellence.

A History of Colonial Lacrosse Michaela Keil Commentary Editor

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he The Baggataway Cup, held at McGill’s Molson Stadium this weekend, marked the end of the McGill men’s varsity lacrosse season. While the championship garned a recap, the Cup, named after the Algonquin word for lacrosse, necessitates a look into the history of the sport, to understand how colonialism has changed and continues to affect the sport today.

A far cry from the 10-player, onehour game that is popularized today, Tewaarathon, as lacrosse is called in the Iroquois tradition, encourages the involvement of numerous players; some games, involving multiple villages, are thought to have had over 1,000 players. The field could

be anywhere from 400 meters to multiple kilometers in length and the game ran from sunup to sundown.

The ball in play was fashioned out of wood and, later, deerskin stuffed with hair, and the goal was often a rock, a post, or a tree. The game was played as part of festivals, to cure the sick, to prepare men and boys for war, to settle disputes between Nations, and for fun. Most commonly, it is played as a means of giving thanks to the Creator, facilitating a spiritual connection. Unfortunately, so few records of strategy, stick handling, or rules exist that few conclusions can be drawn about original methods of game play.

In the 1630s, French Jesuit missionaries first witnessed a game of lacrosse, immediately condemning it for being “savage.” It was cited as

part of a religion that their mission sought to eradicate. Despite the initial condemnation of the game by French missionaries, an exhibition game between Iroquois First Nations and Canadians for Queen Victoria in 1876 impressed her, she noted that it was “very pretty to watch.” The game continued to rise in popularity until games began to interfere with church attendance. Despite holding audience for the Queen, US Lacrosse notes that First Nations players “were excluded as ‘professionals’ from international competition for more than a century” because they had to charge money in order to cover travel costs.

In 1834, a team of Kanien’kehá:ka First Nations demonstrated a lacrosse game in Montreal, which sparked further interest in the sport in Canada. By 1856, the Montreal

Lacrosse Club was formed. The club is credited for establishing the first set of written rules of the game, codified in 1867 by William George Beers. The written rules and new regulations drastically changed the way lacrosse was played, breaking away from and erasing the sport’s origins. Beers shortened the length of each game, reduced the number of players, redesigned the stick, and opted to use a rubber ball. Shortly after the game was westernized, lacrosse became the national summer sport of Canada.

So prolific was the westernized version of the Indigenous sport that ice hockey, Canada’s national winter sport, was influenced by and patterned off of many aspects of lacrosse.

The Baggataway Cup takes its name from an Indigenous tradition

that was stolen and changed to fit colonial ideas. The culmination of the season should be recognized not as a system of bracketing teams to find the best one, but as an expression of a history rooted in colonialism. We recognize lacrosse and the Baggataway Cup as a championship named for its Indigenous history, in a sport hailing from several Indigenous traditions, played at an institution historically rooted in colonial violence, where an Indigenous racial slur was only recently removed as the team name.

In line with the colonial history of the sport, the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA), which runs the Baggataway Cup, doesn’t recognize the First Nations history anywhere on their website or in any information about the Cup.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

features

SSMU, AUS, and SUS Leaders Offered Free Propaganda Trip by Pro-Israel Organization The Past and Present of Hasbara Tours to Occupied Palestine McGill students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and McGill Students Chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Early this October, two members of SSMU’s executive team, Samuel Haward (VP Finance) and Sanchi Bhalla (VP Internal) received a strange offer: a free trip to Israel.

In addition to Haward and Bhalla, two other SSMU staff members were also offered trips: SSMU Indigenous Affairs Commissioner Tomas Jirousek and, per an anonymous source, an executive from the Black Students’ Network.

While the BSN has not yet confirmed its response, Haward, Sanchi and Jirousek all rejected the offer.

According to Haward, both he and Bhalla were initially approached separately during their respective office hours by Hillel McGill representatives, who pitched the offer. A week or so later, only Haward received a formal written invitation from Hillel Montreal (Hillel McGill’s parent organization) about this “once-in-a-lifetime, unique opportunity.” In the interest of transparency, Haward agreed to provide a copy of this invitation to

One SSMU executive reports that they were offered [...] “a free trip to Israel so [they] could better understand the context of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and educate others on campus” upon their return.

McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), who shared it with the Daily. It reads: “We’ve identified you as an invaluable student to have for this trip due to your student leadership experience and connections on campus.” On this “all-expenses paid” trip, intended for 20 selected McGill students, participants would be treated to “a roundtrip

airfare from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, 10 nights at hotels in Israel, 2 meals per day, and other programming costs.” The trip is planned from December 29 to January 8.

The actual objective of the trip is far from clear. One SSMU executive reports that they were offered, in the words of the Hillel McGill representative, “a free trip to Israel so [they] could better understand the context of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and educate others on campus” upon their return. BDS is an international movement launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005, urging states and individuals to place economic and political pressure on the Israeli state and its institutions in order to pressure Israel to comply with international law and end its human rights abuses against Palestinians.

The written invitation was more careful to obscure the precise objectives of the trip. It vaguely offered “an intensive experiential seminar that will explore the region’s deep history and grapple with nuanced political and religious realities,” in which “a top cohort of student leaders […] will learn about the IsraeliPalestinian conflict and examine its complexities and nuances while travelling throughout the

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor

region.”

Furthermore, while Bhalla was approached in a closed office and told that this offer was “strictly confidential,” Haward was approached openly and told SPHR that “no such confidentiality was mentioned.”

The SSMU executives in question felt these inconsistencies were “deeply troubling.” In a collective letter to Hillel McGill on October 15, the SSMU executive team expressed “discomfort with the process by which invitations of ‘free trips to Israel’ have been extended to SSMU and SSMUaffiliated Executives and Staff ” and collectively rejected the invitations. They also demanded that Hillel McGill immediately publicize the following information: “the fact that these invitations have been extended”; “who they have been extended to and why these individuals were chosen”; and “the details and specific purpose of the trip being offered”. Although Hillel Montreal responded to the SSMU executives and stated that the invitations were “by no means confidential,” at the time of publication, neither Hillel McGill nor Hillel Montreal have offered any public explanation or clear justification for offering this trip to so many McGill student representatives or clarified their selection process. The Daily also reached out to Naomi Mazer, the Director of Youth Engagement

Neither Hillel McGill nor Hillel Montreal have offered any public explanation or clear justification for offering this trip to so many McGill student representatives or clarified their selection process.

at GenMTL and Hillel Montreal, who has not responded to request for comment.

One thing is clear: this is not an isolated incident. Last year, two SSMU executives, former President Tre Mansdoerfer and former VP Student Life Sophia Esterle, were also offered a similar trip. This year, Hillel McGill and Hillel Montreal have offered the trip to a number of “student leaders” in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS), in addition to inviting SSMU executives and staff. The Daily has confirmed that the following student officials have either accepted the offer from Hillel, or applied for the trip on their own initiative: Adin Chan (Arts Representative to SSMU and Incoming Director – SSMU Board of Directors); Andrew Chase (Arts Representative to SSMU); Paige Collins (Incoming Director – SSMU Board of Directors); Jonah Levitt (Director – SSMU Board of Directors); Stefan Suvajac (AUS VP Finance); and Jordyn Wright (Science Representative to SSMU and Director – SSMU Board of Directors). Adin Chan, Paige Collins, Jonah Levitt (who is also President of Hillel McGill), and Jordyn Wright are all currently up for approval by online vote to the SSMU Board of Directors.

Hasbara on North American Campuses For a number of years now, free trips to Israel for student leaders have become an important feature of Israeli hasbara (a form of Israeli propaganda aimed at an international audience) on campuses in the United States.

According to the St. Louis Jewish Light newspaper, Hillel chapters in the United States had organized more than 40 organized trips to Palestine-Israel for university students from 2014 to 2018.

The trips are funded by the Maccabee Task Force (MTF), an organization “aimed at combating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel” by funding both overt and covert anti-BDS

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

features

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor initiatives. According to its executive director, David Brog, “the deal with our partners was, if these are things you want to do, here’s the deal: you do them, we pay for them, and you don’t have to put our name or logo on it.” According to the Times of Israel, “one of MTF’s strategies has been to recruit what it calls ‘influencers’ on campus – including student leaders who might already favour BDS – and send them to Israel and the West Bank on fact-finding trips.”

According to MTF’s own website, “returning from these missions, students are more likely to work against BDS activities, protests and resolutions on campus.”

In 2018, MTF “expanded its footprint even wider, operating on 80 campuses, including several in Canada for the first time.” Given that the first trip of this kind was allegedly offered by Hillel Montreal in the same year (2018), it is reasonable to suspect that MTF is providing much, if not all, of the funding for Hillel Montreal’s initiative.

All these trips aim to promote Israel’s image, while paying lipservice to the “complexities” of its systematic oppression of Palestinians.

MTF was founded in 2015 as an initiative from conservative, pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Adelson also funds Taglit-Birthright Israel, an organization that sponsors

free trips to Israel for Jewish youth, and he has contributed significant financial support to US President Donald Trump.

Jewish Voice for Peace’s #ReturnTheBirthright campaign has long highlighted the ethical issues of free trips to Israel mostly funded by a major Trump ally. Other wealthy donors have also poured resources into antiBDS organizations like MTF – for instance, real estate millionaire Adam Milstein is another prolific donor to right-wing, pro-Israel causes. According to The Intercept, Milstein’s strategy is “to get ugly with BDS supporters, humiliate them, and tar them as racists.” To do this, Milstein has funded groups that “accuse student activists of ties to terrorists, monitor student supporters of Palestinian rights, plaster students’ names on shadowy websites, and file legal challenges that pose a threat to activist work.”

As the McGill example demonstrates, organizers will sometimes seek to obscure their political objectives of countering BDS and other forms of Palestinian activism.

All these trips aim to promote Israel’s image, while paying lipservice to the “complexities” of its systematic oppression of Palestinians. Hopkins Hillel announced that its trip for students at John Hopkins University was meant to “deepen [their] understanding of the complex and beautiful region that is modern-day Israel […] while developing a textured understanding of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.”

Northwestern University’s Hillel chapter also offered a “new leadership journey to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.”

Similar to Hillel Montreal’s “intensive experiential seminar,”

its stated purpose was “to educate emerging and current Northwestern undergraduate student leaders about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shining an intentional light on complexities and nuances in an immersive and experiential way.” According to Philip Weiss, writing for Mondoweiss, “the draft itinerary […] makes it clear that student leaders – apparently from all backgrounds – are to be propagandized to love Israel, but with a little more realism thrown in. Like a flyby in Ramallah with ‘Palestinian leaders,’ on the same day that the students drink beer at Taybeh brewery in the West Bank and do three other events.

Also they’ll meet an Arab-Israeli journalist, in between learning about the thriving LGBTQ culture in Tel Aviv, startup nation, and co-existence projects. So there’s no real doubt about the thrust of this tour. The student leaders are [also] going to visit the illegal Efrat settlement and meet the mayor, and tour the occupied Golan Heights too. This is a propaganda tour with a new veneer.”

“This is a propaganda tour with a new veneer.” – Philip Weiss, writing for Mondoweiss In University of WisconsinMadison Hillel’s version of the trip, recounted by The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, “they took the group to the top of the Golan Heights; to see Jewish and Arab women working together to make fair-trade olive oil; to see Israel’s role in helping Syrian refugees at a Galilee hospital; to tour the Old City of Jerusalem; to a

security barrier tour; and to meet with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel B. Shapiro, among other activities.” The Golan stop in particular illustrates the not-sosubtle propaganda of this kind of trip. Rather than face the reality that the Syrian Golan Heights, like the West Bank, have been conquered by military force and increasingly colonized by Israeli settlers since 1967, participants are encouraged to applaud a Jewish-Arab fairtrade olive oil initiative. Thus, a regime of military domination and illegal settlement expansion gets repackaged as a heart-warming example of interethnic “harmony.” In the gleeful words of one supportive participant, “Hillel got to control the narrative.” Another participant, dazzled by their free trip to Israel, exclaimed: “It felt so cultured and happy and so first-world.”

Conflict of Interest?

It is especially concerning that so many members of the SSMU Board of Directors, AUS representatives to SSMU, and the AUS VP Finance have accepted this thinly-disguised hasbara trip, given SSMU’s fraught history with BDS and AUS executives’ unconstitutional approval of POLI 339 last winter. In addition, no one has yet investigated the possibility that some of the officials responsible for those decisions may have attended similar trips to Palestine/Israel in previous years.

Andrew Chase (Arts Representative to SSMU) claimed that the trip will be “completely independent,” because Hillel Montreal “strives to give a balanced and nuanced view.”

McGill SPHR asked some of the AUS representatives to explain their participation in the trip. Andrew Chase (Arts Representative to SSMU) claimed that the trip will be “completely independent,” because Hillel Montreal “strives to give a balanced and nuanced view.” In his own reply, Adin Chan (Arts Representative to SSMU and Incoming Director to the SSMU Board of Directors) stated: “Hillel has insisted many times that they have no political expectations on our return.” When SPHR

9

provided him with evidence to the contrary, he acknowledged that “it was incorrect for me to characterize Hillel as a neutral or independent group.” Nonetheless, he has not changed his intention to participate.

The least we can ask of our student leaders is that they refrain from participating in these kinds of propaganda tours. Far from being “balanced,” the evidence shows beyond doubt that this trip is part of a broader campaign of hasbara in North American academia, which is funded by avowedly right-wing, pro-Israel organizations and individuals, and which seeks to whitewash Israel’s image and undermine the international struggle against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

Far from being “balanced,” the evidence shows [...] this trip is part of a broader campaign of hasbara in North American academia, [...] which seeks to [...] undermine the international struggle against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

In addition, the fact that so many student officials have accepted Hillel’s offer raises the issue of SSMU’s Conflict of Interest Policy, which binds all student officials under SSMU jurisdiction “for the duration of their involvement with the Society.” According to Article 4.F, officials cannot accept gifts which “possibly would influence the Concerned Individual in the performance of their duties [and] if a Concerned Individual has any doubt about the appropriateness of accepting a gift, hospitality, donation, or other benefit, the Concerned Individual must refuse.”

We also support the SSMU executives’ demand that Hillel McGill immediately make public the fact that these invitations have been extended; who they have been extended to and why these individuals were chosen; and the details and specific purpose of the trip being offered.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Mapping Worlds

Culture

Shuvinai Ashoona’s Hybrid Universes Sara Hashemi Culture Contributor

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apping Worlds presents a survey of Shuvinai Ashoona’s works over the last two decades. Ashoona (b. 1961) is an Inuk artist who primarily uses pencil and pen. This is her first major art exhibition in Quebec, making this an important moment for Inuit art in the province. The exhibition, curated by Nancy Campbell, opened with a vernissage on October 30 at Concordia’s Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery.

Walking around the gallery space, I am deeply aware of the Earth. It is found in almost all of the artist’s works, in the unlikeliest of places: sitting in a circle, on someone’s belly, in someone’s eyes. The globes both represent the world and participate in it. In Shuvinai Ashoona’s universe, the Earth is everywhere.

Many of Ashoona’s works feature her home of Kinngait, Nunavut.

However, it is a magical, absurd, and mythological vision of the world. There are humans with tentacles, monsters being hunted, and creatures invading the Arctic.

Ashoona depicts worlds that are both dystopian and utopian in her art, and forces us to confront the realities of our world through her surrealist depictions of it.

Family Portrait (2014) uses ink and coloured pencil to depict what looks like a typical family photo. There is another portrait in the background – a family portrait. The shirts of the members say say things like “my last name is,” and “my name is Alee Canbell and forgive me my sun

Shuvinai Ashoona, Composition (People, Animals, and the World Holding Hands), 2007–2008. Pen and coloured pencil on paper. Collection of Edward J. Guarino, New York. Reproduced with the permission of Dorset Fine Arts. forever and forever Amen.” There is also text in Inuktitut, which creates a divide between the piece and nonInuit people who cannot read the language. These small sentences give us a glimpse into the lives of the people Ashoona is depicting.

There is something deeply intimate

about this piece, with the family members embracing one another, each of them connected to another by their arms.

The exhibition also explores multiple birthing narratives.

Composition (2008) illustrates the Inuit notion of Qaujimajatuqanjit:

Sara Hashemi | Photos Contributor

the interconnectedness of life.

Different beings are holding hands in a circle, all of them participating in creation. The figure giving birth is half white, half Native, which is highlighted by her different coloured hair. The Earth is also a participant in this occasion, joining in with all of its different inhabitants for this moment.

One of the most powerful birth pieces on display is Untitled (Woman Giving Birth to the World), 2010. The woman’s stomach is a globe, and her arms are wrapped around a larger one. There are eyes with globes as irises throughout the piece, and multiple earths. The Earth depicted is not a realistic one, as this is not something Ashoona is interested in. She depicts the world as she sees it. Birthing Scene (2013) reflects another kind of birth. It shows a figure giving birth to multiple globes with a white hand at the crotch, forcing its way out. In the corner, we see a brown baby with a white baby coming out of it. The figure has webbed feet, and a bird is grabbing her hair. This scene is much more frightening than the previous one, confronting the viewer with the gruesome and violent realities of colonization and maternity.

Many of Ashoona’s pieces are simply absurd. Satan the Polar Bear shows a polar bear wearing a jacket

that reads: “not brown just white WHITE white” with a human figure and two birds by its side. The heart of the bird is turning into a snake.

It’s hard not to read this as a message about white colonizers and their history with the Inuit population of Nunavut and Canada as a whole.

Tentacular arms are also a heavy presence in Ashoona’s work, crawling between figures, worlds, and space. This is seen in Earth Transformations (2012), one of the only pieces drawn on black paper.

The tentacles form an octopuslike creature, and the globe has feet. There is a child holding up a frame of someone who is hunting seal, presumably holding the same Kinngait landscape pictured in the first inset. The Earth has dollar bills on it, which can be read as a commentary on our current globalized capitalist systems.

However, there are also many different versions of the Earth in the piece, offering us alternatives to our current world. Ashoona is allowing us to hold pluralities in our visions for our world.

Ashoona creates a powerful, surrealist image of the Arctic and invites us into her creative worlds.

It is an honour to be let in.

Mapping Worlds is on view at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery until January 18, 2020. Visit http:// ellengallery.concordia.ca/?lang=en.

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Culture

The Union for Gender Empowerment and kate Ellis Coordinating Editor

Trans-Inclusive Media Recommendations

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ith Transgender Awareness Week taking place from November 13-19 and Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, the Daily and the Union for Gender Empowerment wanted to highlight media by, for, and about trans people. This list is just some of the incredible content that exists.

Books Pansy by Andrea Gibson Pansy is a 2015 poetry collection by Andrea Gibson in which they touch on themes such as love, gender, politics, family, and illness. Gibson refers to the book as both a “rally cry for political action” and a “celebration and longing and love.” One poem, “A Letter to White Queers, A Letter to Myself,” discusses the importance of white members of the LGBTQ+ community participating in active allyship for their racialized peers.

I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya A repeat from the Daily’s Book Recommendations (it’s just that good), this 2018 creative nonfiction piece tackles gender and how we view femininity and masculinity. I’m Afraid of Men perfectly articulates those feelings of not “doing” gender in a way that cis people approve of and the frustrations that come with it. It’ll hurt, make you uncomfortable, and make you go “ah, someone finally gets it,” all in one sitting.

Music

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LGBTQ+ identities and has become a widely used resource in schools.

Dorian Electra Basically the coolest person in the music scene, Dorian Electra is a genderfluid popstar who is known for their catchy songs and extravagant music videos, including “Flamboyant” and “Man to Man.” They have spoken out about the restrictions of the gender binary, saying “the core of my being is not gendered at all – even ‘genderfluid’ is a form of identity that can put somebody in a box.”

Riley J. Dennis Riley J. Dennis is a trans YouTuber who makes videos about politics, media representation of queer individuals, travel, and sexuality. Some of their best videos about trans experiences are “Tumblr’s Porn Ban is Somehow Worse Than You Think,” “Queer Women Websites That Support Trans Women,” and “The Singular GenderNeutral Pronoun You Already Use.” Their videos provide an accessible and entertaining platform to learn Mary Wander Mary Wander describes themself about anti-oppression. on their Bandcamp page as “a queer, non-binary, 25-year-old, Podcasts anarchist folk punk musician [ who] sings about their life; missing From the Margins their lover, recovery from drug-use, McGill Social Work student, relationships with family, going on community organizer, activist, dates in the Trump-regime, being in and educator Vincent Mousseau a gendered body in a gendered world, hosts From the Margins, a podcast and breakfast.” Their song “Gender which they describe by saying “as Ender” discusses misgendering, a Black, queer and trans person, social justice is more than just companionship, and romance. theory for me: it plays into every aspect of my life and how I move YouTube through the world. Unfortunately, intersectional perspectives are Ash Hardell Ash Hardell is a non-binary YouTuber often not at the center of the who vlogs about gender and sexuality. conversations, leaving stories like Some of their best videos include “It’s mine at the margins.” Episode include understanding (NOT) Just a Phase” (a video about topics the experiences of older non-binary intersectionality and making health folks), “Leaky Nipples and Nerve and social services trans-inclusive.

Damage” (a guide to taking care of top surgery scars), and “Trans Sex Ed” Gender Blender (which discusses having comfortable This podcast, which is hosted and and enjoyable sex with dysphoria). produced by Tai Jacob (a former They have also published a book Daily writer!), features “trans, Two called The GayBC’s of LGBTQ+, Spirit, nonbinary, and (a)gender which provides education on creative folks exploring the multiple

Mika Dukar | Illustrations Contributor sexual health, sex positivity, and everyday queer sexual life to normalize authentic conversations about sex, pleasure, boundaries, health, and communication.” In an education system where sexual education relies on cisgender and straight Queer Sex Ed Queer Sex Ed is a podcast that narratives, this podcast is a breath aims “to share the stories of [...] of fresh air. ways that we relate to gender, our bodies, social movements, and community spaces.” Episode topics include intersex experiences with the medical system and Chicago’s Trans Liberation Collective.

Loyle Carner is Letting You In Review of Not Waving, But Drowning

Angelina Mazza Culture Contributor

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oyle Carner is letting you in. Born Benjamin CoyleLarner, the 25-year-old rapper from South London delivers introspective and heartfelt lyrics over jazz-influenced melodies.

Not Waving, But Drowning is his sophomore album, a follow up to his acclaimed 2017 debut Yesterday’s Gone, and the second chapter in Carner’s musical memoir. It’s an intimate collage of recordings from his daily life, paired with love letters addressed to his mother and his partner. To lost friends, and to his haters. To Roots Manuva. To his

fathers, to the sun, and to the joy of storytelling.

On the opening track of Not Waving, But Drowning, Carner has fallen in love, and he’s ready to move “out the south, out the house,” but “never out of touch” with his mother. “Dear Jean” is his “Dear Mama” moment. Like Tupac, Carner praises his mother, rapping with a mid-tempo flow: “I had a dream and it came true / And I can only blame you.” Carner then allows Jean to respond on the album’s final track “Dear Ben” — a master class in vulnerability. Over the same bright piano melody as “Dear Jean,” Carner’s mother reads out a poem she’s written about her

son’s childhood, and reflects on the loss of his stepfather. “Wait until the world hears this!” Carner tells her in the track’s outro. Then, if you’re paying attention, you can hear the rapper kiss his mother on the cheek right before the music ends.

Despite the positive outlook musically embedded within this new chapter, Carner doesn’t shy away from sharing his struggles.

Many songs on Not Waving, But Drowning revolve around feelings of alienation and insecurity. “I’m lost / Still / Wondering my cost” he admits on “Still,” and then again in the hook of “Looking Back,” a song that explores Carner’s mixed racial identity. “I’m thinking that

my great grandfather could have owned my other one,” he writes.

“And yo, that shit is weird.” Most tracks are piano-led and feature minimal percussion. This strippeddown feel, along with Carner’s signature spoken-word delivery draws attention to the personal nature of his lyrics. Carner could almost be sitting beside you on his living room sofa, confessing all his darkest fears.

“It’s Coming Home?” is a centering moment for the album.

Captured by Carner’s mother on the night of England’s penalty shootout victory in the 2018 World Cup, the recording features the Coyle-Larner family’s banter over the sound of

a television. The track goes silent twenty seconds in, until it explodes with astonished cheers — a loud, overwhelming instance of pure joy.

This small victory matters, even though England goes on to lose the World Cup. After listening to Carner struggle with feeling at home in the world, to hear him holler with delight is an emotional experience.

Above all, Not Waving, But Drowning is a celebration of hope – a sonic reminder to “leave everything in yesterday,” (“Ottolenghi”) and to keep going despite your losses. And when Loyle Carner wonders if the “blazing sun” will ever shine again, you believe that it will.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Sci+Tech

Out of Site, Out of Mind

How Shadowbanning Threatens Online Communities Nabeela Jivraj Sci+Tech Writer content warning: mentions of sexual violence, trafficking

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aybe it’s happened to you: you were trying to find a user or post you really love to send to a friend.

You hit the search bar and to your dismay, nothing comes up. You scroll a bit and can still see their posts in your feed – weird.

The account hasn’t been deleted, but it’s not all there.

While selective user silencing is not new, nowadays, users on both Twitter and Instagram might find themselves shadowbanned, or partly silenced.

Shadowbanning is the act of blocking a user’s content online such that the user doesn’t know it’s happening. Instagram has previously acknowledged the issue (though not explicitly) by referring to the fact that some users are unable to surface posts using hashtag search. According to Instagram community guidelines around what types of censorship they undertake, “[they] remove content that contains credible threats or hate speech, content that targets private individuals to degrade or shame them, personal information meant to blackmail or harass someone, and repeated unwarranted messages.” Elsewhere on the platform, these community guidelines refer to “fostering meaningful and genuine interactions” by not artificially collecting likes or followers.

To this end, “overstepping” community guidelines may lead to “deleted content, disabled accounts, or other restrictions.”

While restricting platforms for “harmful content” (trolls, bots, and disinformation) seems necessary for social media platforms, shadowbanning brings up the questions of how and why “harmful content” is flagged and restricted, and who exactly is getting banned.

Are some people more affected than others?

For online communities, is shadowbanning a real problem?

In an interview with the Daily, researcher, cultural critic, and meme-creator Kristen Cochrane (@ripannanicolesmith) commented that shadowbanning can pose a real threat to online communities, and can act as a form of unpredictable and unreliable agenda setting.

Community bonding through self-mockery or jokes about one’s own identity also run a high risk of being censored; posts intended as humour or satire can often be misread. “There’s a nuance that’s missing, things like tone, facial expression, cultural context, that [a moderator] might not read.” The material implications of shadowbanning are that online social communities can be restricted, and their reach is consequently limited.

In an Instagram direct message to the Daily, popular meme account @beesdyingalarmingrate spoke to experiencing censorship, though they’ve never been shadowbanned: “I’ve definitely had posts taken down for ridiculous reasons like using the word ‘dyke,’ or saying cis men are whack […] Most of the content on my page isn’t

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor original and I don’t make money off the page in any way so it doesn’t really affect me in any serious way but it’s a bummer. What’s more upsetting to me is when accounts get deleted wrongfully, which, maybe I’m paranoid, but seems like it happens more with the LGBTQ and POC meme accounts that I follow than with more hegemonic accounts.” Cochrane also explained that, in her view, “agenda setting” unfolds this way: while people might otherwise have the opportunity to engage with more diverse content, restricting content that falls outside of centrist norms prohibits interactions with content that might move you to think differently. There is an argument to be made that these types of regulations might also force artists and creators to subconsciously produce content that falls within certain existing norms, undermining creativity, and creating monocultures.

“I haven’t been shadowbanned,” Kristen explained, “but a lot of people on the left are shadowbanned, especially millennials who use absurdist humour. I’ve also noticed accounts dealing with mental health and intersectional feminism writing about being shadowbanned, and these are often marginalized individuals.

I’ve noticed it happening to a lot of working class and precarious folks as well as POC with more radical, but not offensive content. One account I really like, @patiasfantasyworld, from New York, is often hidden, and she has been spreading mostly via word of mouth.

Her memes are not radically left stuff, it’s more surreal millennial humour.”

Patia Borja, creator of @patiasfantasyworld, told the Daily that she has been shadowbanned, a lot, and that it can make work-related things hard.

“Sometimes my friends will recommend me

for projects and tell me they’ve given so & so my username to contact, and I have to tell them I might not come up in search.”

When asked if she thought shadowbanning is a real threat, she said she views it more as an inconvenience. “I want to vocalize my thoughts about what is going on in the world on a public forum and the process of who gets to be shadowbanned deters that.”

She added that “every person I know who is shadowbanned doesn’t even post crazy shit or anything. […] Why should my content [such as a picture of poop, or a meme about men being trash] be hidden when it isn’t harming others? Since Facebook bought Instagram, I feel the app has gone downhill. Everything gets reported except for racist content. […]

How many school shooters or bullies have pages indicating their terrible activities yet they’ve never been taken down?”

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Sci+Tech While merely an inconvenience for some, shadowbanning can cause real problems for people whose livelihoods depend on their social media presence.

It’s difficult to gauge if different content is treated differently, and if it is, the magnitude of this difference. In April 2019, Techcrunch reported that Instagram now “demotes” vaguely inappropriate content, such as “sexually suggestive” content, or memes that are not outright hate speech but could be “in poor taste.” A leak of slides presented to journalists at the press event shows “nonrecommendable content,” as per Instagram. These indicate a picture of a woman in their underwear as “sexually suggestive,” and recommend against posts that contain “misinformation.” On this rough guideline alone, it’s unclear what even falls into this category – which by definition could cover anything from pictures taken in gym or beachwear to pornographic images. Are women more likely to have content flagged? Are only posts consistent with conventional beauty norms left up? Do shirtless gym pictures or posts taken at the beach constitute “sexually suggestive” content?

Salty Mag, a “newsletter (for & by) badass women, trans, and non-binary peeps,” spoke up earlier this year on Instagram’s ban of their content on the grounds of “promoting escort services,” In each case, the people featured in the content were either trans, racialized, and/or intersex. In each case, the individuals are fully clothed.

Salty describes continual difficulties with censorship on the platform since their inception. This has included the removal of topless photos of non-binary and trans individuals.

Instagram currently prohibits female nipples being shown, and as such removes any photos within this binary optic. While the ads Salty speaks of are not for escort services, the mag strongly supports sex workers

and advocates for the fact that these are often the people most affected by these “new” censorship regulations. Though the posts were re-instated eventually (after much pushback from Salty) the stories (and screenshots of Instagram content regulation) they are but a few examples of bodies being policed via these guidelines – especially bodies that are racialized, fat, queer, disabled, and/or engaged in sex work.

It’s hard to know exactly how the “black box” (algorithm) functions to make these value judgements. Facebook has already come under fire for its callcentre style of contracting out the emotionally turbulent work of moderating violent, traumatic, and inappropriate content. In an in-depth exploration of content moderators, The Verge described how consensus is reached on special topics being censored to make up a “rapidly changing rulebook” to guide flagging and taking down content. This is also tightly wound up in stringent “quality assurance” measures with “narrow margins of error” in an intense work environment – forcing employees to make rapid judgements on content. The emotional and psychological toll of this type of work is undeniable, and raises a lot of questions: whether an underlying moderator ideology exists, and what ideologies “quality assurance” converges on (or is being told to converge on). The question of whether artificial intelligence models could instead regulate content fairly and accurately is an entirely different conversation.

In a Facebook-published manifesto on content governance, founder Mark Zuckerberg seems to acknowledge the problem, arguing in favour of the algorithms: “The vast majority of mistakes we make are due to errors enforcing the nuances of our policies rather than disagreements about what those policies should actually be.

Today, depending on the type of content, our review teams make the wrong call in more than one out of every ten cases.”

While merely an inconvenience for some, shadowbanning can cause real problems for people whose livelihoods depend on their social media presence.

In 2018, the U.S. Senate and House passed FOSTA-SESTA – a package of bills to “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking” (FOSTA) and the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA). The legislation came largely out of an investigation into Backpage, an

online classified ad service that has been accused of facilitating and profiting off of child sex trafficking. The Bills were (perhaps unsurprisingly) largely opposed by proponents of “free speech,” but also by online sex workers. While FOSTA-SESTA might harm sex traffickers, it also has the effect of limiting sex workers’ ability to offer and discuss sexual services online.

Journalist Violet Blue explored the relationship between “cracking down on child sex trafficking” and stifling adult sex work altogether in her Engadget piece earlier this year. In it, she describes how FOSTA equates adult sex work with online sex trafficking, and that most major internet platforms backed FOSTA. In the aftermath, sex workers have reported being forced to pay exorbitant sums of money to get their accounts back up and running, which some have called outright extortion.

Following passage of the Bill, violent physical and financial harms to sex workers have only increased. What’s more, the stated aim of stopping sex trafficking has also become compromised – law enforcement professionals are less able to track advertisements or digital footprints for prosecutors. The backlash caused by FOSTASESTA is a salient example of how political regulation of the internet is both influenced by and supportive of existing power structures. As a direct result, those most excluded

from traditional markets bear the brunt of these regulations.

Exclusion from digital markets compromises livelihoods, safety, and community.

While outright banning and policing of certain bodies is a huge problem in and of itself, shadowbanning poses a unique threat to social media users and content creators because it is hard to identify and track when and if it’s happening.

While outright banning and policing of certain bodies is a huge problem in and of itself, shadowbanning poses a unique threat to social media users and content creators because it is hard to identify and track when and if it’s happening. For rejected ads and promoted content, there is a direct interaction with Instagram that can be referenced, enabling users to protest unfair or discriminatory bans. Shadowbans are particularly insidious because

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we can’t lay direct claim to any type of discrimination; the main symptom of a shadowban is decreased engagement, which could be attributed solely to a “lack of interest” or content that simply “isn’t engaging enough”. As Kristen mentioned, this is agenda setting, controlling the types of content we are allowed to access.

In our fast-paced attention economy, changes to our technological landscape and the political implications that come with them can be missed in a blink. A primary value of social media is the visibility that social networks are intended to provide for consumers. As digital citizens, it’s not entirely clear how we can interrogate these regulatory systems or work against undue censorship. That said, there is room to push back.

If you get content banned, report it (when cases that have been previously flagged and banned, such as Salty’s, get reinstated, it creates precedent). And for those of us not stripped of a voice, moving the conversation forward through sharing content by word of mouth, and attributing to creators as much as possible, is imperative. As scholar Safiya Noble posits in the opening to her book Algorithms of Oppression: “we must ask ourselves who the intended audience is for a variety of things we find, and question the legitimacy of being in a ‘filter bubble,’ when we do not want racism and sexism, yet they still find their way to us.”

Am I shadowbanned?

Here’s how to check: 1. Post something with an uncommon hashtag.

2. Ask five people who don’t follow you to search the hashtag.

3. If none of them see your post, you’re probably shadowbanned.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Commentary

Madama Butterfly and the Normalization of Exoticization The Fetishization of East Asian Women in Media

Amanda Chiu Commentary Contributor

T

he normalization of the fetishism of East Asian women is a prevalent issue that is detrimental to the experiences and psyches of East Asian women in North America. The normalization of this fetish is solidified through many forms of popular culture and mass media, including the prolific opera, Madama Butterfly.

It is important to acknowledge that although Madama Butterfly premiered in 1904, it continues to be celebrated and performed as a highly praised opera around the world, and the original narrative remains unchanged, despite its controversy. Therefore, its cultural impacts continue to shape contemporary ideologies regarding this fetish. There are also many social platforms that fetishize East Asian women more explicitly, including the normalization of culturally appropriating East Asian women by celebrities and in the music industry, and East Asian characters in television and film. In understanding and acknowledging how this fetish manifests itself in everyday consumerism, many microaggressions reveal

Daisy Sprenger | Illustrator

themselves. Consider the sale of kimonos as lingerie in Victoria’s Secret, the song “Chun-Li” by Nicki Minaj, or the undeniable disturbingness of an entire category of pornography titled “Asian,” providing instantaneous access to a materialization of this fetish.

Madama Butterfly is an opera about a white American Naval officer named John Pinkerton, whose military duties led him to be stationed in Nagasaki, Japan.

There, he meets Butterfly, an impoverished 15 year old Japanese geisha, whom he marries for her exoticism. Butterfly falls deeply in love with him, even converting to Christianity for their marriage.

He leaves Japan and returns to America, where he soon marries a caucasian, American woman named Kate. Following his departure, Butterfly gives birth to their son, and painfully awaits Pinkerton’s return. Butterfly then receives a letter indicating that Pinkerton is planning to return; however, her excitement overwhelms her, and she does not finish reading the letter, missing the ending, which states that he is returning with his wife in order to adopt his son. When Pinkerton returns, he is informed of Butterfly’s excitement and cowardly decides

that he cannot face her, leaving Kate to arrive alone and take his son on his behalf. Butterfly reluctantly agrees to let Kate adopt her son. Butterfly is heartbroken and, out of devastation, commits suicide.

East Asian women are often subjected to a projection of sexual desires rooted in Western ideals of the characteristics an East Asian woman should embody, and these ideals are enforced through popular art and culture in our society. East Asian women are often stereotyped to be sexually submissive, exotic, and traditionally domestic, and therefore a novelty to the white, cisgender men who choose to engage with them in sexual and romantic contexts. Furthermore, these beliefs imply that East Asian women are weak and subordinate as a result of their ethnicity, therefore requiring such perpetrators to be held to the internalized obligation of saving them from Oriental oppressors (also known as a white-saviour complex).

Butterfly is portrayed as a girl in need of a man such as Pinkerton to rescue her from her environment, which, in itself, stereotypes ideas of culture in East Asia. She is willing to convert to Christianity for her husband, and places the value of Pinkerton’s romantic

validation so highly that without it, in combination with her child having been taken, she deems her life as not worth living. It is evident that Pinkerton saw Butterfly as disposable, as the novelty of being with an East Asian woman wore off. The ideas presented in Madama Butterfly exemplify a whitesaviour complex and negatively paint East Asian women as docile beings, therefore reinforcing such fetishizations through the cultural impact of the opera. Through analyzing contemporary and historical North American academia and literature surrounding feminism, it is evident that the narratives presented are often focusing specifically on a white, cisgender, feminist history that is rooted in colonialism. Although there continues to be progress in closing the gap on representation in activism, representation for East Asian women and demographicspecific issues falls short. The implications materialize in a variety of lived realities for East Asian women living in Western societies. Efforts to alleviate sexual violence towards women of colour are often ineffective due to the intersectionality of racism, sexism, and white-privilege. The intersection of race and gender holds a uniquity of experience that cannot be replicated or understood by those who are not similarly marginalized. These oppressions cannot be erased without the perspective of East Asian women; however, the intersectional experience of these women is often overlooked. The exclusion of East Asian women in academic discourse directly correlates to the inadequacies in addressing the issue of fetishization, as North American discourse predominantly surrounds white, cisgender women.

Efforts for change are therefore useless, as the ideologies utilized are built upon foundations that cannot adequately reflect the experience of East Asian women.

The implications of white privilege in our society shape all individual experiences, and East Asian women are burdened by the intersection of an oppressed race and gender. In North American popular culture, positive and adequate representation is an inherently white privilege. In Madama Butterfly, Butterfly is portrayed negatively, therefore contributing to the harmful societal image of East Asian women. Furthermore, the narrative of Pinkerton marrying Butterfly for her exoticism, whilst secretly yearning for an American wife, is problematic in a multitude

of ways. This narrative implies that East Asian women are a less viable marital option when compared to white women; however they are a perfectly acceptable temporary infatuation. This objectifies and degrades East Asian women, identifying them as a sexual novelty, while white women are portrayed as ideal wives. Furthermore, in contemporary Western popular culture and media, the lack of East Asian female representation further normalizes this fetishization, as there are few roles present to challenge or change this harmful archetype (optimistically assuming that the portrayal of these characters would be positive). These issues with representation in popular culture also have adverse effects on the psyche of these women; the internalization of these harmful stereotypes places a burden on East Asian women to fulfill this set of characteristics that are wrongly associated with them, enabling the possibility of a toxic self-fulfilling prophecy.

In order to understand the normalization of this fetish, it is important to acknowledge the colonial history of sexuality.

The European bourgeois was unanimously comprised by white men, who subsequently shaped the structures of sex and sexuality that our contemporary North American ideologies are built upon. In doing so, the bourgeois implemented harmful ideologies through the interest of self-preservation in order to remain superior, and it is evident that the normalizing of this fetishization is accepted due to a history that was, and continues to be, shaped by white, cisgender men. Madama Butterfly perfectly captures the essence of this notion; it is a historical piece of artwork that includes both implicit and explicit forms of racism in its narrative, written by a white man.

In order to address the issue of the fetishization of East Asian women in North America, it is crucial that East Asian women are included positively in the public forums of academia, feminist discourse, and popular culture, in order to combat the deeply rooted history of white privilege in our society. Inarguably, the narrative of Madama Butterfly needs to be drastically altered or the opera needs to be permanently retired.

The prolificacy of a historical work of art does not justify explicit racism and subsequent contributions to oppressive practices. White men and women need to act as allies in correcting this toxic culture of fetishization.

November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

commentary

History Books are Xenophobic

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The Overlooked Role Educational Systems Play in our Levels of Knowledge and Awareness Tala Khaki Commentary Contributor

R

ecently, someone asked me if we have sidewalks where I come from. I let out a small chuckle before I realized they were dead serious, and I was faced with the task of matching their level of seriousness to what is in my opinion, a ridiculous question.

Coming from the Middle East, as one of the thousands of international students flocking to McGill’s campus every year, I simply assumed these stereotypes didn’t exist anymore.

I mean, how could they? After all, wasn’t this the modern, openminded, unprejudiced West we learned about growing up? In hindsight, I realize that it was a mistake on my part to assume that history books all over the world are identical in the information they deliver. Throughout my education, history classes were a repetition of World War One, World War Two, European, and North American history. So I naturally assumed that

if I spent my waking days writing essays on their history, they must be doing the same. Clearly, I was wrong.

Throughout my life, I have had to learn to relocate my anger and confusion, but whenever I was faced with this innocent ignorance, my eyes could not help but widen, lips grin in disbelief, and my head spin in anger. It’s unfortunate to see such a lack of awareness in such a progressive society. It is equally unfortunate that the relationship between people like me and the people who ask these questions is hostile. This person could not understand why I was taken aback by a simple question.

Similarly, I could not understand how they expected me not to be.

When people find themselves in situations like these, they back off before allowing the person in my situation to arrive at a cool-headed explanation. So, before we know it, a crucial conversation is left hanging in the air.

Forcing myself to re-address my anger towards the education system behind them was an uphill

battle. I had to learn that it is not entirely their fault, but rather a shortcoming of the books they learned from. Just like my education focused on them, so did theirs. Yet the hypocrisy still troubles me. We sound like a broken record, when repeating that new generations need to eliminate stereotypes, prejudice, and most importantly the “othering” gazes. But how is this going to happen if history books are riddled with misinformation about other cultures, while barely dipping their toes into history and politics beyond Western borders?

Part of the blame falls on the education system for denying people of upcoming generations of this imperative knowledge, but the other half falls on the shoulders of each individual.

It is the responsibility of each person to have a certain degree of knowledge of global issues. I am not suggesting that they become an expert in the field, but being somewhat well-versed in global issues can only positively affect the world. After all, these issues

pertain to human beings, and so naturally, they exceed borders.

It is important to note that the reasons these issues are excluded from textbooks are multi-layered.

First, we cannot forget the role white supremacy has played by seeping into the roots of our education systems. It continues to completely change and reshape society and our notions of the world. We are constantly taught to think that Western lifestyles are better, and thus, we must conform to fit in. I have caught myself saying that the 30 cm of snowfall is “not so bad”, or the -10 °C temperature is “not that cold”, when deep down I know well that it is bad, and that it is cold, in comparison to Jordan’s mere 2 cm of snow every two-three years. The same colonial attitudes that have taught me to say that have also taught this person to wonder if I ride camels to school. The prominence of these attitudes is implicit yet explicit.

It is explicit in questions like the ones they posed, and implicit in the way I catch myself conforming.

Nonetheless, they exist in the textbooks and education systems that are bringing up future generations, and they pose a threat to our potential for progress.

This is not to dismiss my main point – some responsibility still falls on the shoulders of individuals. Once we realize these biases that take up pages on our books, it is our job to challenge and outgrow them. It is our personal responsibility to confront racist history and educational systems.

Conversely, the same can be said about my role in my respective culture. It is my responsibility to fight the institutional sexism that takes place in workplaces back home, or the intensified role religion plays in governance. I recognize this responsibility, and I make an effort to challenge it at any given opportunity.

This is why, I believe, as part of an interconnected generation and a global citizen, this responsibility should extend to people who have grown up with skewed, racist, and biased histories that shun out the socio-cultural aspects of other countries on this planet.

One Hundred Days Too Long

The Indian Occupation of Kashmir Should be the Focus of Global Media Attention

Rosa Sundar-Maccagno Commentary Editor

O

n August 6 of this year, the Indian government overturned Articles 370 and 35A of its constitution, dissolving the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and breaking the region into two Union Territories.

The special status of Kashmir was included in the constitution by India’s early leadership as a way of offering “a certain degree of autonomy to its only Muslim-majority state — one it had incorporated without the consent of its people, who would have preferred independence or accession to Pakistan” writes Hafsa Kanjwal wrote in the Washington Post. Two-thirds of this state have been occupied by India for decades, against the wishes of its inhabitants. Kashmiri separatists have been demanding “azadi” (freedom) for decades. With the repeal of these articles, it is unlikely that the separatist movement will be able to solidify enough support to achieve their goals of self-determination.

November 12 marked one hundred days of the occupation, and reports on the living conditions inside Jammu and Kashmir in the past weeks have all returned the same verdict: the siege has resulted in massive human rights violations.

These violations are the result of military occupation and heightened police repression. Majid Maqbool, a journalist in the now Union

Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, describes the way in which the occupation is visible: “[...] Censored press, more bunkers, longer military convoys, soldiers atop military vehicles, standing guard on either side of the road with batons and guns in their hands, bringing civilian traffic to an abrupt halt; coils of concertina wires and road blockades occupying virtually all main roads and crossings.”

Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, was re-elected this May with a majority government, his win adding to the wave of right-wing authoritarian leaders gaining power globally. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have well established ties to the self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist group the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS, and by association the BJP, have been spreading islamophobic and casteist ideology for decades, making the intent behind this annexation apparent: Narendra Modi’s government is aiming to further his party’s Hindu nationalist ideology. Clearly, the current administration could not allow a Muslim-majority state to exist with any degree of autonomy, and because the dissolution of article 35A specifically allows nonKashmiris to buy land, it is feared that the one hundred-day-old

occupation is only the beginning of an attempt at launching a settlercolonial project.

Despite reports from the area describing cases of torture, arrests, and preventative detentions, Modi was awarded with the Global Goalkeepers award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in September of this year, one month into the occupation. He received this award because of the supposed success of the “Swachh Bharat” or “Clean India” campaign, an effort to make India free of open-defecation.

His government claimed to have built 100 million new toilets in India over the past five years, but these numbers are not backed by independent research groups according to Sabah Hamid, who resigned from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over Modi’s award. She is one of many who are questioning the thinking behind this award, given the severity of the human rights violations perpetrated in Kashmir over the past one hundred days, and across the country in the years that Modi has been in power.

The campaign addresses only the symptoms of the problem, instead of the root cause: “institutional discrimination against the scheduled castes,” writes Vidya Subrahmanium from Indian news outlet The Wire.

One day after Modi received the award in New York, two young Dalit men were killed for defecating in the

open in Madhya Pradesh.

Modi has transformed Gandhi’s iconic wire-framed glasses into the symbol of the Swacch Bharat, and said “Getting the award in the year of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary is personally significant for me,” in his speech in New York.

While Modi’s claims that Gandhi advocated for the cleaning up of India are not unfounded, his legacy is perhaps better represented in the non-violent resistance to colonial rule that is being demonstrated by the Kashmiri people.

A fact-finding mission conducted in early October by sociologist Nandini Sundar and lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan reported that while schools are technically open, parents are afraid to send their children because of the presence of armed forces. They also found that children as young as six years old “are being picked up and kept for a day to several days, or asked to report morning to evening for several days. Most often there is no record of their detention.”

This degree of repression has led people to ask if this is really Gandhi’s India. From Sundar and Ramakrishnan’s report: “As one man whose brother had been arrested merely for speaking to the media told us, ‘Go back to India and cover every statue of Gandhi so that he doesn’t have to face this shame.’ For Gandhi, the only relevant

factor for constituting nationhood was the will of the people.”

Another group, consisting of “concerned citizens from different professional backgrounds,” travelled to Kashmir between September 25 and 30 and Jammu between October 6 and 7. They noted that while the Indian government is trying to present the idea that “their clampdown on civil liberties in Kashmir with an increased military presence, summary arrests of all mainstream and separatist leaders and the communication blockade” have allowed the annexation to occur peacefully, the reality is that the inhabitants of this occupied state are protesting through largely nonviolent means. The strength and will required to resist a body as powerful as the Indian government is what we should be celebrating globally.

We must not allow our attention to be placed on the supposed successes of the Modi government. We must stand in solidarity with Kashmir, and recognize Modi as the leader of an authoritarian state founded on hateful ideas and violence, not as a Global Goalkeeper.

Readers looking to better understand the history of the region, and the beginning of this annexation should read the article “Kashmir on Lockdown as India Strips Away Independence” published in August 2019 by the Daily.

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November 18, 2019 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

compendium!

Lies, half-truths, and the Post-Malonial.

Survey Soiree

The Best (Worst) of Poll Party

Prom Royalty Results!

Here’s what voters had to say:

“Nothing makes me happier than to vote for James McGill, cofounder of the Beaver Club, and Queen Victoria, a ruler generous enough to learn ‘a few words of Hindustani to speak to [her] servants.’”

“Blue Vicky and Pink James are totally crushing the gender binary!”

“Why can’t I vote for a Queen Victoria throuple?”

Phoebe Pannier | Illustrations Editor