The McGill Daily Vol105Iss11

Volume 105, Issue 11 Monday, November 9, 2015

McGill THE

DAILY

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

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

Whose remembrance?

Supporting veterans Challenging imperialism

page 07 page 10

Table of Contents 03

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NEWS

Taking back the night

FEATURES

What we forget on Remembrance Day

Students and workers on the streets against austerity

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The UGE’s Trans/Formations

CULTURE

Restructuring proposals at SSMU Council

Care about science or technology?

Join us.

The Daily sits down with Montrealturned-Toronto poet

Culture Shock: science fiction and social justice

Syrian poet publishes new book of poems

SSMU building, room B-24

scitech@mcgilldaily.com

TOPS play Halloween bash

VP Internal candidate interviews

Rocky Horror celebrates 40 years

Fall reading break at AUS Council

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COMMENTARY

Remembrance Day disrespects veterans The NDP’s progressive platform

EDITORIAL

Concordia must drop charges against student protesters

WRITE FOR SPORTS. sports@mcgilldaily.com

Letters

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Violence against Black youth

A chat with a VP Partyperson hopeful

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Demonstrators take back the night

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Hundreds march against gendered and sexual violence

Marina Cupido The McGill Daily Warning: This article contains potentially triggering discussion of sexual assault.

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n the evening of November 5, roughly 200 people gathered at Norman Bethune Square for the annual “Take Back the Night!” march against gendered and sexual violence. The event was organized by Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA). A McGill contingent organized by the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) was also present.

“The first [goal] is to bring light to the fact that gendered violence is still an issue within Montreal and within communities everywhere. We’re here to advocate for safer spaces for everybody so no one feels unsafe walking home at night [...] or being in any spaces at any time of day,” explained co-organizer and CGA volunteer Shayna Rosemarine, in an interview with The Daily.

“The other reason is basically to take back the Take Back the Night march. Because in the 1970s, when it was first organized, it was mostly just for women, and they weren’t

very pro-sex work. So the idea here for us is to bring in all genders to oppose gendered violence, because we think [...] unity is very important, as well as an understanding that sexual violence happens to all kinds of people,” Rosemarine explained.

Speaking to The Daily in Norman Bethune Square, Roy, a first-year Chemistry student at Concordia, highlighted the persistence of gendered violence.

“I think a lot of people really think that it’s a safer world now, and that gendered violence really isn’t a big problem. But it really is, and it really shouldn’t be taken lightly. Yes, it is safer for, say, white women than it was twenty years ago, but for women of colour, and for trans women, and for [trans people] in general, it’s not that safe at all,” Roy said.

Another protester, Ryan, explained that xe had come to the event along with other members of a feminist collective at John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. “As somebody who is concerned for [women] and for myself, because I don’t identify as male, and I don’t always present as male, it’s important […] to weed out societal cancers like harassment and rape,” xe said.

“It’s important to show that people have power over institutionalized practices like rape culture. It’s something that needs to be spoken about […] and this is the way that we begin discourse,” xe added.

After roughly an hour of introductory speeches and chants, the marching began shortly after 7 p.m.. Protesters took to the street at the intersection of Guy and Ste. Catherine, then proceeded east, through Downtown, before turning north on McGill College and marching through the Roddick Gates to gather in front of the Redpath Museum.

Several police vans maintained a constant presence, surrounding demonstrators and clearing the streets ahead of them, but at no point did they attempt to interfere with the protest.

The event was not declared illegal under municipal bylaw P-6, even though organizers had not disclosed their itinerary to the police.

Once participants gathered at the steps of the Redpath Museum, more speeches were made by organizers and community activists. One speaker, affiliated with the CGA campaign Missing Justice, described her experiences of seeking redress in the wake of repeated sexual violence.

The march.

Marina Cupido | The McGill Daily

“There [have been] many times I’ve had to deal with the justice system. Many times that I have been raped. Many times I have been abused, assaulted, had men try to murder me, and it took me a long time to realize it’s because I’m Indigenous, and a woman,” she said.

She continued, “How many of you feel safe to go to the police to report a crime? I don’t. My current case is open, nothing’s being done. [...] They’re not pursuing the men that have raped me. They are not [...] seeking justice on my behalf. Per-

haps it’s because I’m just another Indigenous woman. Maybe they don’t believe me. Whatever it may be, I know what happened, and I know [...] that it was real.”

She expressed hope, however, in light of the recent announcement that Canada’s new Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, is an Indigenous woman. “Having an Indigenous woman on the forefront, fighting on behalf of us, gives me hope that this abuse will stop, and change is possible for the future.”

Students join anti-austerity march Demonstrators protest provincial cuts

David Aird News Writer

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ver a thousand demonstrators took to the streets on November 5 to protest the Quebec government’s austerity measures, joined by contingents of university students organized by student associations, including the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). The demonstration also brought together the student associations within the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) who were collectively striking for the occasion.

The McGill contingent was organized by McGill Against Austerity, a newly formed student group whose goal is to mobilize students, spread awareness about austerity, and increase McGill’s involvement in the movement. Around twenty McGill students gathered at the Roddick Gates at 12 p.m. to participate in the march.

SSMU VP External Emily Boytinck, who participated in the march, told The Daily, “I think it’s really important for McGill students to stand in solidarity with the rest of the Quebec student unions, the Quebec student movement, and

the workers. We’re all fighting together against austerity.” “[Austerity measures are occurring] while tax rates for corporations are being cut and taxes for the rich are not being increased. So essentially, what we are doing is having policies which benefit the rich at the expense of the poor,” Boytinck continued.

At 12:45 p.m., the McGill group was joined by a Concordia contingent of around thirty students, chanting “Avec nous, dans la rue” (“Join us on the street”). The two contingents walked east along Sherbrooke, accompanied by several police cruisers and motorcycles. Ignoring police requests to use the sidewalk, protesters chanted: “Étudiants, travailleurs, même combat” (“Students, workers, same struggle”).

The McGill and Concordia contingents arrived at the general meeting point, the Montreal Science Centre, at 1:15 p.m. More contingents arrived shortly thereafter.

Adam Mac Kenzie, a U3 Political Science and History student, told The Daily that “mass mobilization has always been key to changing government policy and changing power structures. [...] Today I hope to build toward that goal.”

Before the march began, three speeches were broadcast from a stereo system mounted on a truck.

A union representative criticized the Quebec government’s claim that there isn’t enough money to reinvest in public services and education, in light of the multinational aerospace and transportation company Bombardier’s recent $1.3 billion bailout.

One student emphasized how austerity measures particularly affect women, in the form of closures of women’s status bureaus, the loss of public sector jobs mostly occupied by women, the closing of regional medical centres, and the cutting of affordable health services among other things.

Nicola Protetch, a U2 Anthropology student, explained that she was attending the march because she believes austerity is the root of larger problems.

“Hopefully there is power in numbers and hopefully through that power, our voices will be heard, and the government [will start] looking at reform,” Protetch said.

The demands of protesters centred on reinvesting in public services and the public school system, and

The McGill contingent. halting the budget cuts that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable people in society. “I believe that if people want to feel protected by their country, their government, the government should feed into social services,” Protetch explained.

The demonstrators left the Old Port at 1:45 p.m., marching up St. Laurent accompanied by dozens of police officers dressed in full riot gear.

The march was largely peaceful, save for some intervals of tension when police forces walked through the crowd or prevented demonstrators from marching in

David Aird | Photographer the direction they wanted to. At certain points, officers forced the march toward the north and east, away from Downtown.

The march ended after around two and a half hours.

Boytinck said, “There’s lots of different solutions to austerity. [...] For example, by increasing the number of tax brackets, or raising the corporate tax rate, or really cracking down on corruption, [...] gathering money from alternative sources, and not cutting valuable social programs.”

“Austerity is not a necessity; it’s a political choice,” she added.

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Trans/Formations series brings trans issues to centre stage

Organizers emphasize accessibility, closed discussion spaces Arianee Wang The McGill Daily

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etween November 5 and 8, the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE) held an event series dedicated to trans issues, titled Trans/Formations.

The event series, organized entirely by UGE, was also partially funded by various campus organizations such as Queer McGill (QM), the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF), and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) McGill.

Speaking to The Daily, QPIRGMcGill Finance and Programming Coordinator Kama Maureemootoo, who hosted the keynote event, said, “I think [this] is super important, particularly at McGill. As far as I know, there hasn’t been a full series that is focused specifically on trans issues.”

Maureemootoo noted, “We tend to think about [...] the ‘transgender tipping point’ because Laverne Cox had her cover on Time magazine, but we don’t necessarily discuss our everyday realities, what it means to be trans at

McGill University, what it means to be trans in Montreal, in Quebec.

I think those are conversations that need to happen, and they haven’t been happening in such a large-scale and public way.”

UGE event coordinator Lucie Lastinger told The Daily, “I think trans people don’t get a lot of space to talk about their own issues, or often [are] an add-on to other issues, and tend not to be centered in the discussion.”

State violence, gender, and race The keynote event, titled “A World Without Cages: Reimagining Gender, Abolition, and Resistance,” featured Joshua Allen, an organizer at FIERCE, an organization whose mission is to build “the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of colour in New York City.”

In their talk, Allen addressed issues such as the relationship between marriage and capitalism, as well as leadership in the LGBTQ movement, but focused specifically on how state violence functions

Blare Coughlin | Illustrator in relation to race and the ways in which state violence is perpetrated

against gender non-conforming and trans bodies.

“Militaries from heavily imperialist countries are the ones that have been the biggest perpetrators of all transmisogyny, all kinds of trans violence, all kinds of gendered violence, all across the globe,” they stated.

Allen called the fact that trans people and gender non-conforming people are fighting for inclusion in the military “the height of irony,” because “what’s actually happening [is that] by agreeing to be a trans person who’s in the military [...] you’re actually going to use your physical body, enact your labour, to perpetuate the same violence that leaves you oppressed wherever you are.”

Event accessibility When asked about the challenges of organizing the series, Lastinger identified ensuring accessibility as a main focus of the organizing committee, stating, “We wanted these events to be accessible to as many people as possible.”

Apart from ensuring wheelchair accessibility, the UGE also provided various resources in order to make the events accessible to more people, such as providing American Sign Language (ASL) and Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) translation and childcare at the keynote event and the panel.

The UGE also strived to make Trans/Formations a financially accessible event series. “If you had to buy a metro ticket or a bus ticket, you can bring your receipt and be refunded for that cost,” said Lastinger.

TPOC and non-binary closed events In addition to panels and work-

shops open to the general public, the series also included two closed events, the Trans People of Colour (TPOC) Discussion Group and the Closed Non-binary Discussion Group.

Lastinger noted, “Those two workshops [addressed] larger problems within the trans community of being really exclusive to white trans people and not making space for trans people of colour. That’s definitely a problem, and we didn’t want to ever let that happen.”

Speaking to The Daily, one student who attended the TPOC discussion group and wished to remain anonymous, said, “I think having it closed is a way to be like, ‘we’re all people who can talk about these issues, and talk freely,’ and […] it’s not like we’re going to be like ‘you can’t say that,’ on different issues.”

They mentioned that certain spaces can make them feel “uncomfortable” because “I feel like you have to be non-binary enough – that always feels weird.”

Despite this, they said, “I think it’s good to have that [closed] space, especially because there’s not a lot of spaces like that […] at least in Montreal, as far as I know.”

They also broached the problem of conflating identities within the term “people of colour” (POC). “I think it’s [interesting] to do stuff that is so broadly people of colour, when a lot of issues aren’t just about being not white.

Like more specific things […] like people [speaking about] violence against trans women of colour, but they’re really referring to Black and Latino women,” they said.

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Social justice as science fiction

Culture Shock event series promotes closed discussion workshops Rayleigh Lee The McGill Daily

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he Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) McGill held its annual Culture Shock event series from November 5 to 8.

Open to McGill students and the greater Montreal community, Culture Shock explored themes such as anti-racism, migrant justice, and Indigenous solidarity through workshops, discussions, and keynote events.

The series was organized by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) in partnership with QPIRGMcGill. While many of the events occurred on campus, others took place at locations around Montreal.

Kama Maureemootoo, Finance and Programming Coordinator at QPIRG-McGill, told The Daily that Culture Shock began 13 years ago, but strives to explore new topics each year. “I think one of the things that is very particular about Culture Shock is that we always

address issues that are politically important at a given point, which is why we have the workshop on the Syrian refugee crisis.”

“It was also really important for us to create more spaces to talk about anti-Black racism,” Maureemootoo added. “That’s the thing that has been very relevant and prominent, and been needing a space for a long time.”

The theme of the year, Science Fiction, was inspired by keynote speaker Walidah Imarisha, coeditor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, an anthology of short stories about “radical science and speculative fiction written by organizers & activists.”

The event page for the keynote speech states, “whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without injustice, we are engaging in speculative fiction. Radicals and activists devote their lives to envisioning such worlds, and then go about trying to create them; indeed, all organizing is science fiction.”

The event series featured three closed workshops, which provided spaces for participants of marginalized groups to explore topics of race and gender. For example, according to the event description, one workshop titled “Organizing at the Intersections of Black Lives Matter & Gender Justice” was closed to Black and mixed Black participants, and aimed to “push participants from organizing from a racial justice framework to a full-blown liberation movement.”

“Closed space workshops are extremely important to us,” said Maureemootoo. “McGill is a campus where this is not really talked about at all, and sometimes it’s about creating spaces to […] allow [marginalized groups] to talk about their experiences without filtering what they’re saying.”

Arabella Colombier, Culture Shock coordinator and U2 Philosophy student, told The Daily that organizers “don’t want to put the burden of education on people of colour, and on other [marginalized groups]

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily because it is a lot of emotional labour for people to be constantly teaching others about their oppression.”

“Hopefully other people can take it upon themselves to come to these workshops and do further research and educate themselves on these issues,” Colombier continued.

Megan Shanklin, a U2 Political Science student, spoke to The

Daily after attending a workshop about decolonization.

“There are some people on campus that see QPIRG as really radical, or out there, and distance themselves from these issues — even though if they went to this workshop, they could learn so much from it, and we could all relate to it,” Shanklin said.

SSMU explores addition of executive position Councillors discuss affiliation to Quebec student federation

Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

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eeting on November 5, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council discussed the addition of a SSMU executive position and the affiliation to a provincial student federation. Council also passed a motion in support of the creation of a fall reading break, approved a set of clarified internal regulations for the Finance and Operations portfolio, and heard from Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens on mental health initiatives.

SSMU restructuring Council spent over an hour discussing two provisional proposals from the executive committee to add an executive position to SSMU. Both proposals would involve the separation of the VP Finance and Operations position into two positions – one for each portion of the current portfolio – as well as the elimination of the VP Clubs & Services position and the redistribution of duties among the remaining positions. The first proposal would also create a VP Student Life position, while the second would split the VP University Affairs position into a VP University Relations and a VP Student Affairs.

Executives noted that SSMU has seen significant growth in

the executive portfolios since the structure of the executive committee was last modified in 1988. President Kareem Ibrahim argued that most executives are unable to fulfill the entirety of their mandates, despite working between 70 and 85 hours per week.

“Executive burnout is not unique to this year,” Ibrahim said.

“There is genuinely not enough time in the work day [...] to accomplish all these tasks.”

VP University Affairs Chloe Rourke noted that most of the portfolio items added in the last ten years went to her portfolio, including the recent addition of mental health.

Speaking in favour of the second proposal, she insisted that equity and mental health should stay with the VP or VPs who work most closely with the representation of student interests to the University.

VP Clubs & Services Kimber Bialik spoke against the second proposal, arguing that it was “setting up the VP Internal to fail” by making them responsible for events as well as clubs and services, which have multiplied “exponentially” over the past 15 years. She noted that the two positions’ responsibilities have similar timelines, and their combination would create an unbearable amount of work in the summer and the fall.

Several councillors raised the possibility of creating new administrative

positions or “associate VPs” to help the executives instead of creating a new position. Rourke noted that this would impose training costs and lead to increased bureaucratization.

“You get the most work for your money with executives,” said Rourke, noting however that “if students really want a student association that’s able to do more and really expand its scope, we need more money and resources to back it up.”

In a straw poll taken at the end of the discussion, a plurality of councillors expressed their dissatisfaction with both proposals, though more were in favour of the first than the second. According to Ibrahim, the topic will be discussed again at the General Assembly (GA) today, and any change to the executive structure would eventually go to referendum.

Provincial representation VP External Emily Boytinck updated Council on her involvement in the two burgeoning Quebec student federations, the Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ) and the Union étudiante du Québec (UEQ).

Boytinck explained that AVEQ is distinguished from UEQ by its lower proposed fee levy of $3.50 rather than $4.50, an equal vote for all member associations independent of the number of students they represent, and the

presence of other anglophone associations as likely members.

Medicine Representative Joshua Chin expressed concern that, due to its large membership, SSMU would be paying more money to AVEQ than other member associations.

“That’s a lot of money we’re giving, but our share of the vote is actually very little,” said Chin.

the provincial level. “While we can lobby McGill about [international tuition deregulation], it’s very much about government regulation,” said Arts Senator Erin Sobat.

Council expressed interest in hearing from representatives from both AVEQ and UEQ before putting a potential affiliation to referendum.

“Physical accessibility at McGill [...] sucks, essentially.”

Dyens on student well-being Addressing Council, Dyens detailed several areas for improvement in services to students. On mental health, Dyens suggested doing “more prevention,” merging McGill Mental Health Service and McGill Counselling Service in order to work in a “more holistic way,” assessing students in less stressful ways, and embedding counsellors in faculties. On accessibility, he noted that the Office for Students with Disabilities continues to struggle with budget cuts, and that “physical accessibility at McGill [...] sucks, essentially.”

Dyens further noted that “the legalistic culture we have” is not “conducive to good relationships” with student associations, and that students do not feel like they are treated as individuals at McGill.

Responding to a question, he added that “there are a lot of places where we could provide lower costs,” such as food and housing, but that this was currently impossible due to budgetary constraints.

Ollivier Dyens Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Boytinck responded that each student should make an equal contribution as a matter of solidarity, since they share in the collective benefit of provincial representation.

“Our students should be paying the same amount as every student across Quebec pays for the exact same service,” said Boytinck, noting that the alternative option of joining UEQ would likely lead to “backroom politics” among the student associations with a greater vote share.

Several councillors spoke to the importance of representing the interests of international students at

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Who is running for SSMU VP Internal?

Following the resignation of Lola Baraldi as VP Internal of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), a by-election was called to fill the position for the remainder of the year.

Campaigning began on November 5, and will run until November 15, with the voting period occurring from November 11 to 15. The debate will take place at 6:30 p.m. on November 11. The McGill Daily interviewed the two candidates running for election, Céleste Pagniello and Alexei Simakov.

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Longer versions are available online.

Céleste Pagniello The McGill Daily (MD): What kind of experience are you bringing to the role?

Céleste Pagniello (CP): I was a Frosh coordinator for Science Frosh this past summer. I’m also a [...] current executive on [the Music Undergraduate Students’ Association (MUSA)] and I’ve been VP communications for two years now, so that involves sending out listservs. I am bilingual, also, and I am a member of SSPN [Students’ Society Programming Network], which is the only committee under the VP Internal.

MD: What do you think is the most important part of the VP Internal position?

CP: Student engagement is in the VP Internal portfolio, but sort of has been lacking in the past few years. So SSMU has these events, but not everybody goes, as evidenced by 4Floors this year, which was not very well-attended, unfortunately.

MD: How will you help mitigate the problems SSMU is facing?

CP: SSMU is under a lot of financial problems right now, and I think the way a VP Internal could help toward that is by making a profit on events, first of all.

Something that I want to do is expand Grad Frosh into normal Frosh.

MD: Do you see SSMU as a political actor, and how does that view impact your role?

Alexei Simakov

CP: When SSMU takes one stance versus another, it sometimes excludes students who don’t stand the same way that SSMU does.

Not to say that SSMU shouldn’t absolutely make a stance, but I think a greater conversation needs to happen with the student body before SSMU makes a stance.

Unfortunately, the attendance at the general assemblies is not enough to get a good chunk of the students’ opinions.

MD: What sort of changes do you want to see in regard to SSMU’s relationship and engagement with its constituents?

CP: SSMU and its committees, groups, are a very exclusive group, I find. It’s hard to get involved, because the information is not always made accessible. Sometimes, applications for committees only go out to certain groups of people. I think everything needs to be sent out to all the students so that there’s a fair opportunity for everyone to apply and get involved.

The VP Internal position has notoriously been sort of inequitable and uninclusive, just because of the nature of the events that are planned. Faculty olympics, Frosh, things like that appeal to one crowd, and I definitely want to broaden that crowd, make everything as inclusive as possible, and make sure that everybody can enjoy themselves.

The McGill Daily (MD): Why are you running for VP Internal?

Alexei Simakov (AS): I’ve been very passionate about McGill and being involved in McGill in various functions.

Since my first year, [I’ve been involved in actions] against strike manifestations, and every year since then, I’ve tried to contribute in some small way.

I can, I think, make a meaningful contribution. When I first ran [for SSMU president] last year, that was obviously much more chaotic. [...] During that experience and afterwards, I’ve learned a lot about McGill, a lot about the student body. I’ve learned a lot about what people are thinking about SSMU [and] how they’re thinking about SSMU. I want to apply that experience to McGill in an executive capacity.

MD: What kind of experience will you bring into this role?

AS: I’ve worked, for example, in [the Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC)] in first year, that was during the strike manifestation. I’ve worked on various referendum questions; a lot of them were anti-BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions toward Israel] things. [...] I’ve filed a couple of [Judicial Board cases] against SSMU. I’ve been involved with, for example, the ongoing internal [regulations] review

process. That’s something I’m excited to contribute, whether or not I’m successful in the election.

MD: SSMU is undergoing a lot of trouble. Considering that, how would you help mitigate these problems?

AS: We have to be conscious of the fact that [...] a lot of these [financial] challenges are [... due to] broader shifts in the national [and] provincial administrative relationships. [...] I think I speak enthusiastically for being financially responsible, to make sure we use [the] limited resources we have to do more important projects. One of my strengths would be that I can more comfortably make the cuts that need to be made, if that’s the situation we’re forced into.

MD: Do you see SSMU as a political actor and how will your view impact your role as VP Internal?

AS: I mean they’re already very political.

I don’t think it’s so much an opinion, I think they’re consciously, openly, institutionally oriented a lot toward political activism. And this is something I kind of learned last year. [...] One of the pitches I made was that we need to stop this political radicalism, we need to stop this far-left kind of anarchy. [...]

What I’ve learned since then [is that] it’s not a matter of stopping those kinds of political spirits, it’s a matter of balancing them out.

Arts senators pursue fall reading break AUS Council discusses VP Finance selection process

Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

O

n November 4, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council met to discuss the questions that will be asked during the Fall referendum period, which will take place between November 22 and 27.

Councillors also discussed and adopted a motion mandating Arts senators to pursue the approval of a fall reading break at Senate before the end of the 2015-16 academic year.

Fall reading week Arts Senator Erin Sobat brought forward a motion regarding the endorsement of a fall reading break.

Sobat explained that this motion was building upon work done by previous student senators last year, which culminated in a survey conducted by McGill Enrollment Services in April.

5112 students responded to the sur-

vey, 71.5 per cent of whom were in favour of a reading break.

A proposal to add two days to the Thanksgiving weekend was brought to the Enrollment and Student Affairs Advisory Committee (ESAAC) on September 8. However, the proposal has not yet been approved.

At Council, Sobat said that there would have to be some trade-offs in terms of the calendar. “There would have to be exams on Saturdays during the December exam period. But that wouldn’t happen every year,” Sobat said.

The motion was passed with a single abstention. Sobat told The Daily that he expected this endorsement to strengthen the student senators’ case for a fall reading break.

“We heard some uncertainty from [professors on] whether or not students were in support of this, which was a bit surprising, considering we had a survey of over 5,000 respon-

dents. So we just thought we’d really spell it out, in addition to everything else [...] when we’re building our case,” Sobat said.

Reforming the VP Finance screening process A motion to modify the AUS VP Finance screening process via referendum suggested three options, for the fall referendum period.

Presenting the motion to Council, President Jacob Greenspon said that the aim was “ensuring that future AUS VP Finances have some sort of baseline amount of accounting skills and other types of skills required for the position.”

Choosing from the three proposals, Council voted for the one involving a screening committee that would determine whether VP Finance candidates “hold sufficient qualifications for the duties and responsibilities required of the position, as determined by a two-thirds majority vote

of a screening committee struck for these purposes.”

“When there’s someone in the position that has the proper skills [...] the finances can be run very, very well by an arts student.”

Jacob Greenspon, AUS president

Speaking to The Daily, Greenspon said, “AUS finances in the past have been bad, but they also have been good. [...] What we’ve found is that really when there’s someone in the

position that has the proper skills and has the proper background [...] the finances can be run very, very well by an Arts student.”

Other questions The other proposed referendum questions discussed at Council included a fee renewal question for the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS), another one for the Arts Undergraduate Improvement Fund (AUIF), and a constitutional change that would synchronize AUS’s fiscal year with its operating year.

In addition, another question proposing certain changes to the Arts Representative to Students’ Society of McGill Unviersity (SSMU) mandate will also be brought up at the referendum period.

Each of these questions have been approved.

A longer version of this article is available online.

Commentary

November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Don’t honour, support

Remembrance Day militarism is disrespectful to veterans Jill Bachelder The McGill Daily

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ere in Canada, as well as in the U.S., our November 11 show of remembrance for those who died in war is quite militarized. On McGill’s campus, soldiers march dressed in their military uniforms and with guns in hand. Up until last year, McGill even fired cannons, the sounds of which were triggering for some students who had lived through war and violence. Several arguments have already been made in this paper about the absurd militarization of a day meant to honour veterans, focusing on the continued use of force by the U.S. and Canada in other countries to ensure economic and political domination.

This is the primary reason for condemning the military on Remembrance Day, but there is also another perverse aspect hidden from the celebrations: the disgraceful treatment of soldiers and veterans by the state.

Five years ago, I met a group of veterans at an Armistice Day peace ceremony, hosted by the U.S.-based non-profit Veterans for Peace (VFP).

One of the veterans I met was Dave Logson, who fought in the Vietnam War and has since become the president of our local chapter of VFP in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When I saw Dave over the summer, he told me why he and his fellows at VFP oppose the militarization of Veterans Day (the American equivalent to Remembrance Day). “I think [the military focus] is disrespectful, because what you are saying is, ‘oh, this is really noble and just,’ and it’s awful,” he said. “It was a terrible thing that we did to these people who died in war.”

The disrespect stems from the fact that honouring the military is simply not the same as honouring veterans. The grandiose ceremonies that honour the military assume that soldiers are off fighting wars that are necessary for the U.S. or Canada to survive, that without their sacrifices we would succumb to attacks from terrorist organizations and the like. Many of us know that this is not true: the Canadian and U.S. militaries’ primary role these days is using brute force to ensure economic and political control by the Western world. Both countries’ prolonged involvement

in Afghanistan, for instance – over 12 years in both cases – was not only very far removed from the security of people in Canada and the U.S., but has also led to increased turmoil in Afghanistan, the country that the militaries were supposedly trying to rebuild.

The conflation of veterans with military institutions is also questionable because the state, on whose behalf the military acts, is one of the biggest perpetrators of injustices against veterans. Take the case of veteran deportations: the U.S. promises an expedited road to citizenship for immigrants who serve in the military. However, there have been several cases of immigrant veterans being deported because they were convicted of a crime after their term of service had ended; in some cases, the crimes were only committed due to unaddressed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Indigenous veterans and veterans of colour have also widely accused the Canadian state of being systemically racist. Esther Wolki, an Inuk woman who served with the Canadian Armed Forces for ten years, told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) that the racism and sexual harassment she experienced during her time in the military made her want to kill herself. Many Black veterans have also spoken out against racism in the Canadian forces, saying that their service was marred by racist slurs and hateful actions.

The mistreatment of veterans does not end with their service.

Both the U.S. and Canada have shown time and time again that they are unwilling to provide veterans with the care they deserve once they’ve come home. While 158 Canadian soldiers died during the mission in Afghanistan, a recent Globe and Mail investigation revealed that 54 veterans have committed suicide after returning to Canada. Yet, the previous Conservative government failed to spend $1.13 billion of the Veterans Affairs budget last year, despite a clear need for services and support.

It is shocking that Canada spends billions of dollars every year on military operations, yet cannot see the value in spending on needed care for people who return home scarred by their experiences in war.

In the U.S., veterans wrestle

every day with the compensation and benefits programs in place.

Vietnam veteran Doug Drews, for example, has struggled to get compensation for numerous medical problems, including peripheral neuropathy in his arms and legs caused by his handling of large barrels of Agent Orange. This is largely due to the complex legal pathways one must follow in order to receive compensation, a system Drews said intentionally keeps veterans from receiving care. “Most people I talk to ask me what they can do about this issue. I tell them to get friends together and stop sending their sons and daughters into the military when the U.S. Department of Defense is involved in protecting private overseas business ventures instead of defending our country,” Drews told me.

The inadequate treatment of veterans even extends to some charity organizations. Naomi, who served in the U.S. military police from 2002 to 2011 and now works for the charity Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), told me that PVA was the only veteran support organization that helped her husband when he came back severely injured from Afghanistan. Someone from the Wounded Warrior Project did come by his hospital room, but merely offered a t-shirt and shorts, a handshake, and the phrase “Thank you for your service,” before turning around and leaving.

The celebration of the military that takes place on Remembrance Day or Veterans Day is a perfect example of the distorted view we hold of military veterans and the realities of their lives and service.

This perception can be seen elsewhere, from the movies and TV shows glorifying soldiers and killing (American Sniper definitely comes to mind) to the impulsive regurgitation of the words “thank you for your service” whenever a politician speaks to a veteran. Whether we’re talking about Parliament Hill or Capitol Hill, the attitude is the same toward millions of veterans in Canada and the U.S.: go where we tell you, do what we tell you, and afterward – don’t expect help, and don’t expect us to reflect on your struggle when deciding whether to send troops elsewhere.

When I was in high school, my

Jennifer Guan | Illustrator friend and I were given a scholarship by VFP to film a protest against the organization formerly known as the School of the Americas, a facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. The school trains “security agents” for the purposes of sending them to other countries, mostly in Latin and South America, these agents have committed many human rights offences for governments supported

by American imperialism. Marching up with a group of almost a hundred veterans – who had fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and pretty much every war in between – their families, and their friends, we were stopped from entering the protest site by the police because one veteran was holding the U.S. flag. Though other demonstrators had stilts, clothes racks, and large wooden crosses and were allowed to enter, this veteran could not go in because the stick on their flag was a “potential weapon.” Watching as the police told these people that

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they could not fly the flag they had been sent to war for, the flag their friends had died for, the flag that had ruined their lives, is a moment I will never forget.

The way we celebrate Remembrance Day every year ignores the military’s contribution to the suffering of veterans. This annual show of militaristic solidarity, with people telling each other to ‘remember those who died honourably’ does nothing to call out the state for sending its young people to fight unnecessary wars, and then neglecting their needs when they come home. Instead, we should be arguing against the military and condemning its carelessness and violence – this is the most respectful thing we can do in memory of people who lost their lives in war.

Jill Bachelder is a U2 student and a former Daily editor. To contact her, email jilphaba91@gmail.com.

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Commentary

November 9, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Progress over pessimism The idea of a centrist NDP is misguided

Malaya Powers and Jacob Schweda Commentary Writers

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s New Democratic Party members, we welcome Jules Tomi’s reflection on the 2015 federal election campaign (“Lessons in hope and disillusionment,” October 26, Commentary, page 9). However, we feel obliged to clarify some of the author’s misconceptions and remind him of the many progressive policies the NDP pursued during this campaign.

The author perpetuates the pervasive trope, repeated by the media throughout the election, that the NDP has moved to the centre. Tomi seems to only have two examples of this: the party’s removal of the word “socialism” from its platform and its commitment to balancing budgets outside of extraordinary economic downturns.

Tomi is likely one of very few Canadians who are aware that the party removed this word from its constitu-

tion in 2013 – a change supported by former leader Jack Layton. To believe that this change has had any influence on this year’s election campaign is naive. In addition, it is intellectually lazy to pretend that running deficits makes a party progressive. If that were the case, the outgoing Harper government would fit that description. After all, the Conservatives ran year after year of deficits, sometimes to stimulate infrastructure spending.

Progressives believe in government involvement in the economy, absolutely. But the government should fund that involvement by taxing those who have more. The NDP was the only party this election to propose raising the tax rates of our country’s richest corporations.

Finally, the idea that the NDP has somehow shifted its foreign policy position on Israel to match that of the other major parties is untrue.

Mulcair spoke out loudly during the 2014 Gaza conflict to condemn attacks on civilians and urged the Canadian government to admit in-

jured Palestinian children for medical treatment in Canada. Hélène Laverdière, recently re-elected as the Laurier–Saint-Marie MP in the Plateau neighbourhood, also called on the Harper government to fund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The NDP position, as indicated in the publicly available party policy, has long been (and remains) support for a two-state solution, including an independent Palestine. While we join Tomi in hoping for an open, critical, and democratic debate on all issues within the party, one should not conflate the party asking candidates to be cautious about how they express their opinions with a shift in important foreign policy.

Those arguments aside, Tomi also neglects to mention the NDP’s progressive commitments made during this campaign. We’ll remind him here: the NDP is committed to a complete repeal of the terrifying Bill C-51. An NDP government would institute binding greenhouse gas

emissions targets and a national capand-trade system to achieve them. It would create a $15 minimum wage for federally regulated employees. It would invest $375 million over four years in clean water and housing for Indigenous communities and create a cabinet committee to ensure policy compliance with the inherent and treaty rights of Indigenous people.

It would reform the electoral system to bring in proportional representation, abolish the undemocratic senate, mandate complete gender parity in appointments to federal boards and commissions, and create binding quotas for the number of women members on boards of directors of federally regulated corporations. It would offer financial support for affordable housing, invest $100 million over four years in youth mental health, and eliminate interest on student loans. The list goes on and on, and the author neglected all of it.

Perhaps most shocking is the author’s failure to mention the biggest expansion of the social safety net

proposed by the NDP: $15 per day childcare across the country. This program would have marked a step in the right direction toward a truly universal social democratic welfare state in Canada. It could have been as key a piece of our nation’s social fabric as medicare and public pensions.

Real people are affected by politics. The author’s article, however, ignores the millions of people whose lives were at the centre of the NDP’s 2015 platform. This may be easy for some of us who live comfortably, but we do so to our detriment. We therefore invite the author and all other McGill students to go beyond ivory-tower criticisms made with the benefit of hindsight, and to instead put their ideas into action by helping us reflect, rebuild, and continue the struggle for a fairer and more equal Canada.

Malaya Powers and Jacob Schweda are co-presidents of NDP McGill. To contact them, email mcgillnewdems@gmail.com.

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Misrepresenting Zionism

Unethical mining operations

Remembering the Holocaust

In the article “Not in my name” (October 16, Features, page 11), Anna Tv describes how her recent experience on Birthright led her to “uncover the truth” that Zionism is a white colonial movement.

She attempts to put Zionism in a historical “context of colonialism” by quoting Theodor Herzl’s reference to locals as “dirty Arabs and Jews, and beggars.” This statement is not only taken out of context, but is also a misquote. In Herzl’s novel Altneuland, as two characters enter a Jaffa alleyway, it is remarked, “poor Turks, dirty Arabs, and timid Jews lounged around – indolent, beggarly, and hopeless.” “Dirty” (schmutzige) is not used pejoratively. Rather, Herzl is describing the disenfranchisement of the local population at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

The article goes on to show how “power and privilege” in Israel is reserved for “white Europeans.” Yet the current ramatkal (the highest position in the Israeli military), Gadi Eizenkot, is Mizrahi, as is Silvan Shalom, the current vice prime minister.

Using the examples of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) and Neturei Karta, the author attempts to show that Judaism calls for “the dismantling” of Israel. RHR, however, though critical of Israeli policy, has never called for the state’s dismantlement. On the other hand, Neturei Karta, with its overt misogyny, homophobia, and endorsement of Holocaust denial (famously attending the 2006 International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran), is hardly a group to be emulated.

The article is fraught with misquotes and factual errors (listing the building of settlements in Gaza as one of Israel’s current “atrocities,” when Israel evacuated all Gaza settlements in 2005; blaming “mainstream Jewish education institutions in the U.S. and Canada” for falsely perpetuating “the idea that most Jews in the world are white or European,” when 75 per cent of world Jewry is in fact Ashkenazi). One wonders how such an article was published unreviewed in The McGill Daily, let alone as a feature article.

McGill has been given the opportunity to host Guatemalan journalist Luis Solano, who has recently returned from the Escobal mine in Guatemala, which is owned and operated by the Canadian mining corporation Tahoe Resources. Solano’s findings indicate that Tahoe Resources has assisted in the criminalization of local land defenders, leading to the militarization of the region. This has resulted in violent clashes between locals, Tahoe employees, and Guatemalan security forces.

The Guatemalan government and Tahoe Resources have cooperated to disrupt peaceful protests against the seizure of local land. They have placed greater emphasis on profit than on the voices of citizens. The operation has been pushed by Tahoe Resources and the Guatemalan government, with tacit support from the Canadian embassy. Norway’s Council of Ethics deemed the operation an affront to human rights, recommending against investment in the Canadian company.

This suggests that the Escobal mine rests upon an unethical foundation, one that we as students must recognize.

Despite the recommendation by the Norwegian Council of Ethics, McGill has invested an undisclosed amount in Tahoe Resources. This investment connects the university to the company’s actions, which include the shooting of local protesters by security guards. This is a connection many students are unaware of, but should acknowledge. Solano’s findings demonstrate the increasingly common criminalization of Latin American communities by their own governments for protesting against Canadian mining operations. Solano’s presentation will give students the opportunity to recognise the connection between Tahoe’s unethical operations and McGill’s financial investments.

Luis Solano will present on November 12 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Otto Maass 112. The presentation will be followed by a broader discussion with Indigenous activists on the criminalization of environmental activism in Canada and the implications of Bill C-51.

Xenophobia, racism, and genocide did not cease with the Holocaust. The “never again” line canonized into memorial scripts rings hollow.

The Holocaust took place in a world that was not radically different from the one we inhabit: modern, western, and democratic.

There is a wealth of scholarship on this topic, with historian Zygmunt Bauman often at its centre. Bauman insists in Modernity and the Holocaust that the Holocaust should not be considered merely a Jewish event in history nor a decline to pre-modern barbarianism. He believes that the same processes of exclusion that allowed for the Holocaust to happen could still, to varying extents, occur today. Holocaust education can be invigorated with newness by reflecting on how far society has come. What does society do that is similar? What can society do that is different? Teaching about the Holocaust is more than disseminating facts. The Holocaust can be used as a moral measure of our current actions as individuals and society.

The ability to reflect on these ideas is contingent on the way we shape our memory of the Holocaust, but preserving memory is complicated. To preserve the memory of persecuted Jews, Roma people, disabled people, queer people, Black people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others, creates a moral challenge in communicating people’s experiences.

We are fortunate to have survivors who are alive and are both able and courageously willing to share memories from a time when human compassion was in most instances absent.

Hillel Montreal, in partnership with the student-led Ghetto Shul community is organizing a Shabbat dinner with Holocaust survivors on November 13. This dinner is open to the entire McGill community.

Our generational challenge to transmit the truths of those who endured and/or succumbed to the plight of Nazi rule is somewhat minimized with the live testimonies of survivors.

We must seize the opportunity to bear witness to the stories of Holocaust survivors in order to preserve memory. You can register for the Shabbat dinner at hillel.ca.

—Daniel Zackon, U2 Mathematics and Philosophy

—Christian Holmes, U3 student and member of the McGill Research Group Investigating Canadian Mining in Latin America (MICLA)

—Madeleine Gottesman, U2 student

Commentary

November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Kids deserve to be kids

Systemic violence against black youth must stop Inori Roy-Khan Minority Report

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n October 26, a 16-year-old black student was slammed to the ground, dragged out of her chair, locked in a chokehold, and thrown across the room by 34-year-old white police officer Ben Fields at Spring Valley High in Columbia, South Carolina. If you haven’t seen the footage of the incident, which quickly went viral on social media, brace yourself and watch the video. In it, you will see the brutal reality of how black children and youth are treated in our society today – a truth that many non-black Canadians and Americans have yet to acknowledge and amend.

There is no crime that can warrant the treatment of a child with such brute force as Fields exhibited. Despite a federal civil rights investigation into the incident and the firing of Fields, the discourse around what happened at Spring Valley frequently presents the black victim as the cause that provoked Fields’ violence.

So, let me say it again: there is no ‘disruptive behaviour’ that can warrant a young student being body-checked to the ground by a police officer three times her size.

Fields had been nicknamed “Officer Slam” by some students of Spring Valley High because of his previous violent behaviour; he has also been sued twice before, once for use of excessive force. Yet, when Sheriff Leon Lott, Fields’ superior, was asked to comment on the incident, he held the student responsible for how events unfolded. “This incident started with a very disruptive student in a class,” Lott said in a press conference. “This student was not allowing the teacher to teach, was not allowing the students to learn. She was very disruptive, she was very disrespectful, she started this whole incident with her actions.”

The eyewitness accounts of students present in the room paint an entirely different picture. Tony Robinson Jr., who captured the incident on video, said, “I was [there] and nobody even knew what she did when he grabbed her. That’s how fucked up it was... That’s supposed to be somebody that’s going to protect us, not somebody that we need to be scared of.”

Another student, 18-yearold Niya Kenny, was arrested for speaking out against Fields during the incident. In spite of fear-

ful accounts from students in the classroom, authorities involved in the incident all initially supported Fields’ behaviour, as did some students in the school. The Richland School District in which Spring Valley High is located has a history of racist violence against students by authority figures. Despite this history, the rhetoric surrounding this latest assault has oriented itself toward laying all blame on the young black girl.

The eagerness with which blame is pinned on a young black girl is not incidental – it is the product of an insidious association of blackness with inherent guilt and criminality. The racist violence that is most commonly described as being directed toward black men also heavily affects black women and girls, who are not only the subject to racial attacks, but also have the added weight of misogyny working against them. Because of this, their experiences go unacknowledged when confronting the reality of anti-blackness in the U.S. and Canada.

Not only do authority figures regularly display violent behaviour against black students in the U.S., but this violence has been systematized to the point that it directly contributes to the ‘schoolto-prison pipeline.’ The school-toprison pipeline is the pattern of educational and social institutions funnelling their most at-risk youth straight to the prison system, prioritizing incarceration over education or rehabilitation. This phenomenon can be observed in disciplinary practices that penalize black students at a greater rate than their white counterparts for the same misdemeanors.

The eagerness with which blame is pinned on a young black girl is not incidental – it is the product of an insidious association of blackness with inherent guilt and criminality.

Starting from early childhood,

Marina Djurdjevic | Illustrator black students represent a disproportionately high amount of suspensions, making up half of all preschool suspensions. By middle school, black students are three times more likely to be suspended than white students for the same infractions. In 2011, black girls in America were six times more likely to be suspended from school than white girls. According to a report from the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), black girls said that they felt uncomfortable with security in their schools; some “were dissuaded from coming to school at all.”

Disproportionate punishments of black youth lead to disproportionate presence in the criminal justice system. Studies have shown that a single suspension can double a student’s likelihood of dropping out; an increased number of suspensions means a higher chance of entering juvenile detention, which decreases educational and financial opportunities for at-risk youth and increases the likelihood of imprisonment in adulthood. Initial incarceration builds up social obstacles and challenges which only increase the odds of continued incarceration, disproportionately filling up penitentiaries with black and Latino people.

This is not solely an American phenomenon. A 2011 report from the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission highlighted the harsh treatment that black students face in Quebec schools compared to their white peers. This discrimination has frequently been connected to a lack

of motivation in school, leading to decreased success in the education system and higher dropout rates.

The Toronto Police Service has also been long criticized for its practice of carding, where individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing or connected to any investigation can be stopped and questioned on the street. The profiles compiled from these interrogations are then logged into a police database. This practice has been denounced time and time again as unfairly targeting black people, and racial profiling has been acknowledged by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as being a pervasive issue in the province.

The fact of the matter is, black youth are not more likely to cause trouble than their white peers, but they are more likely to be penalized for it. Similarly, black adults are not more likely to commit crime, but are more likely to be arrested for their offences than white adults.

Somewhere within the non-black U.S. and Canadian subconscious is rooted the idea that blackness is inherently associated with guilt, criminality, and violence. A study conducted by the American Psychology Association in 2014 found black boys to be more likely to be mistaken as older and assumed to be guilty than their white peers, who were allowed the assumption of innocence. Similarly, the AAPF notes that “girls and black women are seen as more aggressive, and their emotions aren’t read accurately. Hurt and pain and even excitement are [misunderstood] on black faces.” Black women are often

perceived as embodying the “angry black woman” stereotype: even when their anger is legitimate, it is discredited in favour of discriminatory stereotypes.

There is an obvious pattern of victim-blaming and racist stereotyping that without fail accompanies assaults against black women and girls, like the assault of a young black girl by a police officer at a Texas pool party this past summer, or the murder of Sandra Bland while in police custody. Starting from childhood, non-black people are socialized to assume the worst of black people, forcing them into racist stereotypes rooted in historic inequality and oppression, and perpetuated by contemporary anti-blackness.

Young black children, forced to watch their black peers be assaulted by police officers, made to fear for their own lives when faced with those who are supposed to serve as protectors, and funnelled from excessive disciplinary action in school to disproportionate imprisonment in adulthood, are systematically robbed of the presumed innocence of childhood. The Spring Valley High assault would never have been perpetrated against a white student – her rights would have been preserved, as they should be. It’s time we begin extending the same basic right to black children and adults everywhere.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori RoyKhan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

What we remember

Remembrance Day obscures the violence of the military’s past and present Written by Alice Rougeux Visual by Sarah Meghan Mah

Features

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s November rolls around, it’s time for yet another article about Remembrance Day. In the Commonwealth of Nations, which is mostly made up of the UK and its former territories, the 11th of November is a day that marks the armistice of the World War I in 1918 and commemorates deceased members of the armed forces. As McGill University and its surrounding communities choose to repeat the ceremony on campus every year, and while political climates both abroad and in Canada continue to intensify, the necessity for opposition to Remembrance Day must be emphasized.

While many may feel outraged by this dissent and call it a disrespectful politicization of Remembrance Day, the fact remains that Remembrance Day is inherently political.

Let us not forget that winners write history, covering up a multitude of narratives and leaving them to be forgotten. The narrative that Remembrance Day chooses to commemorate is not representative of any universal history or sanctimonious truth; it is deliberately chosen by a government and an administration to promote the political decisions that led to war in the past and still lead to war today. Opposition to Remembrance Day is not a gratuitous, reactionary, or uneducated attack on those mourning on November 11. Rather, it is one of the few means that remain at our disposal to confront the jingoistic ideologies tied to a sentiment of collective grief, that while legitimate for some, are a constructed fiction for many.

To mourn and remember may be a natural right that transcends common law, but it is no justification for privileged patriotism to be proudly exercised at the expense of those currently experiencing wars waged by Commonwealth nations. Expressing grief through the fanfare of restrictive symbols, selective history, and arms undermines the value and sincerity of memorial thought altogether.

The echoing sounds of gunshots and cannons across Montreal this Wednesday, dubbed “artillery salute,” exemplify this.

One of the more disturbing aspects of Remembrance Day is the disparity between the World War I official narrative and its realities, a discrepancy propagated in Canada to this day. Veterans Affairs Canada says that 68,000 Canadian citizens died between 1914 and 1918 because they “gave their lives and their futures so that we may live in peace.”

This notion of giving and sacrifice is constantly used as part of a vocabulary that serves to mythologize and justify death. In reality, World War I was embroiled in an early 20th century thirst for imperialist and colonial power. In the words of the Guardian columnist Seumas Milne, “The bloodbath of 1914-18 was not a just war. It was a savage industrial slaughter perpetrated by a gang of predatory imperial powers, locked in a deadly struggle to capture and carve up territories, markets and resources.” The obscured narratives of World War I are particularly important to uncover, due to the centrality of the war’s of symbolism in Remembrance Day traditions.

Similarly, among British Commonwealth forces in World War I, no one who “fell” did so for a noble cause, and this is perhaps the tragedy that many find so difficult to face: it is much less harrowing if one can say “this war was waged for you, me, and our nation,” rather than “this war was waged for absolutely nothing.” This type of justifying rhetoric was displayed in

November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily the selection of John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” as the emblematic poem of World War I, turning the red poppy into the symbol that it is now, as well as the phrase “lest we forget” – a phrase from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Recessional” about how the British empire will only be saved once we remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

In George Orwell’s “Essay on Kipling,” he says: “It is no use pretending that Kipling’s view of life [...] can be accepted or even forgiven. [...] There is a definite strain of sadism in him, over and above the brutality which a writer of that type has to have.

Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.”

Why do we honour poets like Kipling, who use verse as a call to arms, over poets who, rather than praising war, denounced the futility of it? Wilfred Owen’s lines written in 1917, which detail the cost of war on human lives, are instead worth our attention: “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: ‘Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori’ [‘it is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country’].”

Indeed, renewed idealizations of the war only serve to retell an old lie.

The myth of the “Great War” Too often, we are told that those who died in “The Great War” died for our sake, for the sake of democracy, and for my freedom to write these words, but this simply is not true.

The motivations behind the war were intrinsically intertwined with white supremacy, competitive industrialization, and a scramble for domination. At the turn of the century, the urge to import raw materials in order to satisfy consumer needs in the metropole was fueled by a discourse suggesting that “Western” countries could and needed to better the rest of the “savage” world. Kipling, as the bard of the “civilized world,” made such Eurocentrism and racism rhyme in his famous poem “The White Man’s Burden.” This sense of entitlement and domination was in no way vital to the wellbeing of the allied nations; its only purpose was to appease a greed for foreign capital and justify a colonizing mission.

When remembering World War I, it is cowardly to ignore the role of the war’s conscientious objectors in past resistance movements. No justice is done to the history of previous generations in failing to recognize their social and economic situations at the time, especially their absence from the decision-making process that declared war in their name. Voting conditions in the early 20th century were abysmal, as many men of colour or without property were denied full suffrage, and women in Quebec also couldn’t vote until the 1940s. The patriarchal glorification of the male war hero in narratives of war continually omits the fact that many men were forced to fight against their will by conscription and out of poverty.

The narratives promoted also often fail to recognize the vital work done by women during wartime and, perhaps most of all, relegate the involvement of racialized peoples to a third place. The experiences of Indigenous and other racialized peoples in wars

are constantly understated and left out of history, which only perpetuates and normalizes the exploitative discourse that forced a number of them to fight for and alongside the very same people who occupied their lands and committed genocides of their people throughout Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, South Asia, and Oceania. During the East African Campaign, part of what colonizers called the “African Theatre” of World War I, the death toll of African porters – comprised of civilian men, women, and children – far exceeded that of European soldiers. According to Edward Paice at the Africa Research Institute, 95,000 porters alone died carrying supplies for British troops.

What we do, and don’t remember on campus In light of these factors complicating dominant narratives, the theatrics of Remembrance Day on the McGill campus seem absurd. Soldiers carrying weapons and performing salutes supposedly teach us not to repeat conflicts like those of the past, but their mere presence advocates for their present-day use.

Setting up tools of violence in a dramatized context serves only to romanticize and fictionalize a brutality that is a very real experience for some. It should go without saying that out of the 30,000 students at McGill, it’s likely that gunshots and tanks rolling past the Roddick Gates could be traumatic for some, and no amount of remembrance is worth this trauma; remembering the past should never come at the expense of those living in the present.

Those who support Remembrance Day on the grounds that it teaches us not to engage in war are neglecting the fact that wars are indeed being fought at present – but out of sight and out of mind. Syria is now one of the present-day battlegrounds for international conflicts and interventionism, but because there is a lack of repercussion on Canadian soil, the terrible effects of war elsewhere do not resonate with many Canadians. Remembrance Day not only commemorates violence of the past, but violence of the present. As long as militaries are actively perpetuating state violence and calling it “benign” and “defensive,” these official events are validating past warmongering and essentially giving everyone a thumbs up to continue.

No amount of remembrance is worth this trauma; remembering the past should never come at the expense of those living in the present.

The height of irony is reached when recognizing that the weapons brought onto campus each November 11 are in fact being brought onto unceded Kanien’kehá:ka traditional territory. While the administration has been busy planning events to commemorate war, it has completely ignored repeated initiatives to merely recognize that the university sits on unceded land.

Remembrance Day becomes a show of double standards and hypocrisy when one contemplates the University’s complicity in

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perpetuating war across the world. Student groups have uncovered and criticized research conducted at McGill that could be used for the development of weapons and surveillance programs. For example, student group Demilitarize McGill found that researchers at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering’s Shock Wave Physics Group (SWPG) were establishing technical foundations that could be used for manufacturing thermobaric weapons. Additionally, McGill mechanical engineering professors and researchers have signed contracts with Canada’s Department of National Defence.

Admonishing war and commemorating the deceased while having a hand in perpetuating more wars is nothing short of deceitful. That these double standards exist is a relic of an archaic moral code that commands individuals not to kill some on the one hand, while encouraging them to kill others in the name of nationalism on the other.

Resisting state violence This isn’t to say that a rejection of militarism requires one to reject the validity of all violence. Indeed, while violence is legitimized by states to suit the needs of some and deny the agency of others, painting the situation white with absolute pacifism is not a useful response. Whether it is narrowly choosing to see Remembrance Day as an advocation of peacekeeping or actively advocating for an idealized and universal peace, both responses serve to silence crucial forms of emancipatory violence. Unseen from the discourse on our campus is the mention of countless people for whom fighting is the only answer when given the choice between resistance or obliteration.

The final means of empowerment – revolt – deserves respect that should neither be undermined by unwarranted state violence nor ignored in pacifist discourse. We must consider the scale of oppressive violence that is enacted against many, and weigh the necessity of certain acts against this disproportionate repression, before casting judgement – be it on the civil unrest of protesters in Ferguson, the stone throwers in Palestine, or the Kanien’kehá:ka in Ka’nehsatà:ke during the Oka Crisis 25 years ago.

So this week, when students, faculty, and community members walk past each other wearing poppies, remember that there are legitimate reasons for opposing the symbolism of Remembrance Day, which justifies wars for comfort, fear, and material interests. This dissent aims not be divisive for the sake of controversy, but rather to challenge ideas that have dire repercussions, whether they are felt personally by the dissenters or not. The aggressiveness that Remembrance Day protesters on campus were met with a year ago is a sign of the intolerant nationalist zeal that comes with such a day, only being encouraged by the events displayed on campus. In hosting Montreal’s Remembrance Day ceremony, McGill as an educational establishment fails to set an example for its students, and instead chooses to perpetuate a tradition of misguided pride. Remembering those whom we lost should not be a nationalistic project. In the meantime, perhaps we will be able to bridge our differences on the small hope that in the coming years a Remembrance Day article like this will no longer be a necessity.

Culture

November 9, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

12

Creating in the interzones In conversation with poet Domenica Martinello

Sepehr Razavi Culture Writer

“

How exciting is it/not to be at Port Lligat/learning Portuguese in Bilbao so you can go to Brazil.”

In reading the opening lines of Frank O’Hara’s “Hôtel Particulier,” it becomes abundantly clear how the American poet has left an imprint on Montreal-born poet Domenica Martinello. If people can be divided into those who pragmatically plan ahead and those who fully embrace varied experiences, knowing far too well the possibility of hitting a wall, O’Hara and Martinello are of the latter kind.

After receiving her BA in creative writing at Concordia, Martinello was part of an exodus of English-speaking talent from Montreal to Toronto, due to the decreasing space given to artists in the city. A $2.5 million budget cut to the Quebec arts and letters council program (CALQ) is the latest of a flurry of budget cuts to the province’s arts scene, with farreaching consequences.

Martinello’s latest chapbook, Interzones, exposes the lifeblood of her artistic spirit, which challenges the status quo on gender roles and questions her surrounding space with a deep sense of self-awareness. In so doing, she has gotten a well-deserved nod from Toronto’s literary circles by getting published in online journals, including Lemon Hound and carte blanche, and has reinforced her position as a Canadian poet to watch.

Martinello’s tone is sometimes sentimentally tender, often carnal, with notes of the abject; it is one that is engaging and speaks starkly of truth. The tone is emblematic of Martinello’s inexorable drive, from endless nights of reworking sentences to find the words to reflect an accumulation of extraordinary experiences. These experiences include bitter, harrowing ends, but that doesn’t matter to Martinello, because those who avoid vulnerability avoid meaningful experiences.

What makes her work so pleasant to read and listen to is her dexterous depiction of a full range of encounters – from her descriptions of mundane Toronto workdays to surprisingly anatomical details of intercourse, all presented without compromise.

Martinello sat down with The Daily to talk about juggling work, reading and writing in Toronto, and her latest chapbook Interzones.

The McGill Daily (MD): Have you read anything recently that you’ve particularly enjoyed or that has marked your own work?

Domenica Martinello (DM): What I’m really pulled to is prose that blurs genre and defies easy categories. The feminist tradition is full of exciting cross-genre writing – Hélène Cixous and Adrienne Rich

jump to mind – that blends poetry, theory, activism, essay, fragment, and manifesto, sometimes all in the same text. Recently I’ve read and loved Chris Kraus’ I Love Dick and Kate Zambreno’s Heroines, two books with novel-like qualities that could also be filed away under fiction, literary or art criticism, gender studies, or personal essay. They are both innovative texts that parse challenging ideas while being unapologetically raw and readable. Basically, ‘fuck form’ texts.

When I was in university, I had a creative non-fiction writing workshop. Each time I turned in a nonfiction piece, my professor would praise the energy of the writing, but warned me, rightly so, that editors wouldn’t know what to do with my fragmented essay hybrids if I ever wanted to publish. Though it can be hard to find an audience or a ‘market’ for this type of writing, it’s what excites me most to read.

MD: In your work you talk about the adaptation process behind moving to Toronto in quite crude words.

Earlier this year, Jay Baruchel, in a controversial interview with the National Post, talked about linguistic tensions and Quebec’s politics as reasons for leaving Montreal. Would you attribute this exodus to the same things, and how have you fared in your transition to your new surroundings?

DM: I’m hesitant to throw my coin in with Baruchel, though it’s undoubtedly true – there has been an exodus of sorts. I feel like the Anglo writing community in Montreal is very small and insular, mostly orbiting around the university. You can view this as negative or positive, depending on your perspective, but I personally find it a bit stifling. Toronto feels huge and open in comparison. There are so many different things going on, and I have felt only warmth and support from other writers here.

One stereotype about Toronto I’ve found to be true is that people’s lives revolve around work. The culture does not cater to la vie de bohème the way it does in Montreal.

There is something nice about the quirky character of Montreal and Montrealers, their love of life, politics, and pleasure. Alternatively, writers, publishers, and booksellers in Toronto apply their [...] drive and work ethic to accomplish gargantuan things for Canadian arts and letters, and that’s inspiring. Though, some Montreal expat friends of mine absolutely hate it here and I understand that too.

MD: Do you feel like your work is markedly influenced by your home cities, or would you consider yourself as more of a cosmopolitan poet?

DM: I do think that my surroundings have influenced me. One thing that fascinated me after moving from Montreal to Toronto was how similar and dissimilar cities can be. A city is a city is a city – except not. After moving, I felt stuck in this

Martinello reading her poetry in Toronto. liminal, in-between place – imagine a Venn diagram, and you’re trapped where the overlap occurs. Things feel uncanny, not right. From that vantage point, you look back and forth between the two sections that are clearly separate from each other, without being able to navigate those spaces. This was the main structuring principle of [...] Interzones.

I feel like the Anglo writing community in Montreal is very small and insular, mostly orbiting around the university.

MD: It seemed for a long while that the world of poetry was a bullhorn for the tired trope of the misunderstood middle-class man who reads Bukowski, listens to Bob Dylan, and sips on whiskey on the rocks. Do you think that there’s still much of the same power dynamics behind what is put forward in artistic communities?

DM: I think so, yes, but gains are being made. I think you’d be surprised to find how ‘likable’ and resilient that trope is. We are very fond and forgiving of our great, white misunderstood men. But there are a lot of women doing their work and being loud about it, taking up more public space, and not letting the injustice of toxic power dynamics go unchecked.

Courtesy of Domenica Martinello

Unfortunately, the burden of change often falls on the very communities that are being marginalized – women of colour, queer women, trans women, [gender nonconforming] people. [...] There’s been a lot more transparency in our artistic communities, in great part [due] to organizations like Canadian Women in Literary Arts (CWILA) who build meaningful dialogues around issues of gender and representation in the literary world. But there’s still work to be done.

MD: Your depiction of sexual encounters bears a tone of quasidetachment, focusing more often on accurate anatomical descriptions than romanticizing euphemisms. It almost feels like an inversion of narratives where lust and envy have been abundantly utilized by male authors in an effort to objectify female sexuality. You seem to be using just that to challenge gender roles.

DM: I do think that my writing on sexuality aims to challenge gender roles and subvert the male gaze.

By writing starkly and openly about female desire – it’s a topic worthy of exploration just like anything else – I feel as if I am reclaiming the power to narrate, contextualize, and validate my own experiences. Yes, I want to reclaim the word “cunt;” yes, I want to be tender; yes, I want to break down the body to its most barren anatomical parts. I want to do all these things and more, and I don’t want someone else to do it for me. There is still an undercurrent of shame when I perform some of these erotic poems, like I’ve just ‘outed’ myself, or have opened the door to an inappropriate or unintellectual response to my work. Which goes to show how deeply we internalize stigmas.

MD: Any parting advice for potential authors or artists in general who wonder how to juggle work with their social lives and artistic creations?

DM: I haven’t quite figured out how to juggle writing with supporting myself and making a living and all that. I recently quit my decent-paying, high-stress day job and am doing some freelance work and weekends at a bacon sandwich shop. It is incredibly difficult and I think it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise.

What little advice I can offer has been given to me by better, smarter writers. First: embrace rejection. It is a huge part of the writing life. Feel bad about it briefly and move on. Second: read voraciously. I truly believe reading every day is more important to your craft than writing every day. Lastly: don’t talk about writing, just do it.

That guy at the bar talking so animatedly about how he’s writing a great novel? That guy used to make me feel lazy and terrible about my own writing – often chugging along slowly and bumpily. But I’ve come to realize that Bar Guy will probably be talking about working on a novel for the next 15 years and never finish it. Sit in your chair every day and do the work. It is not glamorous work. It doesn’t get easier. But once you’re done, you can talk about it until you’re blue in the face, [though you] probably won’t want to. Be proud of yourself, enjoy your moment, and then get back to writing.

Interzones is available for purchase on Etsy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Culture

November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Poetry imprisoned

Faraj Bayrakdar’s new collection translated from Arabic Anya Sivajothy The McGill Daily

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Intro,” the opening poem of Mirrors of Absence, projects vivid images of reflection into a whirlwind of thought. It finishes with the stark phrase, “nothing at all.”

This is an apt introduction to Faraj Bayrakdar’s book of short verses which complicates ideas of identity, freedom, and imprisonment – all set within the context of a poet struggling with his identity while living under a tyrannical regime.

Faraj Bayrakadar is an award-winning Syrian writer who was imprisoned by the Hafez al-Assad regime in 1987. He was released 14 years later, and has been living in Sweden since 2005. Following his release, he published several books of poetry and a book of prose. Mirrors of Absence is his fifth book of poetry, published in 2015 in Arabic, and translated into English

by John Mikhail Asfour.

The only poem that is titled in the collection is “Intro” – the rest are numbered and trail off in stream of consciousness narratives, loosely connected by unnamed figures, absences, and repeated reflections.

While some longer poems are marked by a cutting violence, others are composed of short lines that impose a juxtaposition between anger and resigned sorrow. Such lines cast this sorrow toward a constrained God who is silently watching the

treachery unfold.

As the collection unravels, one begins to connect with the loneliness that the speaker is experiencing. Certain figures, such as the daughter, exist only as interwoven voices within the poems, never fully materializing as complete characters. This absence of secondary voices stresses the chasm between the imprisoned voice and the outside world. The vague unsubstantiated pronouns also emphasize the struggle of identities within the speaker, as he loses his anchor to reality and is pressed through the structural disintegration of time.

Words lose their meaning over the course of the collection as well.

Many poems include repeated lines – desperately trying to convey the inability of words to fully express the violent erasure of voice that is inherent to imprisonment.

Mirrors of Absence is a powerful collection of poetry that entangles the reader within the nebulous and peripheral existence of the speaker, which can be attributed to Bayrakdar’s own experiences of imprisonment.

Staying true to the title, the reader becomes the object of reflection by engaging in a dialogue with the text. The simplicity of the strong and pointed phrases allows readers to explore and perhaps lose themselves in the different layers of meaning. When readers comes up for air, they are just as implicated in the final interpretation as the author’s original intention,

reflecting their own internal state onto the poetry.

While some longer poems are marked by a cutting violence, others are composed of short lines that impose a juxtapositio between anger and resigned sorrow.

Much of the directness and straightforward nature of this translation can be attributed to John Mikhail Asfour. However, as with all translation, a worry remains over the ideas that are potentially lost in translation or untranslatable. This inevitability evokes another tragic sense of absence that further adds to the layers of restrained sorrow surrounding the work.

Although a reader cannot possibly experience the full calamity faced by those imprisoned in an oppressive state simply by reading the short poems, Mirrors of Absence acutely captures the inner turmoil of the speaker and leaves the reader struck by the loaded verse.

TOPS plays hauntingly good set Montreal band brings the party to Halloween show

Rosie Long Decter The McGill Daily

M

ontreal record label Arbutus Records has produced several dazzling pop acts in the past few years, from the wildly successful Grimes to the sultry Sean Nicholas Savage. Not to be left off this list is TOPS, a band whose ethereal synths, catchy hooks, and breathy vocals have propelled them to the forefront of the Montreal music scene. Currently on tour with California group Puro Instinct, TOPS took the stage on October 31 at Fairmount Theatre for a Halloween show in their hometown.

The sold out show started off a little slowly, the energy in the room low as the group began with “Circle in the Dark,” off their second album, Picture You Staring.

But things picked up soon enough as the band broke into one of their bigger, bouncier tracks, “Change of Heart.” Before long,

lead singer Jane Penny was spinning all over the stage. Penny and bassist Alana DeVito were dressed for the occasion in black wigs with pink ribbons and dresses to match.

The band played a number of new songs throughout the set, such as the recently released “Anything,” and “Hollow Sound of the Morning Chimes,” in which David Carriere captivated the crowd with his smooth guitar playing. Penny’s recorded vocals, light and airy in Picture You Staring, returned to the punkier belting of the band’s first album in several of these new tracks, adding a harshness that charged the live performance.

They only played for a short but sweet 45 minutes, but that was all they needed to get the crowd eating out of the palms of their hands. By the time they played their eightiesinfused ballad “Outside,” the whole audience was singing along in a collective John Hughes fantasy dream.

When they launched into their sec-

ond to last song, “Way to Be Loved,” the room became a mosh pit. Within seconds, costumed crowd members took over the stage, dancing around the band and belting out the lyrics to the group’s most popular track.

Band members were hardly fazed, continuing to play with perfect coolness. Once security had cleared everyone off the stage, they launched into The Pretenders’ “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” – a solid cover, despite being an anticlimactic way to close after the rowdiness of “Way to Be Loved.”

After the show, the band slipped into the crowd and danced along with everyone else to the Blue Hawaii DJ set that followed. TOPS like to have fun, and it shows in their sets – they know how to get a crowd going without compromising the quality of their sound. Their dreamy yet dance-like tracks made for the perfect Halloween party; the show may not have been very spooky, but it certainly was a treat.

TOPS performing. Rosie Long Decter | The McGill Daily

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Culture

November 9, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

“But it’s the pelvic thrust...”

Do the Time Warp for Rocky Horror’s 40th anniversary Virginia Shram The McGill Daily

S

howings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show have historically provided positively weird, wacky, and fun safe(r) spaces for queer and trans youth in particular. However, the show has slowly been exploited over the years, from mainstream appropriation in the popular TV show Glee to the Hollywood movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, fans of the Rocky Horror experience wonder if Halloween showings are still radical spaces, safe enough to explore gender and sexuality freely.

Montreal has a history of lavish Halloween Ball showings, where theatregoers in circuslike vaudevillian attire and bloodstreaked lingerie throw toast and toilet paper at the stage.

For those who are haven’t seen a Rocky Horror production (known as “virgins” and, once quickly spotted, often emblazoned with sharpied Vs on their foreheads), the gist of the event is Richard O’Brien’s cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing on the big screen. Actors mime the dialogue and action on stage while audience members yell lines and throw some choice objects as they appear on screen.

Montreal has a history of lavish Halloween Ball showings, where theatre-goers in circus-like vaudevillian attire and blood-streaked lingerie throw toast and toilet paper at the stage, as per tradition at live showings. But has the Montreal community been able to sustain the original movie’s intention of providing a diving board for discourse on trans and queer activisms, or has annual repetition caused the show’s trans and queer positive spirit to wane?

The Daily sat down with the director of Montreal’s Rocky Horror Picture Show showing, Phil Spurrel, to find out how he meshes this year’s Halloween Ball version with the original film.

The McGill Daily (MD): Rocky Horror is a Montreal staple, and it’s easy for the actors

A tap-dancing Colombia and cast. to just mimic the movie plot on stage line by line as it happens in the movie. What’s different about this year?

Phil Spurrel (PS): Besides the fact that it’s the 40th anniversary [of the film], part of what we do with this Halloween Ball version is we have a lot of pre-show things going on - costume contests and other entertainment - and it’s going to feel like a 40th birthday party for Rocky Horror in this town. And of course, as per tradition, our host is Plastik Patrik, as he has been since 2001.

MD: It seems the show gets more popular every year. Do you think this year’s adaptation, and years’ prior, are swaying more toward entertainment, or are they staying closer to their roots as political activism for trans rights?

PS: No, I think it’s staying true

“The cast, it’s very open, and every orientation is welcome and everybody is just... it’s one big happy family.” to its roots. This being the 40th anniversary, we see a lot of big mainstream media corporations

south of the border observing that and dragging out [the appropriation] by saying, “Oh, remember Susan Sarandon and Meatloaf?” but they don’t go into any depth with the political aspects behind it.

But in Montreal, it’s more queerfriendly and more inclusive, [which is] partly to do with the city being particularly open minded compared to other cities, and the fact that a lot of the cast members identify as somewhere within the LGBT [spectrum].

As the producer, I want to provide quality entertainment with a good production value so people get their money’s worth – but there’s also the cast, [bringing] their own energy and ideas and all their creativity. And I don’t have much control over what they do; they do their thing and I’m happy with what they do.

There’s a real energy behind the whole thing.

MD: You mentioned earlier that most of the cast identifies somewhere on the LGBT spectrum. Is that a requirement?

PS: It’s not a requirement, it’s just the way that it turns out. It’s interesting that whether it’s people who are sure about their sexuality at a certain age, or whether it’s somebody that’s uncertain and they see this fun group they want to be part of, their coming out happens gradually within the group or by attending the show and getting a closer look at themselves and being in an environ-

Courtesy of Montreal Halloween Ball ment where they feel safe and free to express themselves however they like. The cast, it’s very open, and every orientation is welcome and everybody is just… it’s one big happy family.

MD: What was the most difficult or intensive part of production this year?

PS: [The cast is] always trying to perfect their Time Warp dance, and they do variations on it. You see a sexier, raunchier take [than in the film]. Speaking of choreography, one of the elements we tried out maybe six years ago – it was such a hit and I as the producer insisted that we keep doing it – was the Thriller mashup, where they take Michael Jackson’s Thriller choreography, but partway through the song it stops and another song invades it.

We always make it a surprise; this year it’s based on a viral homemade Youtube video.

Also, over the last four years, we’ve gotten professional circus performers doing acrobatics and an aerialist coming down from the ceiling.

It looks dangerous, but people seem to know what they’re doing. So I would say some of the more difficult parts go toward complex dance and stunt acrobatic choreography.

MD: Rocky Horror obviously has a lot of sexual content and mimicking of sex acts. Does that have roots for you in the film’s activism or is it more for shock value?

PS: I think it’s more for fun.

One of the more common ques-

tions we get asked by parents is, “Is this appropriate for children?” and I say, it depends on how openminded you are as a parent, and how you convey that to your kids.

I tell them that they’re better off attending the 8 o’clock instead of the 11 o’clock show, because [the show] tends to get a little raunchier as [the cast] gets loose a little more on stage, and the audience [as well].

“In Montreal, it’s more queerfriendly and more inclusive, [which is] partly to do with the city being particularly open minded compared to other cities.”

MD: It seems like the cast members deliberately play with gender norms, as well.

PS: Oh yeah, [it’s] one of [the actor who plays Frankie’s] favourite things; if you go to her place, she also has this poster on her wall that says “Gender is flexible,” and she in her daily life tries to express [that] as much as possible.

Editorial

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November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Concordia protesters should not be punished

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n March, five student associations at Concordia University voted to strike as part of a broader movement protesting the Quebec Liberal government’s austerity measures. Over 25 students who participated in picket lines and disrupted classes at Concordia during the strikes are now facing disciplinary tribunals that could result in expulsion. Concordia chose not to pursue similar complaints filed against students following the 2012 student strikes, but has now reversed its position. This betrayal tramples on students’ democratic right to strike by threatening expulsion and is nothing short of shameful.

This kind of university crackdown is neither new nor unique to Concordia. At UQAM, nine students are currently facing expulsion for participating in protest actions in April, and one has already been expelled. Many UQAM professors have shown solidarity with student protesters, at one point physically standing between student protesters and police, and later calling for a repeal of all expulsions. In contrast, at Concordia, professors filed complaints against the students under article 29g of Concordia’s Code of Rights and Responsibilities, alleging “obstruction or disruption of University activities” – even though at least three students who received complaints were not involved in the protests.

The Arts and Science Student Federation of Associa-

tions (ASFA) at Concordia released a statement to the press on November 2 condemning these charges, stating that the decision to strike was made democratically through general assemblies. As such, the decision by the Concordia administration to penalize these students undermines the legitimacy of student associations and the democratic nature of general assemblies. As the ASFA statement points out, these actions are a strategic effort to discourage future strikes and the politicization of the student body – a particularly timely tactic as anti-austerity strikes pick up again this fall. Ironically, by attacking students protesting provincial austerity measures that include cuts to higher education, Concordia is silencing its own advocates.

These measures are part of a neoliberal drive to depoliticize the student body and reframe educational institutions as businesses, rather than sites of political action.

This has also been seen at McGill with the firing of politically active floor fellows and the adoption of a repressive protest protocol. We call on the faculty and administration of Concordia to drop the charges against the students who acted on their democratic decision to strike. Universities must stop standing in the way of students demanding an end to austerity in the province. ­—The McGill Daily editorial board

A temporary change in content Starting this week, The Daily’s Features, Sports, and Sci+Tech sections will temporarily become half-sections, and will appear in print every two weeks. As the editorial board of The Daily is currently understaffed, we have made this decision in the interest of the paper’s continued quality. This change will be in effect until these vacant editor positions are filled.

Any McGill student is eligible to become Daily staff and run for an editor position, which is compensated by an honorarium. Editor elections will be held on November 19. If you are interested in joining our team, please do not hesitate to send an email to coordinating@mcgilldaily.com for more information.

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Compendium!

November 9, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

16

Lies, half-truths, and the triumph of democracy.

The Weekly gossips with SHMU VP Partyperson favourite By-election of the decade to determine listserv quality

Herald of the Dark One The McGall Weekly

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s you may have heard, the Students’ Headquarters of McGall University (SHMU) is set to have by-elections to choose a new VP Partyperson to replace the recently disappeared Lolzy Gerard Lee. The portfolio of the VP Partyperson is the most important out of all the executive portfolios. The position’s responsibilities include drafting a long email message that is (purportedly) sent out weekly, organizing out-of-this-world parties every Thursday, knowing the names of every single student on campus, speaking at least eleven different languages and promoting them equally, and some minor micromanagement.

This year, there are three candidates running for the position, but The Weekly has decided to interview only one, as we believe he is the only one capable of delivering SHMU from its many problems. This person, of course, is no other than U3 Interdimensional Development and Eldritch Studies student Howard P. Lovecraft, who has also been recently elected president of McGall Students for the Furthering of Eldritch Studies (SFES).

The McGall Weekly (MW): So tell us Howard, what is your plan, what is your platform? How will you change SHMU? Howard Lovecraft (HL): The oldest and strongest emotion of humankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. When many of my colleagues look at this entity which we call our Headquarters, they are filled with a vicious fear. After all,

against such a cyclopean and abnormal entity, how can one hope to survive? To succeed? No, this decadent and hideous thing must be reformed, if not destroyed.

MW: That is all very exciting; but what exactly are you planning on changing if you are elected VP Partyperson? Will we be seeing more parties? You don’t seem like a fun guy.

HL: To the scientist, the joy in pursuing truth nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth. Maybe I am not fun, but that is besides the point. I could arrange more parties – create drunken orgies that last for weeks upon weeks. Would that solve our problems? The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. I cannot tell you what must be done, for I do not know the answer. But neither do you.

MW: You still sound very boring to me.

HL: I could tell you a joke if you’d like. What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?

MW: Finding half a worm in your apple?

HL: No. What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple is remembering that we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and that some day, the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality and of our frightful position therein that we shall flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

MW: Um. HL: What?

MW: So what do you think of your opponents in the race?

Fuck this!

The candidate.

Ecila Nehs | The McGall Weekly

HL: What can I say? I never ask a person what their business is, for it never interests me.

What I ask them about are their thoughts and dreams. I have talked to both Lexus [Centrikov] and Spacelordia [Pagnilollio].

We trekked up the mountain last week. I do not know what it was that we expected to find – but it was my idea. At the top, we found ourselves in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown with rank grass, moss,

and curious creeping weeds, and filled with a vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdly with rotting stone.

MW: What does this have to do with the VP Partyperson elections?

HL: On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted by the notion that we were the first living creatures to invade a lethal silence of centuries.

MW: Howard seriously, what

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Fuck bureaucracy

F

uck government bureaucracy. Fuck the contradictions between different bodies that make it impossible to get up-to-date information or streamline everything. Fuck the god damn RAMQ that somehow has realized I don’t actually live in Quebec. Despite being a fucking full-time student and having a lease, I don’t actually live here. God bless them because I’d have never figured out I wasn’t living here without them. Oh, and because I don’t live here I can’t get any forms of ID. But the Canadian government thinks I live here and is forcing me to get an ID issued from Quebec so I can

have an up-to-date citizenship certificate and be able to, you know, prove who the hell I am. But hey, whatever. Why would I want to have health insurance, or be able to leave Canada to visit my family during the few days I have off, or have any legal recognition of my gender? I mean, holy fuck, it’d honestly be easier to commit fraud to get everything in agreement than go through the bureaucracies of two national governments, a state government, and a provincial government. Whatever.

I’ll just avoid anything marginally official and hope I can fuck with the system before the system fucks with me.

the hell?

HL: Over the valley’s rim a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors – MW: Okay, no. Howard, you’re reading from one of your short stories again.

HL: Alright, very well. I believe that my opponents are very formidable indeed. Lexus ran for president last year and led a most respectable fight against Abraham [Kream, King of SHMU, Lord of the Twelve Faculties, Protector of Social Justice, Lord Paramount of Arts, Eternal Sovereign of la Nouvelle Résidence, the Advisor on Matters of Social Responsibility, Interim Carer of the SHMU Babies, Conqueror of Climate Change, and the Great Restructurer]. Spacelordia’s is a name I have not heard before, but her credentials lend her credibility. I believe that either of those candidates would be an adequate choice for the position.

MW: And what about you? Do you think you have what it takes?

HL: I am disillusioned enough to know that no individual’s opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make them really know what they’re talking about. So, if you wish to know what I think, then ask not what I think of myself. Look at my work, at my platform – all the answers will be there.

MW: But what is your platform?

HL: Heaven knows where I’ll end up – but it’s a safe bet that I’ll never be at the top of anything!

Nor do I particularly care to be. I fear my enthusiasm wanes when real work is demanded of me.

MW: Wait, so are you saying that you do not have what it takes?

HL: Who knows.

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