The McGill Daily Vol105Iss6

Volume 105, Issue 6 Monday, October 5, 2015

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October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Teaching assistants ratify new collective agreement

NEWS

TAs accept McGill’s offer Protesters march in solidarity with striking teachers Environmental activist Esperanza Salazar talks with The Daily Consent McGill SSMU VP Internal resigns

07 COMMENTARY Indigenize McGill Who does the Universal Child Care Benefit help?

Literary

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09 FEATURES Photo essay: this is political

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SCI+TECH

Université Laval: Research on separation anxiety Astrobiology and the origins of life

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SPORTS

Quidditch at McGill

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CULTURE

Circus, reconsidered at La Chapelle Theatre Oil companies buying PR with art Palestinian electronic musicians play Montreal

15 EDITORIAL We need to talk about Islamophobia

16

COMPENDIUM!

A modest proposal: immigration edition

3

New deal does not include increased hours

Jacob Goldberg News Writer

O

n September 30, McGill teaching assistants (TAs) ratified a collective bargaining offer from McGill at a General Assembly (GA) of AGSEM, McGill’s union for TAs and invigilators. The offer was ratified by a vote of 172 to 101. The proposal will improve TAs’ harassment protections and grievance procedures, while also increasing their wages by a total of 9 per cent until the agreement’s expiration in 2018.

Since the termination of the last contract in June 2014, the two sides have been meeting to negotiate a new agreement. At the GA, several students recognized the advances that both McGill and AGSEM have made since they opened deliberations in August 2014.

“The last time we had this meeting, we were concerned about McGill’s unwillingness to negotiate,” said an AGSEM member during the debate. “But there are a lot more changes here than I expected us to get based on the University’s position and our demands, and this is a substantial list of demands,” they added. Harassment protections and wages adjusted for inflation were just two of the breakthroughs the TA mentioned.

“Having only 110 hours for 103 students, I was at one point, having to spend just three minutes for every paper so I would not go over my hours.”

A teaching assistant from the Faculty of Music Reaching an agreement, however, was not without its roadblocks. In response to these obstcles, on April 16, the first day of the exam period, the TAs went on strike. Additionally,

AGSEM General Assembly on September 30. some invigilators respected the picket lines and opted not to cross them.

AGSEM President Justin Irwin stated that the strike was galvanized by McGill’s refusal to index the TAs’ hours. “We had a proposal that would effectively establish a ratio of the number of students enrolled and the hours available for TA-ships [...] but McGill was not amenable to that language,” Irwin said.

In May, following the strike, McGill and AGSEM convened twice.

Unable to resolve their disagreements, the two parties agreed to suspend talks for the summer and reopen discussion in September.

On September 1, McGill proposed its final offer, which ignored AGSEM’s demand for a revision of the TAs’ hours.

AGSEM Bargaining Committee Chair Giulia Alberini clarified that over the past few years, TAs’ weekly hours have remained largely unchanged despite a steady increase in yearly undergraduate enrolment. Throughout the negotiations, AGSEM lobbied on behalf of the TAs for several iterations of language that would address the TAs’ work-rate demands.

One proposal suggested that

Marie Labrosse | The McGill Daily

for every 50 students, a TA would work 90 hours. In this way, the agreement would compensate for the increased hours each TA would have to work given the increased pool of students. Nonetheless, Alberini stated at the GA, “McGill did not want to talk about any of these issues.”

TAs’ grievances about the agreement were diverse. One TA explained that the proposed wage offer would not be sufficient to cover the cost of living without an increase in the number of paid hours. “For many of us, a TAship is the difference between making rent or not,” he began. “Last year, there were a bunch of TA-ships that were 80 hours, and now they are 16.”

Many who spoke at the debate argued that insufficient ratios of TA hours to students in a course meant a decline in the quality of the class experience. They contended that this was as much an undergraduate student issue as it was a graduate student one. One TA added that her students wished that she had more time to work with them individually.

A TA from the Faculty of Music said, “Having only 110 hours for 103 students, I was, at one point, having to spend just three minutes for

every paper so I would not go over my hours. I came here not only to do my PhD, but because I want to teach at a university level – and I want to be able to do that job properly. So when I have a limited number of hours to do that job and little face time [with students], it doesn’t give me the experience that I need.”

TA reactions to the ratification of the agreement were largely mixed. Many TAs left the assembly happy and relieved that they would not have to “go through the legalities of another strike.”

Others, however, felt differently. Mona Luxion, a TA in international development studies, a PhD candidate in urban planning, and a former Daily columnist, expressed dismay at what they called a “surprising outcome.”

“I don’t think that the vote was representative of what I have heard at previous general assemblies,” they said. “Namely, that many of us actually were preoccupied with and concerned about the dwindling hours we were getting. I feel like what we can infer from these results is that many of us feel disempowered, and more importantly, cowed by McGill’s unpredictability and uncompromising nature.”

Teachers, staff, students, and parents formed a human chain outside their school to protest government cuts.

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Protesters march in support of teacher strike

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round 15 McGill and Concordia students congregated at the Roddick Gates on September 30 to stand in solidarity with Quebec’s French-language teachers who are striking to protest the state of negotiations with the provincial government. The one-day strike was organized by the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE), which represents approximately 34,000 French-language teachers.

While many teachers voted to strike, some are also opting to work 32-hour weeks, with no extracurricular activities. Approximately 275,000 students were affected by the strike.

Demonstrators carried flags from their respective unions and banners with phrases such as “Your decision affects my future,” and “The government is abandoning public schools.” FAE President Sylvain Mallette also made a speech at the demonstration.

The crowd marched from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., beating drums, and blowing on whistles and horns, and singing chants such as “We will not lower our eyes. We will not bend our backs. We will protect public schools.” The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) was also present at the strike and escorted the marchers.

Protesters aimed to pressure the government to renew the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement, but many demonstrators also attended to take a stand against austerity more broadly. Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP External and organizer of the McGill-Concordia contingent Emily Boytinck said, “Austerity isn’t something that we talk about a lot at McGill, and these demonstrations show the real impact of austerity and where it’s really hitting – it’s very much hitting primary education. With the new legislation, teachers can’t work longer than certain hours per week, extracurricular activities are cut, and class sizes are becoming larger and larger.”

Martin Bibeau, a member of the Alliance des professeures et professeurs de Montréal, told The Daily that the budget cuts compromise the quality of education in order to fulfill other government agendas.

“The government actually deinvested in public schools, cut the taxes, raised the number of students in classrooms, and removed services for students with difficulties. […] We are no longer able to educate the children and instruct them, and to offer a quality public school. Actually, for the government, their priority is austerity and to arrive at a deficit of zero. They

want to do that at all costs, and by compromising and sacrificing [the] future of our youth,” said Bibeau.

The new government proposals include increasing the work week from 32 to 35 hours, as well as increasing class sizes.

Marie-France Lacombe, a teacher and member of FAE said, “The government wants to give us more students in class, they want to cut our payment […] and they want us to do more hours by week. They don’t give us the support to help students. [...] But we can’t do everything. [...] We are there to teach them, but when we have every kind of struggle, we can’t teach.”

Jonathan Turcotte Summers, a Concordia Masters student in educational studies, voiced students’ concerns about the Quebec government’s position on education. “The government has made it very clear that it doesn’t take education seriously. Teachers do. Unfortunately, teachers are in a position where they have to take increasingly drastic measures, but that’s the position that the government has put them in,” said Summers.

Summers further noted that the impacts of austerity measures are not confined to education, but extend to other social programs as well. “The government is cutting from education, cutting from healthcare, cutting from all these public services that people really depend on. Especially low income people who are in difficult positions.”

“Ultimately, teachers working conditions are students learning conditions, so students [standing in solidarity with teachers] are acting in the best interest of not only themselves but [other] students and parents. I think the student role is to forge alliances, to show solidarity, and forge relationships because all of these struggles are interrelated,” commented Summers. “We may not see it because we focus on our individual struggles, but we need to form ties between teachers and students and workers and the unemployed […] and realize that it’s one big struggle and that we need to work together on this.”

Carlotta Esposito, a U0 Arts student attending the strike, emphasized the importance of student support. “I think as youth, we have a lot of voice. I think we have more voice than we realize, especially in the era that we’re living in. […] Teachers are striking, risking their jobs for us, so I think students can really make a change with this, whether it’s a big change or a little change, it’s worth a shot,” said Esposito.

News

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

5

Esperanza in Canada

Government undermines Indigenous sovereignty, says Mexican activist

People of Zacualpan vote at a communal assembly.

Vincent Simboli The McGill Daily Zacualpan is a community of mostly Nahua people in the state of Colima, Mexico. In Fall 2013, members of the community approached the organization Bios Iguana, a nongovernmental organization, to help them decide whether or not to declare their community mining-free (a common practice for communities seeking to keep mining companies out) after they had been approached

by Gabfer, S.A. de C.V., a mining company seeking a concession for the exploitation of gold, silver, copper, and manganese in the area.

Rural communities in Mexico contact environmental groups like Red Mexicana de Afectadas por la Minería (REMA), and Movimiento Mesoamericano contra el Modelo extractivo Minero (M4), of which Bios Iguana is part, once a North American mining company expresses interest in the area. These groups then work together with the scientific, journalistic, and local authorities to educate the population on the risks of allowing mining operations to happen in their communities.

Many of these rural communities are Indigenous communities with a history of abuse from multinational extractive companies and the government of Mexico. People working with Bios Iguana have recently received many threats from individuals linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the dominant political party in Mexico since the Mexican Revolution, which ended in 1920.

The Daily spoke with Esperanza Salazar, a member of Bios Iguana who has been forced out of her com-

munity and country by repeated threats against her life.

The McGill Daily (MD): Could you tell me a bit about yourself and what brought you to Canada?

Esperanza Salazar (ES): I am here because I had to leave my community and my nation. I am Esperanza Salazar, and I belong to an organization called Bios Iguana.

We work in the province of Colima, Mexico, which is the [fourth] smallest province in Mexico. In Colima, two years ago, a community [Zacualpan] approached us to solicit our help, because a Canadian [mining company] showed interest in mining gold in their territory. The concession that they sought was for gold, silver, copper and manganese.

[The people] had a few assemblies to vote on these issues. [...] In [these] communal assemblies, they decide what to do when things are happening to the land. [...] There had been assemblies where mining operations had been proposed and the community had said no. [Usually] the presidente de bienes comunales [elected executive official of the Indigenous community, who was Carlos Guzmán in Zacualpan] is supposed to bring this decision to those concerned and say, ‘No, this community does not want a mine here, please stop the project.’

However, [Guzmán] kept insisting. [...] He was giving money to people in the community to vote in favour of the mine. The people of the community came to us and asked for our support so that we could come and explain the risks involved with a natural resources project like this.

We did some video screenings.

Within a few days of arriving in

Courtesy of Esperanza Salazar Zacualpan, we showed videos and photos of the damage caused by the mine at Carrizalillo in Guerrero.

[Guzmán], immediately told us, “I do not want you here in our community. You are not welcome; you have come only to misinform the people.” The public garden where we were showing our videos was where the attacks began.

Later, we continued doing meetings with the people, giving more information and one day we were [...] preparing to present a video about the mining in Central America, Latin America, [and] one of our comrades was illegally detained.

“I want the Canadian government to know that they have a major role in the violence in Mexico.”

Esperanza Salazar, member of Bios Iguana Salazar also explained that Bios Iguana faced many more direct threats. At one point, they decided to hold an event, where they brought scientists, journalists, and members of communities affected by the actions of mining companies.

The event was sparsely attended, because, as Salazar found out later, there was a bomb threat that their opponents employed in order to prevent people from hearing what they

had to say. Eventually, Salazar explained, Guzmán was removed from his position, but the two women who replaced him, according to Salazar, were not able to fully do their jobs due to government intervention.

MD: Two years ago, REMA began to work on a new legislation in the Mexican parliament that would prohibit open-pit mining, as has been passed in Costa Rica. I would like to know if these efforts have been successful, or if not, how has the process been so far.

ES: In fact, REMA has left the legal process because there was a manipulation of the participation of the social organizations within the Senate of the Republic [national senate], where this proposal was presented. First, we, the many organizations that make up REMA, worked on the proposal. [...] Well, [the Senate] got the proposal, but it wasn’t the one that we had worked on. And after this, we said that it is not acceptable to put forward a proposal that isn’t ours. If the proposal they receive is not the work of the communities and the organizations, we cannot sign it and we cannot be a part of this process.

Without consulting us, [PRI] put this proposal to the Senate as a part of the Party’s political project. And we, the social organizations, including Bios Iguana and other people that are inside the REMA, we are not part of any political party. And we do not support any political party. And we support even less those political parties that use our work and the work of the people to make a power move. [...] This same party, on the same day, put forth its own proposal to a different deputy, a differ-

ent senator, but from the same party.

This new proposal was actually in favour of the mining companies.

We realized that there was manipulation and a political game that we did not want to engage in, and we retreated. From then on, REMA and Bios Iguana decided that our time would be best spent working on prevention within the communities instead of the courts.

MD: Canada keeps a list of countries that it recommends Canadians avoid travelling in – Mexico is not on this list. There are regional advisories against travel in the northern states, but the whole country remains ‘safe’ for Canadians. What are your thoughts on this?

ES: I want the Canadian government to know that they have a major role in the violence in Mexico.

This violence toward rural communities is a consequence of the entry of Canadian mining companies and is fomented by the companies’ disrespect for the people attempting to defend their territory.

There are two kinds of violence to consider here. There is physical violence which spills into the streets, which is often tied to organized crime.

The Mexican government responds to it with more violence, sending the military and police into the streets to fight it. They tell the people they are ‘defending’ them, when in reality they are bringing terror directly to the people living in these communities. This campaign of terrorism against social organizations like Bios Iguana is a specific example of [state-sponsored] physical violence.

This interview has been translated from Spanish and has been edited for length and clarity.

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October 5, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Week-long campaign talks consent #ConsentMcGill just the first piece in the puzzle

Camille Malard News Writer

S

eptember 28 marked the beginning of #ConsentMcGill, a one-week campaign aimed at promoting consent throughout the McGill community. Among the many events on the agenda were a research symposium with various talks concerning consent, cyberviolence, love, and communication, a film screening of Flirting with Danger accompanied by a panel discussion, and an array of workshops addressing consent, sexual violence, and power dynamics.

“Our goal this year was to reach a group of people who would otherwise not get involved,” said McGill Liaison Officer (Harm Reduction) and main organizer of the event Bianca Tétrault, in an inter-

view with The Daily.

According to Tétrault, who cited statistical research, about a third of the McGill student body does not engage in sexual activity, as such the promotion of consent in its broadest terms helps to reach out to a greater number of students. Also, the campaign had a presence both on the downtown and MacDonald campuses to ensure maximum outreach, and events such as the research symposium at the downtown campus were live-streamed at the MacDonald Campus.

Although #ConsentMcGill is only in its second year, its visibility has increased since its launch.

Tétrault estimates that the Facebook group and its related events were viewed by three to four times more people than last year.

The increased amount of student

groups reaching out to the campaign results in more events being added to the agenda, and greater visibility of the campaign.

“It truly shocks me how complicated people make this idea of consent to be. [...] It’s such a basic concept to grasp. Although there are obviously many different interpretations of this word, for me, consent is an active, sober, and verbal ‘yes,’ not the absence of a ‘no,’” said U0 student Dania Chatila.

U1 student Chelsea Oki-Gillan was enthusiastic about the events on the campaign’s agenda. She was especially interested in the “Trivia Night @ Gert’s” event because “it makes [consent] fun to learn about.” She also pointed out the importance of learning about consent at school by explaining that the first time she was introduced to a concrete definition of consent was in a

high school sex education class.

According to Tétrault, the importance of the #ConsentMcGill campaign is twofold. Its first purpose is to help create meaningful conversations regarding consent. “When we come to university, we’re met with a whole bunch of new people, creating new relationships. People are coming from all over […] so how do we create a conversation where people are all on the same page as to what is a respectful, healthy relationship?”

At the same time, the campaign aims to reduce sexual violence and its traumatizing effects by creating a safe(r) space where students can discuss the issue, as well as their personal experiences. “Sexual violence is prevalent on college and university campuses. […] We can’t stay silent about it any longer.”

However, Tétrault explains that the #ConsentMcGill campaign, being a discussion platform, is only one part of a larger vision. Other events are run throughout the year and Tétrault hopes #ConsentMcGill can increase their visibility. According to Tétrault, another event, Alcohol 2.0, is in the early stages of planning and should be launched in the coming years. Its goals will be to address the link between alcohol and consent, as well as create clear boundaries for students to follow.

The main area that Tétrault is aiming to augment in upcoming years is support. However, she is also open to other ideas. Tétrault explained that “instead of a top-down approach, [we’re] really working with the student body to see what they want, keeping in mind that this is just a platform for conversation.”

SSMU VP Internal resigns

Council discusses climate change policy, endorses statement criticizing Deputy Provost Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

O

n October 1, the Legislative Council of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) discussed the resignation of VP Internal Lola Baraldi and decided to hold by-elections. In addition, Council was presented with notices of motion, one on the adoption of a climate change policy, and three on potential referendum questions.

Council also adopted a motion to endorse a statement regarding the appointment of an interim Senior Director of Student Services, which was released September 30 by representatives from SSMU, Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill (PGSS), Macdonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS), and Macdonald Campus Graduate Students’ Society (MCGSS).

Resignation of VP Internal VP Internal Lola Baraldi resigned from her position on October 1.

Council decided to hold by-elections to fill the now vacant position, the nomination period for which is October 9 to 30, with the possibility of being extended until November 2.

The new VP Internal’s mandate will start on January 1. Speaking to Council, VP Clubs & Services Kimber Bialik noted that this was to ensure that the position was accessible to all members of SSMU, given that most students have already signed up for full courseloads.

Speaking at Council, President Kareem Ibrahim stated that Baraldi left the position due to personal reasons. Ibrahim also explained that

the tasks of the VP Internal will now be divided among the remaining executives and permanent staff members of SSMU. Baraldi’s resignation comes as a second blow to SSMU, whose general manager Jennifer Varkonyi’s resignation came into effect on September 30.

Arts Representative Adam Templer asked how the executive members were coping with Baraldi’s departure.

VP External Emily Boytinck said, “The executive portfolios are really different, so it was a very interesting split. I don’t think there has ever been a VP External who has planned 4 Floors. [...] I mean, we all are very aware of what this will entail for the rest of this semester.”

In an interview with The Daily, Ibrahim expressed that this will be “a very overwhelming year.”

“We all felt that we had just the right experiences necessary to really excel in these positions [...] and that was already derailed significantly due to the absence of the General Manager, and now that challenge has increased significantly,” Ibrahim said.

Statement on the interim Senior Director of Student Services On September 25, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens announced the appointment of a new interim Senior Director of Student Services for the 2015-16 academic year following the departure of the former Senior Director in May. In a joint statement, SSMU, PGSS, MCSS, and MCGSS voiced their “strong disapproval for the lack of consultation that occurred in making this decision.”

October 1 SSMU Council.

“We view this decision as part of a greater, historical trend of the University failing to consult and value the student voice when making changes that greatly impact our experience at McGill,” the statement notes.

A motion to endorse the joint statement was passed by a 92 per cent majority, without debate.

Internal voting system During the voting procedures on the motion mentioned above, Medicine Senator David Benrimoh expressed concerns about the new digital voting system used by Council.

According to this new system, councillors vote using clickers, as opposed to raising placards. According to Benrimoh, the system was changed to avoid situations “where people might have felt uncomfortable making their vote known, because there were some very strong personalities on Council.” This may have resulted in more people abstaining on motions

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily they might have voted against.

However, Benrimoh expressed concern that this was an untransparent way of voting, as each councillor’s choice was not immediately available to the audience sitting in the gallery, which included members of the press.

In an interview with The Daily, Benrimoh said, “The reason that we have these meetings open to the public is that, that way, people can come and see their representatives in action.

Part of that action is voting.”

Climate change policy Boytinck brought up a notice of motion regarding the adoption of a climate change policy. An initial proposal for the policy was brought up at Council last year on April 9 by the then VP External Amina MoustaqimBarrette, following another motion that was passed at the Fall 2014 General Assembly.

At the time, the councillors had decided to refer the proposal to a com-

mittee, which would revise the motion to make it appealing to a broader base of students before bringing it back to Council. Boytinck said that the committee ended up being just herself, although she met with other groups and representatives, including representatives from the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS).

Boytinck said, “I changed a lot of [the proposal]. I wanted to focus on a couple of different things. It still has a very heavy focus on climate justice, which I think is super important.

But it also talks more specifically on climate change, on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and how we can partner with different groups to bring forth more sustainable solutions.”

Among the things she removed from the new proposal, Boytinck included a potential ban on all fossil fuel companies from the Shatner building.

The motion to approve the proposal will be brought up at the next Council meeting.

Commentary

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

7

Bureaucracy over recognition

For 195 years, McGill has neglected the Indigeneity of its land Andrea Li Commentary Writer

S

eptember 18 was the 14th annual First Peoples’ House Pow Wow, kicking off the fifth Indigenous Awareness week at McGill. It was a warm summer day, the sun was shining, and students and members of the McGill and Montreal communities of all ages were in attendance. Tents lined the sides of Lower Field, where Indigenous artists sold handmade wares. There was singing, chanting, drumming, dancing, and colourful traditional clothing. As it was nearing noon, a few speeches were made between dances, including an explanation of why some photography was not permitted: the dances were sacred and should be kept as such. One speech by Mohawk Elder Sedalia Kawenno:ta’s Fazio highlighted the work required to share these cultural practices, beginning, “I speak a language that is not mine, so that you may understand me.”

Indeed, an understanding of the cultures and history that shaped the land on which McGill resides is much needed. McGill is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka – otherwise known as People of the Flint or Mohawk – of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Yet, this history is largely absent on campus, in both physical markers and presence in discourse.

I wanted to know what one Mohawk artist who was present at the Pow Wow thought about McGill being on unceded land. He told me that some Indigenous people believe that McGill is poisoning the land. Pointing toward the high-rise buildings in the distance

and the concrete McGill buildings next to us, he explained that some are upset not only because their land was taken, but because the environment suffers for it as well.

Meanwhile, official McGill history spotlights its founder, James McGill. Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1744, McGill was a Scottish “entrepreneur and philanthropist” – a landowner, slave owner, and fur trader – who left a generous legacy of £10,000 to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, which obtained a charter to found numerous schools. These institutions include McGill University, Concordia University, and the University of British Columbia (UBC), once called the McGill University College of British Columbia. While McGill University has always painted James McGill in a positive light – there is a statue of his likeness at the Y-intersection, after all – it does not widely publicize the origins of the land on which McGill was built.

When McGill University was founded in 1821, it sat on Mohawk land. It still sits on Mohawk land.

It has sat on Mohawk land for the past 195 years, yet the University still refuses to acknowledge this fact in any official capacity.

On September 12, Kahentinetha of the Bear Clan, an activist and kahtihon’tia:kwenio (woman titleholder) from the Kahnawake Mohawk community near Montreal, sent a seizure notice to McGill University. The notice listed many grievances, among which were the invasion and occupation of Mohawk territory by McGill University and its undermining of Mohawk sovereignty. Kahentinetha demanded in the notice that McGill University stop its

Cassandra Ryan | Illustrator

invasion, trespassing, and exploitation of the territory, and that it respect the teio’ha:teh (the Two Row Wampum Treaty) as the basis of the relationship between McGill and the Mohawk people.

The seizure notice also demanded that McGill repay the loans it took from the Six Nations Trust Fund in the mid 1800s, along with 195 years of compound interest, the amount of totalling $1.7 billion. The University says that it paid this money back to the federal government, which was the fiduciary trustee of the loan. However, the University should still take these kinds of grievances seriously, and address them as such.

If the loan was indeed repaid to the federal government, why not advocate in solidarity with people of the Six Nations and push the government to do its part in getting this money to the people to which it is owed? The fact that the Six Nations peoples have not been repaid is an injustice foundational to McGill’s founding.

Even if one knew nothing about the history of McGill’s land, it would still be obvious that Indigenous histories are not respectfully acknowledged on campus. The McGill Redmen, the name of McGill’s men’s sports teams, was allegedly chosen to reflect the school’s colours and the Scottish history of its founder. However, regardless of original intentions, it has long been associated with derogatory slurs toward Indigenous peoples.

A sports article published in The Daily in 1960, which criticized the Redmen for losing a football game, was titled, “Redmen Take Own Scalps.” If the Redmen name was ever anything but a racial slur against Indigenous peoples, it has not been understood that way in over fifty years. The same outcry that has taken place over the Washington Redskins team name applies here; a name like this has no place on a campus that is serious about recognizing and rectifying its complicated and violent history with Indigenous nations.

Moving forward If bureaucracy, as some have argued, is what prevents the administration from meaningfully addressing the history of McGill’s land, then it is a problem specific to McGill; other universities that have similar administrative structures to McGill have done much more to recognize and rectify their respective histories with Indigenous lands. UBC continues to give

Bailey Cohen-Krichevsky | Illustrator recognition to the Musqueam people for the land on which it stands, having signed the Musqueam Memorandum of Affiliation, recognizing its connection to the Musqueam and Okanagan communities. UBC states on its website that “UBC’s Point Grey Campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam people.” Initiatives at McGill to implement a similar land acknowledgement have been stalled and watered down, possibly due to concerns that such a statement would amount to McGill conceding some of its right to the land (despite legal consultation confirming that such a statement would have no legal bearing).

Concordia, our downtown neighbour, has also made visible steps to recognize the contributions of Indigenous peoples and lands to the university’s development. In 2003, Concordia inaugurated the new Richard J. Renaud Science Complex, inviting members of the Mohawk nation to give their blessing. A bronze sculpture called The Emergence of the Chief also occupies a prominent intersection on its Loyola campus, paying “homage to Iroquois heritage and the Mohawk Nation.”

McGill has had some successful initiatives – the recent Indigenous Awareness Week was definitely an example of this – but many more have been stifled by bureaucracy and an unwillingness to act on the part of the administration. Last year, a request to have the Hiawatha Belt Flag flown on special occasions was unsuccessful (although we still manage to fly the royal flag of Canada when the Governor General visits). Similarly, a push to re-

locate the Hochelaga Rock, which commemorates the Haudenosaunee village of Hochelaga – that many believe once stood on McGill’s current location – to a more prominent location on campus, has also been stalled. McGill has finally introduced an Indigenous Studies minor program, which is a good first step, but many Canadian institutions have had similar programs for years, and also offer major programs. At the last Senate meeting, Provost Christopher Manfredi said that McGill has “an opportunity to be a leader” in the recruitment and support of Indigenous students, as well as the research and teaching of Indigenous issues. If the University has an opportunity to be a leader, it certainly hasn’t taken it.

After 195 years of ignoring the history of the land on which McGill is located, it’s time to acknowledge the important role that Indigenous peoples and their lands have played in establishing McGill, as well as the collaborative role they should be invited to play in the future of this university which sits on their land. It may start with the change of the Redmen name, the relocation of the Hochelaga rock, renaming buildings after significant Mohawk figures, or a simple announcement by the University recognizing that McGill indeed sits on unceded land.

Regardless of what action is taken first, one thing is certain: McGill’s current bureaucratic resistance to visible and meaningful recognition of its history with Indigenous peoples and lands is nothing short of shameful.

Andrea Li is a U1 Physiology student. To contact her, email andrea.li@mail.mcgill.ca.

8

Commentary

October 5, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Childcare benefits for whom?

Why accessible childcare can’t be conjured with a cheque Erin Dwyer Commentary Writer

T

his summer, the Conservative government announced that $3 billion would be allocated for the revamped Universal Childcare Benefit (UCCB), increasing the monthly remittance for each child under the age of six from $100 to $160 and creating a benefit of up to $60 for children aged 6 to 17. Originally introduced in 2006, the UCCB aims to assist parents with childcare by providing monthly payments that parents can use to pay for daycare. However, it has failed to do so in any meaningful way, and the new increase will not substantially improve the situation. What Canada needs is a more accessible, subsidized daycare system.

“I think it would make more sense to put [the money] into more childcare spaces, because that’s probably our biggest stress as parents.”

Carla Thompson, Winnipeg mother The first issue with the UCCB is that it is grossly insufficient. The cost for full-time daycare for a single child in Canada is approximately $900 per month; the UCCB covers nowhere close to that amount, even with the increase. As a Toronto mom told CBC this past July, “It’s nice to have a little bit of extra money in the middle of the summer, but if it’s supposed to offset our daycare costs, it doesn’t go very far.” The newly increased benefit, ridiculously described by Minister of Employment and Social Development Pierre Poilievre as “Christmas in July for moms and dads,” fails to offer any substantial improvement to the situation, espe-

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily cially since the benefit is taxable. For example, an Ontario parent earning $50,000 would only retain an additional $13 per month per child.

Moreover, the fact that the benefit is taxable gives an advantage to people in provinces with lower tax rates, like Alberta; meanwhile, the majority of Canadians will keep even less of the benefit than a parent in Ontario would. This makes the new benefit, in essence, nothing more than an electoral ploy. “It’s a loan from your very nice Canadian government for nine months, and you’re going to have to pay back at least half of that loan in April,” according to Montreal accountant Mitch Kujavsky.

More importantly, though, the benefit distracts from the general inaccessibility of childcare in Canada. “Realistically, I think it would make more sense to put [the money] into more childcare spaces, because that’s probably our biggest stress as parents,” Carla Thompson, a Winnipeg mother of two, told CBC in July. According to a Moving Child Care Forward project report

There’s a fire in the kitchen, but the Conservative government is using the fire extinguisher in the living room. for 2012, there are full-time or parttime spaces for only 22.5 per cent of Canadian children aged five and younger in childcare centres, leading to “a very sizeable gap between need and provision.” Further, the UCCB is accessible to all parents regardless of household income, meaning that people who have no problem whatsoever covering the cost of childcare will be given the same cheque as families struggling to pay the bills (granted those with higher incomes would keep less after taxes). Expanding access to childcare spaces for people who

most need them should be an absolute priority for the government.

In terms of support for working parents, the creation of accessible and heavily subsidized childcare would also be much more effective than cash payments. A study by Wilfrid Laurier University examined whether the introduction of the UCCB in 2006 helped mothers – the parent who is most likely to look after kids – return to work. It found no effect for mothers who had never been married. Married mothers, however, were actually 1.4 per cent less likely to work, and worked almost one hour per week less than they did prior to the UCCB. By actually incentivising the caregiving parent to stay home, the UCCB favours a patriarchal conception of childcare, whereby mothers stay in the home to look after their children.

Instead, an effective childcare initiative should support childcare as a collective good, and make it a freely accessible public service.

Beyond the fact that this Bill is temporarily giving parents money

that the government will take back through taxes in a few months time, it will never amount to the same impact as improving general childcare accessibility in Canada. There’s a fire in the kitchen, but the Conservative government is using the fire extinguisher in the living room. The Canadian government now spends roughly $7.7 billion on ineffective child care policies like the UCCB. If re-focusing these funds to make actual childcare programs more available was made a priority, great strides could be made in the improvement of Canadian childcare.

It’s time for the Conservatives (or whatever government we find ourselves with after October 19) to cut the Christmas euphemisms and put forth a bill that can actually improve the lives of the millions of parents and children across the nation who are, as of now, being let down.

Erin Dwyer is a U0 Mathematics and Political Science student.

To contact her, email erin.dwyer@ mail.mcgil.ca.

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The

Literary

Supplement

2 A Foreigner Tries to Commemorate the Eve of Sankt Hans Ignited for supposed sin with straw flesh and wind-blown hair, wrapped in floral flames.

The pyre grew up from the strand to show some god or ghost the Danes mean business. Some poor scarecrow-woman scorched in the name of unseen, unknown idols.

I ruminate on the flickers over the abdomen like Keats on the Grecian Urn Sylvan historian - mine a beached strawperson conjuring thoughts of Der Hexenhammer, Joan of Arc: a history of setting our women on fire for having strange moles and dangerous ideas.

These pagan beachcombers gargle their wine and cackle safely on the shore; I am lost in thoughts of Giles Corey groaning More weight as he is crushed by the thought of his wife hanging by a snapped neck over gallows lined with blood.

— David Helps

Gently Used there’s an antique shoppe: each time you go, you think you’re going to write about it when you get back home and each time you don’t. because you’re in a daydream: nostalgia, homemade jam, old cars, anecdotes you thought you had forgotten by now being brought back to life with the ancient bible on the shelf – jumbo font – like the one your grandfather had. it was of no interest to you – the younger you – but that was then and this is now, and, you could be religious, you think, tomorrow’s Sunday, you think. but then you stop thinking. (for this is not a moment of thinking: but a moment where you follow the scent: your father’s tobacco ashtray on the kitchen table not thinking about how cigarettes cause cancer or of regret, guilt, bounced checks, your breath simply fogging up the glass cases – eyes dazzling – hearing only of Beauty And Apathy.)

— Taylor Mitchell

Visual by Lia Elbaz

3 Apt 285-1 Visual by Amanda Fiore

We never put proper blinds on our windows. From my bedroom, I looked out onto a shared courtyard and a panopticon of neighbours’ windows. My curtains were a translucent wisp, barely enough to blur my figure as I changed. I was never afforded the luxury of artificial darkness, but learned to wake with the sun.

In my first weeks in the apartment, I was too cheap to buy real blinds, but rather hung gauzy handme-downs on my windows. Even at $590 a month with mismatched walls and escaping floorboards, laying claim to this extent of physical space – for a girl who enfolded herself in isolation and minimalism – was an unfathomable luxury. My parents fought the no-blinds policy, and soon it became a matter of principle rather than a frugality. What did I have to hide, anyways? My parents, with their brick-walled four-bedroom fortress in the suburbs, where we only ever exchanged chilly glances with the neighbours. My mom called me an exhibitionist and I rolled my eyes.

I let my life bleed into the ones around me, a little rebellion against my tupperware suburban upbringing. Initially, I would duck down below the level of the windowsill to change, crouching on the floor to wriggle into my jeans. Now I cook in my underwear, walk around the house full-frontal, dance in front of my mirror. Let them see.

I love the little reminders that others live so close to me. Like how I sometimes rub my fingers against my hip bones and kneecaps and marvel at the thin layer of skin that protects my bones. I could take a kitchen knife and cut right through, open myself up, lay myself bare. It’s the same with my neighbours. Even when I’m lying awake at midnight listening to the roar of the Indy 500 trickling through the ceiling, or the smell of garlic frying next door while I try to study, I love it. I love them all, these neighbours, these almost-friends. I could reach out and touch them, yell through the hallway, open doors and invite them over for drinks, but I won’t. I cherish the semi-permeable membrane of my walls.

When I first walked into 285-1, I thought dingy and dark and peeling and gritty. And yet also, just a little louder than anything else, mine. We had plans. We were going to paint all the walls white and hang them with gorgeous art, like a gallery. But the art would be from all our artist friends, big colourful pieces made by hands that had bandaged our cuts and brewed us tea. Each art piece a personality in itself, and we’d treat them like roommates. We’d wake up and say, good morning watercolour painting of a cat-dog, how do you take your coffee? And we never did paint the walls or hang art, as I got successively comfortable and apathetic and sad and reckless and saved. But I still thought mine. We swept the old grit out of the corners and then tracked in little rocks from pacing the streets of Montreal and made the dirt our own.

I’ll miss the funky-music upstairs neighbours. I never did learn their names. As I write this I’m sitting at the smudgy glass kitchen table under the fluorescent light, listening to them play their favourite oh-aaaaah-do dum da do do dum da dooh-aaaaaah accompanied by keyboard and what sounds like steel drums. Oh I love them, even as they blast jungle music at chillingly inappropriate times. I’ll miss their inexhaustible enthusiasm for noise, and their superhuman ability to listen to the same sounds for days on end. Like when you say a word so much you forget what it means but let the syllables pinball around your tonsils. A sound becomes physical, takes on a shape and a taste and a smell. It is an exercise in loving where you are because you know you cannot escape. A kind of Stockholm syndrome, I suppose.

And yet, my neighbours are just as captive to the tides of my life as I am to theirs. I like to think that if I dropped dead today, the boy who lives next door would wonder why I stopped playing Sufjan Stevens on repeat and turning off the hall light when he left it on. Maybe he’d walk round to our shared patio and look in the curtainless windows and see my body on the once-white carpet. Maybe he’d come to my funeral, but maybe not.

This place is a beehive of young people, packed together in a cheap and peeling apartment building, playing our jazz and steaming our kale. We are young and hungry and figuring shit out, not quite together but barely apart.

— Saima Desai

4 Galatea Sea Embroidery

I.

A noon in frost, in winter, an old lady close at sea, Sat and by her gas-lamp a maid became; in daydream she, once old, came to life anew and told herself of all the grief that once was knitted joy on wall and shelf.

I am Galactic Android for Long-Range Astronomical Telecommunications/Earth-Systems

(Maiden.) My velvet hat is from the forest drawn, Raised against the sea breeze, from him it draws away, But, with a gaze, first down to sea, then up they draw to me, His sailor’s eyes are mottled with their captain’s luscious creed.

intelligent life, but intelligent I am not. This is my duty.

Oh, his eyes of trees and eyes of sea draw in me a longing, But this longing lasts lonely while the captain beckons me only; So long as the waves draw him back to me, I his shall be.

(Wife.) My captain from the seas vast and great brings to me cloths colourful to plait.

To draw him home when he’s away, he says, So I knit, the waves paint wild and quick to draw him back to me in a season or less.

But in every wave I ever drew, I knew someday it would steer him away.

A fool was I to dress my grief and time, To lustre it with shine.

A dame to let a sailor reign, A fool well knows the waves’ bane.

Analysis. I photograph stars. Track their locations. Send messages, await response. I seek

II. I am G.A.L.A.T.E.A. Dr. Shaw’s keystrokes whisper in my drive: You are doing well, G.A.L.A.T.E.A. You are smart and right. Thank you, Galatea. ERROR ALERT: This is not my name.

What do you think of me? he types. I do not know: I do not think.

Do I?

III. I am Galatea. The stars shine beautifully tonight. Dr. Shaw is a kind man.

(Grandmother.) While the waves drew him back, I his remained.

Blue waves, white, green and grey, orange at sunset, more so at early day, The waves he drew for me never low will be. I hung them on the wall.

But if this wall burned today, from my heart I’d wrench the blade to knit its fibres into red sea waves and belong to him in a perfect tapestry.

I am no artist, I insist, do not mistake me for the kind that is, I sew – a pine’s needle and waves of thread drew his eyes tonight to bed.

In solitude and grief, I weep, I do, onto the cloth I hang for two.

White and green, and grey and blue; my soul I blend with hue.

An artist crafts, I weep; I weep and draw his waves.

Closer I feel them, in the picture, and in taste.

Though salty is my broth, saltier I make it and rock it like the waves till the white sand’s faded...

(Maiden.) If only I could know how one day buried under snow my captain I will turn from sand to cloth, and will surround every wall of mine with pictures of his ship on sea. How sad my life will be!

(Grandmother.) In each and every frame lies a wave of coated pain, But pain is duty where love subsides.

So long as the sea with wave cries, (Wife.) Love’s climax will be our palette.

(Together.) I -- my captain’s warden with needle and thread.

Poem and visual by Panayot Gaidov

IV. I am.

— Carly Gordon

5 Honouring the curvature of planet earth and the loneliness arising therefrom a window – an american one that slides vertically – in front of me lies an empty, desolate house

I am restless feel restless your eyes should rest less, I’m only eating them.

Or maybe I’ll share them with a stranger with a kiss (wouldn’t you like that)

make the following assumption: assume

that behind this house

lies

a road a town an ocean a continent an ocean a shore a forest a desert a modern highway [bordering a nothingness] a city and a house lie like a fallacy in the sky and I the open window in question and my role as the inhibitor of any and all things limiting what I damn well please

Keep your head down as you write: a guide to eating strawberries asexually in St. Henri

I want to dance in a new-wave-disco-rave (you know the genre) by myself in a gathering of still and solemn artists I should swim in Beaver Lake naked I should do acid (maybe in a different order) (maybe without you watching) I should rent a kayak and find the sea (but then I’d have to rent it) I should steal a kayak and find the sea (but then I’d have to find it) If I asked you: “How do you find the field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing?”

(The one Rumi talks about) Would you get the hint and look away or, would you lead me to it?

what stays constant in this model: white noise of the rain and the road keeping me sufficiently entertained, sane and desolate enough for all to be, and stay – the rain and me

— Eelis Hemberg

So for now I guess I’ll do right, We always do.

I’ll eat the strawberries for dinner (pretend I thought of giving them to you) have a bath placed in the middle of my kitchen because my neck would taste salty if it were kissed Stay put when the freight train passes through Montreal (on schedule, unlike me) Though I wonder, “Should I jump on it?”

On it not under it (I’m only restless, waxing poetic) I’ll just wait till the sun goes down, or till those paddle boats go by, whichever is more romantic. (or when you leave, whichever is more quick.)

— Maxine Dannatt

Visual by Justine Touchon

6 Pew Pew, Goes my Gun

Five Theses on Canadian Literature 1. By half-light:

No more cans of soup Along the carpeted aisle.

An organ clangs on numb, locked keys: Pitter-pattered novels surely written before.

Critical glances in a critical moment view critical works of the century.

From cut-out prints to velum leaves, From blithe monologues, And wealthy rhymes, From foaming urinals to sugar cakes, exhibit your creative minds.

My soup – disdain, the soup – a stain, It pools and soaks the blood Of boisterous mimes, arms bursting with goulash gloss, That speak well behind glass In large rooms, on white walls.

Preferably on a Sunday afternoon.

“With gun in hand, a shot was fired,” the newsman speaks in passive voice.

Pop! went the art, the cans bled red And then they all died martyrs.

The civilian impressions Become poetry plastered On the corner of Erato and Curd; Here! read one now!

You wrote it or I did, Our paralleled conceit.

The gun, too, was sculpted with precise mimicry And with feeble calibre, rests on my head.

Pew! Pew! The pistol was not made to last.

I will not die with dignity Nor will the soup, for the mop-up of murder is a lifelong affair, It will stay and ooze pride – let it loose in the air!

Eat up, young composer, the world counts to three: Let your labours be easy and instruct lethargy.

— Christian Favreau

the sapling skin, torn where you stumped your cigarette.

I felt the woolen night stretch and nearly tear.

Fledgling candles on cement, not auguries, but totems.

Domed by translucent hands, another bearing lit wicks.

2. Ochre embers:

the gory aftermath of wood split open in sanguinary lust. A Gothic romance of jack-pines and Canadiana— Shield territory, knife accidents, false pride.

3. Voyageur blood:

generations of settlers without erasure: places like Germany and Lebanon, Scotland and Holland. Us a twentieth-century tapestry, praying the corners don’t fray as the dogs of fear close in. A myth set in a curiously remote metonym for the nation: I’ve heard to be Canadian is to be terrified. Survival first, pride if we have time for it.

But even this is naïve.

The whitewashed names of these places remind me I am a cosmic visitor in my homeland.

4. The night reads like a poem:

the trees have a certain meter: one here there,

but I am unable to make out where it ends

or begins. The lapping water under paddle

fights for its time in memory with snakes dark as ash

and the verbal scorn of a baby turkey-vulture.

5. These rites:

Visual by Stephanie Ngo

mending old wounds sustained in menial battlegrounds.

Reading Earle Birney in my head as I wash trickling blood from my shin, snap the components of a utility knife in and out of its cherry-coloured shell.

Tomorrow we will go back to our adoptive cities, dream of August nights in cool waters, and bronze flames at our mercy.

— David Helps

7 THE BICYCLE One: The Bicycle

Two: The Frame

Three: The Shock Absorbers

Four: The Bell

It was easier to sleep, but we preferred the pleasurable fire of exercise. The faint, dawn breeze on our shiny faces, the rhythmic pulse of pushing on the pedals, a flight over the smooth slab of concrete icing – this was what we shared and what we loved.

I could look beside me and see your face free of calculations, fear and depression. It was a face as unfamiliar as it was welcoming, but I allowed myself to hold on to it for the years to come. I found sooner than expected that I would need this snapshot for the rest of my life.

I suppose it was poetic for you to die doing the thing you loved, at the time you loved, with a person you’d always struggled to love. The sun peeked over the spring foliage when a distracted driver ignored your fuzzy, dark shape on the roadside. I’d fallen behind you, complaining of fatigue in the chords of my muscles, and you’d naturally pushed ahead. You didn’t look back. I found you at the junction of the road. By then it smelled of disappointed expectations.

After your accident, I still went out for our morning rides. The sun continued to rise and my skin kept shedding layers of perspiration which my troubles used as a slippery slide. I found it easy, painless, to trudge through grief rather than to accept it. I carried on my arched back the weight of a thousand miles, a thousand smiles, a thousand photographs in time. Instead of pushing me backward it pulled me forward down a steep hill of threatening corners, rocks and trees. I was not so effortless at avoiding the obstacles as I was at ignoring them.

And then I met her. An unconventionally beautiful biker whose morning rides had always just brushed past my own, until the day my bike had a flat tire. She was faster than me, and more agile and competitive too. Her endorphins from riding were equal to the electricity I felt from bicycling beside her, the air between us constantly still and fragile. Every time one of us would lean on a sharp corner or take a drink of water, the air was disturbed and the close proximity caused me to lose my rhythm.

Five: The Tires

Six: The Saddle

Seven: The Spokes

Eight: The Handlebars

Unlike on our rides, she was an endless flow of conversation. Her breathing never wavered, she only paused for effect rather than from lack of stories to tell, and her smile was a constant rather than a rarity. Her life was full of events outside our mornings and I found myself speechless from an unprecedented lack of life. The biking had become me (the blisters on my hands, the cuts on my calves, the oil stains on my clothes and skin). Where could I separate the rolling pavement from the spinning tires from the circular motion of my burning legs from my spiralling life?

She tried to take me out of the saddle, out to the beach or the bars. She wasn’t persistent – she knew something was holding me back, either my love for routine or for independence. She had been wrong about that, but she was wrong about most things.

Like how Diet Cola twisted your insides and pizza was meant to be eaten from the tip to the crust. She bit her nails down to her cuticles from the pressure she put on herself. She knew too much and didn’t seem to know enough.

Love was inevitable but a lost cause. It came and then it left. Perhaps it had only been lust. Besides, she found someone at either the beach or the bars and she smiled differently when she said his name. I really didn’t mind. For some reason her beauty had become conventional and her edge on the bike too forceful. I always lost and now I didn’t have to pretend like I’d almost won. She didn’t bike away from me into the sunset, but pedaled me back to my house.

She touched my arm to say goodbye.

There came a day when I needed a new bicycle. My trusted road bike had imperfections and dents; it had become a chore rather than an ease to pedal up steep hills, and I no longer could close my eyes for fear of wobbling wheels. My last ride was the same. I was alone and overexerted and half asleep. I thought of how I was never a son to you. I noticed again the scar on my left hand from where you stabbed me with a butter knife after too much wine. The sun rose behind plump morning wisps and the November air pinched my cheeks. But if I slowed my breathing and my thoughts, I could hear the hum of your wheels spinning just ahead of me.

— Claire Motyer

MILLENNIUM VIEW

— Tamim Sujat

8 Freezing to Death Here is something. Do you know what it’s like to freeze to death? Apparently it’s quite incredible. It starts in a bright concentration. When you are fated to freeze to death you usually are incapable of coming to terms with it within the first four hours. Imagine you’re lost on a mountain, in the Alps let’s say. You were with a tour guide trekking the white, and you lose them in a manner that seems completely unfathomable. Forget the idea that you’re separated from the only pack of people who know where to go. That is of course frightening. Every part of your body thinks it will see another person at some point soon. You think about yelling. But you aren’t thinking about freezing to death. So you yell and you scream. Nobody hears you of course. So you panic.

’ve really fucked up.”

“My God. I

You get anxious and you pace, turning left and right as the levels of your heart quicken. The goggles resting uncomfortable on the arch of your nose fog. You sweat under the layers. However you remain optimistic. You aren’t thinking about freezing to death. It’s only been 15 minutes. After five hours you worry that nighttime might offer something out of a nightmare. Wolves? Bears?

“Bears can run faster than us can’t they? Does that apply to mountains? It must.”

The night will be hard to bear mentally, and you know it. So you prepare yourself for this possibility. You realize that temperatures probably drop at night. They probably drop significantly. But you still don’t think of freezing to death.

“Fuck it might get pretty cold. That will be shit.”

That’s about all you think about. Do you want to know why you don’t consider dying? Because freezing to death is not a reality that anyone considers. People have heard of folks dying of heat. Heat exhaustion is a serious thing. There’s always a story in August about a 94-year oldwoman dying in Phoenix. But who freezes to death? Nobody. It’s not even in the news. Temperature should not kill you. And in life the things that ‘should’ not kill you, ‘cannot’ kill you in your subconscious. So it’s now night, it’s been 13 hours. You figure there must be a rescue team out to find you. Still, your fingers are getting painful, in a way that is very foreign. Like the lead from a mechanical pencil being driven under your nails. You think about frostbite. You start giving the cold credit. Hour 16 and you are certain you have frostbite. You’re going to lose some digits and your life will change. At this point you’re in a secure state of panic. The bouts of painstaking anxiety are through and now you’re dead serious within your depression. This might take a long fucking time. This might take forever. This might be forever. Now it hits you you’ll probably die within the next 20 hours. As your inner guidance counsellor attempts to steer you from this notion, you instead grip it in a sick desperation. You pity yourself a little more as the hours pass. You flicker between thoughts of Channel 7 breaking the news of your absence and the fact that they won’t find your body. You chuckle at the fact that you will die because of ‘nothing.’ Cold is not a thing. You learned that in the ninth grade. Cold is the absence of heat. Heat is a thing. But cold is not. You will die from an absence of something. You try to rationalize it: “People die from a lack of water. That’s an absence of something.”

But this feel

s so much worse. You’re pensive and broken. You’re

going to fucking die.

“Alright. Okay. Fine. Alright. This is mine. I have to own this. Alright.”

So you start to freeze to death. You start to feel numb everywhere. Your breath lets up a bit as you start to lose consciousness. You come in and out of awareness as your muscles unclench. You begin to fall into a cloud of sleep. You hear high notes every once in a while but they grow fainter. Imagine being in the grave as someone throws dirt directly on you. You feel the weight increasing with every coming thud. The weight grows heavier but the thuds sound further off. There’s more dirt between you and the new layer. More insulation. It feels just like insulation. You hear nothing now. Suddenly your body heats up with an incredible burst of sanguine. Next is what I consider to be the most romantic part of freezing to death. All of the blood in your body has slowly been migrating to your heart. Technically, the blood moves toward the centre of your body of its own volition. But I like to think about it as your heart calling out to every blood cell, asking for help. Your heart is on its knees, bursting with a great plea of salvation. All the blood in your body comes rushing in, in one last effort to keep it going. Your body is fighting to save itself. It’s fighting to save you. Magnificent, right? You marvel at the camaraderie. The blood rushes to your centre, it hits your heart, and in one astounding flare of excellence your heart sends a great wave of heat throughout your entire body. You feel warmth like never before. Warmth so beautiful, so brilliant, you gasp in ecstasy. Like a hot shower in February, but magnified and decorated with sorrow and bliss all at once. Then you die. And that’s freezing to death. You die. Though in those final thirty-so hours, you do live.

­— Christopher Jude Paraskevas

Sci+Tech

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Cutting the cord

9

Children who repress feelings more affected by separation anxiety Christopher Cayen-Cyr The McGill Daily

R

emember your first day of kindergarten? Whether you do or not, intuitively, it seems obvious that if you are nurtured by a group of people during the first five years of your life, getting separated on a regular basis from these people might be an unsettling experience.

Sean Miyaji The McGill Daily

But are you aware of how your early life shaped your behaviour?

Marco Battaglia, a professor of psychiatry at Université Laval who specializes in developmental psychology, has some answers to this question. “I find separation anxiety in children to be a fascinating subject,” Battaglia told The Daily. “Separation anxiety is a great origination of evolution [that] has come to all mammals with parenting, the process of taking care of one’s offspring.”

While it is considered natural to experience some level of anxiety when facing separation from an attachment figure, such as a child’s parents, in preschool years, separation anxiety disorder (SAD) arises when a child’s response to this separation become excessive and uncharacteristic of the child’s age. Symptoms of SAD include persistent stress and worry related to such separation. In a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in April 2015, Battaglia and colleagues from several universities, most of which are in Quebec, looked at 1,933 families with children ages 1.5 to six years and attempted to iden-

tify patterns in the development of SAD, including risk factors. While the vast majority of the subjects showed greatly reduced symptoms by the time they were six years old, 6.9 per cent were identified as having “high-increasing” symptoms.

“What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the high-increasing group is that it was the closest to having purely internalized behaviours,” Battaglia pointed out. In contrast with external behaviours, such as physical aggressiveness toward others, internalized behaviours include withdrawing from social interactions and repressing feelings.

Battaglia suggests that teachers could be very helpful in spotting and assessing SAD in children. His recent study looks at kindergarten teachers’ ratings of separation anxiety. When asked if he thought teachers were properly equipped to deal with cases of SAD, Battaglia said, “I found teachers in [the] different Western cultures in which I have conducted research to be, on average, really good sources who are fairly well-equipped with basic psychology.” The different angle they offer on a child’s behaviour

also turns out to be an insightful perspective, as a child may act differently in the presence of parents versus in the presence of friends at school. This is why speaking to sources external to the family can be valuable, especially since children usually spend most of their time with other children. “If both the parents and the teachers notice the same thing, then it is more likely something true,” Battaglia noted.

A striking feature of SAD in children is that it is not limited to separation from parents or their principal caregiver, as humans have the ability to form multiple figures of attachment. A 1988 study published in Developmental Psychology and conducted in kibbutz communities, communal settlements in Israel, investigated this capacity. “While kibbutz children know who their mothers or their fathers are, they can be raised by several figures. A few studies suggest that, on average, they may have less of a capacity to deal with separation and build autonomous attachment,” the study notes. For instance, separation from grandparents and siblings can also result in anxiety for a child. As for how many

figures constitute the upper threshold for strong attachments, Battaglia estimates that humans are capable of building “more than two, but certainly less than ten.” This study sheds light on the impact of caregiving figures in a child’s life beyond their principal guardians.

Although how SAD affects children is fairly well-established, the extent to which it can evolve into adulthood is controversial. “Some of my colleagues support the presence of separation anxiety in adults. I am personally more reserved,” Battaglia said. According to the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the guideline for diagnosing SAD in children under 18 is to observe persistent symptoms over at least four weeks, while a period of six months is recommended for adults. “The rationale for the DSM rules is data. I feel [there is a] need for more data on SAD in adulthood,” said Battaglia. “Besides, there is still so much to learn from separation anxiety in childhood.”

A longer version of this article is available at www.mcgilldaily.com.

Complexities of the quest for life Astrobiologist Robert Hazen talks cosmic origins

Leanne Louie The McGill Daily

A

strobiology is the field of science that strives to answer those questions we all ponder on long bus rides and sleepless nights: How did life originate? Are we alone in the universe? What does the future entail for humans?

These questions are as exciting to think about as they are difficult to answer. Astrobiologists are largely divided in their theories concerning all three. Take the first question – how did life begin? Scientists have proposed more recipes for life than there are for chicken soup.

Some believe the first self-replicating molecules formed in a “primordial soup” of organic compounds.

Others think microbes could have hitched a ride from Mars to Earth on an ancient meteorite. Still others suggest that life could have begun within cracks in the ice on Earth.

Beginnings of life “All scientists see the origin of life through their own lens,” said Robert Hazen, an astrobiologist, mineralogist, and researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Geophysical Laboratory, when speaking at McGill on September

30. Hazen believes minerals played a key role in life’s beginnings.

The compounds necessary for life can form almost anywhere, he explained. Scientists have been able to synthesize organic molecules in conditions similar to Earth’s early atmosphere, deep sea hydrothermal vents, and even space. The unknown is not how these compounds were created – it’s how they came together as self-replicating molecules.

Although water is a prerequisite for life as we know it, it would have inhibited the formation of early, self-organizing molecules. Many organic compounds are unable to polymerize, or come together, in water.

Though there are many ways these molecules could have formed on Earth, there must have been another factor involved that allowed them to come together and form polymers.

“What you need is some kind of surface that attracts, selects, and concentrates these compounds,” explained Hazen. “This is where minerals come in and save the day.”

Minerals allow for the polymerization of organic compounds, which cannot occur in solution.

Minerals may also explain another of life’s great mysteries: the selective configuration of natural molecules. Just as hands come in

a left and right form, there are also molecules that come in right- and left-handed configurations. Called chiral, they are the exact same, except that they are mirror images of each other. Although this may seem like an insignificant difference, it changes everything when it comes to reactivity. For example, one chiral form of the hydrocarbon limonene smells like lemons. The other smells of oranges. For some unknown reason, nature selects only one handed forms of ciral compounds, either right or left – but not both. Some believe this was an accident. Hazen thinks otherwise, and many scientists agree with him.

“Most rock forming minerals display at least one common chiral surface,” explained Hazen in a 2006 article published in American Mineralogist. Left- and righthanded molecules selectively adhere to mineral faces of different chirality. Thus, molecules of one chiral form would have concentrated on one face, while molecules of the other would have been attracted to different surfaces.

Given this tendency, if life arose from the organic compounds adhered to minerals, its selection of only one chiral form seems completely natural.

So, given organic molecules in solution, minerals may have contributed to the formation of organic polymers and life’s chirality. This still leaves one question – how did life become self-replicating? The answer is not clear. “This is the biggest challenge to overcome and it will make the biggest headlines when solved,” said Hazen.

Life in other galaxies However, the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists will probably make even bigger headlines when solved. The answer, of course, is not clear. Missions to Mars, Europa, and other bodies in our solar system could provide answers. These sites have the requirements for life as we know it – water, an energy source, and organic compounds.

However, it’s entirely possible that life could exist in a form entirely different from our own. Indeed, Hazen revealed a speculative and, as of yet, unpublished finding from the Deep Carbon Observatory, a global community of researchers who work together to study the Earth. The finding could indicate an entirely new domain of life right here on Earth. Researchers drilled into a black smoker, a type of hydrothermal vent, to allow

water to pass from the 300 degrees Celsius interior through the hole and out into to the cold temperatures of the deep ocean. They lined this hole with chambers, each of which was a mineral surface, and after six months, returned to collect the findings. Within the chambers closer to the core of the vent, they found a sort of electrolytic gel that appeared to be capable of self-organization, growing laterally perhaps by replicating itself.

“Is that something that’s alive and can evolve? Or is it just a coating of goo?” asked Hazen. The answer is, unsurprisingly, unclear.

“But what would be the fun of science if we knew everything?” he continued. You can’t have discovery if there are no unknowns, and every discovery leads to yet more questions. Such is the nature of science.

And such is the nature of the human mind, to pursue answers.

From atoms, the basic building blocks of the universe, arose the simplest of self-replicating molecules. From these grew a mind capable of questioning its own existence – and finding answers. In the words of Robert Hazen, “The universe is beginning to know itself.”

A longer version of this article is available at www.mcgilldaily.com.

Features

A cursory glance

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Photos from Milton-Parc

by Gelila Bedada

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Features

I sometimes encounter people who tell me they’re not political. I’ve tried to grapple with what that means – maybe something along the lines of not voting in elections or not wanting to listen to all the political rhetoric?

When I was younger, my father – I call him Baba – used to tell me stories about his time as a refugee, as an imprisoned humanitarian, and as a socialistturned-capitalist. Baba would tell me about the nights he decorated the streets of his neighbourhood with pamphlets that demanded revolution. I would ask again to hear about the morning he left his home without any goodbyes, desperate to understand the fear that motivated him to run.

My father never had a choice about whether to be political or not. I’m coloured with these secondhand experiences: theories of power coupled with a human consciousness. Residing in this sphere of thought, I think to be apolitical would be an offence to my father and, ultimately, my history. I often reflect on this narrative, which I’ve heard throughout my youth. It’s one I’ve accepted, but never completely comprehended.

Yet sometimes I miraculously stumble upon a place that captures a semblance of this struggle, of this idealist conviction. I’m convinced that the nature of our surroundings can’t possibly be removed from the political.

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

11

Sports

October 5, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Flying past fantasy and gender barriers

12

The state of Quidditch at McGill

Victor Depois Sports Writer

T

he Boy Who Lived and famous Auror Harry Potter would surely be surprised to see all these Muggles (non-magical folk) playing his beloved game. Muggle Quidditch is the adaptation of Quidditch – the famous game played by witches and wizards in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series – for Muggles who cannot use flying brooms. Many universities now play the sport competitively and meet in the various tournaments held throughout the year.

Even though many people still consider it to be a fictional game, Quidditch – or McQuidditch, as McGill students affectionately call it – has become more accessible and has gained acceptance and some recognition over the past few years

in Canada and the U.S.. This new sport is also uniquely co-ed.

In an interview with The Daily, Quidditch team President Robyn Fortune and VP Communications Laurent Chenet shared their views on the sport, and about the obstacles encountered during the sport’s rapid development.

Historically, McGill’s Quidditch section is a pioneer in the sport. It was created in 2008, only a year after the establishment of the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association (IQA) in 2007, which became the International Quidditch Association (IQA) in 2010. Furthermore, McGill has one of the biggest Quidditch sections in Canada, with multiple teams.

National federations exist and create major obstacles for international games. Rules change almost every year, and teams need

to be registered within the same federation to play games against each other. McGill couldn’t register with United States Quidditch (USQ) and will therefore not be able to play official games against American teams.

“The way it’s set up is we have two competitive teams: McGill A and Canada’s Finest, which is our B team,” said Fortune. “We [...] usually have a tournament every two to three weekends; we also have an intramural team.”

One could assume that Quidditch is mostly played by Harry Potter fans who wish to get closer to the world of witchcraft and wizardry and whose greatest dream would be to attend Hogwarts. However, this assumption is false.

“Most of us actually don’t like Harry Potter – it’s just a very fun

The Quidditch team.

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

sport,” said Chenet.

Fortune further explained that she joined because she thought it would be fun to play a fictional sport.

Register and vote at McGill Ready to vote in the federal election? From October 5 to 8, Elections Canada offices will be open on campus to provide information, registration and voting for students before the October 19 election day.

Bring ID with your home address.

Nearest locations: Memorial Hall 475 Des Pins Avenue West La Plaza – Diplomate (Ace Deli Bar and Grill) 420 Sherbrooke Street West Carrefour Sherbrooke Ballroom, 2nd Floor 475 Sherbrooke Street West Hours: 10:00 a.m.– 8:00 p.m.

There are other times, places and ways you can vote.

Visit elections.ca or call 1-800-463-6868 ( TTY 1-800-361-8935) for this information and the list of accepted ID.

Quidditch, however, is very real, as she soon came to realize. Practice takes place two to three times a week.

Like every other sport, it involves discipline and rigour, and games can be intense. Last week in Rochester, New York, McGill’s rookies showed their potential by winning third place in a competitive tournament.

The atmosphere created by this welcoming bunch reminds the players that Quidditch remains a game, and the primary goal is to have fun.

Chenet is a chaser and seeker, but doesn’t miss any chance to encourage fellow teammates – he likes to say that he is also the team’s cheerleader.

The open-mindedness of Quidditch players also makes this new sport unique. While other team sports like soccer, football, basketball, baseball, and hockey segregate genders, Quidditch breaks such gender boundaries and biases. It is the only co-ed competitive sport at McGill.

This plays a role in Quidditch’s rising popularity. Women are judged according to the same standards as men, which is rarely, if ever, the case in competitive sports.

Together, players strive for the development of their sport and to gain even more recognition. The goal of McQuidditch is clear: to make people play and love Quidditch regardless of gender. The more people will play this sport, the more barriers will be broken down, and the more credit the sport will get. There’s still much to do, but Quidditch is on its way. It has evolved from being considered a hobby exclusive to Harry Potter fans into a real sport.

Quidditch has become part of McGill’s everyday life, and will hopefully remain part of it for a long time. In comparison to team sports such as basketball or soccer that emerged over a century ago, Quidditch still has a long way to go.

However, the co-ed sport isn’t even ten years old, and it already has multiple national federations and even an international one. Quidditch is a unique game. Hopefully, the sport will continue to increase in popularity and break even more barriers.

Culture

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

13

Art, brought to you by BP British museums dirtied by oil industry ties

Rochelle Guillou The McGill Daily

o

n September 13, 200 London activists staged public protests in four British museums against the sponsorship of museums by the oil company British Petroleum (BP). Protesters marched from the Tate Britain to the National Portrait Gallery and Royal Opera House before ending the march at the British Museum. There, they sat on the floor of the Great Court and formed the word “No” with black umbrellas underneath banners reading, “No new BP deal.” In 2011, these four museums accepted a fiveyear investment from BP totalling £10 million, something protesters do not want to see renewed next year, after the deal’s expiration date.

The London protests against the museums’ acceptance and use of BP money brings to the forefront a matter the museums would like to keep quiet about. According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, BP’s donation amounted to less than 1 percent of the British Museum’s budget in 2010-11, meaning BP is far from an essential donor to the museum. Out of the £10 million pledged to the four London museums in 2011, the British Museum would only see £2.5 million if split equally. While it would be bad enough if BP was monopolizing budget donations to museums, it’s just as bad, if not worse, that BP is es-

sentially buying PR through museum donations to legitimize its abhorrent social and environmental impact with its insignificant donations.

Sponsorship of the arts has become a key method used by the fossil fuel industry to accentuate its power, as actors in the industry are easily placed on high pedestals of social approval through such cultural institutions as museums. Donations have allowed BP to hide its corporate crimes by purchasing a thin veil of social legitimacy. These oil giants supply less than 1 per cent of the annual income of organizations like the Tate and the British Museum, and yet they receive a large amount of high profile branding in return, allowing them to present themselves as respectable patrons of the necessary pillars of society.

The events in London remind us that museums and galleries of all kinds have both the potential to galvanize social change and also the responsibility to do so. Even if BP’s funding contributed significantly to museum budgets, the general social benefit accrued from well-funded public museums would not outweigh the museums’ hypocrisy of accepting that money. For example, just this month, the Tate Modern installed solar panels on its roof. Judith Nesbitt, the museum’s director of national and international programs, commented, “Together with our plans for heat recovery and natural ventilation in

the new building, we are exploring a whole range of approaches to reduce energy use.” The Tate Modern cannot conceivably think it can truly reduce energy use and also benefit from the profits of fossil fuels, even marginally.

Social institutions should be deploying social agency and cultural authority in a way that is aligned and consistent with the values of contemporary society. As a medium for mass communication through powerful, perceived cultural authority, museums’ potential as agents of change should not be underestimated. Eilean Hooper Greenhill, a director at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester, brings attention to the socially constructed nature of learning in museums and the dialogue that goes on between the individual and their physical environment. She explains how education is influenced by presentation and the physical setting. Learning in museums operates in rich and complex sites, and in focusing on concrete materials such as objects and exhibitions, is qualitatively superior to learning from other mediums. Museums offer an experience from which visitors then actively construct meaning.

In turn, having oil companies fund museum exhibits sends a message to the public that is too consequential to be ignored: not only does it completely undermine any pro-environmental

Art sullied by oil ties.

Stephanie Ngo | The McGill Daily

message from the museum, but the museum itself loses its legitimacy as a social institution when its hypocrisy has broken the public’s trust.

In order to maintain freedom to expose and criticize any aspect of society, including supporting beneficial pro-environmental causes, social institutions themselves have to be free of compromising ties.

The British Museum, and any other museum in similar economic contracts, will be further undermining its influence and legitimacy if it renews its deal with BP, because the core of its authority relies on public trust. If the institution itself is corrupt, then the values and principles it advocates inside its walls will lose all significance.

Circus, reconceptualized

Or Cirque subverts the genre at La Chapelle Theatre Siobhan Milner Culture Writer

I

n the first minute, it was clear that Or Cirque was not going to be a conventional circus show.

Trained in traditional circus techniques such as trapeze and floor acrobatics, performers and creators Alma Buholzer and Thomas Saulgrain firmly depart from the traditional circus aesthetic with Or Cirque. Only at La Chapelle Theatre from September 20 to 22, Or Cirque brought multidisciplinary performance art and circus to the Plateau stage. Part of La Chapelle Theatre’s Grand Cru Festival, Or Cirque was one of seven performances scheduled in the space of a month, all aimed at providing theatre-goers with a condensed lineup of radical urban creations.

In an interview with The Daily, Buholzer said, “In working with traditional circus images, we wanted to avoid the position of presenting ‘sim-

ple’ humanity over spectacularity. [...]

In traditional circus, ‘humanity’ is already there more than anywhere else, sublated through the presentation of pure form – splits, flips, et cetera. [...]

I’m bothered by how the ‘human circus’ type of show relies on a concept of humanity that is more illusory than actual, and that it replaces one set of aesthetic values with another.”

Buholzer began the performance on stage, balanced precariously on a trapeze. Seemingly struggling to maintain her balance, she would fall and catch the bar under the crook of her arm, only to hoist herself back up again. Immediately breaking the implicit trust between audience and performer typical of circus shows, Buholzer’s wavering and falling generated an air of anxiety in the audience. This also worked to immediately chip away at the practiced veneer of circus performance, bringing an element of deliberate imperfec-

tion and error to the perfectionist art form; it is easy to admire Buholzer and Saulgrain’s ability to fool the audience.

“There were a few different subversive impulses at the beginning of the creation,” added Buholzer. “The idea of traditional circus remains an idea, a starting point, and it took some mysterious combinations, [like] Thomas as the clown doing a hoopdiving act to Beyoncé, [...] to reveal the more interesting facets of those images. The characters are almost objects in this piece, and my point of view is that ‘humanity’ [and subjectivity] is, if anywhere, in the spaces between objects [and] scenic elements.”

There was a real Brechtian feel to the show, as the pair changed costumes on stage and even changed the music accompanying the show in full view of the audience, sometimes mid-song. At this point, even the basic understanding of ‘performance’ started to deteriorate, leaving audience members to second-

Courtesy of Valentin Boucq guess themselves. Everything was strange in the piece, but nothing was random. Each “accidental” act was nothing of the sort, but instead sought to challenge the idea of polished performance art.

Or Cirque functioned as a necessary and effective rebuttal to traditional circus. As the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil and home to a week-long summer festival de-

voted to the art, Montreal is saturated with acrobatics. Buholzer and Saulgrain pushed the concept of “circus” to its limit, and then further. Yes, trapeze work and acrobatics were present in the performance, but they acted as ingenuities. Or Cirque prompted viewers to question the very basis of performance itself, subverting the original genre of circus along the way.

14

Culture

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Shamstep groove

Ralph Haddad The McGill Daily

“

Soundcheck is running late,” one of the organizers of the 47soul concert at La Vitriola last Friday tells me. My interview with the band was supposed to start at 8 p.m., but to my dismay I will have to wait another hour. As I sit at the back of the quaint venue, the band’s beats play in my periphery. I’m mesmerized only 15 minutes into their sound check, and I’m itching to start the interview.

When they’re finally ready, they tell me they’re hungry. “There’s a great restaurant across the street.

It’s vegan, but it’s pretty good.”

We crowd into a corner at Aux Vivres in between a couple and someone rocking a stroller. Two band members of 47soul, Ramzi and Walaa’, seem unfazed. Walaa’ patiently waits for his tempeh burger and tells me, “We’re four people who are originally from Palestine. Either our parents or grandparents were displaced [...] so we ended up being born in different places.” He’s a native of Palestine (the Galilee); Ramzi was born in Washington, D.C.

McgillDaily_10x7_FNC_44.indd 2

47soul and the power of movement and is of Palestinian descent.

Walaa’ continues, “Each of us had his own individual project with other bands in our own areas. We got attracted to each other’s music [and] each other’s personalities as friends. This is what brought us together.”

Ramzi sits in silent agreement next to Walaa’, who tells me that the group approaches its work from the basic concept that the members are “normal people” foremost, “before anybody puts us in the context of struggle and forces identities on us.”

They call their music Shamstep, the “Sham” coming from Bilad al-Sham (the Levant), a geographical area that encompasses Lebanon, Syria, parts of Jordan, and Palestine. “We are the result of this region, and I think this is the first inspiration, our traditional music from Bilad alSham, and our desire to develop it [and] create a new sound.”

Their music can only be described as techno Arabic wedding music, or dabka, a traditional Levantine blend of music and dance. When asked what the initial idea was for such a mixture of sound, Ramzi explains that dabka has been electronic for a long

time now, “So it’s definitely not a new idea from us to make dance music. At the same time it’s something fresh that people in the West haven’t been exposed to. I grew up in D.C., and was influenced by go-go music, R&B, hip hop... Walaa’ soaked in a lot of reggae and dub influences.” What they want to do, Ramzi says, is put their own signature on the Bilad al-Sham dabka style – and they do this by creating a next-level musical fusion.

Walaa’ calls it “movement music.” 47soul wants to move Levantine peoples both musically and politically, and also to introduce Western audiences to this musical and political activism in tandem. “It can say a different thing about us as people from our region, that people can share the same way, that we celebrate and enjoy [life]. This is the context of it: we are not just a people who cry and suffer, we are people who create and enjoy.”

47soul’s Montreal show is the group’s second (and last) one in Canada. For their first Canadian visit, they had played the Toronto Palestine Film Festival the night before heading to Montreal. The artists were surprised by the turn-

out in Toronto, which remained sizable even after the unfortunate announcement that 47soul’s other two members were denied visas to enter the country. “We’re a collection of passports,” Ramzi explains when asked about the debacle.

“It’s a time where there’s no equal treatment for Third World passports. Two of the guys have been victims of a very long and bureaucratic process that prevents them from being with us today.”

Ramzi and Walaa’ played the festival anyway, and were greeted with an overwhelmingly positive response. For them, performing is about breaking borders and freedom of movement. Essentially, nothing will stop them, not even a Kafkaesque racist bureaucracy.

“We’ve had many different formations [as a band] all because of visa and border issues. We’re here to still bring more awareness to that experience.”

Nantali Indongo and Meryem Saci from Nomadic Massive kick off the night to a fantastic opening set of funk, soul, and blues – think Nina Simone meets Tina Turner. Their lyrics, coded with political messages, garner obvious praise from the

audience, sending the energy high before 47soul begin their set.

The second Ramzi steps on stage, the crowd fills the gap between the stage and the seats.

Ramzi instantly starts busting out deep house beats, slowly infusing them with traditional dabka accents. He invites Walaa’ up to the stage, and the crowd goes absolutely wild. Walaa’ practices a type of singing called tarab, which combines singing with a religious style of sung poetry, usually acapella style.

Ramzi is full of energy, jumping all over the stage and spontaneously busting out dabka moves with Walaa’.

“This one is for the resistance,” Ramzi enthusiastically yells into his microphone before transitioning into another high-energy track.

Everyone around me starts bellydancing. I’m simultaneously holding my notebook and frantically scrambling down notes in the middle of the raucous crowd when someone suddenly snatches it from me and tells me to start dancing too. I give in to 47soul’s beats, breaking out in a bellydance myself, and I couldn’t feel more at home.

15-09-14 11:09 AM

Editorial

volume 105 number 6

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Islamophobia is not a false debate

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com

The McGill Daily is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. coordinating editor

Niyousha Bastani

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Cem Ertekin news editor

Arianee Wang commentary & compendium! editors

Janna Bryson Igor Sadikov

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily

culture editors

Sonia Larbi-Aissa Virginia Shram features editor

Yasmine Mosimann science+technology editor

Jill Bachelder sports editor

Vacant

multimedia editor

Subhanya Sivajothy photos editor

Vacant

illustrations editor

Lia Elbaz

copy editor

Chantelle Schultz design & production editor

Jasreet Kaur web editor

Marc Cataford community editor

Rosie Long Decter le délit

Julia Denis

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Lia Elbaz contributors Gelila Bedada, Manuela Carvajal, Christopher Cayen-Cyr, Bailey Cohen-Krichevsky, Alan Cox, Maxine Dannatt, Victor Depois, Saima Desai, Erin Dwyer, Cem Ertekin, Christian Favreau, Amanda Fiore, Panayot Gaidov, Jacob Goldberg, Carly Gordon, Rochelle Guillou, Ralph Haddad, David Helps, Eelis Hemberg, Sonia Ionescu, Marie Labrosee, Rayleigh Lee, Andrea Li, Xiaoxiao (Alice) Liu, Leanne Louie, Camille Malard, Siobhan Milner, Taylor Mitchell, Sean Miyaji, Claire Motyer, Stephanie Ngo, Christopher Jude Paraskevas, Alice Shen, Vincent Simboli, Tamim Sujat, Justine Touchon

W

ith the federal election season upon us, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois have been fuelling a debate on whether or not to allow people to take the citizenship oath while wearing a niqab. Other parties have called out these arguments as unnecessary fear mongering, but the fact that none have framed it as what it is – xenophobia – is deplorable and symptomatic of pervasive racism and Islamophobia in Canada.

Islamophobia is on the rise in Canada, further bolstered by recent political actions. Conservative ‘anti-terror’ legislation Bill C-51 criminalizes the advocacy or promotion of terrorist acts and makes it easier for police to arrest someone suspected of being a terrorist, while Bill C-24 ascribes a ‘second-class’ citizenship to Canadians who were born abroad – revocable for convictions of terrorism or treason. These pieces of legislation don’t name Muslims as explicit targets, but due to the prejudiced association between Islam and terrorism, their implementation will disproportionately impact Muslims, especially Muslims of colour. Similarly, the proposed Quebec Charter of Values, which nominally addressed all religious attire, was widely criticized for Islamophobic intentions.

Party leaders are also exhibiting and profiting off of xenophobia. In a recent campaign ad, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe argued that the NDP’s support for allowing people to wear a niqab while voting was “the last straw” that would push Quebecers to change their vote to the Bloc.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently spoke of new or “current” Canadian citizens as distinct from “old-stock” Canadians, further marginalizing recent immi-

grants and reinforcing the xenophobic undertones that run through Canadian society.

Only a small proportion of Canadian Muslim women wear full face-covering niqabs or burqas, which has allowed party leaders to trivialize the citizenship oath issue: Green Party leader Elizabeth May said it was a “false debate,” and NDP leader Tom Mulcair called it a “weapon of mass distraction.” In so doing, they sweep under the rug the widespread sexist and Islamophobic attitudes that the issue has revealed, and ignore the impact those attitudes have on the everyday lives of many Muslim women, whether they wear the niqab or not. For example, just last week, a woman in Montreal was attacked by two boys who tore off her hijab in a hateful act of violence. Two days later, the Quebec National Assembly passed a motion put forward by Québec Solidaire condemning Islamophobia, in stark contrast to the federal party leaders’ silence on Islamophobia.

If the Islamophobic and racist attitudes at the root of this discussion are not addressed, they will continue to go unchecked in Canadian society. When political parties are so overtly Islamophobic, it is serious cause for concern and shouldn’t be brushed off as a non-issue. Instead, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia in Canada should be addressed head-on. In failing to call out Harper and Duceppe’s positions on the niqab debate as racist and Islamophobic, their opponents trivialize and normalize oppression in the country they hope to lead.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

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15

Compendium!

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

16

Lies, half-truths, and the days of my youth.

A modest proposal

A young Stefon Arpeur goes Swiftian on immigration Gimmy Voates The McGall Weekly Years before he became Prime Minister of Canada, a young Stefon Arpeur gave the following speech before a congress of the youth wing of the Reform Party of Canada. Until now, only rumours existed about the contents of the infamous speech.

After years of investigation, The Weekly has obtained a transcript of the original. For the first time, it’s being published in its entirety.

M

y fellow conservative youth, In recent years, our nation has witnessed a rapid increase of immigrants, imbalancing the cultural composition of our society. Massive immigration could have disastrous consequences for social welfare, economic growth, cultural practices, the sanctity of the family, and the preservation of the Canadian way of life. Henceforth, it is hereby my recommendation that the Canadian government implement the following proposal.

Canada, the second-largest country in the world, is barely able to geographically support its current population – with a density of 4 people per square kilometre and a birth rate of 1.6 children per woman, the territory is getting dangerously crowded. It is then reasonable for our nation to restrict the number of immigrants it accepts. By restricting immigration, we will create more low-wage jobs for our own citizens, save resources, and cut the carbon emissions that would have been produced by immigrants’ flights here. What can I say, it’s important to be eco-friendly.

To begin the implementation of such a restriction, I suggest that no more than 5 per cent of applicants from non-English-speaking, non-European countries be accepted within 15 years of their application. English-speaking people from Europe don’t really count as immigrants, and so should be accepted into our country within six days of applying.

Please note, this is not racism.

For example, since Asian people are currently the largest minority population in our country, it is necessary

for Canada to restrict immigration from Asia in order to maintain the careful balance of our cultural mosaic. As everyone knows, mosaics are precisely calculated compositions that must have exactly equal colour proportions. Except for white. Good art has a lot of white space.

According to a report from Internet Poll Canada, immigration is a threat to the social justice of Canadian society and Canadian identity. To ensure the maintenance of Canada’s flawless track record of gender equity, cultural artifacts or items of clothing that denote gender roles should be prohibited Of course, I mean objectively terrifying garments like the niqab, not decent, wholesome things like skirts that go past the knee (but not too far past, as this nation has no room for stodginess). Clothing items deemed borderline by border services will be formally appropriated by Canadian Customs, in order to neutralize the cultural and symbolic significance of the items, and thus their threat to Canadian society.

To further avoid cultural clashes and disagreement with Canadians, immigrants must have good cultural taste and have appropriate reverence for Canadian high culture. People from European or English-speaking countries tend to have more familiarity with Canadian cultural icons, like William Shatner, that guy from the Canadian Heritage Moments commercials, or His Excellency The Right Honourable Governor General of Canada. Further, immigrants should also be able to demonstrate a capacity to participate in refined cultural practices like rioting after hockey games or oppressing Indigenous populations. All of these features make them ideal candidates for becoming Canadian citizens as they contribute toward the development of a well-rounded society.

Due to the fact that some immigrants are not fully proficient in English and French, and given the high costs of educating them, we should no longer accept applicants for temporary or permanent residency who don’t have an undergraduate degree in Canadian Literature. Additionally, we should raise

The above image of a young Arpeur was found stapled to the original speech. the language proficiency standard for applicants who intend to reside in our nation. All applicants will be required to recite either “God Save the Queen,” “O Canada,” or a Céline Dion song of their choice in both French and English. Finally, as language is the Number One Invader of Canadian culture, any language other than English or French should be disallowed in public (punishable by immediate deportation).

To increase the quality of landed immigrants, it is important to restrict the definition of a “dependent child” and demand a higher level of literacy for children. Landed immigrants with no children generally achieve more than those who have children because parents are in no way capable of holding a job and caring for children at the same time. And once these children become permanent residents of Canada, the government will have to pay for their education, burdening the community by providing it with more educated residents. It is then appropriate to refuse any children who can support themselves in their country of origin, in order to save the provincial governments billions of dollars in education and welfare expenses annually. These

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children would remain eligible to apply for permanent residency and reunite with their parents when they are much older and have better language and life skills.

To create more jobs and further increase the quality of landed immigrants, it is also necessary that all children older than three months come with their parents to take an age-appropriate language test. The test for children under the age of 14 will be taken on a one-on-one basis with a linguistic assessment roleplay professional (LARP). By providing these tests, we create approximately 3,000 jobs Canadawide that would help sustain our own citizens. Children over the age of 14 will be requested to meet the minimum criteria of recognized standardized tests, which is a lower score than required for adults in order to obtain permanent residency (meaning they can pass the test even if they recite their Céline Dion song in only one language). Children who fail language tests will not be allowed in the country for temporary or permanent residency because learning a new language in a brand new environment would be detrimental to their emotional, intellectual, psychosocial, and cogni-

tive development.

It’s also essential to make sure that immigrants provide accurate information during the application process. To this end, all applicants must submit the original copy of their birth certificate and university diploma, to be returned if the application is accepted. However, in order to keep immigration processing environmentally sustainable, no paper documents will be accepted.

Applications that are declined are to be held in abeyance until the end of their six-day or fifteen-year processing period, in order to fully consider the decision of refusal and to avoid repeated requests that clog the application processing system.

If the Canadian government were to implement the above proposal, we would anticipate a drastic improvement in our society: first, a drop in unemployment rate as the number of capable workers entering the country plummets; second, a stabilization of old-stock Canadian cultural norms, traditions, and strongholds; and third, most importantly, we will ensure that Canada maintains its international reputation as the most diverse and multicultural country in the world.