The McGill Daily Vol. 111 Issue 20

Volume 111, Issue 20 | Monday, March 21, 2022 | mcgilldaily.com getting plagiarized since 1911

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table of Contents

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Table of Contents 3 4 6

editorial •

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culture •

#OccupyMcGill and student protests

News •

Updates on SSMU president suspension

feature •

The struggles of queer Ukrainians fleeing Putin

Exclusive interview with McGill musician Dameer

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commentarY

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news

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A survivor’s experience reporting sexual assault

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Two weeks of #OccupyMcGill

EDITORIAL

Volume 111 Issue 20

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n the morning of March 7, members of Divest McGill began an occupation of the McCall MacBain Arts Building, marking the start of the longest occupation in McGill history. Some students pitched tents in the lobby of the building, where they’ve been sleeping each night since the occupation began. Others have hung #OccupyMcGill posters and banners, handed out flyers to students and staff, and hosted education-based events and activities. These included workshops and discussions, community meals, reading circles, and movie screenings.

Divest McGill is a student-run environmental and social justice campaign “calling on McGill University to acknowledge and address the urgency of the climate crisis by withdrawing the direct (segregated) investments of its endowment fund from the fossil fuel industry.” The organization’s goals include: McGill’s complete divestment from companies complicit in human rights violations and the world’s top 200 fossil fuel companies; the mobilization of students, at McGill and across so-called Canada, in support of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups; and the education of the McGill community “in support of bold and justice-oriented climate action.” Since its founding in 2012, Divest McGill has conducted thorough research into McGill’s fossil fuel investments, distributed countless petitions, held numerous demonstrations, and engaged in constructive conversations within and outside the McGill community. #OccupyMcGill is a culmination of these efforts and a milestone in the Divest campaign. A specific goal of the occupation is democratizing McGill’s Board of Governors, which is made up of senior executives from the Bank of Montreal (BMO), the Power Corporation of Canada, the National Bank of Canada, Metro Inc., HSBC Bank Canada, and Redbourne Properties Inc. The current Board is controlled by and “serves capitalist, white supremacist, settler-colonial and imperialist structures of power,” per Divest. The movement has attracted widespread support from McGill students and staff – but administration has made efforts to suppress student activism, often putting the safety of students at risk.

On March 11, four days into the protest, occupiers reported being “tormented with an extruciating [sic], high-pitch [sic], loud siren noise” issuing from loudspeakers in the Arts Building lobby. A student who measured the noise on their laptop found it exceeded 100 decibels, an amount health experts consider to be “very loud and dangerous to human hearing.” In a statement to the Daily, McGill administration reported that the alarm was triggered by mistake, but a comment from Divest McGill’s Reddit account claims that the alarm was triggered by a member of McGill staff who admitted to setting it off on purpose. The organization also reported that its members had been yelled at and that its posters had been pulled down.

This constitutes a clear effort by the McGill administration to crack down on a peaceful student protest. This is not the first time the university has made such an effort, and Divest McGill has not been its only victim. In November 2011, following a protest against tuition hikes held outside Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s office, McGill students occupied the office of Principal Heather MunroeBlum. According to a Daily article, there were “[r]eports of violence used against occupiers by McGill Security.” This violence escalated after McGill Security called the riot police, who attacked demonstrators with batons and sprayed them with pepper spray.

Anna Hermanson, then a U2 McGill student, told the Daily that

“[w]e were beaten in the ribs, in the back of the knees, on our shoulders, it was unbelievable.”

A few months later, during an occupation of the James Administration Building, student protesters were denied access to washrooms, lights and Internet were shut off, and adjustments to the heating and ventilation systems made the building “stuffy.”

When students, who were told they would not be permitted reentry to the building if they left to get food, resorted to lowering a bucket out of a window, McGill Security cut the rope to which the bucket was attached.

In the “Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations on McGill University Campuses,” the university states that “tolerance is expected for the expression of dissent, and for a certain degree of inconvenience arising from the means by which dissenting opinions may be expressed.” The use of physical violence against demonstrators, the invitation of riot police to McGill campuses, the denied access to food and facilities during occupations, and the blaring of dangerously loud noises in protest spaces, however, are not acts of “tolerance.” The McGill administration is denying its students the right to peaceful protest. In the past, Principal Suzanne Fortier has been eager to defend professors at the University of Ottawa for their use of racial slurs, citing the right to academic freedom as her reason for doing so. The absence of support for Divest’s freedom of speech demonstrates a stark and unsurprising double standard for those protesting at McGill.

Protests are a crucial and effective means by which students can make their voices heard, draw their institutions into dialogue, and advocate for change. At the start of the current academic year, McGill students and staff gathered to demand stricter COVID-19 measures. Since then, we have seen McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights rally in support of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel; we have seen students march with Wet’suwet’en land defenders against the construction of TransCanada Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline; we have seen students protest against the New Vic project; and we have seen undergraduates at the School of Social Work, graduate students in the Faculty of Education, and Law students strike over the return to in-person learning. Last week, on March 18, the Association of McGill University Support Employees began a strike in condemnation of the university’s failure “to provide Floor Fellows with a decent rate of pay.”

These movements ask for our support, but they also obligate the university to ensure that all participants are safe, that all are treated fairly and respectfully, and that all are able to express themselves without fear of consequences. McGill should express more support for students’ freedom of speech, rather than cherry-picking the most palatable forms of dissent to support.

Support Divest McGill and the #OccupyMcGill campaign by following the organization on social media, reading and sharing its publications, and attending #OccupyMcGill events in the Arts Building. Sign the Divest McGill change.org petition “in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and a call for McGill University to immediately divest from TC Energy Corporation.” Participate in the Milton Parc Citizen Committee’s email blast campaign directed toward McGill and the Quebec Government. In the past weeks, student activism is increasingly visible on McGill’s campus – between the Arts Building occupation and activist activity on the Y, community mobilization continues to demonstrate that we are not #MadeByMcGill, we make McGill.

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Investigation Against Daryanani Botched

Abigail Popple Coordinating News Editor content warning : harassment, gender-based discrimination

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n February 14, SSMU President Darshan Daryanani was reinstated in his position at SSMU. His absence spanned over four months, having begun on September 23 and ended on February 13, according to an email which Daryanani sent to the Board of Directors and Executive Committee.

Throughout his absence, SSMU executives maintained that Daryanani was on leave.

Executives continually stressed that the absence was a Human Resources (HR) issue which they could not publicly discuss – at the November 25 Legislative Council meeting, VP Finance Éric Sader remarked that he was feeling “like a broken record” when he explained that the President’s absence could not be discussed at Legislative Council. Executives and directors were also unable to confirm or deny whether Daryanani was on paid leave, as Sader pointed out during the January 31 Board of Directors meeting.

However, Daryanani shed light on his absence during the February 17 Legislative Council meeting, where he announced that he had been put on paid suspension by the Board of Directors on September 23.

According to Daryanani, the initial suspension was meant to last until November 5, but was extended four more times by the Board of Directors (BoD). Likewise, the decision to reinstate Daryanani in his position as president was made by the BoD, sources say.

“[T]he investigation process did not give me and many women the space that we deserved and our voice[s] were, yet again, silenced.”

At the February 17 session of Legislative Council and again at

Hyeyoon Cho | Design Editor the consultative forum (that is, the General Assembly which did not meet quorum) on February 21, Daryanani claimed that he had not been given a reason for his suspension. However, in the aforementioned February 14 email, Daryanani did request “a complete and unredacted copy of the report prepared by HumaniLex Services Conseils,” claiming that he wanted to follow and respect the firm’s recommendations regarding the SSMU workplace. He referenced the case McCool v. EUS et al., in which Declan McCool – the 20202021 VP Internal-elect who was suspended following allegations of sexual violence – requested a copy of an investigative report held by the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS). The court ruled that the report should be “released to all parties” in this case.

Suspension In an interview with the Daily, Skylar* said that Daryanani was suspended for allegations of sexism and harassment in accordance with Article 12.3 of SSMU’s HR Policy. SSMU hired HumaniLex, an external HR firm, to conduct an investigation; per Skylar, the investigator was not trauma-informed and “didn’t reach out to a lot of people who wanted to [...] share their experiences.” The only people whom the investigator reached out to for the admissibility analysis were the three who

officially complained to HR – and Skylar said that the HR director at the time of these complaints “had a habit of talking people out of reporting and not helping.”

The investigator only spoke to two complainants – the third one, referred to as “Complainant C” in the analysis, declined to be interviewed by HumaniLex, sources say. However, Skylar estimates that they’ve heard from around 10 women who have “felt uncomfortable or unsafe working with [Daryanani].”

Despite having been provided the contact information of women who wanted to be interviewed, the firm did not speak to them during the investigation. “[T]he investigation process did not give me and many women the space that we deserved and our voice[s] were, yet again, silenced,” one of these women said in a message to the Daily. Furthermore, several women had contacted board members to indicate their desire to speak with investigators, but were never contacted. Sources said that the women who reached out to the BoD had faced “serious incidents” of sexism at SSMU, such as “insulting and yelling at women.”

Casey*, who worked at SSMU at the time of Daryanani’s suspension, claimed that there had been internal efforts to remove Daryanani for “quite some time” due to “many instances of sexism, as well as breaches of confidentiality.” [Emphasis their own.] Casey alleged that

The only people whom the investigator reached out to for the admissibility analysis were the three who officially complained to HR – and Skylar said that the HR director at the time of these complaints “had a habit of talking people out of reporting and not helping.”

Daryanani’s sexist behavior dates back to his time in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) – where Daryanani was the AUS VP External in the 2019-2020 Academic Year, and an Arts Senator in 2020-2021 – but because SSMU lacks control over AUS governance, there was little SSMU could do to address his behaviour. In the email sent to the Daily, Casey included the documents which contained claims that there were “several instances of sexism” during Daryanani’s time as a legislative councillor and senator; the investigation was meant to cover Daryanani’s entire time in SSMU, but the firm only focused on the complaints submitted in June 2021.

“Finally after a ton of work, we were able to get him suspended pending an investigation,” Casey continued, explaining that Quebec labour laws prevented SSMU executives and staff from

speaking about the suspension and investigation. Casey was troubled

by Daryanani’s reinstatement, claiming that “It either means the investigation was done poorly and inconclusively [...] or that regardless of the investigation, [the] board actively chose to reinstate him.”

Additionally, sources have expressed concern that the investigation was conducted based upon SSMU’s Psychological Harassment Policy, rather than its Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy and Equity Policy. The Daily attempted to acquire a copy of the Psychological Harassment Policy; however, VP Internal Sarah Paulin explained that the Policy is not publicly available as “a lot of the things that are mentioned in this policy just simply would not make sense to people who do not work within the SSMU [...] [the contents of the Policy] would not be very valuable information to

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March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

these accommodations are not feasible in some cases – Executives and Representatives are mandated to attend certain meetings, such as Legislative Council or BoD meetings, meaning that they would have no choice but to attend a meeting with Daryanani present. “It literally won’t work,” Jamie said.

Indeed, Daryanani was present at the February 17 Legislative Council meeting, and at the consultative forum the following Monday. At these meetings, the working environment of SSMU was discussed extensively, with some representatives testifying Reinstatement that women and gender minorities According to Skylar, SSMU is do not feel safe working at SSMU. allegedly reaching out to those *** who have expressed discomfort “I’ve had some of my constituents with Daryanani’s return and message me expressing how offering accommodations. They uncomfortable they felt about the pointed out a contradiction current composition of the executive between Daryanani’s return body [...] I’ve been present at and the accommodations, occasions where one of the members explaining that by reinstating of the executive body has made him “they’re saying it’s fine,” but comments that have made some of his return is “clearly not [fine]” my female friends and colleagues if it requires SSMU to implement u n c o m f o r t a b l e .” - C o u n c i l l o r accommodations.

Andres Perez-Tiniacos, February 17 Legislative Council “I myself, and frankly a lot of other women and women of colour, don’t feel safe at the moment.” Councillor Mary Zhang, February 21 Consultative Forum “The President is currently not fulfilling the President’s purpose, nor is the President a positive force in the SSMU community. The fact that we’ve discussed nothing but the President for the past while is proof of that.” - Councillor Charlotte Gurung, February 21 Consultative Forum people who do not hold positions within the SSMU itself.”

The firm found that Daryanani’s behaviour “could not constitute a situation of harassment.”

The admissibility analysis was submitted to the BoD on February 7, concluding the investigation of allegations against Daryanani.

Daryanani did not respond to the Daily’s inquiry as to whether he believes the HumaniLex investigation was related to his suspension, though sources say the investigation concerned Daryanani’s alleged sexist behaviour.

Skylar explained that by reinstating [Daryanani] “they’re saying it’s fine,” but his return is “clearly not [fine]” if it requires SSMU to implement accommodations.

***

During the consultative forum, Daryanani said, “I’ve had employees come and cry to me about these very same concerns, and these are very real and traumatic experiences,” in response to a question about his feelings Per Jamie*, SSMU is telling regarding the claim that SSMU is employees that they “can request an unsafe working environment Darshan not contact [them] until for women and gender minorities.

May 31,” or they can request that Shortly after he made this Daryanani not be present at the comment, the Daily asked meetings they attend. However, executives and councillors

for comment regarding the absence of VP University Affairs Claire Downie, to which Arts Representative Yara Coussa replied: “I think that it is shameful that SSMU is an environment where an exec is unable to work because she feels unsafe [...] I think that we have failed VP Downie.” In an email sent to the BoD and Legislative Council earlier that day, Downie wrote that she would “no longer participate in SSMU activities which place [her] in an unsafe space.” Later in the email, Downie explained: “I will not be attending the SSMU General Assembly tonight, as I do not believe it to be an environment in which I can participate safely.”

Daryanani has said that he is “committed [...] to making SSMU a place that we can all feel safe,” at the consultative forum – pointing to the formation of an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee as part of this commitment – and that his “door is open” for employees to bring their concerns to him. He has publicly claimed that he is unaware of the reason behind his suspension, despite his note that “the complaints were deemed inadmissible” in the February 14 email to the BoD and Executive Committee.

Although the Daily pointed this out in email correspondence with Daryanani, he did not comment on whether he believes the HumaniLex report was about him or related to his suspension.

Concerns about the Board of Directors One source who claimed to be an anonymous board member emailed the Daily expressing concern that executives had engaged in an “abuse of process.”

They pointed out that the investigation did not begin until November 16, almost two months after Daryanani had been suspended – thereby “opening the SSMU to liability.” Furthermore, they said that Daryanani has already retained legal counsel, and that SSMU will likely face

legal consequences for the suspension as the complaints against Daryanani were found to be inadmissible. While Daryanani has publicly stated that he sought legal counsel during his suspension – during the February 21 consultative forum, he said that he has “had to resort to legal action” – he clarified that he is unsure of whether he will be pursuing further action.

“[Daryanani’s return] either means the investigation was done poorly and inconclusively [...] or that regardless of the investigation, [the] board actively chose to reinstate him.”

This source explained that “some colleagues collectively levied complaints against Daryanani” to suspend him, an event which the source characterized as “a coup.” They further claimed that during the February 10 BoD meeting, the Board decided to reinstate Daryanani to “minimize legal consequences and mitigate additional liability.” The source concluded that “thousands of student dollars is likely to be wasted due to personal grudges.”

Daryanani is requesting that SSMU reimburse the legal costs which he incurred during his suspension – at the consultative forum, he claimed that he has spent thousands of dollars in the process of trying to get reinstated.

This source attached a copy of

Tamim Sujat | Photos Contributor

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the admissibility analysis to their email (prior to the analysis being leaked on Reddit) along with a screenshot of the February 14 email which Daryanani sent to the BoD and Executive Committee.

However, women in SSMU disagreed with the description of Daryanani’s suspension as a product of “personal grudges.”

One source claimed that the suspension “was prompted by [Daryanani] threatening” a female colleague, and that the ensuing investigation was meant to investigate complaints “dating back years,” so she found the term “personal grudges” to be hurtful and inaccurate.

Casey also had concerns about the BoD’s conduct, but unlike the anonymous board member, their concerns stemmed from the Board’s failure to keep Daryanani out of office: “the BoD finished their work and allowed Darshan back when he absolutely should not be reinstated,” they wrote.

When explaining the effort it took to suspend Daryanani, they remarked, “The fact that the board has essentially thrown all that work in the trash is incredibly concerning.”

Daryanani has maintained that the BoD has not presented him with a reason for his suspension, despite the fact that he requested a copy of the HumaniLex report from the Board. The Daily reached out to Daryanani to request a comment on the fact that female colleagues have described his behaviour as sexist; he replied that “In order to properly respond to [the Daily’s] questions, I would have to request detailed descriptions, including the dates, times, and locations, of the specific events that you would like me to comment on. I would also have to request screenshots, recordings and/or meeting minutes to support these claims, with any necessary redactions.”

The Daily declined to provide these details, explaining that the allegations were being kept as general as possible to protect the confidentiality of sources; Daryanani did not respond to this follow-up email.

As of writing, Daryanani still holds his position as President.

When the Daily asked if it was possible that Daryanani would be suspended for presenting the email informing him of his suspension at the February 24 BoD meeting, Sader said that Directors could not confirm whether Daryanani’s presentation of the letter was a breach of confidentiality. *Some names changed for anonymity.

Note: Because she is employed at SSMU, Illustrations Editor Eve Cable did not play a role in the research, writing, or editing of this article.

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March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Queer in Ukraine

The struggle to leave and the danger of staying

Eve Cable Illustrations Editor

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early one month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Febuary 24, the lives of those in the country remain in danger as Russian forces continue to enact President Vladimir Putin’s plans for “a partition and a massive purge of the civilian population.” Millions of people have fled Ukraine over the past few weeks, and a large number of those people are members of the LGBT+ community. They face immense uncertainty with regards to exiting the country and subsequently existing freely in neighbouring countries of refuge.

Since Ukraine’s enactment of martial law at the beginning of the invasion, men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been recruited via conscription, and they have ultimately have been barred from leaving the country in order to defend Ukraine from Russian troops. For transgender women and nonbinary individuals who do not have an official legal document recognizing their gender, this has led to “a war within a war,” as many find themselves trapped within the country and unable to seek refuge amid discriminatory

Hyeyoon Cho | Graphic Design Editor laws and transphobia. With Russia’s flagrant history of LGBT+ rights violations, queer Ukrainians face another layer of fear for their safety – especially as they are forced to seek refuge in nearby countries hostile to their identities. Reliant on queer networks in these countries, LGBT+ Ukranians face a precarious journey to safety should they choose to flee.

Life for queer Ukrainians preinvasion For queer Ukrainians, safety has not been guaranteed for a long time. Since Ukraine gained independence following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of developments in Ukrainian law and society have made the country safer for queer people, though progress has often been slow and fraught with challenges for those fighting for LGBT+ rights. In 1991, Ukraine repealed criminal liability for homosexuality, and an annual Pride march is organized in Kyiv every year.

However, KyivPride, a nongovernmental organization focused on campaigning for

the rights of queer Ukrainians, has had trouble organizing its annual March for Equality, dealing with pushback from both conservative Ukrainian groups and from Ukrainian police.

The first Equality March was planned by the group in 2012, but it was cancelled due to an alleged recommendation from Amnesty International.

The planning itself was secretive, and the location was hidden from non-participants.

Ultimately, however, “a large number of nationalist and religious organizations” found the march.

They reportedly shouted “Out of Ukraine!’’ at participants and sprayed an aerosol in the eyes of a KyivPride organizer.

Protests against Pride events were also held outside of parliament buildings ahead of such events in Kyiv, which consistently “passed off without any incident,” while LGBT+ protestors have, throughout the years, continually experienced violence at the hands of Ukrainian police and right-wing groups. In 2014, KyivPride’s attempts at another Equality March were once again thwarted, this time “because police were

incapable of providing security to the public gathering,” failing to protect LGBT+ individuals and allies from the violence of right-wing groups.

Amnesty International’s Head of Research (Deputy Regional Director) at the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office has historically pointed to the failings of Ukrainian police forces in protecting queer citizens. At a 2018 event in Kyiv, speakers from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and KyivPride were due to speak at an event titled “The Offensive against LGBTI Rights as a Form of Censorship: The Russian experience,” but the event was cancelled before it could begin when more than 20 far-right protestors arrived and threatened participating speakers and attendees with violence until they left. While five officers from Pechersk District Police force were at the event, they refused to intervene, and additional police forces arrived more than an hour later to assist in the safe departure of event participants – without a single arrest of the offensive parties. Krivosheev noted that,

For queer Ukrainians, safety has not been guaranteed in the country for a long time. “[g]iven the police’s repeated inaction over such attacks, it is no surprise that members of Ukrainian far-right groups take full advantage of their impunity – repeatedly attacking individuals and groups whose views or identity they dislike.”

Later in 2018, gay activist Borys Zolotchenko was attacked by ten men in Kryvyi Rig and subsequently hospitalized for his injuries. According to Zolotchenko and the group of activist organizers who witnessed the attack, policemen refused to appear at the scene.

Zolotchenko demanded more protection from state actors: “We must show the authorities

features and society that safety and equality must be accessible to all Ukrainian citizens.”

Though life in Ukraine is not always safe for LGBT+ citizens, activists have made progress in recent years by seeking more protective laws for queer people. In the last three years, turnout for Pride events in Kyiv has increased, reaching 8,000 attendees at its peak. The 2021 KyivPride event reported no incidents of violence, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s campaigns have often been markedly progressive, though his cabinet has put forth conflicting messages regarding their support of queer Ukrainians. Ultimately, public opinion on LGBT+ rights in Ukraine is mixed, and the country is not typically a safe place for queer people, both regarding their existence in society and their associations with law enforcement. As citizens continue to escape the country following Russia’s invasion, queer people will be reliant on those same forces and military aid to guide them to safety, and they will face persecution from even more vicious sentiment from Putin-led Russian troops.

Russia and Putin’s anti-gay laws Russia’s anti-queer laws are known for being oppressive. In a 2021 poll, only 14 per cent of Russians “totally agreed” with the statement “gays and lesbians in Russia should enjoy the same rights as other citizens.” The Kremlin is known for using state-sponsored homophobia as a control strategy, and in 2013, the country passed a federal law banning “gay propaganda” by 436 to 0 votes, making it “illegal to equate straight and gay relationships, as well as the distribution of material on gay rights.” The law also “introduces fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law, as well as special fines for foreigners,” making the country unsafe for queer people to live in and visit.

Putin’s intended plan to annex Ukraine and install a puppet government in the country would have dire implications for LGBT+ Ukrainian citizens, who are already unsafe in their country. When Putin announced the invasion on Febuary 24 as a “special military operation,” he spent a sizable amount of time commenting on the perceived threat to “traditional values.”

He addressed the “fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia,” commenting on how “they sought to destroy our traditional values and force

March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.”

When he speaks of “traditional values,” Putin refers to “patriotism, spirituality, rootedness in history, respect for authority, and adherence to heteronormative and patriarchal ideas of family and gender,” the Boston Review reports. Concepts that challenge the implied understanding of traditional Russian values include queer rights, as Putin has shown in his repeated human rights abuses towards queer Russians. Any appeal to the rights of LGBT+ people is viewed “not only as foreign to Russia’s values, but as existential threats to the nation.”

Ways out: queer refugees

Many queer Ukrainians are seeking refuge in nearby Poland and Hungary, who have both been condemned by the European Union for their anti-gay legsilation.

Should Putin be successful in his plan to install a proKremlin puppet government in Ukraine, he will apply anti-queer Russian attitudes and policies towards LGBT+ Ukrainians.

In the Kremlin’s federal national security strategy, it is written that “special attention is devoted to supporting the family, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood,” with the note that “higher birthrates are necessary in order to increase the population of Russia.”

Putin’s security strategy includes a forcibly imposed heteropatriarchal view of the nuclear family. Those not in compliance with these identities or nuclear family structures will therefore be threatened by Putin’s rule.

LGBT+ individuals are now making or attempting to make the journey out of Ukraine in order to escape Putin’s threats to their

gender identities and sexualities.

Fleeing to other countries also presents challenges, with many neighbouring countries also upholding hostile attitudes towards LGBT+ people. Many queer Ukrainians are seeking refuge in nearby Poland and Hungary, both of which have been condemned by the European Union for their antigay legislation. In Poland, around 100 towns – a third of all towns in the country – have legally passed resolutions declaring themselves “free of LGBT ideology,” meaning that queer Ukrainians will be forced to hide their identity at risk of severe discrimination.

For individuals in Ukraine who are a different gender from what is marked on their legal identification documents, leaving the country has proven difficult. With conscription in force, any individual identified as male by their identification documents will be made to stay in the country and join the Ukrainian army, even if that individual is not and has not been living as a man. For transgender individuals, being forced into the military is a profoundly dangerous process, meaning that for many people seeking refuge by fleeing the country is often the only option.

Activists on the ground in Ukraine have found that trans people with identification documents that differ from their gender identity cannot pass internal checkpoints, essentially trapping them in the country.

They also note that trans people seeking aid as a result of the invasion of Ukraine may face difficulties: “Access to food banks, shelters, and other basic essentials often requires a valid identity card. Mismatching ID documents can lead to denial of service, besides suspicion of fraud, ridicule, harassment, and violence. Fearing discrimination, a trans person might forgo their right to seek assistance.”

This has been a traumatic process for many in the transgender community, who have, in some cases, had to temporarily de-transition in order to match the gender marker on their identity documents. One transgender man commented that he “had to whisper so nobody would notice my deep voice. I even painted my nails violet and wore Mom’s shirt to look more girly.”

Zi Faámelu spoke with CBC about her experience as a transgender woman living in Kyiv. She says there is “no way” that the Ukrainian border guards will let her through with her passport, which still has a male gender marker. “If you have a male gender in your passport,

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[The current Executive Director of Kyiv Pride, Lenny Emerson] expressed immense gratitude for queer friends and allies who came to his country’s aid: “I was almost crying because organizations like Warsaw Pride, like Budapest Pride, they reached out to us like in the first day of the war, offering help, offering shelter, offering transportation from the border.” they will not let you go abroad,” Faámelu explained. “They will not let you through.”

The process for obtaining a passport or legal documentation with a gender marker matching one’s gender identity is excruciatingly difficult for trans people in Ukraine. The government forces transgender individuals to both participate in a long process of psychiatric observation and to receive gender reassignment surgery in order to have their gender identity formally recognized on legal documentation. Many transgender people opt not to have surgery for a multitude of reasons, and a psychiatric observation can be a long and draining process that imparts undue trauma on transgender individuals. Faámelu did not participate in the process to change her passport gender marker for this very reason: “I don’t want to go through that, this is like, humiliating.”

Networks of queer people across the country and throughout the world have banded together to help individuals in situations such as this safely escape Ukraine. Julia Maciocha organises Warsaw Pride (known as Equality Parade), and has been connecting queer refugees with safe places in her country: “[W]e created a database of people that we know that are part of the community so we can match them with people that are in need of safe shelter.”

The current Executive Director of Kyiv Pride, Lenny Emson, has commended the queer communities in neighbouring countries for their immediate offers of assistance for queer Ukrainians.

He expressed immense gratitude for queer friends and allies who came to his country’s aid: “I was almost crying because European organizations like Warsaw

Pride, like Budapest Pride, they reached out to us like in the first day of the war, offering their help, offering shelter, offering transportation from the border.”

How to help The solidarity shown by queer people across the globe for LGBT+ Ukrainians has been immense. Once more, queer people find themselves reliant on the support networks they have built in the absence of targeted support from governments, who fail to recognize the nature of the danger faced by queer refugees.

For every person living in Ukraine, Putin’s invasion has enacted immense harm and suffering. For queer Ukrainians, who have already faced danger in their country, howver, the task of leaving the country can be nearly impossible. Directly supporting queer Ukrainian organizations is an important way to assist queer refugees in their struggles to leave the country. Fulcrum is a Ukrainian organization based around supporting queer Ukrainians, and their website contains details on how to support Ukrainians financially as they attempt to find safe spaces to shelter and exit their country.

Insight is another Ukrainian organisation that is collecting funds to help LGBT+ Ukrainians in vulnerable positions, and donations can be made through a variety of channels. As well as this, supporting global activists in their organization efforts helps drive the coordination of safe housing and refuge for those leaving Ukraine. For more information, stay up to date with LGBT+ news sources, which are sharing stories from queer Ukrainians and the global effort to get them to safety.

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culture

March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Hyeyoon Cho | Design Editor

Singer-songwriter Dameer Khan discusses the music industry, going indie, and his new single Anna Zavelsky, Saylor Catlin a musician because it’s everything in 1971 when this girl got me, this Culture Editor, News Editor all the time. I get really engrossed knife was stabbed into me in 1953 newlya is Dameer Bangladeshi independent indie-pop musician studying at McGill University. His debut EP, For We Are Distant (2021), was released under the label Majestic Casual. On March 2, he independently released his first song fully in Bangla, “Bashbo Bhalo.”

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t was a Thursday night when we met Dameer at Else’s. He gave us both a hug as we stood in the snow, briefly chatting before turning our attention to the queue outside the door. We decided to head elsewhere, and a walk down St. Laurent brought us to a cozy little pub on Prince-Arthur. We were seated at a table next to a club’s trivia night, which became a running joke throughout the evening… “I feel like this is what my parents think I do on a weekend,” he joked.

T he M c G ill D aily (MD): What kind of music do you listen to? Let’s start with that.

D ameer K han (DK): You know, that’s like a crazy question to ask

with whoever I’m listening to.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Dionne Warwick – I love Dionne Warwick with all of my heart. I’ve been listening to Dionne Warwick too much. I’m going through a bit of a break up right now, that’s why. It’s great, just like self-deprecating, gets in your feels. I’ve also listened to a lot of Dijon, a producer out in LA. Listening to a lot of Montreal rapper Skyfall; he’s my favorite artist in town right now. Yeah, it changes all the time. your does What MD: songwriting process look like?

DK: It changes every time.

Sometimes it starts with a tune, sometimes it starts with words.

My song “Sun” started with a Charles Bukowski poem... I don’t know if that’s a red flag or whatever. I have Nietszche tattoos – that’s a red flag, too.

I’m full of red flags. I’m not into Nietzsche anymore. I half regret these.

So I was reading a Charles Bukowski poem, and he was talking about something along the lines of using knives as a metaphor for trauma. He was like, “this knife was stuck into me

when my mother did whatever to me.” I thought that was really fun. So then I wrote the line, “Stick your steely knives from 1985.” My song is about familial generational trauma – my mom, who grew up in a very abusive household, had knives stuck into her in 1985 when she was a kid, and she took them out and stuck them into me. And that’s how trauma moves from generation to generation.

So sometimes it starts with a word, and then I’m really inspired by that, and a whole song will come out of that.

Sometimes it’s a tune. Sometimes I hum a melody in my head or I find a riff on my guitar. And once you get good enough at music, melody starts to sound like words. Certain consonants and certain syllables and certain words will fall perfectly. You develop a sort of instinct of translating melodies into words and seeing what works.

MD: How long have you been playing music?

DK: I come from a very musical family. My father’s a musician; he [and his brother are] in a very famous band in

“If I’m indie, I could construct my own POC team full of people from parts of the world that understand what I went through and understand my worldview and my lived experience. So that’s how the music industry is changing, and it’s great.

I’m all for it. This is the golden age for music.”

Bangladesh, Renaissance. My dad put me in guitar classes when I was nine or ten, I think.

I started producing around 14 or 15, started uploading stuff around 15, 16, 17. And at 18 I got my record deal.

I grew up in Bangladesh, and in 2017 I moved to Malaysia. I lived in Malaysia for four years, and then I lived in Ghana for a few months. The Bangladeshi music industry is very underdeveloped, so I knew I would never be able to make it just from Bangladesh. It’s changing now, but it felt like that

when I was a kid. So as soon as I started gaining some confidence in my production, I would send it to big YouTube channels, labels, music blogs, and stuff like that.

I would send them as little Hail Marys. I just kept sending them and years passed by and one of them finally replied. And that’s the company that eventually signed me.

MD: We saw on your Instagram that you recently left your label. Why did you decide to go indie?

DK: The label setting didn’t

culture

March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

work for me. It took a really long time to put out my first EP, For We Are Distant. They were lovely people, though, and taught me everything I know about the music industry. It was a great stepping stone; I think if you’re a young artist, there’s nothing wrong with getting that initial deal to get your first project out.

So you get good quality studio sessions, photoshoots, music videos, and stuff like that. It’s a good first step to take. Then when you gain your control, you can always go indie. It’s never been easier to go indie.

MD: Why do you say that, that it’s never been easier to go indie? When streaming first came along, you had piracy clauses and download clauses. When CDs started going away, you had less words about physical sales. But they lag behind significantly. So labels would give you a deal, let’s say you get 15 per cent? Fifteen per cent to 20 per cent is an average deal these days for an artist. But back then, you had to pay for shipping of your vinyls, for vinyl pressing, for various distribution, you had to pay each vinyl store the specific rights to sell your product. There are various other costs and certain things used to cost a lot more.

But as the world has digitized and the music industry has developed, labels have lesser overhead and lesser costs. Most labels don’t even press vinyl anymore – it’s all online. You DK: The music industry as just need to upload something, we know it really sort of starts pay the distributor to plug it in the ’50s. And the thing about to Spotify playlists. How that music contracts – and I have a works is that you have artists, feeling contracts in any creative you have labels and you have field – is that they don’t stay up the streaming companies, but to date with current events. The there’s a middleman between contracts artists get when signed the streaming companies, and to a label are often quite archaic. those are distributors. So most They’re templates from contracts of the major labels have inthat were written decades ago. house distribution. If you go Slowly, slowly, things change to a smaller label, chances are and things get added. Like, they work with an independent when MP3’s first came along, distributor, the biggest of which you started having MP3 clauses. is called The Orchard. That’s

“[‘Bashbo Bhalo’ is] my first independent release, and my first song in full Bangla, my native language. It’s a song I’m super, super proud of. It’s a story about an old man who’s just lost his wife. He’s at the end of his life and he’s been married to her for so long, that now that she’s not in his life anymore, he’s in a limbo. He’s confronting matters of death and existentialism and love. [...] It’s an optimistic song in the end.”

“Wherever I go, I try to absorb as much of the artistic culture I can – not just musical, but film and art and dance. I really want to be a multidisciplinary artist.”

who I work with right now, and who I used to work with when I was with my label.

So to this day, labels don’t have the cost they used to, but they’re still going to hand you a contract that’s similar to what they used to be in the 80s. They’re handing you an archaic contract, but the situation is different.

But today we have SoundCloud. Today we have Distro Kid. You don’t need to pay a distributor anymore, you can pay through Distro Kid, and anybody can upload to Spotify.

You get people blowing up on TikTok all the time now. My manager has a distribution deal with The Orchard, so I don’t need a label to send to [them], I can send them myself because [they are] an independent distributor that allows anybody to set up deals with them.

The other really enticing thing about being indie is that you can create your own team.

So we have a freelance graphic designer right now. As this project starts to go and we start to make more money, we’re going to start to bring more people on board: an independent social media manager, an independent PR person, an independent brand dealership person or sync person. You have that autonomy.

You have that modularity where

you can move things around and you can make your own team.

Imagine, I grew up in Bangladesh and my label was based in Berlin. I love them, but they’re all white boys. If I’m indie, I could construct my own POC team full of people from parts of the world that understand what I went through and understand my worldview and my lived experience. So that’s how the music industry is changing, and it’s great. I’m all for it. This is the golden age for music, or is at least on a precipice of being a true golden age I think.

“I would send [my songs] to big YouTube channels, labels, music blogs [...] years passed by and one of them finally replied.”

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so much and what happens when both of you get sick with COVID and one of you passes before the other and you’re like, is it coming for me, too, maybe I kind of hope it’s coming for me because I’m in pain.” So, it’s about “one day I’m going to hear the tune of your voice again,” and stuff like that.

It’s an optimistic song in the end.

MD: How do you incorporate language into your music?

DK: In my EP, I had seven songs. All of them were in English except “Amaar Jaan,” which was mostly in English; only the chorus was in Bangla.

“Amaar Jaan” didn’t do the best streaming-wise, but it sure did the best cultural impact-wise in Bangladesh. That’s the song that put me on the map in Dhaka. [In the Dhaka scene,] that’s the song that everyone really got to know me through. And it’s [definitely] my most popular song in Dhaka.

I did my first ever live show this winter and that was my last song, and it was electric. Everybody knew every word; it was crazy.

MD: How have the places you’ve lived influenced your creative process?

DK: Wherever I go, I try to absorb as much of the artistic culture I can – not just musical, but film and art and dance. I really want to be a multidisciplinary artist.

When I went to Malaysia, I was introduced to so much Chinese music, Japanese music, Korean music, Thai music, Cambodian music, Indonesian music, Sri Lankan music – all sorts of cool shit. And then when I went to Ghana, that was awesome because it opened me up to the music of Africa. I’m primarily a guitarist, I’d say. Some of the traditional folk guitarists from Mali are so interesting; they play the guitar in a comletely different way, with different tunings and stuff. The desert rock that’s coming out of the subSaharan area of Africa, like Niger and Chad. There’s a band called Mdou Moctaur, which is a band from Niger – they’re absolutely awesome. They make desert rock. Then I got introduced to people like Tony Allen and Fela Kuti, who are like the fathers of Afrobeat. And then you get more into reggae, modern African hip hop, African trap, African drill and African folk music. It’s been absolutely wonderful. I try to just take in as much as I can.

I’ve been to the U.K. a lot too, I love U.K. music so much. Listen, this is like my world. I surround myself with as much music as I can 24/7.

MD: Tell us about your new song, “Bashbo Bhalo.”

DK: It’s my first independent release, and my first song in full Bangla, my native language. It’s a song I’m super, super proud of. It’s a story about an old man who’s just lost his wife. He’s at the end of his life, and he’s been married to her for so long that now that she’s not in his life anymore, he’s in a limbo. He’s confronting matters of death and existentialism and love. But it’s not a longing for death, it’s more like, “I can’t wait to be with you again, so when death comes rapping on my door, I would take him in with open arms because the only thing that matters to me is to be with you.”

This was written during a time when a lot of elder relatives were passing away from [COVID-19] in Bangladesh, and it just made me This interview has been edited for think, like, “what happens when clarity and brevity. you lose someone that you love

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commentary

March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

“No one reached out to me”: A survivor’s experience reporting sexual assault on campus OSVRSE’s lack of resources is harmful Eve Cable Illustrations Editor content warning : mentions of sexual assault

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t’s a well-known fact at McGill that administration has consistently failed survivors in the disclosure and reporting process of sexual assault. In recent months, the McGill administration has attempted to give student organizations a seat at the table, principally through the involvement in a January 24 collaborative roundtable between the Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support and Education (OSVRSE) and the McGill chapter of It’s On Us, a campus organization that seeks to educate students about sexual violence. Though events such as these are a meaningful way for students to communicate their concerns directly to those in charge of protecting the student body, the utter lack of institutional change from McGill administration and repeated instances of survivors being harmed by McGill’s poorly implemented policies prove that we are a long way from seeing real change. The Daily spoke with a survivor

about their negative experience reporting their sexual assault to administration, and learned more from the president of It’s On Us McGill about their panel and discussions with the McGill administration.

Alice* reported her sexual assault to McGill in 2020, before the pandemic. Alice believes that due to COVID-19, her case “fell through the cracks,” as her OSVRSE-assigned counsellor told her she did not have time to see her anymore. Nobody at the university was able to provide support to Alice once she left Quebec due to laws concerning out-of-province health care, something that was not made clear to Alice before she left. When we asked Alice if she was directed toward other resources or people to try and contact for support once OSVRSE was unable to provide services, she said, “No, they didn’t give me any other resources.”

OSVRSE was formed in 2016 under the Office of the Dean of Students, in order to help implement the newly-instated McGill Policy Against Sexual Violence. However, students have voiced concerns that the office is over-burdened and under-funded, leading to a lack of accessibility for students in need. Currently located at 550 Sherbrooke, the office is difficult to find and difficult to

... the utter lack of institutional change from McGill administration and repeated instances of survivors being harmed by McGill’s poorly implemented policies prove that we are a long way from seeing real change.

access within the building. “The building itself has, like, three elevators, and they all go to different floors,” Alice explained.

“I can’t imagine trying to navigate that if you’re in distress.” While it’s beneficial to have OSVRSE’s office in a discreet location, there is no reason for the office to be so complicated to access, with limited information about how to enter the office if an individual uses a wheelchair or has accessibility concerns. McGill administration owes OSVRSE more in order for the staff to be better prepared to equip students.

Isabella Kalarickal, President of It’s On Us McGill, highlighted how students are having to provide services that the administration is incapable of providing. “Although I am grateful It’s On Us can help the student body by compiling their concerns and questions and relaying it to the administration, at the end of the day, we are fulfilling a need the university is not providing for,” she explained.

Kalarickal also noted that the roundtable event organized with OSVRSE was ultimately a way for It’s On Us to do the labour of engaging students, while the administration does little else to prove their commitment to survivors on campus. Kalarickal pointed out, “It is the university’s responsibility to communicate with their students and provide them with a space to voice their frustrations, needs, and suggestions. We are volunteering to do this, but it’s frustrating to see little action other than the panel event, and no move to address students directly.”

At the panel, administration responded to questions from students about where to find support, pointing toward services like OSVRSE and SACCOMS (Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society), which can help with mental health support during the reporting process.

However, Alice found it difficult to be connected to these resources,

“Although I am grateful It’s On Us can help the student body by compiling their concerns and questions and relaying it to the administration, at the end of the day, we are fulfilling a need the university is not providing for,” she explained, noting that the round table event organized with OSVRSE was ultimately a way for It’s On Us to do the labour of engaging students, while the administration does little else to prove their commitment to survivors on campus. and highlighted how students are only able to find resources after an assault, rather than being educated about where to go for support from the beginning of their time at university. “Finding the resources themselves was really difficult.

I had no idea who to reach out to or where to reach out when it happened,” commented Alice.

“OSVRSE, I felt like, was survivorcentric, but limited because of the resources that they have. They have no resources. They really actually can’t make the changes that they want to make.”

In contrast to Alice’s experience with reporting, Dean of Students Robin Beech claimed resources are easy to access and provided to all students. According to administration, moreover, there is a standard support package provided to all students who

report an assault, and students will be communicated with in order to reduce the risk of seeing their abuser on campus. “They communicated to me that there was something that I thought was quite good, something where they make sure you don’t run into your abuser on campus,” Alice explained. “But I have seen multiple abusers at University events, even after being red-flagged. I don’t think that the organizers check. I don’t think that the administration puts it on the organizers to check.”

Alice’s experience raises an issue with regard to Quebec privacy laws, which dictate an accused person’s right to privacy and anonymity throughout the reporting process.

At the panel discussion, Deputy Provost Fabrice Lebau explained that the university is bound by a lot of rules and laws about privacy.

commentary

March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Eve Cable | The McGill Daily accommodation for me? Can you reach out to my professors and tell them I need more time?’ And they said because I already have accommodations with the OSD for my disability, sending the email won’t make a difference.”

When Alice asked OSVRSE to email her professors on her behalf, they suggested that she email her professors herself. “I wasn’t comfortable talking about that with my professors,” Alice explained. abuser on campus – or even reveal The McGill administration whether or not sanctions were fails to support survivors – and imposed in the first place. Past VP Quebec’s privacy laws don’t change University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle that. In many cases, survivors notes that “this code of silence simply want McGill to support is another example of how the them through their experience, by institution protects the aggressor providing academic and mental while keeping the survivor in the health accommodations to help dark.” them deal with their trauma.

Alice has seen her abuser At the panel discussion, Beech on campus several times since suggested that if an abuser was reporting her case, but her most recent interactions with oncampus support has demonstrated that administration doesn’t care.

Nobody checked in with Alice during the period between her reporting her case and now: “No one reached out to me, but I reached out to someone maybe two months ago or last month. I told them I needed some extra support with my academics, because I was seeing my abuser around campus a lot and it was really difficult for me to deal with. So I told them, ‘Hey, please can you make some sort of

... students are only able to find resources after an assault, rather than being educated about where to go for support from the beginning of their time at university.

Beech suggested that because the sexual violence policy centres the survivor, releasing the outcome of a disciplinary case would put the survivor front and centre, thereby endangering them further. Beech’s suggestion speaks for survivors, and it does not acknowledge that most survivors on campus do not wish for the intimate details of their cases to be publicly shared but rather that their abuser be kept from attending the same campus events as them with a policy similar to the SSMU’s Involvement Restriction Policy (IRP).

The legal constraints that administration refers to come from a policy known as the “code of silence,” adopted in 2017 by the Quebec National Assembly, which makes something even as basic as an IRP-style list unlikely to happen. The code of silence makes it so that CEGEP and university administrations cannot publicly share the sanctions imposed on an

sent to his office a second time for breaking the Student Code of Conduct, it would be flagged “so a second incident would be taken much more seriously.” Kalarickal found this sentiment disturbing: “Any incident of sexual violence, whether it is a repeat offender or not, should be taken equally seriously and the perpetrator should be held accountable.

Someone’s trauma is not mitigated by whether or not their perpetrator has a history.”

Administration’s recent attempts to connect with the McGill community and demonstrate a care for survivors of sexual assault have failed because the lived experiences of survivors on campus demonstrate that the student body can’t expect to be supported by the University in the face of sexual

assault. It’s On Us McGill has been having regular meetings with the administration, to help bridge the gap between admin and student voices. Per Kalarickal, however, “excluding the panel event, we have not seen any change or heard any updates from the administration,” rendering events like this panel somewhat performative. Kalarickal believes that “there needs to be a sustained effort and communication from the administration to rebuild trust within the McGill community.”

Until then, there is no reason for survivors on campus to have faith that the university will support them through their trauma.

*Name changed for Anonymity

“Any incident of sexual violence, whether it is a repeat offender or not, should be taken equally seriously and the perpetrator should be held accountable. Someone’s trauma is not mitigated by whether or not their perpetrator has a history.”

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March 21, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

news

“Community Control, Not Oil, Not Coal”

Abigail Popple Coordinating News Editor Robert Muroni News Reporter

O

On March 7, Divest McGill announced its occupation of the McCall MacBain Arts Building, commonly known as the Arts Building by students.

The occupation was organized to express solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders, advocate for the democratization of the university, and pressure the university to divest from the fossil fuel industry and corporations complicit in human rights violations. In particular, the press release regarding the occupation demands divestment from TC Energy, noting that McGill has a $3,467,323 investment in the corporation; the booklet linked on the Divest McGill website also names Lockheed-Martin, Re/ Max, the Oshkosh corporation, Puma, Foot Locker, Nordstrom, and Kohl’s as part of McGill’s imperialist investments.

Occupiers set up in the lobby of the Arts Building, crowded with tents, pamphlets, and posters. “Don’t mourn, organize,” a banner reminds passers-by; another one reads “Community Control, Not Oil, Not Coal.” Throughout the first week of the occupation, Divest McGill held a number of events centred around democratization and divestment. On March 14, the group announced their intention to continue the occupation for another week. As of March 18, the Arts Building is still occupied

by Divest activists. The occupation expanded to the Y-intersection on March 17, where Divest organizers platformed Floor Fellows in their announcement of their strike.

The events Divest hosted included a number of community discussions and educational initiatives. One such event was the March 9 discussion on anarchism – attendees spoke about what anarchism means to them before chronicling early anarchist history. Additionally, attendees discussed how to get involved with mutual aid initiatives and direct action.

Democratize McGill mobilization and community building session

The

Wednesday evening session began where the afternoon session concluded: by continuing to flesh out the group’s frustrations over McGill’s colonial past. Leading with an anecdote over how Canada is “not a country” (for it has “no culture”, “no language” – it is all stolen Indigenous land), the occupiers transitioned into discussing three instances where the university had historically wronged various Indigenous groups.

First, the Divest occupiers discussed James McGill’s enslavement of two Indigenous people. McGill, who famously donated the land upon which the university that bears his name stands, continues to have a statue on the campus grounds – much to the occupiers’ frustration. Though a petition to remove McGill’s statue has amassed more than 5,000 signatures and McGill University has said they’ll make an official decision by the end of the bicentennial year, there remains ambiguity over what such a timeline would look like.

Second, the group spoke on McGill University’s historic misuse of Native Indigenous funds. Pointing to the university’s early financial difficulties “where instructors could not be compensated and resources … were scarce,” the group explained how the institution was forced to turn to the Canadian government in the 1860s to save itself from bankruptcy.

Receiving a lifeline, the Province of Canada withdrew $40,000 from the General Indian Trust Fund, loaning the money to McGill. Crucially, the deal was only secured following a $8,000 down payment from the university – a sum that was acquired via a fund allocated to the Six Nations of the Grand River. While McGill alleges to have settled their debt with the Quebec government in 1873, the original $8,000 used to secure the loan was never returned to the Indigenous groups from which it was taken. The occupiers went on to explain how the unpaid $8,000 loan – when accounting for interest – would be worth an estimated $1.7 billion today.

The Divest occupiers concluded the first half of the session by discussing the controversy surrounding McGill’s New Vic project. The $700 million construction project, which plans to transform the old Royal

Eve Cable | Illustrations Editor

Victoria Hospital site into new classrooms, sparked

controversy when the Kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers sued McGill over the plans. The Kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers, who take issue with the building site, seek to stop the renovation plans until “a thorough investigation of the grounds is carried out for searching unmarked graves of individuals unlawfully experimented upon.”

The injunction is, as of writing, still ongoing.

Switching to a more informal second half of the event, the conversation transitioned to discussing how the Divest occupiers could work to further democratize the university. Dividing into breakout groups, the occupiers went on to discuss topics ranging from endowment justice, to democratizing classrooms, to the democratization of university resources.

Perhaps the most constructive breakout group discussion was that on how to further democratize the university classroom. The popcornstyle discussion brought forth a variety of suggestions on how to improve McGill’s current academic policies. Beginning with grading, the group was in consensus that the exam-centric system of grading currently embraced by the Western world needed an overhaul. The occupiers’ message was clear: exams do not often reflect the learning taking place by students in the classroom. In its place, the group’s solutions ranged from having a student’s best few grades from the semester being taken, to a system where grades were awarded in correlation to a student’s effort level.

Finally, another popular topic of conversation was that on endowment justice. Beginning with discussions over McGill’s increasingly unaffordable international tuition fees (which reached $56,544 this academic year), the group shared concerns over how their tuition was being spent. The occupiers agreed that they wanted more student consultation in matters concerning university spending. One such instance discussed by the occupiers was McGill’s spending in the filming of the “Made by McGill” advertising campaign. Unsurprisingly, spending on the campaign – which cost the university $1,217,632 – raised student eyebrows. Not only did the occupiers allege that McGill spent far too much on the campaign, but they questioned whether the university could have more effectively spent the money, citing a lack of university spending on OSD resources. The group agreed that a solution to this would be the establishment of community controlled resources.

Running over the intended 9 p.m. end time, the session concluded with the handing out of pro-Divest pamphlets, before a movie was shown to the occupiers spending the night in the Arts building.

Land back, McGill, the Royal Vic, and the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera A Thursday afternoon event likewise explored the importance of decolonizing McGill, with one of the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (Mohawk mothers) leading a discussion on the Land Back movement. As mentioned in the community-building session, McGill was spared from bankruptcy by drawing a loan from the General Indian Trust Fund – “McGill would not exist without our money. McGill has never repaid us,” the speaker said. She also highlighted McGill’s complicity in state-sponsored violence against Indigenous communities: McGill got its charter from Britain, making the school part of Britain’s colonial project. Furthermore, she pointed out that Canada should be considered a corporation or a colony as it is not a country. Although “Canada thinks it became a real country when it got a flag and its own anthem in 1967,” it was founded on stolen land.

The MK Ultra project – a series of twisted psychological experiments funded by the CIA and the Canadian government, in part conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute – was also pointed to as an example of the school’s violent past. McGill’s sordid history is often hidden from the Indigenous communities of what is currently Montreal; for this reason, attendees were encouraged to aid in research about McGill’s past conducted by the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera.

Attempting to decolonize McGill cannot undo the harm that the school and state have already inflicted – “the destruction of our land, our waters, our people, how do you fix that?” she asked. Nonetheless, decolonization goes hand in hand with divestment: in Mohawk culture, unborn children are considered owners of the land – mothers are thus tasked with taking care of the land for them. This idea is crucial to combating climate change: “True climate justice means solidarity means divestment & decolonization,” the organization Tweeted about the event.

University Response According to a March 11 thread on the Divest McGill Twitter account, a “loud siren noise” was played within the Arts Building lobby to drive out occupiers. “We are under the impression that this is the act of one, angry staff member,” the thread continued. However, a statement provided to the Daily by the Media Relations Office (MRO) claimed that the noise “was caused by an alarm

that

accidently [sic.]

was

triggered.”

The MRO statement also said that the university has “shown leadership in sustainability and climate activities,” pointing to the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR), and the university’s “investments in clean technologies, renewable energy, pollution prevention, and other lowcarbon funds,” as proof of McGill’s commitment to sustainability.

In December 2019, CAMSR recommended decarbonization rather than divestment – per the MRO statement, “McGill is well on its way to meeting the [...] goal of a 33 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2025.” Additionally, the school has reduced the carbon emissions of its public equity endowment portfolio by 20 per cent – the statement claims that this reduction “is already more than could have been accomplished by divesting from fossil fuel industry holdings alone.” However, economists have pointed out that part of the benefit of divestment is the social and political stigmatization of the fossil fuel industry, expanding divestment’s impact beyond a university’s carbon footprint. The statement does not acknowledge McGill’s investment in companies complicit in human rights violations, from which Divest McGill also encourages divestment.

Additionally, the Daily reached out to Security Services to request the Operating Procedures for the Arts Building along with a copy of security logs for the week of March 7. Security Services declined to provide these documents, explaining that they are “confidential and for internal use only.”

However, the Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations on McGill University Campuses are available on the Secretariat’s website – these procedures clarify that “University representatives will [...] issue a clear warning” that disciplinary action will be taken if occupiers and demonstrators have transgressed the parameters outlined in the Procedures.

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