vol102iss10

Volume 102, Issue 10

October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

DAILY

Seceding since 1911

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

Suffering in Silence Disordered eating in men - page 10

NEWS 03 NEWS Teach-in on war and Iran

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

Philosophy students seek to separate from AUS SNAX to start paying rent

PGSS on tuition refunds Pro-life and pro-choice demos M-SERT asks for fee increase

07 COMMENTARY Why is feminist a negative label?

The problems with Thanksgiving The need for McGill’s casual labour union The problems without student federations Friends of Israel write back

10 HEALTH&ED What eating disorders mean to men Education in the Andes Allergic to the modern world

12 SPORTS Valerie Grand’Maison, McGill’s gold medal Paralympian

Juan Camilo Velásquez The McGill Daily

T

he Philosophy Students’ Association (PSA) recently announced its intention to become an accredited student association to represent philosophy students at McGill, a move that would make PSA independent from its parent association, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS).

Early in the semester, AUS’ auditors advised the Association to provide the University with full audits of its finances as per their Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). Following this recommendation, AUS sought to change its financial structure by re-internalizing faculty associations with external bank accounts.

Four of the biggest associations – the Economics Students’ Association (ESA), the Department of English Student Association (DESA), the PSA, and the Political Science Students’ Association (PSSA) – raised concerns about the effects of internalization on their autonomy.

Following discussions about internalizing, the PSA instead contemplated completely externalizing, or becoming a separately accredited association.

According to PSA President Jonathan Wald, the Association is looking to incorporate – to

Vincent Chevalier and queer art in the digital era Waiting for Godot reimagined Learning to tango Culture and commerce in Parc-Extension

18 COMPENDIUM! McGill Daily hurts environment Turkeys eat back

19 EDITORIAL March in solidarity with missing and murdered Aboriginal women

AUS VP Finance Saad Qazi led the association’s restructuring. change its financial structure and form its own bank account – this semester, and to accreditate – become the official representative for philosophy students – next semester.

In order to accreditate, a student association must first incorporate under Part II of the Quebec Companies Act (chapter 28), which means that the provincial government must approve the

formation of a new bank account.

“At that point I hope to see our relation as analogous to that of the AUS and SSMU. Philosophy students will still be members of the Faculty of Arts; we will just have a stronger, more autonomous sub-representative group,” explained Wald.

The Accreditation Act also requires the PSA to obtain a majority of votes cast in a ballot poll, pro-

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

vided that this majority comprises at least 25 per cent of students registered in the program.

Being an independent accredited student association also means that in addition to having an independent bank account, PSA would be able to determine its own student fees.

“We would set in our voting process a student fee to be Continued on page 4

Bangs v. Calver and Cheng hearing marked by respondents’ absence

The powerlessness of locked out fans

14 CULTURE

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Judicial Board to make a final decision within 15 days of hearing Jessica Lukawiecki The McGill Daily

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he SSMU Judicial Board (J-Board) heard the case of Bangs v. Calver and Cheng last Tuesday. Failing to appear at the hearing were the two respondents to the case, former AUS President Jade Calver and former Elections AUS Chief Returning Officer Victor Cheng.

The case, which contests the legitimacy of two questions passed during the Arts Undergraduate Society’s (AUS) 2012 Winter Referenda, was filed in April 2012 by Christopher Bangs, the chair for the No Committee of the two contested questions.

J-Board Chief Justice Joel Kwan announced 15 minutes into the hearing – which had been rescheduled multiple times earlier that day and finally set for 5:30 p.m. – that the respondents would not be attending.

He explained that although “today was a good moment” for the hearing

to proceed, Calver and Cheng had made it clear that they would not appear and did not wish to continue with the case.

Kwan then explained that it would be up to Bangs as to whether or not he wished to proceed with the trial or resort to a “default judgment.”

According to Kwan, a default judgment would still require Bangs to present his arguments and provide a burden of proof for his case. Bangs immediately accepted to proceed, and over the next hour his arguments were presented to Kwan and J-Board members Charif El-Khouri and Rachel Tonelli-Zasarsky.

In his opening statement, Bangs told the J-Board, “I think as this hearing unfolds it will be very clear that many repeated violations occurred. I hope I can prove to you that these violations affected the results [of the election]… These violations are serious, they are repeated, and they are uncorrected.”

Bangs argued that no vote count

was ever taken at Council, that Council ratified the questions in English only, and that no announcement was ever posted in a student publication, all of which, he alleged, violate AUS Bylaws.

He also said that the AUS’ failure to publicize the times and locations of polls, as well as their failure to distribute the amended version of the motions – which included restrictions of the campaign period by four days – could have affected both voter turnout and the way that people voted.

In the Petitioner’s Declaration submitted by Bangs on April 17, it was stated that “repeated and systematic violations of the AUS Bylaws by Elections AUS compromise the integrity of the elections, and asks that the Judicial Board of the Students’ Society of McGill University find the conduct of the Respondents violated the Bylaws of the AUS and declare null and void the referendum questions…”

In the respondent’s position, submitted on May 6, it is stated,

“the validity of the 2012 AUS Winter Referendum Period is justified.

Proper procedures were followed; questions were properly submitted through Legislative Council.

Further, Elections feels as though the Referendum Period was properly announced in a way that did not compromise the integrity of the vote, evidenced by the high voter turnout in the referendum period.”

The respondents further alleged, “the petitioner is ultimately biased in his presentation of this case, given previous communications with the respondents during AUS Elections in his position as Chair of the ‘No Committees.’”

Tuesdays’s hearing had been delayed a number of times – over the summer because a full J-Board could not be maintained, and more recently because of complications involving intervener hiring.

The J-Board reserves 15 days from the hearing date to make a final judgment on the case.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Continued from page 3 collected by McGill and then distributed to the PSA,� said Wald. “It’s the same law that applies to SSMU and AUS. So we would choose some fee, and when we were doing the calculations even if we chose a very low fee we would still be getting more money than what we’re getting right now from the AUS.�

According to an email from Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson to the AUS, allowing the departmental associations to incorporate is neither an option nor a solution to

the problem that the AUS has in respect of its obligation to provide financial accountability in the form of annual audited financial statements under the MoA. AUS VP Finance Saad Qazi told The Daily that he “doesn’t completely agree� with Mendelson’s letter, but that it would also depend on what fee payment structure the PSA decides to follow.

He also mentioned that the four student associations in question agreed to use QuickBooks, the AUS’ financial software, which will allow associations to retain their autonomous bank

McGill’s Campus Community Radio Station

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 6 pmWednesday October 10th, 2012 117 Ave. des Pins East Student Attendance Requested Food Will Be Served For more info: 514-448-4041 or www.ckut.ca

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accounts while the AUS keeps track of their finances.

PSSA President Talitha Calder explained that although the PSSA considered separating at one point, it has ruled out the option now that internalizing bank accounts is not happening. “We are now going to use the AUS’ online accounting system‌ this will allow us to keep better track records of our expenses throughout the year without having to give up our bank account,â€? said Calder.

According to Qazi, DESA and ESA also do not intend to secede

from the AUS, although the ESA is looking to increase its revenues by receiving fees from both the AUS and the Management Undergraduate Society.

AUS SNAX AUS has been in talks with SNAX, the food and beverage counter run out of the Leacock building lobby, about the organization’s payment of the $3,783 yearly rent the University charges AUS for the space, a cost which AUS has always covered.

SNAX manager Marlene Benavides says that the snack bar is

NEWS making a concerted effort to meet new ethical and environmental goals – eliminating water bottles, composting, providing more fair trade items – and that the nearly $4,000 loss could make achieving these goals much more difficult. “This also defines the relationship between AUS and SNAX in a way that I wouldn’t have [‌] $4,000 is a lot less to the AUS than it is to SNAX,â€? Benavides added.

Qazi, however, said that the snack bar made a $30,000 profit before taxes last year and that it “can definitely afford to pay rent.� — with files from Lola Duffort

NEWS

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Students stage teach-in on Iran McGill’s involvement with war industry discussed Carla Green News Writer

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bout fifty people gathered yesterday at the Y-intersection on campus for a “teach-in” on the possibility of war in Iran and McGill University’s involvement with the war industry in general.

Canada closed its embassy in Iran on September 7, declaring all Iranian diplomats persona non grata in the country. This decision had a ripple effect across the international community, including at McGill, where many Iranian students now face difficulties obtaining study permits and vital travel documents.

McGill Law student and event organizer Kevin Paul explained that the teach-in was designed as a precursor to resistance to the current sanctions in Iran, as well as to the possibility of military intervention in the future.

“Iranian civilians and Iranians living in Canada are living the impacts of severe economic sanctions, and that includes students right here at McGill, so there’s already conflict with Iran, it just isn’t taking the form of military intervention yet,” Paul told The Daily.

The teach-in included four presentations, followed by an openmegaphone period where people were free to share their opinions on militarization and Iran. The formal presentations relied heavily on the parallels between the build-up to the war in Iraq and the current Iranian conflict.

Among the few people who took the megaphone to share their thoughts after the presentation was a Montreal activist who goes by the name Smoke. He emphasized the importance of looking at foreign military intervention in the context of the larger geopolitical system.

“I want to end with a reminder that we don’t like the Iranian

Photo Arezu Riahi

Students discuss the diplomatic standoff between Iran and Canada. regime either, but it’s not up to us to overthrow it,” said Smoke.

U2 McGill student Claire Stewart-Kanigan also helped to organize the teach-in. She argued that the McGill community is necessarily implicated in conflicts like the one with Iran, because of McGill’s contributions to the defense industry and its reliance on the militaryindustrial complex for funding.

“If we have anti-war support coming out of McGill, even if it is just in the form of editorials or departmental associations or stu-

dent associations passing motions against the war, I think that that can speak especially strongly,” StewartKanigan told The Daily. “McGill does have a strong role to play in Canada’s defense apparatus, so as students of McGill, we have the opportunity to create disruption.”

The University has a long history of involvement with weapons research. In 2010, McGill opted against regulating such research, leaving out a clause in its Regulations on Conduct of Research policy that would require researchers to dis-

close the potentially harmful applications of their findings.

The organizers hoped that the teach-in would revive a dialogue around anti-war protest, specifically in relation to Iran.

“One of our goals is that, if it does come to the point of military intervention, we want to have a wide base of consciousness about this issue set up so that we can take action against it quickly,” explained Stewart-Kanigan. “Having the base set for some kind of action, like a strike or demos in opposition.”

Prashant Keshavmurthy, a professor in the Institute of Islamic Studies, stopped by to listen to the presentation on McGill’s involvement in military research.

Keshavmurthy said he pays attention to foreign affairs, particularly in relation to Iran, but found the teach-in valuable and informative nonetheless.

“What I specifically learned that was new to me and improved my awareness of what was going on were the facts on weapons research [at McGill].”

PGSS talks tuition refunds Councillors lay out vision for education summit Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily

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t last night’s October meeting of the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Council, Provost Anthony Masi said that until McGill gets a written directive from the government, it will not refund the already charged higher tuition rates.

“A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” Masi said.

Université du Québec à Montréal is in the same boat as McGill, having already charged their students the increased rates, while Université de Montréal and Université Laval had been waiting for government directive to charge their students fall tuition.

Masi said that several issues surrounding the tuition freeze are still unclear, including whether universities can start indexing their tuition to inflation this year or next.

McGill’s plan to raise tuition was thrown into confusion last

spring, Masi said, after Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government changed its plans for the hike amidst student protests. There has been no communication between McGill’s senior administration and the new Parti Québécois government, according to Masi.

Other PGSS Council business concerned ongoing communication with the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), the provincial lobbying organization of which PGSS is a member.

Councillors also discussed

their vision for the upcoming Quebec Education Summit. The summit, organized by the new Parti Quebecois government and expected within 100 days of the September 4 election, is billed as a consultative forum to address issues like university governance, funding, and tuition.

FEUQ plans to ask the government to create a “presidential committee” of four members: a student, a faculty member, an administration representative, and a government representative.

PGSS Council voted yesterday to ask FEUQ to add a fifth member – a graduate student – to the hypothetical committee, as well as to ask FEUQ to ensure that the meetings of the committee be public and accessible.

Council also voted unanimously to endorse Social Work student Leah Freeman for Vice President of FEUQ’s National Council of Graduate Studies.

Freeman would become one of only a few anglophone members of FEUQ’s executive committee.

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NEWS

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Pro-choice and pro-life groups demonstrate side-by-side Pro-life activists maintain constant presence in park Zoe Power News Writer

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ro-choice and pro-life advocacy groups held demonstrations side-by-side at Parc Lahaie on Saturday. A footpath serving as a police-designated dividing line separated the two groups. Pro Choix Montreal, a pro-choice group, held a hot pink banner and placards, responding with cheers to the honks of passing traffic. On the other side of the footpath was Quebec Life Coalition, a pro-life group, who held prayer books as they stood in vigil.

The Quebec Life Coalition is currently participating in the nowinternational “40 Days for Life” campaign, a semiannual movement in which pro-life activists in over 200 cities worldwide fast and keep vigil outside local abortion clinics and hospitals.

In some locations, the vigils last 24 hours a day throughout the forty-day period. Campagne QuébecVie occupies its post outside the Montreal Morgentaler Clinic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day.

Brian Jenkins, a worker at Quebec Life Coalition, said he ensures a constant volunteer presence throughout these hours despite the small pool of volun-

teers he has to work with.

There are 13 regular volunteers.

He said he sees himself and his fellow vigil-keepers as “representing the children, because no one’s speaking up for them.

They’re being burned, dismembered, and chemically aborted… we are here to pray, and to try to bring it back around.”

This Saturday was Quebec Life Coalition’s eighth vigil of the campaign. All of their vigils have been challenged – hence the police-designated dividing line – but Pro Choix Montreal was not among the challenging demonstrators until 2010.

Pro Choix Montreal did not formalize its efforts until 2011 and still operates on a largely casual basis.

According to Pro Choix Montreal activists present on Saturday, a small core of foundational members coordinates the group’s demonstrations.

However, it lacks a formal organizational structure and encourages members to initiate their own demonstrations and events via a Facebook group, which currently boasts over 1,200 members.

Unlike Quebec Life Coalition, Pro Choix Montreal has not maintained a constant presence during the forty-day movement, but supporters come to represent the cause during the hours they are available.

Pro Choix Montreal gathered at Parc Lahaie on Saturday.

Members of Pro Choix told The Daily that they had aimed to be there every day of the campaign in 2011, but no longer aim for this level of constancy.

“We just want to be a visible presence here too, to show that there`s another side,” a demonstrator said.

In spite of the ideological dif-

Photo Peter Shyba | The McGill Daily

ferences between the groups, each group has a strict code of conduct for their demonstrators to ensure a positive atmosphere.

Quebec Life Coalition said they encourage non-confrontation and seeking common ground, while Pro Choix Montreal emphasizes inclusivity through the use of non-

hateful, non-discriminatory language, particularly based on religion or sexuality.

In the upcoming weeks, Pro Choix Montreal will be holding bi-weekly picnics with food and live music. Quebec Life Coalition will maintain its constant presence in the park.

M-SERT to initiate a fee-increase referendum Additional recruits and meal plan considered Esther Lee The McGill Daily

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cGill Student Emergency Response Team (M-SERT), formerly McGill First Aid, will initiate a referendum to increase its fee from $0.25 to $0.75 per semester for downtown campus’s full- and part-time students.

As discussed during last Thursday’s SSMU Legislative Council meeting, the motion seeks to increase the “Safety Network” fee in order to offset the service’s current costs and expand its coverage.

M-SERT is a student-run volunteer first-response service that provides emergency first aid to McGill’s downtown campus, residences, and the Montreal community.

Registered under SSMU, M-SERT operates from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with on-shift teams in the Molson and La Citadelle residences.

Regarding M-SERT’s fee affiliation with the Safety Network, SSMU VP Clubs and Services Allison Cooper explained that “McGill wants to limit the number of individual fees listed on students’ Minerva bills and as [the] M-SERT fee is already administered internally through

SSMU… we made it an increase to the SSMU base fee instead.”

M-SERT is composed of 55 volunteers, including eight certified Red Cross instructors who offer first aid courses to the university community.

Currently, 60 per cent of M-SERT’s revenue is independently generated from first aid courses taught by the service’s Red Cross certified members throughout the academic year.

M-SERT has received funding from other McGill entities in the past, but it has never received any funding directly from the University.

While M-SERT is able to provide operational first aid care to the university community, necessary expansions to M-SERT services have stretched the organization’s budget thin.

In an e-mail interview with The Daily, M-SERT President Ahan Ali and SSMU VP Finance Patrick Tohill wrote, “Our regular shifts have expanded from four upper residences and intramural hockey, to all of the Downtown Campus residences (except MORE houses), intramural hockey, and a steadily growing number of special events. Such expansion of our service requires us to stock more first aid supplies, replace more equipment, and eventually

M-SERT hopes to increase its fee from $.25 to $.75. train more members which places a financial strain on our service.”

With any additional revenue, Ali and Tohill hope to reduce the financial burden of being an M-SERT volunteer. The organization currently subsidizes a large portion of the fees involved in the training of new recruits, but would like to explore

expanding recruitment numbers, and be able to further subsidize the necessary training its members receive.

They added that, “for many of our members, [our hours of operation] mean going directly from class to their 12-hour overnight shift. We have proposed introducing a modest meal plan for responders on shift,” they said.

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

SSMU’s Notice of Motion from the September 27 Legislative Council meeting notes that “a vote in the negative will result in M-SERT continuing its operations at the current level of funding, with no change to the current SSMU base fee.”

M-SERT’s referendum date has not yet been set.

Commentary

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

7

“I’m not a feminist or anything, but…”

A look at the perception of modern day feminism

Photo Hera Chan with Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily Ayla Lefkowitz Commentary Writer

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hen I was in second year, I took a class called Women’s Reproductive Health. In this class, we were told to choose a topic for our group presentation. I chose ‘The Influence of the Media on Adolescent Sexuality,’ a topic that particularly interests me. The day before the presentation, our group of five came together to review the material. While looking through Tom Ford’s advertisements that depict women as purely sexual objects, I heard a fellow group member exclaim, “I mean, I’m not a feminist or anything, but that is disgusting.”

That was the first time I had heard that phrase. I’m not a feminist or anything, but… Wait. Why aren’t you a feminist if you find a photo that depicts women as a tool for the sexual pleasure of others disgusting? I didn’t ask that question that day. But I’m still wondering what the answer is two years later.

It is clear that the word ‘feminist’ has become stigmatized. To many, being a feminist now seems to be something undesirable. Yet, when I look at a very simple definition of feminist, I read “advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.”

Do we no longer believe that gender equality is worth fighting for?

Is it that people believe that feminism is no longer needed?

If feminism were no longer needed, I would not be afraid that I would be sexually assaulted when I walk home alone at night.

If feminism were no longer needed, the wage gap would not still be 71 cents to the dollar in Canada.

If feminism were no longer needed, media would not hold women to an impossible and unrealistic standard of appearance.

If feminism were no longer needed, eating disorders would not be a serious epidemic.

If feminism were no longer needed, porn would not be teaching 11-year-old boys that violence against women is sexy.

If feminism were no longer needed, survivors of sexual

assault would not be blamed.

If feminism were no longer needed, rates of intimate partner violence would not be estimated as close to 20 to 30 per cent in Canada, the U.S., and the UK. If feminism were no longer needed, young girls would no longer be sold into sex slavery in Canada.

If feminism were no longer needed, there would not be over 600 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.

For those who believe that feminism is no longer needed, it is understandable to refrain from identifying as a feminist.

However, for those who believe that we have not yet achieved gender equality, why not identify as a feminist? Is it simply that people believe the name ‘feminism’ needs to be changed?

I believe that the stigmatization of the word ‘feminist’ serves a purpose. By stereotyping all feminists as man-hating, bra-burning rebels, one is able to ignore their actual arguments, thereby delegitimizing their push for equality. Regardless of whether we change the name ‘feminist,’ a movement that fights

for women’s equality would likely be stigmatized. That is to say, it is not about the name; it is about suppressing a movement that asks tough questions of society.

Thanks to the feminists before us, women now have the right to vote, the right to control their finances, the right to own property. Women are free to use birth control, to have a career, to have an education. It is hard to imagine now that women were once not allowed to attend university.

Why then do so many people feel ashamed to be tied to this feminist history, rather than be proud of it?

I believe that the current feminist movement should challenge accepted social norms and conceptions of masculinity and femininity that limit self-expression and opportunities, and condone harassment and assault. By challenging the way people think, we can ultimately change behaviour.

Like any movement, there is no one definition of feminism. To me, feminism is about enabling people to have choice. From being able to wear any outfit one desires without fear of sexual

assault, to being able to choose one’s own gender expression without fear of discrimination.

Of course, feminism is a lot more complex than this. It now intersects with other movements that work to fight oppressions, such as movements against racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. This stems from the fact that our gender cannot be separated from other aspects of our identity. And like any movement, there is much disagreement from within.

Having said that, if we accept the essential ideas of gender equality, perhaps each of us can make feminism our own and reclaim the word ‘feminist’ with pride.

But don’t get me wrong; I’m not a feminist or anything.

This article is not meant to represent every facet of the feminist movement, it is simply one person’s understanding of feminism.

Its main purpose is to start open discussion on this topic. Ayla Lefkowitz is a U3 Philosophy and Women’s Studies student. She can be reached at ayla.lefkowitz@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

commentary

Thanks, but no thanks Mona Luxion Through the Looking Glass

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h, Thanksgiving!

‘Tis the season for pumpkin pie, turkey, wild rice, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, crisp leaves, warm drinks, family, nostalgia, and yes, giving thanks. These are all things I love, true, but don’t they make you feel a bit like you’re stuck in a Norman Rockwell painting? Or outside of one, as the case may be.

I was in class once with a woman who argued vehemently that it was important to teach children the traditional story of American Thanksgiving because it teaches the value of sharing. You know the story I mean, right? The one where the pilgrims, fleeing a life of persecution in England, arrive in the ‘new world’ ill equipped to survive the winter. The local native people, wary at first, soon take pity on these poor souls and share food with them. Come summer, they teach the settlers how to plant crops, and in celebration of the first harvest and the colonists surviving a brutal year, natives and pilgrims come together for a feast – the first Thanksgiving.

The trouble with this story is that it’s not just truth watered

down to make it more palatable to young minds – it’s an outright fabrication. The first years of contact between European settler colonists and the native peoples of Turtle Island (which came before the pilgrims ever arrived) were marked by the taking of Native slaves and the spread of smallpox epidemics brought by Europeans. Once the pilgrims arrived, you could add outright massacres to the list. Richard Greener writes in a 2010 article that the first settler Thanksgiving in North America was proclaimed by the governor of Massachusetts in 1637 “to celebrate the safe return of a band of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut, where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians – men, women, and children – all murdered.” The governor was not alone in rejoicing in the death of native people by the thousands.

Mike Ely at the Kasama Project quotes a letter that colonist John Winthrop wrote home: “but for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection.”

This revelry in the extermination

of some and survival of others – the basis of that first Thanksgiving – is intrinsically linked to an understanding of Christianity that positions white Europeans as God’s chosen people. The doctrine that became known as Manifest Destiny, which understood the death of Native people as proof that God “gave” the land of the Americas to Europeans so that they could build it into a Christian nation, became the underlying belief structuring American policy for most of the country’s history. Although Canada’s evolution was shaped by other factors, strands of that reasoning can be found here as well.

It’s true that probably all agricultural societies have some sort of harvest feast. And I think it’s profoundly important to take the time to be grateful for what we have, particularly as we’re pushed to desire more and more in our materialist society. But let’s be clear about what we’re giving thanks for. Given its history, I’m not convinced a celebration of Canadian or American Thanksgiving can be separated from a celebration of Christian supremacy, genocide, and the doctrine of “might makes right.”

At a time when the news is full of attacks on American mosques, when war on Iran seems imminent, when Israeli lobby groups sponsor ads claiming to defend the “civilized man” against the “savage,” it is clear that echoes of

these beliefs are alive and well in our society. I’ll give thanks when those currents are well and truly gone, of course. But until then, I’ll be giving thanks for the strength to keep on fighting them. Just not on Thanksgiving Day. In Through the Looking Glass, Mona Luxion reflects on activism, current events, and looking beyond identity politics. They might run into Tweedledee and Tweedledum along the way. Contrariwise, they might not. Stick around to find out. Or email Mona at lookingglass@mcgilldaily.com.

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

The bitter underside of the seasonal holiday

Casuals of McGill, unite!

Why syndicalist culture is important at McGill Derek Tyrrell Commentary Writer

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hen I started working for McGill in September 2009, I made minimum wage and had zero job security. My job was fine, my supervisors were pleasant, and all in all it was not a terrible experience. I soon came to realize, however, that McGill basically had no policy regarding their temporary employees, and working conditions varied widely among those of us they called casual employees. Many people worked for less than minimum wage; many did complex tasks and were very clearly underpaid. Some were constantly on standby. Some were laid off without warning. This may seem like standard policy for ‘casual’ work done mostly parttime and by undergraduate students, but for many people who depend on these jobs, students

and non-students alike, such practices make their lives much more difficult. Some of the practices are actually illegal, and many of them are simply unjust. There can be no excuse for underpaying and generally mismanaging the lowest paid workers in an organization that commands as much wealth and respect as McGill.

Based on these facts, a number of employees conducted a union drive in 2009 and ‘casual’ employees at McGill voted, and decided that the best way to address these grievances en masse was to form a union. This began a long bargaining process that ended in conciliation and the signing of our first Collective Agreement (CA) on April 20, 2012.

The Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) is the labour union that now represents part-time and fulltime non-academic, ‘casual’ positions at McGill. Our CA guarantees all ‘casual’ employees a written

contract, minimum wages based on difficulties of tasks, annual salary increases, and more.

Since the CA is new however, and represents a drastic change in the labour practices governing our members at McGill, our trickiest and most important task now is to ensure that it is implemented. There are a few things that make this task particularly difficult for AMUSE. Labour unions usually represent people who work in the same place and do similar tasks.

AMUSE is an awkward collection of employees who work in different buildings and have radically different tasks. AMUSE represents the people who tend the livestock at Mac Campus, bookstore employees, administrative clerks, timekeepers, full-time MUNACA replacements – and the list goes on. This means that everything we do takes longer, and must be done with the particularities of each ‘casual’ position in mind.

Another problem intrinsic to a part-time university sector union is high turnover of membership, and by extension, of union executives and staff. Labour relations are complicated, and involve lots of specialized knowledge that can only be gained by experience. Therefore it is critical for us to keep our members involved as long as possible, and to ensure that new generations of AMUSE members are involved early.

We need to make sure the standards in the CA are respected. Nobody working even for one hour at McGill should be without a written contract. Nobody should be making less than $10 an hour, and nobody should be laid off by surprise come the end of semester without proper notice because ‘there’s not much to do around here anymore.’ This will continue to happen, even though it’s illegal, until we build a culture of looking out for one another and communicating grievances with each other,

the supervisor, and, if necessary, an AMUSE representative.

AMUSE will only be effective if its membership is involved. On October 10 at 5 p.m. in Leacock 232, AMUSE will hold a general assembly to vote on a motion regarding the dues rate. There will be refreshments, but most importantly it is an opportunity to get to know your co-workers and union representatives. If you can’t make it, why not check out our website amusemcgill.org or drop by our office (2015 Drummond, #901).

AMUSE can be a skeleton organization with little bargaining power, poor communication with its membership, and no institutional memory, or it can be a powerful tool in making our working experience at McGill better. It’s up to the membership to decide.

Derek Tyrrell is an U4 Honours Political Science student and Vice President of AMUSE. Reach him at vp.amuse@gmail.com.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

The federations, traitors until the end Against the co-optation of the student movement Daniel Wolfe Commentary Writer

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It’s a new era of collaboration,” proclaimed Martine Desjardins in August, after encouraging students to relinquish their sole effective means of exerting pressure on the state. Following the cancellation of the hikes, the head of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) – which, combined with the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), represents over 200,000 students in Quebec – took the stage on behalf of the student movement to accept its victory and outline new boundaries for action.

This presumptuous intervention might seem familiar, since it’s one that was made countless times throughout the strike. Students decide on a means of pressure, and the federations reject those means; once a situation escalates to the point where the federations fear losing control, they accept the situation and work to recuperate gains, or they prevent escalation at the expense of effective action. Of course, when students take action regardless and succeed, the FEUQ and the FECQ happily take credit.

This pattern of action by the federations is not coincidental – it comes from a fundamental tension between their practices, and those developed by students last spring. Students made the strike a point of international discussion by pressuring the state. By

contrast, the federations are lobbyists, and thus their preferred tactics and attitudes are less disruptive.

The difference between the federations and the students was highlighted in the most continuously disruptive action of all: the act of striking itself. The federations are fundamentally anti-strike. Closely aligned with the Parti Québécois (PQ), FEUQ and FECQ’s preferred means of “pressure” are petitions and letter-writing. The 2012 strike eschewed such means for being ineffectual; unable to exert control, the federations spent most of the strike playing catch-up.

Consider the following: the federations had no plan of action following the November 10 demonstration aside from organizing another on March 22. The massive turnout at the subsequent demonstration – at which the leaders of FEUQ and FECQ featured prominently, giving speeches and radio interviews – was not due to any initiative on the federations’ part. Rather, the turnout reflected the momentum generated by the strikes, which had begun a month earlier. The federations only grudgingly refrained from dissuading the students from striking, out of fear of losing control, and not a desire to support effectual action.

Similarly treacherous, after publicly condemning ‘violence’ in April, the heads of the FECQ and FEUQ were by May positioning themselves as the leaders of an emergent social movement. This movement was, in

no small part, a popular reaction against Bill 78 – a bill triggered by the very expressions of social unrest that the federations had earlier attempted to quell. That the FEUQ pushed to include the Coalition Large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) (a student association typically contrasted with FEUQ and FECQ) in negotiations with the government – and that it was unable to sell out the student movement as it had in 2005 – only reflects their relative weakness vis-avis CLASSE this time around.

But, in August, the opportune moment presented itself. Armed with the knowledge that striking students were tired and fearful of losing their semesters, the federations moved to destroy the strike and channel support against the hikes into support for the PQ (which supports indefinite tuition hikes by indexing tuition to inflation). The legitimacy the federations acquired as a result of being more ‘moderate,’ the relative ease with which they were included in negotiations, and the ability of Léo Bureau-Blouin (former president of FECQ) to run as a PQ candidate, are signs the FEUQ and FECQ benefited from the strike. Like all good politicians, they rode the coattails of an opportunity when it proved expedient, and discarded it when it became a drain. In August, the federations extolled their members to ‘get out and vote’; but on August 14, the date of the strike renewal vote at the FECQ-

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

Former FECQ President Léo Bureau-Blouin at a PQ rally. affiliated Cégep Edouard-Montpetit, the FECQ’s absence in helping to mobilize was so significant that the local student association was forced to call the CLASSE executive for support.

With the election of the PQ, the federations have unparalleled access to decision-makers. It may seem that the federations’ leaders will be uniquely situated to influence policy makers and advocate on behalf of students. But the notion that one or two leaders could represent 250,000 students is an utter absurdity, and the very fact that federations’ leaders are willing to use the myth of representation to legitimize their decisions demonstrates that their interest lies not in supporting their members, but in securing their own power. It will be the federations that

adopt the policies of the government, and not vice versa.

The federations’ proclamation of “total victory,” and their call for the PQ to revoke the millions in loans and bursaries conceded by the Charest government to striking students shows where the “victory” truly lies for the FEUQ and FECQ: not in the improvement of the material conditions of students, but in their new proximity to power. Yet, this should come as no surprise. The federations, vampire-like, must feed off the blood of a movement to sustain themselves. They are incomparably arrogant, and shamelessly duplicitous – traitors until the end.

Daniel Wolfe can be reached at daniel.wolfe@mail.mcgill.ca.

Nasr’s “bullets” miss their mark A response on behalf of McGill Students for Israel Ilana Donohue and Eliana Schwartz Commentary Writers

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64 bullets from McGill to Tel Aviv” (Moe Nasr, Commentary, September 24, Page 6) is so full of misconceptions and empty rhetoric that it begs the question why this newspaper would see it fit to print. We are disappointed and surprised that The Daily published it and the photo alongside that perpetuates malicious stereotypes about Jews and Israel. McGill Students for Israel is proud of McGill’s decision to conclude a Memorandum of Understanding with three Israeli universities and would like to rebut a few of the author’s false accusations.

Mr. Nasr claims that Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay “lies” regarding “economic growth in Palestine” and that the “illegal occupation [is] the root cause of the West Bank’s depressed economic situation.” The truth is that from 2007 to 2010 under Palestinian Authority (PA) PM Salam Fayyad, the West Bank experienced rapid

GDP growth – 50 per cent higher in 2010 than in 2000, and 124 per cent higher than in 1994.

Israel contributes significantly to the PA’s economic development.

In 2011, Israel helped alleviate the PA’s budget crisis by advancing $45 million USD at the beginning of Ramadan to help the PA pay salaries in time for workers to celebrate the holiday. Israel also asked the United States to lift the ban on U.S. aid to the PA. In Gaza, the economy grew 27 per cent in 2011, contributing to a rise of 23 per cent in GDP. Every month Israel delivers thousands of truckloads of goods to Gaza. The amount and variety of goods entering Gaza has increased steadily since 2010, to a daily average of over 250 truckloads – this despite the fact that over 10,000 rockets from Gaza have been launched at Israeli communities.

In 2011, approximately 115,000 Palestinian patients were treated in Israel (a 13 per cent increase from 2010); over 100 Palestinian doctors were interning at Israeli hospitals and five organ donations were performed

in Israel for Palestinian patients.

Is this the face of oppression?

Nasr attacks a TAU professor for taking part in producing the IDF’s code of ethics. Not weapons development, but ethics! Unlike Palestinian terrorists who deliberately target civilians, Israel makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties contrary to Nasr’s claim. During the 2006 IsraelHamas conflict, Israel dropped more than two million leaflets and sent text messages urging the population to evacuate likely fighting zones and military targets. Nasr’s false 20 to 1 “kill count” fails to mention that it includes Hamas terrorists and some of their human shields – civilians Hamas deliberately placed in harm’s way. The casual Sabra and Shatila reference in the same context as Israeli universities not only perpetuates the lie that the Israeli army was the perpetrator, but the innuendo seeks to tar Israel’s academic institutions with guilt for a crime that is not only not theirs, but in truth, is not Israel’s!

Nasr’s assertion that Arab-Israelis “are forced to either integrate and become secular, anti-radical, pro-

Israeli” or else face deportation is complete fabrication. The truth is that no Israeli Arab citizens are being deported and that Arab-Israelis enjoy the same rights as all other Israelis (but without the obligation to serve in the army). Numerous affirmative action programs seek to ensure equality of opportunity for Arab Israelis.

Furthermore, there are a number of Arab members of the Israeli parliament, the most famous being Haneen Zoabi, who is vocally anti-Israel.

Israeli universities are centres of learning and coexistence that mirror Israel’s ethnic (Jewish and Arab), political, and religious character. According to Ha’aretz, more East Jerusalem Palestinians are seeking Israeli academic degrees than ever. Clearly Nasr’s suggestion to cut ties would be destructive for Palestinians who benefit from these universities as well.

Far from exacerbating conflict, Israeli universities are replete with institutes devoted exclusively to the pursuit of peace. The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for Peace at Hebrew University, the

Jewish-Arab Center at University of Haifa, and studies in Conflict Resolution and Mediation at BarIlan and Tel Aviv universities promote peace. Israeli universities not only contribute to peace and coexistence between Arabs and Jews – they engage with and for the benefit of humanity. Israelis develop innovative medical technologies, including a treatment that destroys HIV-infected human cells, a breast cancer scanner that does not require radiation, and a nanobiology computer that attacks disease on the molecular level. These innovations improve lives across the globe. In contrast, Mr. Nasr seems to campaign on the side of denial, boycott, and delegitimization. How does that help foster dialogue, knowledge, understanding, and peace?

Ilana Donohue and Eliana Schwartz are president and past president of McGill Friends of Israel. Reach them at eliana. schwartz@mail.mcgill.ca.

health&ed

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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Getting what’s good The stigma of male eating disorders

Illustration Amina Batyreva & Peter Shyba | The McGill Daily

Warning: This article contains potentially triggering material involving descriptions of disordered eating.

Emily Saul Health & Education Writer

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ne-third of Canadian men reportedly engage in unhealthy eating habits such as fasting, vomiting, taking laxatives, skipping meals, or smoking to control their appetite.

To put this in perspective, McGill, with almost 40,000 students – 48 per cent of which are male – would have approximately 6,400 male students with unhealthy eating habits.

In the past, body image research has been driven by interest in eating disorders themselves.

Because the reported rates are so low for males, they have been mostly ignored within the research sphere, making it almost impossible for statistics to be compiled regarding the prevalence of the illnesses among men. The problem is institutional as well: the majority of treatment centres turn men away because they believe eating disorders require sex-differentiated treatment, and there isn’t enough of a perceived demand for them to provide men treatment.

McGill does supposedly treat men, but after two weeks of pestering Dr. Robert Franck, the clinical director at McGill’s Student Mental Health Service, with emails and office visits, he remained perpetually unavailable to discuss this issue on our campus and his experiences with men suffering from anorexia within the Eating Disorder Program.

Samuel is a third year McGill student who studies science and economics. We spoke online via the “Experience Project,” an independent chat-room style site where

people can “find others who understand [them].” He is only beginning to seek help with his disordered eating, but enjoys the privacy of the internet and the prevalence of “other people with secrets.”

Samuel likes reading, meditation, and autumn. When he was younger, he identified as bisexual; however, due to his restricted diet and the impact he perceives it to have on his sex drive, he no longer experiences any sort of attraction at all – to men or women – and he now considers himself “asexual.”

Samuel grew up in a very traditional, religious family in the southern United States. He believes his disorder stems from the stigma he faced growing up and his family’s unwillingness to accept his sexuality.

The limited literature on male disordered eating has found that for men, disorders are often predicated by a “homosexual conflict,” or gender or identity crisis. Samuel found that he could reduce his sex drive through starvation, and thus more adequately ignore his “inappropriate” impulses and please his parents.

Queer men may be slightly more likely to be unhappy with their physique because of the emphasis on appearance in gay culture, but heterosexual and homosexual men report equivalent levels of body esteem, satisfaction with shape, and desired level of thinness. Gay men, however, are more likely to seek treatment, according to information from a student health pamphlet at Brown University.

Samuel was a chubby child; the rest of his family is still overweight, and his father and sister are clinically obese. In grade school, Samuel experienced weight-relat-

ed bullying, something that 30 per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys living in North America experience in grades 7 to 12 As Samuel got older, he began to associate his weight with all of his problems, and assumed everything would be better if he were thin. At the same time, his parents began to worry about his burgeoning expressions of his sexuality.

Correlations have been found between sexual or relationship anxiety and disordered eating. In one study, 80 per cent of men grew up in families that regarded sex as taboo, and of them 95 per cent were relieved at the loss of their sex drive.

For Samuel, the “high” he experienced from not eating coupled with his continual oscillations between corporeality and bodilessness helped him to exist in what he called his “Narnia,” a pretend world where he found refuge from a religion he didn’t believe in and parents who would rather he were dead than love men.

The pursuit of muscularity, leanness, and stereotypical “manliness” are not the new goals of a new generation. The time in history when the “fat” were revered was relatively short-lived and restricted to specific circumstances.

Whether we’re examining art from ancient Egypt or Rome, or the contemporary example of Brad Pitt, we see a continuing reverence towards one enduring typology: a muscular man with “masculine” traits, or the “mesomorph.”

The mesomorph is the middle constitution in a somatotype classification system that was developed by the American psychologist W.H. Sheldon (who, for those interested,

was criticized by fellow academics for mistaking correlation and causation and pseudo-representative sampling). In 1954, Sheldon published a book called The Atlas of Men in which he asserted that there were three body types – lanky, muscular, and pudgy – each with an associated temperament.

His theories enjoyed a brief cultural vogue in the 1950s, but his favourably stereotyped mesomorph still dictates an enduring “ideal” of manliness: a well-muscled man who is stoic, stable, and shows no emotions other than tendencies toward aggression and violence.

With the societal role of media increasing, the feeling and talking taboo adds insult to injury. Men are made to feel more inadequate about how they look while simultaneously being prohibited from talking about it or even admitting it to themselves. Unable to express themselves any other way, men often turn to anger – percieved to be the only commonly accepted and encouraged male emotion.

This traditionally accepted propagation of what a man is and should be contributes to a continuing belief that musculature determines sexual successes, and that one’s physique is the predominant determinant of supremacy. Essentially, Sheldon’s lasting legacy is that how a man looks determines his self-worth, power, and success. This persistent objectification of men and the male physique as a societal commodity only helps to further enforce this externally contrived identity.

Our society and culture continue to produce extreme and unattainable body standards for men and women that often lead to disordered eating. But men often can-

not recognize or admit to such disorders because eating disorders have been branded as “womanly.”

Even if men are able to recognize they have a problem, they often can’t get help because of a severe lack of resources and services for the largely unrecognized problem of male disordered eating.

Samuel said that the hardest thing about his disorder is that it’s not like any other substance addiction; it’s not like he can just stop eating and not have to deal with it anymore. He’s happy that anorexia, which for so long has been classified as a women’s disease, is beginning to be recognized as an acceptable diagnosis for men.

“Hopefully this shift toward recognition will mean that people who are ready can get help,” he said.

He’s been particularly pleased with the recent coverage in men’s health magazines.

“It’s like in the GQ article (September, 2012), the last guy was talking about how he felt horrible thinking it but all the people he knows who’ve been through treatment are fat. I feel horrible saying it too, but they are. And I don’t want to be like that. When you try and gain weight the fat goes to all the wrong places and it just looks terrible. I think this is beautiful and no matter what I try and make myself think, I still think thin is wonderful, and trendy. Androgyny is in right now. Look around campus, look around Montreal. The thin men, the thin women, they’re all beautiful.

Something thin is something good, and we all like something good.

“Most of us don’t have enough of what’s good.” *name has been changed

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Pulling teeth in the Andes One student’s MEDLIFE reflection David Ou Health & Education Writer

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Give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for a lifetime.” One of the most widely recognized proverbs comes from the founder of Taoism. I had never really put much thought into those words until this past summer when I was given the unforgettable opportunity to be a part of a MEDLIFE mobile clinic in Cusco, Peru. To say it was eye-opening would be a great understatement.

Leaving for the trip, I didn’t know what to expect. I jumped from one scenario to the next, trying to envision how each clinic would look like or what I would be tasked with.

The setup of the clinics was simple enough. All of the students were split into three groups, and each day, we would load and board the buses by 7 a.m. One group would be taken to the development project (such as building a bathroom for an elementary school in the small community of Ccaccaccollo), while the other two would each run a clinic in nearby? mountainous communities, where access to medical care is not readily available. It took two hours to

drive up treacherous dirt paths barely wide enough for a single bus. One could only imagine how long the people of the villages would have to walk just to get basic medical care.

At the dental stations in each community, I didn’t see a single person with less than ten cavities, and the number of children with cavities so large that the tooth was practically gone was heartbreaking. In assisting the dentist, I was able to witness seven complete tooth extractions under barely any anaesthesia. While the lidocaine was always injected generously, it was impossible not to notice the tears building up in the eyes of children hardly over the age of ten, as the dentist jammed a root elevator into their gums, loosening teeth that were still intact. The patients never made a sound, even when the dentist moved on to forceps and with pure force, pulled the tooth out. Many times, the teeth were rotten to their core and simply cracked in half when the dentist applied force. The dentist had to go in a second time and attempt another extraction in hopes that they would not further break into smaller pieces. Watching the blood flow freely from such an open wound was both mesmer-

izing and repulsing. I remember wanting to look away or cringe, but I was frozen in place by the unbelievable surgery in front of me. I kept trying to imagine my own trips to the dentist, but my experiences paled in comparison, and the most that I could do was to keep a solemn expression. The dentist would smile with words of encouragement to the patient, admire his own handiwork, and wave the next patient over.

Aside from dentistry, there were also doctor and OB/GYN stations at each clinic. Patients came through the door with varied ailments, and even with the language barrier between English and Spanish or Quechua (a native South American language), the doctors tried their best to explain every patient’s problems to the students. There were simple coughs, to full-body dermatitis caused by scabies, to various fungal infections, to parasitic worms.

With every patient, the doctor would write a script for whatever medication they needed, and they would be able to pick it up at the pharmacy station.

While the patients waited to see a doctor or the dentist, they could sit in the education station and watch videos, which gave information on a wide range of health issues such as

breast exams, further dental precautions, and general hygiene care.

As a developing country, Peru has faced political unrest and fiscal crises since gaining independence in 1821. Although the country is still classified as a less-developed country due to its Human Development Index, living standards, and undeveloped industrial base, there have still been periods of stability and strong economic upswing. One of the most telltale signs of a developing country that I noticed was that there was a big gap between the wealthy and the poor in Peru.

It was almost as if the middle class did not exist. Peruvians seem to be either extremely affluent or impoverished, with the latter group left without access to basic healthcare. Unequal distribution of income is one of the main roadblocks in Peru’s current system, as it produces a large gap in education, which has proven to result in many other problems.

Because of this lack of quality education, poorer communities are not well-equipped with knowledge regarding preventative health practices such as tooth brushing and frequent mammary examinations. Unaware of health-related warning signs or symptoms, people will usually

ignore minor problems until they become extremely serious, as was seen in the full-body scabies cases. Many of the patients I saw had issues that were either easily preventable or could have been easily cured when the early onset of symptoms were noticed.

An uneven income distribution also results in a lack of proper infrastructure, including roads, sanitation, and stairs for the mountainous communities. This means that they will not have easy access to hospitals until the city expands towards them. Without these fundamental backbones of development, the children of those communities will not have access to quality education and thus the cycle will continue.

In its focus on information, MEDLIFE is ensuring that, in addition to free and immediate medical aid, the rural communities are also aided through education and development so that, over time, these communities will gain access to a gamut of services and be able to thrive on their own.

Immediate care is important for any emerging community, but without a change in the structural causes of poverty and a development of infrastructure, health outcomes in the area are not likely to improve.

Logging off Some find life hard in a techno-fetishist world Tamkinat Mirza Nine Lives

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ncreasingly, our daily lives are mediated by pervasive technologies that govern and direct our routines; they envelop our every animate and inanimate interaction.

So embedded are these electronics that functioning without them seems impossible.

This pervasiveness is constantly highlighted for people afflicted with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) or electrical sensitivity (ES). For them, technologies are a malevolent phenomenon, causing them to actively restructure their careers, academic life, and social circles in order to avoid certain technologies and maintain their health.

Individuals with MCS develop negative reactions from chemical exposure to everyday substances,

such as paints, perfumes, and chemical cleaners, to name a few. There are two stages to the sensitivity: induction and triggering. Induction occurs when a person’s contact with a chemical leads to the development of a (sometimes permanent) sensitivity. Triggering follows: the person develops certain symptoms when in the vicinity of the aforementioned chemical.

MCS symptoms are said to manifest in various organs, including the respiratory, digestive, neurological, endocrine, urinary, cardiovascular and immune systems.

These symptoms vary among people, and can lead to health problems that range from mild and manageable to life-threatening. So while some individuals may only experience mild symptoms like headaches and nausea, a recent study has linked such serious effects as blood clots and cardiac arrest to chemical exposure in cases of MCS. ES has been identified by many

as an illness triggered by exposure to everyday levels of electro magnetic fields from electrical sources in the environment: power lines, computers, wireless networks, et cetera. ES symptoms are extensive and somewhat similar to those found in MCS. They include skin irritation, memory loss, fatigue, and heart problems.

Yet, despite the tangible symptoms of ES, doctors and scientists have been dismissive of the illness, with speculations of its psychosomatic nature retaining prevalence. MCS was defined by Allergy UK as the “21st Century Disease,” confirming its status to many as a “proven” illness. However, the American Medical Association does not recognize MCS as an illness with a known pathology. The AMA verdict is the same for ES. “We don’t contest that some people get some disabling symptoms that are very real,” Doctor Michael Clark, the UK’s Health Protection Agency scientific spokesman told the BBC in 2005.

“Over the last thirty years and all over the world, no links have been found between these symptoms and any form of exposure … For people with MCS, it’s a different matter. There is evidence that some people are sensitive to some chemicals.”

Seven years later, electrical sensitivity remains an underresearched health problem, leaving those afflicted to devise their own means of coping with it – without being granted disability, as MCS continues to be unacknowledged by the American Medical Association as qualifying for disability.

Living in a major city becomes impossible for many with ES, necessitating relocation to less technologically-reliant regions.

They must revert back to a more manual time: the continual communication enabled by cell phones and laptops, as well as the normalcy of cars, microwaves and televisions must be given up.

These individuals, who find

themselves stigmatized in a techno-fetishist society and unable to immerse themselves in a virtual web, are perhaps good spokespeople for a return to more insulated, individual living that is arguably healthier. Daily life where mobility is reliant on bicycles, where cooking is possible without microwave nuking, and where there is an understanding that it is okay for someone not to get ahold of you for a week or so seems like an idyll for many, but is necessary for those with ES. In the most simplistic summation, then, environmentallyimposed health concerns hold the potential to necessitate for these individuals a healthier lifestyle outside this environment – one they would not have worked toward achieving before.

Nine Lives is a new column by Tamkinat Mirza. It will critically explore health and education issues. Reach her at ninelives@mcgilldaily.com.

sports

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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“The best feeling in the world” McGill swimmer wins three medals at 2012 Paralympics Jeremy Schembri Sports Writer

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alérie Grand’Maison, a fourth-year McGill student of history and psychology, returned to Canada in September with one gold and two silver medals from the 2012 London Paralympic Games. In total, she has accumulated nine Paralympic medals and twelve world records in the S13 category for athletes who have a visual impairment. The Daily sat down for an interview with Grand’Maison and learned about her path to the Paralympics and a world record.

Grand’Maison’s swimming career did not get off to a good start: while learning how to swim she failed a beginner’s Red Cross swim class. With characteristic determination, she kept practicing and became increasingly committed to the sport. The gruelling two-hour morning and evening practices got Grand’Maison to love adrenaline as she continued to swim competitively throughout her high school years. At age 15, Grand’Maison’s vision started to deteriorate due to macular degeneration and she took a short hiatus from swimming to deal with her new circumstances. After six months, she took a suggestion from one of her coaches and sent her papers to the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) to qualify as an athlete with a disability.

When Grand’Maison returned to swimming she achieved a morale-boosting medal sweep at the Canadian Handicap Sw i mm i ng Cha mpionsh ips where she “Michael Phelps-ed” the competition. Her success in the pool led her to the Beijing Paralympic Games, where she captured six medals for Canada and was Canada’s most successful swimmer. A self-described “selfish athlete,” Grand’Maison shifted her focus away from a goal-oriented approach to enjoying all aspects of her sport. Her experiences at the Beijing Games got her thinking of swimming as a sport to be played and not just a race to be won. She rediscovered her love of training and set her goals on London.

During this time she developed a right shoulder injury, which again threatened to end her career. Attempting to push

Grand’Maison’s world record 200 IM swim in London “suprised” her. herself harder only led to further injury and after a few disappointing swimming competitions, Grand’Maison was forced

to re-invent her training program. It took months of physiotherapy, different training methods, strength condition-

Photo Lucy Liu

ing, and a new outlook to get back to her old level. Recovery is a process where you take “one step back, two steps forward,”

says Grand’Maison, and the new training program was able to get her prepared for the 2012 Paralympic Games.

Swimming is a sport where hundredths of seconds matter and everything must go right in order to win. Things did not go right in London at the beginning, as she failed to defend her world record and gold medal in the 100-metre freestyle (front crawl).

Grand’Maison was favoured to win the race, but says that she let her nerves get the best of her; her American rival, Kelley Becherer, slipped ahead and won the gold. Earlier that day, she won an unexpected silver in the 50-metre freestyle, but it did not ease the pain of losing the gold in the 100-metre free. Knowing she wanted at least one gold medal, she audaciously told the press and her team that the next race was going to be hers.

The 200 IM, or individual medley, is a race where a competitor swims 50 metres in each swimming stroke (butterf ly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle). This was the race she trained for the most and, though she started it with an easy pace, she finished it in a flurry.

Grand’Maison set a Paralympic world record and beat her closest competitor by over two seconds, a huge amount for competitive swimming. She knew she could win the gold in the 200 IM, but didn’t know she would set a world record. The world record “surprised her” but it is one of the reasons that she enjoys training.

An ecstatic, crying, and dancing Grand’Maison finally stepped to the top of the podium to hear the anthem. She describes it as “the best feeling in the world” to have 17,000 spectators cheer you on to the finish and recalled how she took “mental snapshots” so she can remember it throughout her life. Despite enduring an intense training schedule, she says that it is all worth it for those precious moments.

Grand’Maison is currently taking a well-deserved break from swimming and focusing on school. The next Paralympic Games are in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and will take even more effort as the calibre of Paralympic athletes keeps improving. As of now, it’s an open question if she will take to the pool and train for the next world stage or focus on pursuing medical school.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Illustration Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

Left in the cold In lockout battles, fans find themselves powerless Evan Dent The McGill Daily

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s professional sports have become multi-billion dollar industries, fans have increasingly had to sit through extended and often acrimonious labour disputes between owners and players. And “sit through” is precisely the right phrase – the realization for all fans is that they are powerless to influence lockouts, strikes, or other labour stoppages.

The NHL recently entered its third lockout since 1993; the MLB cancelled most of the 1994 season and the World Series; the NFL locked out its players in the summer of 2011; the NBA cancelled two months of games in the 20112012 season. Through the course of these stoppages, fans have come to learn that their ability to end any of these is minimal. This is because the leagues take fans for granted; they believe that their fanbase will persist no matter how long negotiations last. Sports are a source of entertainment that people have grown up loving and consuming,

and the leagues are certain that they have a base of hardcore fans that will keep watching the sport when it returns. This leads to a cognitive dissonance among fans – fans love the sport, but don’t want to support the people who enacted a lockout.

The choices for fans are sparse in situations such as this.

The only ways for fans to effect change is monetarily or through extreme public relations pressure.

If fans simply stop going to games, watching them on TV, or buying league merchandise, they can make a difference. But it is not easy for any fan that truly loves the sport to simply stop.

While casual fans are often driven away by labour stoppages, it is the dedicated base that leagues know they can build off of. After the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, the NHL had record attendance figures as fans flocked back to watch their favourite teams. The NFL received widespread fanfare after their lockout, and the NBA enjoyed one of its best seasons in terms of attendance and TV-viewership numbers after their lockout ended. The MLB is the only league that struggled

after a lockout, as fans were slow to come back; popularity was only ignited four years later by steroidfuelled home run numbers. (The MLB, it should be noted, has been quick to settle labour disputes since 1994, probably fearing another dip in popularity.)

These trends give me, at least, the unsettling feeling that I am a stooge. I don’t want to support greedy owners (the culprits in most lockouts) or players (who are just as much to blame in certain cases). But it’s not easy to divorce myself from the sports I’ve watched for so long.

Take the NHL, which is close to cancelling its first set of regular season games. The prognosis on the season as a whole is grim – many expect the whole regular season and playoffs to be wiped out.

Both the NHL owners and the NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) have engaged in fan appeasement, trying to win the public relations battle and earn the support of the fans – but it is mere lip service. They’re both prepared to cancel a season for their economic goals.

And yet, I can’t imagine not watching hockey when it comes

back. My cherished memories of NHL seasons past (I get close to tearing up when I watch Buffalo Sabres highlights), and the feeling that watching my favourite teams give me is more powerful than the anger I feel at the current lockout. I just want my hockey back.

Ironically, the only way to persuade league administration to bring hockey back, or to not engage in protracted labour disputes, is to not watch hockey when it does return.

The other way that fans can affect the outcome of lockouts is through an onslaught of negative public relations for the league, though this is less effective. Basically, the league and players need to see that continuing the lockout will be worse for the league in the long term than any concessions they may gain by continuing. The NFL and NFL Referee’s Association (NFLR A) were engaged in a lockout this season until the third week of the season, when the performances from replacement referees were so egregiously bad that they degraded the quality of multiple games and controversially decided the outcome of a nationally televised game.

With outcry from fans, media, and players, the NFL hastened to come to an agreement with the referees’ union, knowing that the weight of public opinion was too much to bear.

As for the NHL this year, while the outcry among fans has been vociferous, there has not been any substantial movement for an agreement between the NHL and NHLPA in months – the outcry has not been loud enough, not damaging enough, for either side to feel threatened that the long-term future of the league would be damaged by continuing the lockout. The fans may whine and curse commissioner Gary Bettman’s name, but the NHL doesn’t see this acrimony as a true threat to the institution.

Professional sports leagues now treat fans as pawns, a given base that will show up no matter what happens. And because fanhood in itself is nearly unexplainable and deeply ingrained, it’s hard to be anything but a pawn. It’s near impossible to shake off my fanhood after nineteen years. Fanhood has been exploited; we are people to be won over in PR battles but not actually respected.

culture

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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What you see is what you might get The cyber-queer art of Vincent Chevalier Joseph Henry The McGill Daily

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or her 1965 video work Fuses, seminal feminist artist Carolee Schneemann films a passionate and prolonged bout of sex between herself and a male partner. Presented as an anti-pornographic exploration of sex positivity and the intricacies of desire, Fuses uses the rich materiality of its 16 millimetre film to convey the kind of embodied pleasures under investigation in art after World War II. Whether much has changed in terms of art practice becomes a theme of my conversation with the Montreal artist Vincent Chevalier, taking place as he’s moving out of his Verdun apartment to become Media Arts coordinator at ARTSPACE in Peterborough, Ontario. Chevalier’s practice, consistently working around the peripheries of sex and attachment, and how we might plan it or talk about it, suggests more than ever that it’s all about the presentation: how do we publicly make sense of our personal lives?

Schneemann comes up in conversation, part of a lineage of sixties and seventies video and performance artists who investigated the body and its relation to technology that informs Chevalier’s practice (see his half-homage, half-remake GIF GPOY As Fountain [After Bruce Nauman]). He’s suspicious of any sort of ecstasy they might have found in collective, exuberant works like Schneemann’s Meat Joy, a canonical performance of naked participants writhing and smearing themselves with materials from raw chicken and fish to wet paint and transparent plastic. “There was a utopian impulse behind those,” Chevalier says.

“If we all get naked in a room, and roll around in fish guts, like [Schneemann], we’ll create a new world.” If bodies in a room was the medium for a social world in the sixties, for Chevalier it might now be Tumblr: “Hyper Flesh Markup Language (Holy Fuck My Life!)” rings his own site/art project, and it’s this swirl of realityTV aphorisms, fucking, and new media, all under the influence of a 21st century queerness, that marks his artistic output.

But that’s not to collapse his work into an expanding genre of post-medium, technological practice. Chevalier reminds me: “I don’t like work [where] you walk

into a gallery and all you see is the technology, and the question is ‘what is that technology, how do they use it?’ It becomes less about technology being a support for an idea than technology being the object.” Last year, Chevalier graduated with a degree from Concordia’s Intermedia/ Cyberarts studio program, in the midst of exhibiting and performing his work in venues from San Francisco to Finland. But the geography of Montreal and environs of his upbringing haunt his ongoing “little black blog” PWIF’d (Places Where I’ve Fucked), an archive of the approximately 100 parks, apartments, and parking lot hook-up backdrops, crystallized in the unassuming form of the Google Maps screenshot and annotated with place, age, and sex acts in the mystifying phraseology of queer sex websites. “#montreal #qc #24 y/o #bttm #pnp #w/s #scat” reads one caption, under the unimpressed gaze of a generic high-rise.

The approach by which we might understand, evaluate, or judge the sort of person we might imagine Chevalier to be, in PWIF’d’s case via the cryptic shorthand of queer culture, forms the core of Chevalier’s artistic concerns. But how to account for our uneasy and simultaneous reliance on and dismissal of our most prevalent means of communication – glamourless internet text – to transfer every matter of information? How to translate things as urgent or vacuous as sex? Chevalier explores this brand of Web 2.0-uneasiness with w. mun :-(, a transcript of a conversation between Chevalier and a friend following the 2010 death of Will Munro, a Torontobased artist and “huge luminary for Canadian queer culture,” installed on the windows of Concordia’s Fine Arts Reading Room last year. Pale grey vinyl lettering, effectively invisible on the room’s glass surfaces, the chat (“will munro = too fagulous for shitty planet earth,” Chevalier writes) questions how we might attach ourselves to the most banal of media forms. “I don’t want to make these hard and unjust differentiations between our lives spent online and our lives spent offline,” Chevalier tells me. “It’s impossible to take those apart, and it’s really the opposite of techno-fetishism, where it’s this weird Luddite slash ‘well back in my day we did real things with real people…’ These are real

The Red Carpet Treatment (Montreal), 2009 things with real people, they’re just different; we need to look at them just as hard as we looked at public space in the past.”

The ways we might talk about sex, sexuality, or dying – out loud or on screen – function not only in Chevalier’s disarmingly poignant So when did you figure out…?, a video of a 13 year-old Chevalier dramatizing the disclosure and then instantaneous death of a person with AIDS on a talk show, but also in his Hospital Documents (2004 – 2011) installation. The piece is a grid of Chevalier’s blown-up medical files from a Montreal-area hospital, which contrasts a Modernist linear cut-and-dry presentation with seemingly the most personal content, yet it’s spun from the interpretations and judgments of medical staff. Considering Hospital Documents’s interest in the public/private presentation of his self, Chevalier notes, “Who is this person who has an HIV diagnosis and goes to the addictions treatment centre and who is described as an ‘awkwardlooking young man, casual dress.

Not good hygiene today, very friendly.’ I think [at one point] they were writing what I was saying about Foucault but in their analytic psychologist way: ‘thinks of the hospital as an institution

blah blah blah.’”

If Chevalier is interested in the ways text and official discourse might make sense of us, he also wants to consider the ways identities might be established and repeated through and against established tropes. In his 2009 performance The Red Carpet Treatment, Chevalier walked from his now former apartment in Verdun to the Belgo Building downtown, but only moving via the repetitive action of laying a two-metre red carpet down, walking its length, picking it back up, and repeating. If speech for Chevalier could stand for erotic preference, medial diagnosis, or mourning, the red carpet is his shorthand for both privilege and the politicized glamour of a past and present queer culture.

“Taking up space becomes a political gesture and that can be in crossing gender boundaries, in protesting, [or] in speaking up and being loud. I’m marking this territory as mine. But I was disgusting. I was covered in dirt, sweaty, in pain.” The labourious treatment of a symbol for a positive identity expression seems to wear it out, in ways that suggest the contradictory need to both preserve and revitalize symbols of resistance – a neutralization of queer glamour. Chevalier states

Photo courtesy of Sheena Hoszko

his reservations of contemporary queer identity politics, when identity might overly rely on cultural shorthand “as if they’re the full monty instead of a marker.”

But, his work seems to ask: could the rehearsed ways in which we might express ourselves be necessary or essential?

These are questions that Chevalier has developed and honed in a distinct queer artist scene of Montreal, one that he’s hoping to integrate into his new job at ARTSPACE; together, we tentatively title this career objective “faggots across Canada.” It’s this kind of humour, tinged with a sociopolitical conviction, that is visualized in Chevalier’s work but also recognizable in the daily dangers and pratfalls of hoping one could be capable of transmitting and offering the sincere, the fake, the worthless, the attached, and the deeply serious. But could such transparency in talking, fucking, or grieving, in fact be possible? When I ask Chevalier if his work might be cynical, he answers, “I think there’s always a little bit of hope. I try to work with a little bit of humour, not really explicitly. My work is earnest, not honest, earnest.”

Chevalier’s work can be seen at vincentchevalier.ca.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Breathing new life into Beckett Players’ Theatre succeeds with updated classic Christina Colizza The McGill Daily

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f Jackson Pollock is the demigod of Modernist visual art, Samuel Beckett is his absurdist playwright cousin. In 1948, Pollock challenged the boundaries of contemporary art by working outside the confines of the canvas with No. 5. That same year, Beckett sat down to write Waiting for Godot, forever changing theatrical practice. The play became the pinnacle theatrical work of the 20th century.

Unlike Pollock’s splashed canvases, theatre can be recreated authentically with each new production. Director Isaac Robinson certainly had this in mind when he constructed a more queer, more Montreal, version of Waiting for Godot at The Players’ Theatre this past weekend. While Robinson’s reinvention of Godot was imaginative, its incorporation into Beckett’s original text made for some alarming clashes between the visual presented, and the dialogue between the characters.

As theatre-goers trickled into the Players’ Theatre, Montreal -based music group Godspeed You! Black Emperor droned lightly in the background. Beckett’s original set, a simple dirt road with a tree, was replaced with a skeezy back alley.

Ripped posters for vélo sales were glued on top of graffiti, outside the back entrance to the delivery room of “Godot’s bar.” Considering Godot

premiered in 1953, shortly after the end of World War II, many have interpreted Beckett’s near-empty set as a signifier of a post-apocalyptic world. Brilliantly, Robinson reinvented this sense of emptiness through abundant moral bankruptcy, whether in tattered posters or the character’s personalities.

Most notably, the infamous duo Pozzo (Sebastian Biase) and Lucky (Martin Roy), the gluttonous master and sheepish slave, perfectly embodied the dynamic of dominance and submission. The narcissistic Pozzo enjoys a bucket of KFC and a 40 of beer as Lucky, dressed in black denim shorts and bondage leather straps, hungrily rolls his eyes.

In what could be called the climax of the play, Lucky delivers his infamous speech, a three-minute tirade of useless, sputtering language. However, here the production beautifully deviates from the text, as Lucky performs the speech in French. If absurdity and disillusionment are the driving forces of Godot, Lucky’s speech succeeded in rattling the audience through miscommunication and shattering them with laughter.

However, the refusal to modernize, or Montrealize, protagonists Vladimir (Rachel Reskin) and Estragon (Martin Law) created more confusion than absurdity.

Despite the modern-day aesthetic of the setting, Didi and Gogo’s outfits of bowler caps and patchworked blazers appear to be from another era. Although they are both presented as men, Reskin wears a

Players’ Theatre’s reinterpretation of Beckett’s classic. skirt. In one scene, where Beckett’s “Boy” (Matthew Steen) exits the bar, dressed as a busboy or bartender, their language is too formal for a back alley exchange. If Robinson went so far as to make Lucky francophone, why not change simple pronouns and phrases too?

The greatest example of discord between the production and Beckett’s text is the tree. The tree, the lone symbol of change or new life in the play, fixes prominently in the text. However, as the set

Photo Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

only allowed for signs and graffiti, the tree remained a “Willow Tree” sign, its leaves replaced by a green scarf. Unfortunately, it was reduced to a piece of the background rather than being an entity unto itself.

While these few examples may have overwhelmed the view, the overall production, particularly Robinson’s adaptation of the play, couldn’t be more relevant today.

Pollock and Beckett created meaning out of the meaninglessness of their era. Robinson’s choice to

present these two characters with nothing to do and nowhere to go seems all too pertinent for students in 2012. We must wait, we must sit patiently, we must try to “pass the time” until the answer arrives – if it ever does. Yet don’t be dismayed, as Pozzo says, “The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors.”

Save the last tango A writer tries to find her footing Lindsey Kendrick-Koch Culture Writer

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y first encounter with the McGill Tango Society was an unexpected experience.

The student-run dance organization at McGill is back in full force, but put aside all dreams of being the next So You Think You Can Dance winner.

I arrived inexperienced in the realm of tango, in fact, generally inept in the realm of dance.

The tango is a traditional Latin American dance of Argentinean origin, notorious for its exotic moves, distinct and abrupt rhythm, and characteristic sensuality. Tango competitions occur worldwide at the professional level as well as recreationally at institutions like McGill.

Lo and behold, we didn’t start with typical moves like side steps

and twirls. Instead we began by walking with “passion” and “intention,” as we were told by our instructors Pooya and Stephanie, two passionate “tangoers” from Montreal Gotan, a group of professional tango performers and teachers. The first tasks were to gain an awareness of your partner by having them lead you blindly across the room, to keep your feet as close together as possible, and to “slide” instead of stepping. While this may sound easy, I noticed that many of us were in the same boat – shy and stumbling and stepping on our partner’s sore feet.

We were next encouraged to sway in rhythm and to learn to predict the leader’s next step, and eventually, to have our partner lead us in an open embrace across the room.

Our instructors said you often just “know” when and where your part-

ner is going to make his or her next step. Unfortunately, I do not possess this admirable sixth sense, as I constantly trampled my partner.

Our instructors invoked food analogies, making us all more hungry, through instructions such as gripping our partner’s shoulder’s with a “tomato touch” and moving toward each other with a vigour like there was a “chocolate between us,” which was highly distracting, I might add.

While we didn’t actually dance in this introductory session, I learned that tango is more than dance, it is a way of presenting and conducting oneself and of achieving trust and intimacy with a partner, no matter what gender (relevant, given the unfortunate lack of guys at this event).

In an interview with The Daily, Tango at McGill executive Sabina

Roan pointed out that the organization is not only a class but also a taste of another culture, and a way “to use other parts of your being” than your academic skills. Fellow executive Morgan Crowley discussed how, while at first it may feel awkward, tango brings you closer to people both literally and figuratively. “You feel more comfortable with others [and] more conscious of your body and steps,” she explained. While I agree with this, I personally felt uncomfortable, as normally I’m used to leading, tomboy that I am, and letting my partner do this for me felt bizarre.

Morgan joined on a friend’s recommendation. I joined because I volunteered to write about it, and now I’m encouraging all McGill students to join. It is a fun, engaging workout, and a way to meet friends. Beyond the lessons, there are also weekly practicas held on

Friday nights from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., with dancing, viewings of films about tango, Latin American snacks like empanadas, and live bandoneón (similar to accordion) players. The organization also plans periodic tango dance evenings at milongas outside McGill in the Montreal community. Even if you’re not sure that Latin American culture or tango itself interests you, come out because it is a hilarious experience, especially if you’re a first time tangoer like me.

Lessons for beginners (level I) are held Thursday from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m. in the SSMU Breakout Room.

Intermediate level classes are held after from 7:15 to 8:00 p.m. “Tango at McGiIl” offers nine further sessions over the course of the semester, for $35 altogether, or $6 for a drop-in session.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Small business thrives in one of Montreal’s lowest-income neighbourhoods

Culture HAPS

Diverse stories and food in Parc-Ex

The Kitchen: Featuring Kalmunity Vibe Collective, Sam I am, and Ian Kanau Le Belmont October 6 9:00 p.m.

4483 St. Laurent $10

Le Belmont’s already diverse lineup of weekly events will be joined by a new concert on Saturday that tries to emulate the atmosphere of a lively kitchen at a house party. With that goal in mind, they did well in choosing the Kalmunity Vibe Collective, an improvisational musical alliance that interprets and blends a wide range of black musical styles, in addition to live emceeing and slam poetry.

Marlon Brando: Provocative Genius

October 5 to 11 Cinema du Parc 3575 Avenue du Parc $8.50 for under-25s, $11.50 general admission

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily Luciana Pitcher Culture Writer

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alking down the street in Montreal, I am struck by the sheer diversity of the place. The multitude of ethnic restaurants and the variety of languages uttered by passers-by demonstrate the fact that this small island represents many continents of the world, in addition to its identity as a French-speaking North American metropolis. Statistically, immigrants make up more than 28 per cent of Montreal’s inhabitants.

As a recent arrival in Montreal from Nottingham in the UK, I was excited to discover new and varied neighbourhoods. I travelled to Jean Talon in Parc-Extension, one of the city’s lowest-income and most diverse communities, to learn more about the immigrant entrepreneurs that provide the cross-cultural charm that Montreal is renowned for. What I found is a place of great variety, constant change, and optimism.

Strolling out of the Parc metro station I am struck by the lack of French influence. There are no takeout signs for poutine; in its place the word “souvlaki” is lit up in neon red letters, alongside a Greek Orthodox church and a Hellenic travel agency.

Turning onto Jean Talon, it’s clear that Greeks are not the only neighbours. Indian restaurants, African beauty shops, and Pakistani tailors have collectively transformed the street into an diverse metropolis. Entrepreneurial activity serves as an essential route of economic advancement and social mobility for many immigrants.

My first stop is an African supermarket (with the franglais name “African Marché”). Sitting behind the counter is Abraham, who moved to Montreal in 1988 from Ghana, and opened his business in 1997. Business for him is thriving, he proudly tells me. After changing location from nearby Acadie to Jean Talon, which receives more pedestrian traffic, the supermarket has expanded on an already successful operation. With stiff competition from at least three other local African food stores, I ask Abraham what sets his shop apart from the rest. He tells me that it is all about the diversity of his produce.

His range is extensive. Ghanaian staples such as yam, cassava, and gari ginger line the shelves amongst spices such as melegueta pepper and annatto seeds, in addition to Western foods. Abraham explains how he has expanded his client base beyond the African community. His varied choice of produce attracts local South Asian customers to the shop for essentials on a daily basis.

Many people travel from downtown Montreal, he claims earnestly, just to buy “something a bit different.” To market his business, Abraham relies on word of mouth and the occasional ad in local papers. “People find out about this place and tell others, and then they all just keep coming back,” he states.

For me, the friendly nature of this business is hugely inviting. It enables its success. Within the ten minutes of my short interview, Abraham laughs and jokes with each of the three people who walk in. It’s clear that he genuinely enjoys interacting with his customers, demonstrating the community spirit that characterizes this

small, dense neighbourhood.

Just four doors down it’s a surprisingly similar story. Hidden away at the top of a worn staircase is the Restaurant Pakistanaise. I ask Musa, the owner, if being on the second floor affects business, and whether he needs to advertise a lot. “Not at all,” he replies. Musa seems to share Abraham’s optimism. Word of mouth is enough, he said, and the restaurant’s reputation precedes it. I arrive there at two in the afternoon and the place is almost full. Musa moved to Montreal in 2001 from Palana, India, and set up the business that same year. His clientele is mainly Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi, many of whom live locally. He assured me that people travel from all over eastern North America to visit his tiny restaurant. While I had my doubts, his packed dining room certainly spoke to his success.

What I found interesting about interviewing Musa, and many of the immigrant entrepreneurs on Jean Talon, is the level of pride they possess. I asked everyone the same question: “What has been the biggest difficulty you have faced since starting your business?” The majority of people, including Musa, told me they had no serious difficulties. Some vaguely mentioned the inconvenience of having snow in winter, but there was no one clear concern, no united issue of discontent. It seems that the desire to display a positive, successful image leads these optimistic entrepreneurs to downplay the setbacks and problems they’ve faced.

Of course, not all of the businesses on Jean Talon are faring as well as Restaurant Pakistanaise and African Marché. I interviewed Kallicauis,

who owns a Greek bakery, Mimosa, with her husband. Opened in 1976, Mimosa is one of the oldest businesses on the street. At first, the couple from southern Greece were swamped by customers. For much of the past forty years, the Greek community in Parc Ex was booming, and there was great demand for the baklava and savoury Greek pastries that this shop prides itself on. Since the 1980s, many Greek residents moved on to other neighbourhoods and suburbs, and a variety of shops opened to serve the area’s growing South Asian population. Living remnants of the area’s old Greek character such as Kallicauis’ store are scattered throughout the neighbourhood, but many struggle to attract customers amidst Parc-Ex’s constantly changing ethnic mixture.

Kallicauis tells me how business now is quieter than it ever was. Instead of relying on traditional Greek desserts, her best selling product now is her elaborate birthday cakes that South Asian families buy for children’s birthdays.

I found it fascinating to witness how the new generation of immigrants on Jean Talon have changed the commercial character of the neighbourhood, and how old businesses adapt to shifting demographics. Stories like Kallicauis’ demonstrate the self-sufficient nature of this bustling, diverse street.

The student area where I previously lived in Nottingham attracts many immigrants due to the low housing prices. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, there seems to be little economic opportunity available for them. Parc-Extension provides a happy alternative.

Ever wonder if you coulda been a contender? Cinema du Parc is showing Marlon Brando films, including On the Waterfront, in which Brando utters the words that made cinematic history while lamenting his fate. Come listen to Brando’s distinctive voice in classic films such as The Godfather, A Streetcar Named Desire and the controversial Last Tango in Paris.

Blood Ballet Cabaret October 7 8:00 p.m.

Le Belmont 4483 St. Laurent $10

Burlesque is on the rise of late, and the Blood Ballet Cabaret joins the ranks of the many Montreal troupes hell bent on reviving the genre. The performers mix standard burlesque dances and routines (complete with all of the vintage lingerie you can handle) with circus acts like fire hooping and aerial contortion.

Kaguyahime: The Moon Princess

Les Grands Ballets October 11 to 27 8:00 p.m.

Places des Arts Tickets range from $46.04 to $104.04 Kaguyahime, choreographed

by Jirí Kylián, is Montreal’s Les Grands Ballets’ latest performance. The ballet tells the tale of Princess Kaguya. Known as the moon princess, Kaguya is pursued by scores of suitors, all determined to possess the woman renowned for her beauty. Attend a performance and be transported away to a celestial heaven.

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Agent des Lumières Art Essay - Matthieu Santerre

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

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compendium!

The McGill Daily Thursday, October 4, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

lies, half-truths, and giving yourself on thanksgiving #yolo

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Illustration Noah Plotkin

Hank’s Giving Human exceptionalism gone real Euan Van Eyck The Twice-a-Weekly

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he door was at the end of an alley. The street lights only partially illuminated the shadows. Hank had business to attend to behind this door. Walking, shivering, he tensed his shoulders, elevating the collar of his coat to protect a couple more inches of skin. He knocked, and the door opened quickly. Hank stood in front of two tall birds, slim and storky, and draped in trench coats.

Bird 1: So you consider yourself an activist, but do you think that you are ready to get serious

about human exceptionalism?

Hank: Yes. Bird 2: So choose the red pill or the blue pill. Red we go forward, blue you go back.

Hank took the red pill. His palms were sweating. The birds had by now closed the door and hung their coats by the door. Hank found himself drawn to the table. He lay down on top of the table cloth, and his palpitating legs and torso ballooned until his limbs disappeared.

Looking up, he saw the birds, now furiously slavering and clutching utensils. They loomed monstrously. Hank had reason to believe that besides the transmutative effects of the pill, it was making him

hallucinate, although it seems fairly reasonable that that significant of a “shift” could not help but affect the internal state of his brain.

Bird 1: We live in an epoch where people can enjoy their own death as an aesthetic spectacle, a decaying phantasmagoria, emphasized with gore.

Bird 2: You are being an obscurantist. What do you mean?

Bird 1: I am not being an obscurantist. I’m saying we enjoy picturing our own demise.

Bird 2: What are you basing that on? I am not sure that I agree with you.

Bird 1: There are alternative porn collectives in Barcelona that

illustrate themes of the purgatory of the flesh. There is a proliferation of mystical sects based around the consumption of bodies.

Bird 2: Well, even if I did believe that to be true, this proliferation is just a manifestation of the fact that people are massively and precipitously losing faith in “traditional” value systems, so they are taking part in ritualistic cabals.

Bird 1: You would like Barcelona better if you just got over your distaste for their accents.

Bird 2: Ermmmm…

Bird 1: No, I know it sounds like they are always whining, but really you are just being kind of petty about it.

Bird 2: How do they do it.

Bird 1: Who? Bird 2: Those people from Barcelona…

Bird 1: How do they do it? Well I think they often model their porn around 1930s slasher horror movies and corn syrup dyed red with those little bugs that are also used to dye grape fruit juice.

Hank precipitously lost consciousness as the storks ate him; his desiccated and roast body gave little delight to the birds who poured corn syrup over him to satisfy their taste for gore.

Euan Van Eyck spends his weekends painting his toenails.

McGill Daily to cease existing in carbon-cutting initiative Editorial board finds paper’s being harmful to the environment Euan EK The Twice-a-Weekly

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n an audacious carbon-cutting initiative, The McGill Daily has announced it will “cease to exist as a thing” from next Monday. The move comes as new evidence from environmental campaigners shows that paper comes from trees and electricity from coal.

The editorial board of The Daily, which actually is published twice weekly, released a statement noting their sadness at having to bring an end to the paper’s over 100 -year existence, but affirmed that the environmental burden was too great to bear any longer.

“It is with great regret we announce that, from next Monday,

The McGill Daily will cease all production,” the statement reads. “No more papers will be produced, the website server will be shut down, and our offices will be vacated. The environmental burden of a newspaper on the planet is too great for us to bear. In fact, it is a burden on our souls. On every one of our souls.”

The Daily editorial board, which is comprised of many extremely socially and environmentally aware people who teach people about oppression, has said it cannot give further comment to the press, because that would involve an “untenable” power hierarchy that would be “intolerably oppressive” to the world and its inhabitants. Readers are being advised to “go home and prepare to consider and think critically

about criticism.”

According to former Daily editor and environmental eco-campaigner Erikkson Schmandrew-McMee, the editors of The Daily had been aware of the problem for some time before the decision to “stop everything” was finally made.

“The objective, tangible sphere of human existence is very detrimental to the environment, you know,” Schmandrew-McMee told The Twice-a-Weekly. “Given the costs associated with existing as an organization – building heating, computer power, human food power – and given the serious threat posed to all of humanity by overuse of dwindling fossil fuels and carbon-negative events such as Frosh, the edboard knew they could not in good faith continue to

exist as a thing that exists.”

“I can’t speak for the entire board, but I think they would like to move into the more subjective, conceptual realm. It’s not that the paper will stop existing completely; it will still exist, but in people’s minds, as part of the unseen structures of power and knowledge in the world around us. The board’s aim is for their message to emerge from the hidden yet persistent systems of norms and repetitions that characterize our world.”

According to an editor who wishes to remain anonymous, some members of the edboard even offered to sacrifice themselves to save the world and stop oppression, but they were unsure if such an action would be permissible according to the Daily’s

Statement of Principles (SOP).

“The situation is even more difficult considering the SOP now doesn’t actually exist,” the anonymous editor noted. “We’re trying to find the document within the hierarchical systems of repression in the University around us, but if I’m honest we end up trying to draft it in the mud using our fingers. But we’re not sure if that is a carbonneutral endeavor.”

“To be honest, the paper hasn’t really been living in the real world for a long time,” SchmandrewMcMee admitted. “I just hope The Daily saves the world this time.”

Euan EK is a journalist with The Twice-a-Weekly and New York Times. It covered stories in places.

It can be reached.

EDITORIAL

volume 102 number 10

19

Standing in spirit

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Queen Arsem-O’Malley

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coordinating news editor

Juan Camilo Velásquez news editors

Laurent Bastien Corbeil Lola Duffort Annie Shiel commentary&compendium! editors

Jacqueline Brandon Steve Eldon Kerr culture editors

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Anqi Zhang

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Evan Dent

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Amina Batyreva design&production editors

Edna Chan Rebecca Katzman

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Nicolas Quiazua

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cover design Amina Batyreva and Hera Chan contributors Ilana Donohue, Carla Green, Lindsey Kendrick-Koch, Esther Lee, Michael Lee-Murphy, Ayla Lefkowitz, Lucy Liu, Jessica Lukawiecki, Mona Luxion, Tamkinat Mirza, David Ou, Luciana Pitcher, Zoe Power, Arezu Riahi, Matthieu Santerre, Emily Saul, Jeremy Schembri, Eliana Schwartz, Derek Tyrrell, Daniel Wolfe, Doris Zhu

Today in Montreal, the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy will host the seventh annual Sisters in Spirit Memorial March and Vigil for Missing and Murdered Native Women. Direct action like this, along with similar demonstrations throughout the year – such as the annual march on Valentine’s Day – are valuable tools in raising awareness about the disproportionate violence that indigenous women experience in Canada, especially when we consider the Canadian government’s refusal to adequately address the issue.

While Aboriginal women make up only 3 per cent of the female population in Canada as of 2010, documented murders of Aboriginal women accounted for 10 per cent of all female homicides from 2000 to 2008. Additionally, there have been around 600 unsolved cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada since 1980, according to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). NWAC and other organizations maintain that the true figure is much higher, due to unreported cases. By any account, Aboriginal women are the most at-risk group for experiencing violence in Canadian society.

Qualitative research by NWAC rightly attributes this violence to Canadian legacies of colonialism and patriarchy. European conceptions of social hierarchy undermined the preexisting Aboriginal political, social, and economic systems through colonization, and continue to influence social norms and gender relations. The outcomes of this process predispose indigenous women to drug addiction, economic insecurity, sex work, and inadequate access to justice. These dehumanizing effects stemming from racism and sexism are further apparent in the Indian Act, which bureaucratizes and compromises indigenous women’s full citizenship.

Despite the gravity of the problem, the police fail to properly address cases of violence against Aboriginal women, and in many instances further contribute to their criminalization. Nearly half of murder cases of Aboriginal women remain unsolved, while indigenous women currently comprise around 33 per cent of the female prison population, according to Public Safety Canada. The case of Robert William Pickton, who was convicted in 2002 of murdering 26 women and confessed to killing 49 in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (a disproportionate number of whom were Aboriginal), demonstrates the apathy and inadequacy of the justice system in cases of Aboriginal violence. Both the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Vancouver Police Department missed opportunities to prosecute Pickton, often dismissing reports of disappeared women and blaming drug use or sex work.

In light of these failures, the October 4 march also aims to pressure the government to renew funding for Sisters in Spirit (SIS), an initiative of the NWAC that conducted valuable research on cases of missing women between 2004 and 2010. SIS lost its government funding in the March 2010 federal budget, which instead diverted $4 million to the RCMP to create a general registry and support centre for missing persons. The track record suggests that the RCMP is ill equipped to deal with these cases, and while more funding for Aboriginal women’s issues is welcome, it should not be at the expense of organizations like SIS, which provide direct community action and nuanced research.

Neglect of cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women has prompted condemnation from multiple international human rights groups, including the United Nations, which in December 2011 stated that they want to investigate the alarming situation in Canada through the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

However, the investigation has not begun, as it requires the approval of the Harper government, which has not been forthcoming.

If Canada wants to maintain its international image as a beacon of human rights, the government should address biases that permeate its institutions and take measures to ensure equal protection for all members of society, namely by supporting groups that understand Aboriginal women’s marginalization – not by cutting their funding and giving power to groups that perpetuate their victimization.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris

Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard dps board of directors

Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Joseph Henry, Erin Hudson, Rebecca Katzman, Anthony Lecossois, Matthew Milne, Olivia Messer, Sheehan Moore (chair@dailypublications.org), Farid Muttalib, Shannon Palus, Nicolas Quiazua, Boris Shedov

All contents © 2012 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

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