Vol102Iss19 by McGill Daily

Volume 102, Issue 19

November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

DAILY

Self-identified anarchists since 1911

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

Why is the deadliest cancer one of the most underfunded? page 11

NEWS

The McGill Daily Thursday, November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

The Daily speaks to activist Micah Grzywnowicz about the state of trans* rights Recent legislation is progress, but not enough Dana Wray The McGill Daily

I 02 NEWS Meet the new Dean of Students Ottawa student in Free Syrian Army Panel on the Syrian conflict Fierce debate in Philosophy Students Association GA

07 COMMENTARY Re-thinking Remembrance Day Perspectives on CKUT The importance of organized labour

FEATURES

The serious lack of funding for pancreatic cancer

14 HEALTH&ED Emery Saur explores differing sexual scripts Why is HMB calling for more international students?

16 CULTURE Dance! Montreal’s greatest blog New media at Eastern Bloc

19 EDITORIAL Illogical excuses from SSMU Councillors

20 COMPENDIUM! SSMU Council makes a decision

Illustration Joanna Schacter | The McGill Daily

You’re not racist, except that you are

n October, Ontario became the first province to allow trans* people to change the sex on their birth certificate with a letter from a physician or a psychologist. These new rules stemmed from a ruling passed by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in April. The tribunal ruled that the previous practice of requiring people to undergo sexual reassignment surgery to change the legal sex on official documents was discriminatory. While much of the trans* community praised the Tribunal’s ruling for its progress in furthering trans* rights and abolishing the need for invasive surgery, others were very vocal in claiming that the law didn’t go far enough. The Daily spoke to Micah Grzywnowicz, a European human rights expert and trans* activist, about the impact of Ontario’s new law and the broader issue of widespread discrimination against the trans* community. Grzywnowicz outlined several aspects of Ontario’s new law that still exclude a large portion of the trans* community. “[People] can still only choose F [female] or M [male], which obviously is problematic for people who don’t want to identify with either of them,” zie† said. The law still presents a complicated process, with medical and financial demands. Those who wish to obtain a new birth certificate from ServiceOntario have to pay a $97 fee and provide confirmation from a doctor supporting their claim that they suffer from Gender Identity Disorder. These often present insurmountable obstacles for many who wish to have the possibility of changing their legally documented sex. “Limiting one human right, like legal recognition or access to healthcare, has consequences for many, many other [human rights],” Grzywnowicz said. “If [an] identity card doesn’t match with who [someone] is, it affects […] things that are basic for our well-being.” Ontario’s law makes it the first province to abolish the requirement for proof of sexual reassignment surgery. Quebec still requires that trans* people wishing to change official documents undergo sexual reassignment surgery as well as a psychological assessment. According to Gryzwnowicz, progress in the rest of the provinces likely hinges on whether other trans* people take their cases to court. “By going to court, you expose yourself so much, and the process is usually really long,” zie said. “[…] On a personal level, it is not always nice

or healthy to expose [yourself].” To many in the trans* community fighting for these basic human rights, Ontario’s new law – while a welcome step forward – does not address the societal discrimination that trans* people face on a day-today basis. “People need to understand that when a trans* person is, for instance, beaten up on the street, or thrown away from the [bathroom], it’s not about their biological sex, which is claimed. It’s because these people look different, and because others assume [they are not] a ‘real woman’ or ‘real man,’” Grzywnowicz told The Daily. “Our societal obsession with gender, and how it should be, how women should be, how men should be, is really hurtful. And I always ask – who actually fits [these] norms?” Initiatives in the past few years on both the federal and provincial levels have sought to enshrine the rights of the trans* community in legal code in the hopes of lessening

this pervasive discrimination. In June, Ontario became the first major jurisdiction in North America to specifically protect the human rights of trans* people. The Ontario legislature passed Toby’s Act, the pet initiative of NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, which amended the Ontario Human Rights Code to include protection for “gender identity” and “gender expression.” A similar bill at the federal level, Bill C-279, passed into its second reading this year in the federal legislature. It seeks to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the groups included in the hate crimes section of Canada’s Criminal Code. The bill also aims to protect these individuals under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Conservative MP Rob Anders, a prominent critic of Bill C-279, has dubbed it the “Bathroom Bill.” A petition posted on Anders’ website claims that the bill aims to “give transgendered men access to women’s public washroom facilities.” Trans* advocate Jan Buterman

told the CBC that this claim was “ludicrous.” For Grzywnowicz, the so-called “Bathroom Bill” has different connotations. Zie told The Daily that bathrooms are “mission impossible, almost” for trans* people such as hirself.† An activity that is taken for granted by almost all people as a basic bodily right, zie explained, becomes a stressful struggle for many in the trans* community, and can even lead to blatant harassment. To reduce this stress, the Toronto District School Board recently implemented a policy that recognizes the right of “transgender and non-conforming gender students and staff” to use whichever bathroom they feel “best conforms to their gender identity.” In the end, Grzywnowicz said, “trans* rights are not any special rights. […] They are just basically demanding recognition of the rights that are [already] there.” † Zie, hir, and hirself are gender-neutral pronouns.

news

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Former disciplinary officer, anarchist appointed new Dean of Students “Except for a little blip after World War II until approximately now, universities have been institutions that at least maintain, if not accentuate, inequality in society.” Student radical? Nope. McGill Daily editorial? Not that, either. It’s a statement that would make sense coming out of the mouth of self-identified anarchist, but the newly appointed Dean of Students? André Costopoulos is both.

he statement is surprising, and André Costopoulos, whose term starts next week, is a surprising choice for the administrator in charge of crafting disciplinary policy, among other duties. Costopoulos, an anthropologist by training, applied for the job in early summer, just before spending the summer with archaeology students in James Bay. He admits to being sympathetic with some student concerns – such as accessibility to education – but also says that students don’t understand the constraints that administrators must understand. “Bridges between faculty, students, administration, staff – some of those bridges definitely need maintenance right now. They need to be strengthened, expanded,” said Costopoulos in an interview with The Daily. So, will he be an ally for student demands in the wake of growing student activism in Quebec and elsewhere? Or will he be, as one McGill activist familiar with both Costopoulos and the University’s

disciplinary procedure put it, the “biggest ‘good cop’ in the world”? Costopoulos will be one of the main voices at the table when it comes to the upcoming review of the Provisional Protocol Regarding Demonstrations, Protests, and Occupations on McGill University Campuses, as well as the ‘Green Book,’ the Handbook of Students Rights and Responsibilities that outlines student rights and responsibilities at the University. “I will definitely be worrying about how the protocol, once it becomes more firm, will be interacting with what’s in the Green Book,” he said, also citing problems in the vagueness of the language. Costopoulos comes to the position after four years as the Associate Dean of Arts, where he was the faculty’s disciplinary officer and was responsible for the banning of four students from campus last spring under article 21(a) of the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedure. One of the banned students, former SSMU VP External Joël Pedneault, told The Daily last March that “there was no confrontational atmosphere” at the event – a gathering of Université de Quebec à Montréal students in a McGill

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

classroom – for which he received a five-day ban. The incoming dean said he would like to see article 21(a) revised, to include what he called an “oversight control mechanism” that would “check against the worst possible abuse” of the policy by the administration.

tion of discipline and anarchism revolve around his understanding of personal discipline, and thus the incoming Dean of Students has crafted a philosophy of discipline that involves the prioritizing of student rights. “Because of this concept of personal responsibility, there’s no direct contradiction between hierarchy and anarchy, as long as the hierarchy is participatory,” he said. “Usually, a violation of one of the articles of the Code of Student Conduct can be defined as a violation of a right guaranteed in the charter,” he said. “One approach to discipline, and this has been my approach, is to cast it in terms of rights. Not your rights, but the rights of others.” Last year, several students who participated in the #6party occupation of the James Administration Building had

Anarchism and discipline

For Costopoulos, it is a delicate balancing act to be both an anarchist and the administrator formerly in charge of executing disciplinary measures, and now in charge of crafting disciplinary policy. “One of the things I always say is that ‘as an anarchist, it’s my responsibility to be in administration,’” he said, jokingly admitting that this might get him in trouble with both the administration and with fellow anarchists. Both Costopoulos’ concep-

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their punishments mitigated after making a case that there was an “undue burden” placed on the students. In Costopoulos’ view, most disagreements at the University are disagreements about means to what are, he said, fairly universal ends. As a McGill undergraduate from 1988 to 1992, Costopoulos said he was active in the Arts Undergraduate Society, sitting on curriculum and hiring committees. He added that it is incumbent upon student anarchists to enter student politics. Was last year his most difficult as an administrator? “Sure it was,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s a moment that a lot of interesting stuff can happen as a result of this. It put people’s attention on a bunch of problems that were there and were not necessarily addressed.”

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NEWS

Syrian-Canadian student embedded with Free Syrian Army Survives government bombing and witnesses massacre in Binnish Karel Asha The McGill Daily

month ago, Yaman Marwah was studying law and economics at Carleton University in Ottawa. But between October 25 and November 3, he was an embedded journalist and activist in Binnish, Syria with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main armed opposition group. The Daily spoke to Marwah over the course of ten days while he was in Syria and Turkey. The 18-year-old is president of the Syrian Student Association in Ottawa (SSAO). His father, Hisham Marwah, originally from Damascus, is the head of the legal division of the Syrian National Council (SNC). The SNC has recently come under domestic and international attack for not being representative of activists on the ground. Hisham Marwah was not available for comment at press time. “I started being involved in activism for Syria at the beginning of the revolution. I was never involved in activism before,” Yaman Marwah told The Daily in a Skype interview. A close friend of his father arranged for him to enter Syria. “It was an opportunity for me to fight back, to go back to my country. My dad and him have been friends since 35 years; he trusted his friend so it was easy for him to accept [the] idea I was going to Syria,” Marwah explained. Marwah went to Syria with his friend Faris Al Shawaf. Al Shawaf is also a Syrian-Canadian student and

Yaman Marwah and the Free Syrian Army on their way to Taftanaz on October 27. in Syria to the people in Canada,” Marwah said. The students were also on a humanitarian mission to deliver donations – including $5,000 and toys – that they had collected in Canada. “I wanted to make sure they were going to the right people by delivering them in person,” Marwah said of the donations.

Arriving in Syria

Marwah and Al Shawaf entered Syria through the Turkish border, which is presently under FSA control. “We walked to the Turkish bor-

ders, got the stamp outside, and walked for around two kilometres until we reached the Syrian border, and we just walked in,” Marwah told The Daily. “A friend of mine was waiting for us there, picked us up, and kept going.” Marwah arrived late in the night on October 25 in Binnish. “On Friday morning, there was the Islamic celebration of Eid al-Adha. There was a big rally in Binnish that we were part of, then we visited some of the FSA, had some interviews with them, and then they did accompany us to Taftanaz, one of the most damaged cities in Syria right now.” Marwah explained that 90 per cent of buildings in Taftanaz have been destroyed by the Syrian army’s air raids. “There were always [Syrian army] planes flying above us, heading to Taftanaz,” he said. “We can hear the bombing, we can hear the planes, we can hear everything. It is very freaky, they might hit us any single moment.” Binnish is part of the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria. The city of Idlib is currently a site of open struggle between

the FSA and the Syrian army. The rest of the province, including Binnish, is mostly under FSA control, according to Marwah. “Although the FSA has taken control of Binnish, Taftanaz and other cities, the Syrian army is doing their bombing from war planes and helicopters. The army is using air strikes so that all they have to lose is ammunition. The FSA does not yet have the antiaircraft missiles to stop the regime’s forces from advancing,” he told The Daily in Arabic. Most of the FSA’s machine guns are captured from the Syrian army or bought inside Syria. According to Marwah, “The FSA has not been able to smuggle any heavy arms. They can only smuggle light arms.” “Syrian army soldiers who are desperate for money are selling their machine guns for 85,000 Syrian pounds,” he said. According to current conversion rates, this would amount to roughly $1,200. He also explained that the black market price of the machine gun has doubled over the last few months. Marwah and Al Shawaf publicly

Photo Faris Al Shawaf

posted photos of themselves carrying guns inside Syria on Facebook. Marwah said that once in Syria, the FSA trained him to use a gun for self-defense. The FSA accompanied Marwah and Al Shawaf everywhere they went in Syria. Marwah believes FSA units work in coordination across Syria. “I witnessed coordination between the FSA in Binnish and the FSA in Taftanaz, when they communicated with each other to make sure there were no government war planes in Taftanaz before taking me there. The coordination is how we managed to travel between two different cities,” he explained.

Qatmeh refugee camp

On October 27, Marwah and Al Shawaf were accompanied by the FSA to Qatmeh, a refugee camp inside Syria. They distributed food in the camp, as well as toys for the children there. Marwah said that he thinks donations and humanitarian aid should be directed more toward camps inside Syria. He explained that governmental and non-governmental aid agencies and the media usually

news

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

focus on the refugee camps outside Syria, which have mainly formed in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. “When we went to Qatmeh, they said the last time they got bread was ten days ago. The situation is really bad in refugee camps inside Syria,” said Marwah. He and Al Shawaf used the $5,000 collected in Canada to buy the food they distributed. Marwah wrote on Facebook that he was raising money to start a bakery in the camp to help the refugees produce their own bread.

Marwah participating in the “Friday Rally for the Freedom of the Syrian People” in Binnish on November 2. Photo Faris Al Shawaf

Marwah with children in the Qatmeh refugee camp in Syria on October 27.

Photo Faris Al Shawaf

Destroyed buildings 200 metres from where Marwah was staying after the bombing of Binnish by Photo Yaman Marwah government fighter jets on November 3.

Massacre in Binnish

On November 3, the Syrian army hit Binnish. “The planes hit just two hundred metres from where I was,” Marwah said. “When I heard the plane, I ran to the door to see what was happening. When I ran to the door, along with my friend who came from Canada, we were thrown away from the door by the force of the bomb. I got my leg injured.” Several people lost their lives in the November 3 attack, according to Marwah. “There were at least twenty rockets that hit Binnish,” he recalled. “I witnessed a massacre.” Reuters reported that government fighter jets had bombed Binnish that day following an FSA attack on a military airbase near Aleppo. A video uploaded to YouTube by activists showed residents fleeing the main square, as well as dead or injured civilians. Marwah photographed an old woman whose face had been burned during the attack. He also witnessed a six-year-old girl being dug up from under the ruins of a building that had been hit by a rocket. “Every time I hear a bomb, the only thing I think is, ‘this bomb might have hit me and that it could be me under those damaged rocks and buildings,’” he said. Marwah’s older brother, Anas Marwah lives in Ottawa, is involved with the SSAO, and is on the media committee of the SNC. He told The Daily that “the day the bombarding happened on Binnish, we had no way to reach [Yaman] and it was very stressful here for me and my mother.” “All we hear in the news is that Binnish is being bombarded but we have no clue where Yaman is, and what is he doing,” he continued. After the massacre, the FSA escorted Marwah and Al Shawaf back to Turkey. Since the Hafez al-Assad military coup in 1970, the government has prohibited soldiers from serving in their own cities, according to Marwah.

“The soldiers from Damascus are serving in Aleppo, and people from Daraa are sent to Idlib. The government posts people in cities different from their own so that the soldiers don’t feel as if they are killing their own people,” Marwah said in Arabic. “If you tell a guy from Daraa, ‘fire at Hama,’ he will fire.” “Government soldiers desert whenever they have the chance. It is very difficult for them to do so, because if they run away they will be killed. The only time they can desert is when they get permission to go visit their families,” Marwah explained. “This is a revolution of the countryside and the peripheries, and I can guarantee you the rebels I met were all from Syria. They are all fighting for one goal, which is freeing Syria,” Marwah added in Arabic. “I see the revolution lasting at least another year.” On the politics of naming the uprising, Anas Marwah said, “people are calling it a revolution, people are calling it a civil war, people are calling it a genocide. In this case, there is an oppressive regime killing its own people to stay in power, and they do not care how many civilians die.” Anas rejects a sectarian interpretation of the war. According to him, the militias supporting the regime are composed of foreigners and Syrians who are being paid important sums by the government.

Marwah’s return

Marwah spoke to The Daily again on November 4 from his aunt’s house in Antakya, Turkey. She left Syria at the beginning of the revolution because her house was bombed. Her husband was captured by the Syrian army and remains imprisoned. His aunt initially stayed in a refugee camp in Turkey, but was able to buy a house in Antakya after receiving monetary aid from family abroad and in Turkey. Marwah has friends and family still living in Latakia and in Damascus, with whom he communicates regularly. He said he is not worried about retaliations from the Syrian government following media exposure. “The Syrian government knows I’m an activist, they know my dad, and members of my family in Syria are all protesting against the regime, they are all standing against the regime and calling for their freedom.” At press time, Yaman Marwah had arrived back in Ottawa without incident.

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Nastasha Sartore The McGill Daily

ore than 100 people attended a panel last Friday at Moot Court, Chancellor Day Hall, presented by the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) at McGill to discuss the civil war in Syria. Panellists included two political science professors and a SyrianCanadian imprisoned and tortured for two years under the Assad regime. The International Justice portfolio of the HRWG, the largest student organization in the Faculty of Law, spearheaded the panel. Deep Kamlakanthamurugan, a second year law student and moderator, said that the panel was meant to address the conflict’s international and regional ramifications. “How does [the Syrian conflict] modify international norms? That’s what I hope will be explored during the panel,” Kamlakanthamurugan said. The final panellist was Abdullah Almalki, the Syrian-Canadian engineer jailed in Syria from May 2002 to March 2004 on false information provided to the Syrian government by Canada. Almalki spoke about his personal experiences and detailed the conditions he faced while imprisoned as well as the different methods of torture used on him by Syrian authorities. He described being whipped repeatedly on the soles of his feet and the rest of his body on many occasions. He also recounted being forced to squeeze his body into a car tire – a form of torture that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist-down. “I know where to go and I know

Thursday, November 8 6 to 8 p.m. Otto Maass, room 10

A panel discussion on the federal cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) for refugees, this panel brings together not only health care providers but also community organizers active within and along side migrant communities. The panel aims to discuss how the cuts have started to change the way health care is provided to refugees in Canada from the ground up.

Thursday, November 8 6 p.m. Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

where to stop…What I said only scratched the surface of what happened to me,” he told The Daily. Almalki also addressed the role of the Canadian government and the importance of respecting human rights. “I think it’s very important for us here in this country to know what our country is involved in and that it’s complicit in torture… and partnering with torture regimes,” Almalki said. The first panellist was Political Science professor and Middle East expert Rex Brynen. He presented a series of possible future scenarios for Syria, dismissing the possibility of outside intervention, mediated negotiations, sudden internal collapse, and regime recovery as highly unlikely outcomes. Brynen suggested that a gradual opposition victory was the most likely outcome. He stressed that the timeline for victory would depend

on the unity and coordination of the opposition, and that Syrians would need to focus on “[getting] the governance part right.” “[The Assad regime has] condemned Syria to a bloody civil war and a difficult transition out of which I believe the Syrians will eventually build a more modern participatory state,” Brynen told The Daily. “I think they can do that but it’s not going to be an easy route.” The second panelist was Houchang Hassan Yari, Comparative Politics and International Relations professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, who addressed the regional implications of the conflict. Hassan Yari spoke about Turkey and Saudi Arabia’s respective strategies, and then considered the role of Iran as the only state actively supporting the Assad regime. Yari concluded that the demise of the Syrian regime would reinforce the

position of the West in the region. He emphasized the U.S. Frances Maychak, a U2 History and Gender Studies student who was at the panel, told The Daily that she appreciated hearing about Iran’s role from an expert, but that she would have liked to see the role of gender addressed on the panel. “If there were a female panellist with experience in Syria…maybe that side would be brought more to the floor,” Maychak said. Another attendee who wished to stay anonymous said that they appreciated Almalki’s presentation because it demonstrated the “more human side” of the conflict. “If there was a bigger focus in the media on the human suffering, more than [on] statistics and numbers, then maybe there would be enough public opinion pressure on people to do something about the conflict,” they said.

Disagreements arise over when to sign statement on accessible education

he Philosophy Students’ Association (PSA) held its weekly general meeting yesterday. The association unanimously decided to endorse CKUT 90.3 FM in its fee-increase referendum. However, the most contentious item on the agenda regarded the International Student Movement and its Global Education Strike from November 14 to 22. There were 18 people present at peak attendance. The PSA will be holding a daylong event in Gert’s on November 15 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. as a space for alternative education and forum for discussion on the student movement and educational accessibility. The event will be open to students and faculty from all departments. The PSA stressed, however, that it would not be going on strike. The majority of the meeting consisted of a heated debate regard-

STOP THE CUTS! to Refugee Health

A Quieter Form of Austerity

Philosophy students’ general meeting sees fierce debate Annie Shiel The McGill Daily

WHAT’S THE HAPS

Faculty of Law holds panel on Syrian conflict

ing the signing of the International Student Movement Joint Statement, which calls for “free and emancipatory education as a human right.” The PSA’s mandate includes supporting accessible education and opposing tuition hikes, but does not go so far as to call for free education. Although members seemed to be unanimous in their intent to sign the statement, they were strongly divided on when to sign it. About half of those in attendance felt that the statement should be signed at the PSA’s next general meeting on Tuesday, November 13, before the event at Gert’s, citing the importance of demonstrating solidarity as soon as possible to those who will be fighting for accessible education around the world next week. “To enter into the letter is to enter into a global community,” said PSA member Ethan Feldman. “By doing this we are entering into the global movement. So if we don’t sign the letter, what are we doing? We’re big fat phonies.”

He and others also stressed the timing of the signing, emphasizing the importance of officially entering the movement at the beginning of the week in solidarity with those who would also be fighting for accessibility at that time. “The time is now to show some solidarity to other student movements that are actively struggling like Quebec was,” said another member. Others felt strongly that the statement should be held after the event at Gert’s – at their general meeting on November 21, at the end of the Global Education Strike – both to foster discussion on the issue before signing and to engage a wider number of Philosophy students in the decision. “I think it’s very worthwhile to get more feedback, more input from people that aren’t here now,” said one member. “It would be great if they would be interested before [the event at Gert’s], but that’s just not realistic.” Another member stressed that the signing would be much more

meaningful the more people that are involved in the decision. After a long and heated debate, Feldman put forth the proposal to table the decision and have members print out copies of the statement and get as many signatures from Philosophy students as possible, in the hopes of signing the statement as a body at the PSA’s next general meeting on Tuesday. “Any decision except [voting on Tuesday] makes me want to puke,” said Feldman. This remark was followed by an intense back-and-forth in which a number of insults were exchanged. In the end, the Association voted on whether to vote to sign the joint statement on November 14 or 21. The result was a tie with six for the 14th and six for the 21st. Feldman abstained, calling the vote “a sham.” The statement will be distributed to Philosophy students and added to the agenda for Tuesday’s general meeting.

MUNACA-PSAC will host a bilingual lecture event with the Immigrant Workers Centre-Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrantes (IWC/CTI), featuring speakers Mostafa Henaway, Aadi Ndir of IWC/CTI, and Dan Lafreniere of MUNACA-PSAC. The event is free and open to the public, with food and drinks provided courtesy of Midnight Kitchen and the Social Justice Committee of MUNACA.

CIHR Journalist Workshop: “Eat Well, Age Better” Friday, November 9 Hotel Le Cantlie 1110 Sherbrooke Free The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (The Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes and Institute of Aging) present a journalist workshop that will provide the opportunity for health and science reporters to meet face-toface with some of Canada’s most renowned researchers from various health research fields. Each workshop focuses on a specific health topic, and essentially connects researchers and journalists in an effort to facilitate networking, foster relationships, and ultimately enhance knowledge in health research.

Trans* 101 & Allyship Workshop

Tuesday, November 13 5:40 to 7 p.m. IGSF Lounge (3487 Peel) SSMU Equity and the Union for Gender Empowerment present the Trans* 101 & Allyship Workshop, which will get into the concrete details of what it means to be an ally to trans* and gender non-conforming people. If you’re wondering what is or isn’t transphobic, how to support your trans* friends, or even what the asterisk means in ‘trans*,’ this is the workshop for you!

Commentary

The McGill Daily Thursday, November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

All racism happens because of whiteness It really, really does Christiana Collison The McGill Daily

nce again, an article about racism wasn’t well received by the McGill community. What a surprise... Particularly, I’m talking about some of the comments made in regard to the piece, “You are racist” (Guillermo Martínez de Velasco, October 18, Commentary, page 7), in reference to the author’s definition of racism: “…assuming anything about anyone based on a perceived deviation from a racial norm known as white.” Some of the comments took issue with situating racism within whiteness. Replies questioned examples of intra-racism: racist acts amongst and within racially, ethnically, or nationally homogenous or similar spaces, and historical racism against fellow white bodies (re: persons of Irish, Italian, and Jewish decent). They also questioned the author’s lack of statistical evidence (of racism). I want to focus on these three arguments to directly show that this article’s definition of racism was just too perfectly stellar for words. Before I begin, however, I want to address the reoccurring “racism is a social construct” notation made by many. Ain’t it great? Some few individuals have taken one or two sociology courses and have determined that race is a social construct. Let me give you a round of applause…. Race, however, is more than just a social construct; it is also an identity. It is one that people not only subscribe to but see as a way of self-identifying. Emphasizing that race is a social construct, in the ways that many of the commenters did, is exemplary of the exact type of racism the author describes. Identifying and emphasizing the social construction of race, as a white person, is an example of your white privilege. You see race as ‘firstly’ a social construct because you are white and don’t have to think about race and the implications of race in your everyday life in the same way, and to the same immediacy, as racialized people. Race, whether a construct or not, is manifested in one’s cultural practice, embodied experience, identity, and life. Wanting the author to stress the socially constructed nature of race invalidates the intricacies and impacts of race in the lives of us, racialized (and racially politicized) bodies, and validates your lack thereof. Now let’s get back to it. First, intra-racial racism: “What about racialized bodies that enact racism against one another? They

aren’t white, so how is that racism (under that definition)”* is usually how the rebuttal followed. Whiteness, as the author clearly explains, is the norm. It is how society functions, exists, sees, and defines itself. And by society, I am indeed making reference to transnational societies that have, in any way, come in contact with whiteness and white societies, be it through colonialism, imperialism, genocide, globalization, developmental aid, technology, et cetera. To better understand this, let’s use an example of intra-racial racism: say, shadeism. The modern forms of shadeism – intra-racial/ ethnic discrimination based on a person’s shade tone, most often disprivileging darker skinned people – are found in cultures, nations and racial groups globally. These include black, South Asian, East Asian, Latin American (and even, believe it or not, white) communities. And although this is intra-racial and occurs within homogeneously racial and ethnic groupings, it is still in line with the definition presented by Martínez de Velasco. It is because whiteness is the norm that shadeism (or intraracial racism) exists and occurs. Light and lighter skinned people within the North American context are most explicitly valorized, given aesthetic privilege, and possess great amounts of social capital in their ability to navigate spaces much easier than those of darker complexion because they are aesthetically closer to white. Simply, whiteness, even in examples of intra-racial racism, is still the traceable root of the racism because, as the norm, it superiorizes those who are closer to ‘white(ness)’ and inferiorizes those who aren’t. Please remember this as we move to the second point. Second, anti-white racism: “Racism happens to white people. What about that?”* Indeed, what we know to be racism has happened to particular white bodies throughout history: for example, to people of Irish, Italian, and Jewish descent. But let me begin by saying, white people, in case you forgot, are racialized too. You have and will always be racialized. But it is whiteness’ ability to exempt itself from racialization that makes it so crafty in its ability to normalize and inflict racism upon the Other. Anti-white racism still happens because of whiteness. And while anti-white racism has been predicated on so many factors, understanding that the act of racialization and racializing white peoples – such as Jewish people – was a central element of anti-white racism is key to understanding my point: white groups were racialized and declared Other.

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Let’s take Italian-Canadians/ Americans for starters. The historical criminalization and problematic conflation of this group to criminal, ‘mafia’-related activity is one example of this racialization. These stereotypes have had a longstanding history within visibly racialized groups, especially within the North American context. Criminalization acts as a tool for hyper-visiblizing specific marginalized bodies/groups. Black, Latino, Filipino, and brown bodies are examples of how groups/bodies have been coded as criminals for centuries and subsequently targetted (e.g. racially profiled, demonized, et cetera). To put it simply, the criminalization of peoples is an example of how racialization and racism happen. Irish racialization occurred in a different form: moral-elitist demonization, if I can coin such a term. Several writers on antiIrish racism detail how the British demonized the Irish, characterizing them as dirty, drunk, lazy, and violent while defining themselves as civilized, morally pure, and industrious. Now, doesn’t this remind you of something? Perhaps colonialism and the same racist colonialist tactic used by the British to racially differentiate and hierarchize themselves as superior to the people of Africa, the

West Indies, Latin Americas, et cetera? I think so. Jews were also racialized and, as such, experienced racism. While some Jewish people experience enormous amounts of white privilege as many of them are white (let’s not get that twisted), anti-Semitic racism existed on account of their racialization. Jews, during the Holocaust, were allegedly said to be racially distinguishable from ‘pure’ whites. Racist distinctions based on physiognomic features that characterized them as different from the desired Aryan race parallels colonialism(s) transnationally and is an example of racialization at its most basic level. Recall the colonial practices of racist, white, anthropological pseudo-science that sought to highlight the physical differences between the black African and white European populaces in hopes of strengthening their claims to racial superiority. Same tactics as those used against the Jews, no? In all three examples, whiteness takes different forms, but always remains the central point (or norm) from which racism occurs. Whites, who are not criminals, dirty, lazy, or drunk and whose physiognomic features are ever-so flawless, become the picture of (racist) perfection. The

Irish, Italians, and Jews, on the other hand, are constructed as the antithesis and, poof – there you have it, my friends, racism. Third, statistical evidence: “Can you please provide statistical evidence for your experiences of racism?”* How better to answer than with a whole lot of ‘fuck no’s’ and a side of, ‘sit yo ass down!’ This urge white folks have to demand statistical proof of racialized people’s experiences of racism is laughable at best. Racism is multifunctional and multidimensional. It is systemic, institutionalized, embodied, subtle, experiential, overt, everyday, infrequent, and so much more. So to ask me for proof of racism is, number one, racist, and two, ain’t never gonna happen, like ever. So please, I beg of you, stop asking for such absurdity. *All quoted comments are paraphrases of actual comments directed to the article, “You are racist.” Christiana Collison is a U3 Women’s Studies student. She enjoys radical-as-fuck woman of colour feminism(s), using black colloquial speech (sometimes in her seminar classes), and rolling her eyes at white liberalhumanists. She can be reached at christiana.collison@mail.

commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Amnesia in wartime When we remember, what do we forget? Flora Dunster and Sheehan Moore The McGill Daily

very November, we are called on to reflect. We pause, writes Associate Vice Principal of University Services Jim Nicell in a recent MRO email, “to remember the thousands of men and women who sacrificed their lives in military service on behalf of their country.” Remembrance Day is framed – by ceremonies like the one this coming Sunday at McGill, and by the rhetoric of the Canadian state – as commemorating the suffering endured by Canadian troops, fighting abroad and dying or returning home. But the way this remembrance takes place does a disservice not only to those troops, but also to everyone who is affected by war, whose lives were and continue to be torn apart by death, displacement, and sexual violence in the course of armed conflict. When we remember on November 11, it is generally with great sadness for lives destroyed and with horror at the power of war. But these feelings are useless – or worse, can perpetuate more violence – when they are directed only historically and uncritically. What we should remember this Sunday, and always, is that little has changed since 1918 when it comes to war. Soldiers are still working-class people sent to die

en masse for imperialist interests on behalf of the wealthy. Civilians are still disposable. Yet every year the appeal to remember is made by the same state that ships those who are honoured by this act off to die, with utter disregard for those who will be affected on the other end of their violence. It erases the experiences of women who are raped during war, individually or as part of a larger system of sexual slavery; children who are murdered, orphaned, or forced to participate in conflicts; queers and trans* people who are raped and killed; indigenous populations who are obliterated in the name of expansion, God, freedom, or defense on the part of the invading country; war resisters or deserters who are persecuted for their beliefs; independent groups who form outside the army during times of conflict to commit acts of sabotage; racialized peoples who face discrimination or internment – and this is only an abbreviated list. These lives often equal or outnumber soldiers, yet on Remembrance Day, it’s only those “who sacrificed their lives in military service on behalf of their country” who are worthy of our solemn reflection. When the state presents November 11 as a day of national mourning without acknowledging its own role in creating the events that necessitate this mourning in the first place, it’s

Illustration Bracha Stettin | The McGill Daily

a reminder that nationalist commemoration has never really been about remembering the full extent of what happens and who is affected during armed conflict. Remembrance Day can all too easily serve as a platform for militaristic nationalism, a means – like the Harper government’s $28 million promotion of the War of 1812 – of garnering our pride in Canada’s armed forces even as we rattle sabres toward Iran. This is not to say we shouldn’t remember – rather, we need to

remember better. We need to be critical of national campaigns that erase the causes and casualties of war as well as disguise Canada’s interest in waging more of them. We need to ask ourselves if there’s anything odd – some would say completely fucked up – about commemorating the dead on the campus of a university actively developing weapons technology that will guarantee more dead to commemorate for centuries to come. What we need to remember most of all is that remembrance

is useless unless it remembers equally, and unless it actively seeks to dismantle the machinery of war by challenging the institutions that perpetuate it. Flora Dunster is a U3 Art History student and former Daily Copy editor. You can reach her at flora.dun ster@mail.mcgill.ca. Sheehan Moore is a U3 Anthropology student, former Daily Design & Production editor, and Chair of the Daily Publications Society. You can reach him at sheehan.moore@mail.mcgill.ca.

Dear boot-licking apologists: Remembering that war continues Ethan Feldman The McGill Daily

hen Remembrance Day rolls around, you are forced to ask yourself: “Do I feel free?” If your answer is “yes,” this article is for you. To critique Remembrance Day is not being cruel to the dead. To disrespect the dead is to pretend that the collective struggle of humanity over 5,000 years has produced nothing, as the global capitalists pretend when they say “there is no money” while boarding yachts and letting the world starve. To disrespect the dead is to act as if billions of forgotten people haven’t suffered and died in the process of producing commodities from the earth under vari-

ous forms of exploitation and domination. Is this not war, too? The slaughter-glorifying gunhorny narrative of November 11 is a fantasy. Even if we did abolish monstrous fascism with redoubled reactionary violence in order to live under the comparative freedom of liberal capitalist democracy, should we really be so excited to experience the lesser of two evils? Every little privilege any person in our society benefits from stems from the exploitation of an incredible mass. How embarrassing that we find it praiseworthy to perform these celebrations of jingoistic nationalism — just like the authoritarian regimes we claim to have defeated. Just over a year ago, the tensions of class war boiled to the surface of our McGill bubble when the MUNACA workers struck, but

they were quickly swept under the rug by court injunctions. Then, on November 10, 2011, McGill had their phony social peace broken again when riot police stormed campus to smash protesters who had split off from the 30,000-strong march for free education and surrounded the James Administration building. A visible crack in the façade of capitalism formed along with the mob, so the first response anti-riot unit entered the scene, using their bike tires to smash people in the face. After being repelled by protesters, the militarized anti-riot squad came. They walked calmly up to the students, who were now defensively linking arms, and pepper-sprayed them point-blank, beating stragglers with batons and lacing the air with tear gas.

I wonder how many poppy wearers also believe that the protesters deserve the beating because they fought back. Why be sympathetic with the person who hits other people for the bosses? Some blood-hungry death-fetishists actually refer to trained killers as ‘peace agents’ or ‘peace keepers.’ For the state and the powersthat-be, it is a necessarily violent act to take a small space and turn it into an autonomous zone. The powerful retaliate with violence because expressing the seed of real freedom is an actual act of escalation against a structure of domination that has already declared war on the people. I would probably be paranoid of being unmasked too, if it exposed my success as the result

of exploiting a global mass of angry proletarians. On Remembrance Day last year, I saw hundreds of uniformed men shoot fat cannons on lower field to celebrate “all-those-who-died-sowe-could-live-free-from-tyranny.” But we do not live free from tyranny, and war is not over – it claims hundreds of thousands of lives a year, and the majority of deaths are civilian. The fastest way to stop imperialist killing is to rid ourselves of our colonial society – which can only exist along with the war it propagates. The first step toward the end of global civil war is recognizing that it crosses every border and intersects every person. Ethan Feldman is a U5 Philosophy student. He can be reached at ethan.feldman@gmail.com.

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Why vote yes to CKUT? Why I love CKUT

J-school on a shoestring Fittingly, but maddeningly, the conversation surrounding Radio CKUT’s proposed $1 fee increase has amounted to a lot of white noise. Some claim the station is too radical, others that it just isn’t worth the money, since who listens to radio anymore? But those critics are missing the point. The important thing to consider when voting in the referendum this week is that CKUT is effectively McGill’s thriftiest, most efficient faculty, churning out well-trained journalists and technicians on a shoestring budget that would make most of McGill’s bloated departmental Leviathans blush. When you vote ‘yes,’ you’re voting to help a resourceful, underfunded journalism school stay afloat. Sinking CKUT makes no more sense than torpedoing the School of Dentistry, except the School of Dentistry probably costs more to run. McGill doesn’t have a journalism school, and that’s fine. J-schools are kind of a scam. As most journalists will tell you, the best way to learn journalism is on the fly. And that’s exactly what CKUT lets students and community members do. The dozens of students who volunteer, intern, and work-study at the station every year are getting invaluable hands-on experience, doing interviews, editing audio, and doing live, on-air shows. It’s trial by fire, and it works. The list of CKUT alumni who have landed high-profile media jobs is a lit-

tle ridiculous. Adrian Harewood studied Political Science at McGill, but I’ll bet you it wasn’t his grasp of politics or whatever that landed him his current gig anchoring the late-night news at CBC-TV in Ottawa. David Blair, meanwhile, hosted and produced a show at CKUT when he was a McGill student and now does the business segment of the hugely popular Daybreak program on CBC Radio. Stuart Greer was news director and now works in the UK for Global TV. Claire Boucher was an intern and is now FUCKING GRIMES. The list goes on. The thing is, there is no better journalism training than student media. Nor is there a more cost-effective way of learning a profession. Because it doesn’t need TAs, classrooms, or professors – CKUT only employ five fulltime staff – the station is run on a pittance. If you gathered up every penny that CKUT made through student fees last year, you could almost pay two professors their minimum salary, though not quite. To put that in perspective, there are twelve full professors on payroll in the History department, along with eighteen associate profs. And as a History major, I can tell you, most of the students they’re teaching are not flipping their degrees into well-remunerated jobs. I’ve spent a lot of time in the CKUT office, and the place is held together with spit and glue. Apart from some equipment, without which you could not have a radio

station, the place is far more downat-heel than any other building I’ve seen at McGill. These people are not going on junkets, or buying $10 million microscopes. They’re making student dollars stretch. And, while CKUT happens to be a very good radio station, it wouldn’t really matter if it were a mediocre one. It’s school: people are learning as they go. If you want to criticize the quality of their programming, show me a couple of papers or lab reports you wrote in first year, and then get back to me. And, while CKUT happens not to be the exclusive preserve of frothy-mouthed radicals – most of the station’s content is music – it wouldn’t matter if it were. Lots of faculties contain radical professors and students. That’s no reason to starve them of funding. And maybe you would opt-out of all those radical faculties if you could. Great news! You can still opt-out of CKUT. Voting ‘yes’ in this referendum won’t change that. (Though opting-out is a nasty thing to do.) All it does is allow the rest of us to give an extra couple dollars to support McGill’s incredibly cheap, improbably great, de facto journalism school. If you don’t like that, you don’t like higher education. Eric Andrew-Gee is a U4 History student and former Daily News and Features editor. He can be reached at eric.andrew.gee@gmail.com.

Dear McGill Daily, I write this fully admitting that I am a bit of a nerd: I grew up listening to the radio. The thing is, you probably did too. Mostly I heard public radio (NPR) in the U.S., but at the ripe old age of five I also happily proclaimed to my dad that the “oldies” station was my favourite. That was the nineties. Yet in the age of iPods, YouTube, Soundcloud, and torrents, I still listen to the radio. Radio provides companionship, curation, and a sense of community on and off the airwaves. My love of radio inspired me to get involved with CKUT, McGill’s campus-community radio station, on literally the first day I arrived in Montreal, during an Orientation Week portable-recording workshop. This led me to get involved in almost all aspects of the station, including hosting a show (All Things McGill), being on the programming committee, and now being a member of the Board of Directors. Listening to CKUT provides an invaluable alternative perspective to McGill students (such as myself) and to Montreal at large, whether by helping you navigate the latest indie rock music better than Pitchfork ever will, or broadcasting the voices of the voiceless during the Homelessness Marathon each year, or by providing a forum

for student-written radio dramas. It’s a perspective you’d be hardpressed to find anywhere else. Yet CKUT’s existence is precarious: increasing costs since its founding in 1987, combined with a decrease in revenues from advertising, mean that the staff run the station on a tight budget, sometimes with a deficit. This fact necessitates a fee increase question this semester – and while running a referendum of any sort is a long and difficult process, winning this referendum question is extremely important for the station to keep being as awesome as it is. We wouldn’t be asking our fellow students to open their minds, hearts, and wallets if it weren’t entirely necessary for the existence of the station. To celebrate CKUT’s 25th anniversary this year, give the station the gift of a $1 fee increase. You should be proud of your station for rocking so hard all these years, and hopefully for many, many more. Carol Ellen Fraser is a U3 East Asian Studies and German Studies student, former SSMU Vice President Clubs & Services, and the current Chair of the CKUT Board of Directors. The opinions expressed here are her own. She can be reached at carol.e.fraser@ gmail.com.

Illustration Jacqueline Brandon | The McGill Daily

Build alliances of solidarity! We need labour unions and community organizations Mostafa Henaway Commentary Writer

n a climate of global fiscal austerity, the majority Conservative government in Ottawa has gone to great lengths to create a “business-friendly environment” in the name of keeping economic growth steady and preserving the competitiveness of the Canadian economy globally. Two clear examples of this effort in immigration and labour policy are the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFPW) and the success of temporary placement agencies. On the surface, the TFPW creates a significant amount of jobs. In the low-skill class part of the program, there was an addition

of 300,000 workers across Canada added to the TFPW in 2011 alone. According to Statistics Canada, from 2007 to 2011 almost 30 per cent of new jobs created across the country were created by this program. Although the numbers look formidable, the specifics of the TFPW itself engender systemic abuses of workers’ rights because the legal status of the temporary foreign worker depends on one and only one employer. The threat to a worker of losing a valid TFPW visa status is enough to foster an environment of fear among workers whereby they do not resist low wages and unjust work practices. Because of the legal terms of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, a class of precarious workers has become a

permanent part of the privatesector workforce. Another winner in the business-friendly environment created by the Conservatives is temporary placement agencies. Temporary placement agencies supply employers with low-wage workers who can be laid off very quickly, cheaply, and with little notice by the employer. By keeping temp agency workers vulnerable, businesses such as Dollarama and its owner Larry Rossy make a significant profit. Rossy himself is the eighth richest man in Quebec. Overall, temporary placement agencies have become extremely rich and vitally important in the Quebec labour market. The Conservative immigration and labour policies over the

last four years do not constitute an austerity measure as direct as the recent cuts to the federal budget. Nevertheless, these policies have created an environment exploited by businesses whereby temporary foreign workers and temporary agency workers together form a pool of precarious low-wage workers with no benefits with little or no oversight by the federal government. In this context, it is time for community organizations like the Immigrant Workers Centre and unions like MUNACA-PSAC to build alliances of solidarity in order to resist direct austerity measures like federal budget cuts to services for themselves as taxpayers. Just as importantly though, an alliance of community organizations and

unions has the opportunity to challenge the logic and practice of federal immigration and work policies that create low wages, and abusive and dangerous conditions that no worker and no person should be forced to accept. To learn more about the issues surrounding work and immigration policy under the Conservative government, and the consequences for migrant and organized labour, please join IWC and MUNACA-PSAC for “A Quieter Form of Austerity,” tonight at 6 p.m. in the basement of the Bronfman Building, room 001. Mostafa Henaway is an author and community organizer at the Immigrant Workers Centre/ Centre des Travailleurs et Travailleuses in Montreal.

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Unfit to print The McGill Daily radio show, episode 5:

Masculinity On the next Unfit to Print... We’re opening a conversation about masculinity. It’s a broad topic, and one fraught with problems and pitfalls. This Monday, we ask some big questions. Tune in to hear about: A special report on da club (where gender anxiety meets overpriced mixed drinks). How the people around us, here at McGill, conceive of and experience masculinity in their everyday lives. The connection between machismo, cooking, and excess. How drag kings perform masculinity on stage. And much, much more ... Airs Monday, November 12 on CKUT 90.3 at 11 a.m. | Available for streaming on mcgilldaily.com and download on iTunes

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Features

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No money, no hope With a six per cent, five-year survival rate, pancreatic cancer remains the deadliest of all. Text: Laurent Bastien Corbeil | Photos: Hera Chan Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of medical experiences that may be triggering.

n a bright day in August, I woke up to a terrifying sound coming from downstairs. It was a long drawn-out screech, as if a speeding semi-trailer had suddenly slammed its brakes outside of my bedroom. When I got out of bed to lean against my door, it became clear that the sound was my father vomiting in the kitchen sink. Most people vomit in short bursts; there is usually a pause after each discharge of puke. But my father’s vomit was a continuous stream of blood and regurgitated matter that lasted for five minutes, enough to fill the sink. My father’s cancer had spread to his skin the week before, a burning black spot on his stomach, oozing with pus. Two months prior to that, he had developed his first symptom: an accumulation of fluid in his peritoneal cavity – a thin membrane in the abdomen. And a month before that, he was healthy enough to play tennis once a week. Presently, his peritoneal cavity is filled with hundreds of small tumours. His cheeks are hollow, and his hair is thinned out. He now weighs less than I do, and the cancer will continue to grow and spread until he weighs next to nothing. The cancer originated in his pancreas. In a healthy human body, that seemingly innocuous organ produces digestive enzymes for the small intestine. But when cancer develops, the organ turns into a formidable killer. Pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of only 6 per cent. In 2010, 43,000 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with the disease, and 37,000 died within the first year. As the oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee writes in The Emperor of All Maladies, “even in oncology, a dismal discipline to begin with,” inoperable pancreatic cancer is considered the “epitome of the dismal.”

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

ancer is the uncontrolled growth of a single cell. Cells normally die and divide at a normal pace, but with cancer, they are capable of multiplying endlessly. This growth can create masses of tissues or tumours, which can then spread to other parts of the body through a process called metastasis. But this is where the similarities between all forms of cancers end; each cancer is unique because each cell is unique. To paraphrase Dr. George Zogopoulos, a surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital who specializes in pancreatic cancer research, “We are not talking about a single illness, but a whole range of diseases.” Pancreatic cancer, with its sombre statistics, is thus vastly different than prostate cancer – an illness that has a five-year survival rate of 96 per cent. When I met Dr. Zogopoulos, he made it clear that one of the biggest problems with pancreatic cancer research was patient activism. “Patients get this disease and most of the time, they succumb quickly […],” he said. “The families are devastated, and patients don’t have an opportunity to become an activist.” In other words, pancreatic cancer is a vicious circle in which patients die quickly because there is no funding to research treatment, and there is no funding because patients die too quickly to become activists. Given the odds, some patients refuse treatment altogether. Of the few drugs available, many are ineffective. At most, they can extend the lives of patients by months, and the effects on the human body are devastating. The standard treatment, gemcitabine, commonly know as Gemzar, is marketed by Eli Lilly and Company, the same pharmaceutical corporation behind Cialis and Prozac. When injected, the drug is an irritant; it burns the vein. Worse, the drug leaves patients with perpetual, severe nausea, which can lead to periods of prolonged vomiting. For cancer patients, vomiting can be deadly; maintaining a decent weight is crucial for survival. Another treatment, Folfirinox, is far more toxic for the human body. Patients can increase their survival rates by a few additional months, but the side effects are severe: 5 per cent of patients experience neutropenia, a potentially deadly disorder that attacks white blood cells. With Folfirinox, the concept of chemotherapy – eliminating rapidly dividing cells – is taken to the extreme. This idea of destroying cancerous cells through drug therapy was first conceived during World War II. In 1944, scientists discovered that soldiers who had been exposed to mustard gas became leukopenic, meaning their white blood cells were dying off. Since leukemia is the aberrant growth of white blood cells, researchers believed that a similar chemical could be used as a cure. Subsequent research led to the development of the first anticancer drug, mustine. The chemical, if airborne, could have easily burnt through human skin. Chemotherapy was thus derived from chemical warfare. Since then, chemotherapy treatments have become more sophisticated. Tarceva, a drug manufactured by Roche, acts by cutting off the blood vessels that feed pancreatic or lung tumours. For pancreatic cancer, it extends the lives of patients by only twelve days on average, at a cost of $26,000. The financial dilemma of cancer drugs is hardly ever discussed, and it is some-

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times difficult to understand why these chemotherapy treatments – gemcitabine, Folfirinox, and Tarceva – even exist at all. When I asked my father’s oncologist at the Montreal Jewish Hospital about Tarceva as an option, he shrugged. “I tried it with other patients,” he told me, “and it wasn’t very effective.” It is this sort of casual indifference from doctors and pharmaceutical companies that makes cancer – especially terminal cancer – even more unbearable. An additional twelve days might seem insignificant to most people, but not to pancreatic cancer patients. Their calendars have already been cut cruelly short. Bodily mutilations and side effects are often discussed with detachment. At a support group in September, the husband of a woman with breast cancer told me that their oncologist had recommended a complete mastectomy, only to change his mind a few weeks later. Even our doctor seems indifferent. The extent of my father’s disease was never properly explained to him. It was only after a visit to another physician at a different hospital that he finally understood his cancer was inoperable. Rose Kushner, a breast cancer survivor who sat on the National Cancer Advisory Board, warned about the callousness of physicians in an 1985 article in the New York Times: “When doctors say that the side effects are tolerable or acceptable, they are talking about life-threatening things like a drop in your white blood cells or vomiting to the point where you have to go to the hospital for intravenous nutrition. But if you just vomit so hard that you break the blood vessels in your eyes, […] they don’t even consider that mentionable. And they certainly don’t care if you’re bald.” Nowhere is this sentiment more apparent than in the industry that surrounds clinical trials. There, pharmaceutical companies eager to produce ultra-expensive drugs treat terminal cancer patients like guinea pigs. On the website of the National Cancer Institute, patients from all over the world can easily browse through the latest trials. For pancreatic cancer, the options are few. Nevertheless, unproven drugs continue to be routinely tested on desperate people who are – for all intents and purposes – condemned to die. They expose patients to horrendous and potentially deadly side effects while promising only a few extra days or months. It goes without saying that there will never be a cure for pancreatic cancer without clinical trials, but the research is so underfunded that every new drug produced only offers marginal benefits. According to Pancreatic Cancer Canada, “only a handful of scientists concentrate solely on this disease and this is due to the lack of funding earmarked for pancreatic cancer and as a result, the survival rate has remained unchanged for decades – still in the single digits.” Moreover, as Mukherjee writes in his book, a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 500 BC would likely result in the same prognosis as one today. A diagnosis of leukemia or Hodgkin’s lymphoma, however, would produce a completely different prognosis: an increase in life expectancy of thirty or forty years. Few people are aware that November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. “Movember,” a campaign to fund prostate cancer research, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, often overshadow pan-

features

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

9. 1. In order to receive chemotherapy treatment, cancer patients have8. to successfully pass a blood test.

2. Pancreatic cancer is often killed a “silent killer.” Most of its symptoms manifest when the disease has metastasized.

3. The American National Cancer Institute spent 2 per cent of its $5.12 billion budget on pancreatic cancer research in 2010.

4. Dr. George Zogopoulos seeks to uncover the genetic and environmental causes of pancreatic cancer.

5. Ascites, the accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, is a symptom of pancreatic cancer. Fluid can accumulate to up to 25 litres.

6. Pancreatic cancer is expecting to become the second leading cause of cancer death before 2020.

7. Depending on the drug, chemotherapy sessions can last up to 6 hours. 8. Only 5 to 10 per cent of all pancreatic cancers are inherited genetically.

8. creatic cancer fundraising. For patients suffering from deadlier cancers – pancreatic or ovarian, for example, it can be difficult to understand why some of the most treatable forms of cancers enjoy this high level of publicity. Prostate and breast cancers are two of the most funded types of cancers, and each has a five-year survival rate of 96 and 88 per cent, respectively. Lung cancer is extremely deadly as well, but the stigma associated with smoking prevents it from amassing more funds. Even more frustrating is the fact that the disease is all too often discussed in abstract terms, as if cancer exists in a vacuum. But the culprits are well known. In 1995, the historian Robert Proctor wrote

in Cancer Wars: “the causes of cancer are largely known – and have been for quite some time. Cancer is caused by the chemicals in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.” It’s almost as if our whole way of life is killing us, going so far as to turn our own cells into poison. And while it is true that cancer is built “into our genome,” as Mukherjee points out, cancer is far more prevalent today than it ever was. One in three people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States, and the cancer rate in children and adolescents has been rising by 1 to 1.5 per cent a year since the 1960s. This disease is not the result of a genetic lottery. But despite the dismal statistics, the

9. The standard chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer is more

than thirty years old. The Whipple procedure, the most effective surgical option, dates back to 1898.

problems of underfunding, the callousness of the industry, and the constant agony of cancer, my father continues to fight. Cancer patients are, by a wide margin, the bravest people I have ever met. I remember the first time I went to a support group, a woman suffering from advanced lung cancer, confided to us that she had gone dancing the night after her bleak diagnosis. “I’m not ready to die at 50, and I know I can make it to 60,” she told us with a gleaming smile on her face. At a chemotherapy treatment on the eighth floor of the Jewish Hospital, a woman who sat beside us told my mother – almost enthusiastically – that she was heading to a three-hour-long radiation

after her treatment; the look of defiance in her eyes was enough to motivate all of us. Above all, even on the day of his diagnosis, my father promised my brother and me that he would, “fight the disease until the end.” His diagnosis came in August with a prognosis of five to eight months. There is always a feeling, however, that my father will be part of the 6 per cent that survives the 5-year mark, or even part of the 1 to 3 per cent who vanquish the disease altogether. Three weeks ago, we learned that the tumours in his peritoneum had shrunk, and that his skin metastasis had also receded. Chemical warfare seems to be working, for now.

health&ed

The McGill Daily Thursday, November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

Sex and shame Emery Saur All that Naked Business

The Daily Elections

n the 1970s, a theory called ‘sexual script’ entered the field of sociology. Coined and theorized by sociologists John Gagnon and William Simon, sexual script is the concept that our sexual expressions and impulses are dictated by three levels of influence: cultural/historical, social/interactive, and personal/ intra-psychic. Basically, the idea is that sexual feelings do not just happen within us, but require an external influence of meanings and symbols to direct them. These scripts are seen as guidelines for sexual behavior. Or, as Wikipedia puts it, “appropriate sexual behavior.” I believe my sexual and social scripts are liberal and open-minded, but therein lies the problem. I believe I’m all-accepting, so I don’t notice when I’m not. I was raised by two radical feminist lesbians who spent every moment of their waking lives making sure that I was untouched by the traditional, effusing pedagogy of patriarchy and any other social systems they perceived as threatening. In my mothers’ household, heteronormativity was not a thing. They loved each other, the man next door loved his wife, my dad loved his boyfriend, and it was just that simple. The thing is, even though my mothers worked so hard to make sure I chose my own gender, chose my own interests, was free of prejudice, et cetera, they still sent me to school, where social preclusions like normative sexual script were very much a thing. People who have never recognized the effects of social scripts in their own lives systematically

underestimate the roles they play, and the power they wield. When I was young, I gave in to everyone else’s systems and attempted to bury mine. I ascribed to other kids because it was easier to do than be bullied. So at home I learned how to be, and at school I learned how to be straight and afraid of sexuality. Normativity affects all of us, and we need to realize how deeply and often invisibly it pervades our beliefs, even for those of us who would consider ourselves actively equitable. On that note, I would like to apologize to all the readers who took my last column as a statement or commentary about sex clubs and sexual practices outside of mainstream sexual scripts. I did not in any way intend to insinuate that I thought sex clubs, the people in them, or people’s sexual preferences were disgusting, weird, or somehow lacking. I will honestly admit that I did expect a situation that would make me uncomfortable (hence the drinking), and I am disgusted and ashamed looking back on the article that my attempted translation came across in the calloused way that it did. To clarify, “Sex and solitude vs. solidarity” (Health & Education, October 25, page 10) was meant as a narrative of an evening that, for me, was the culmination of a year of pretending to myself that I liked casual sex with strangers. I only realized this was not the case after going to a sex club and having an earnest conversation with these men regarding what they felt about casual (and other) sexual encounters, and their habits, reasons, and experiences. The fact that this personally profound realization was overshadowed by my seemingly blasé approach to the piece does nothing but highlight personal character flaws and shitty writing ability.

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

We can all try hard to be ‘openminded,’ but this episode has made it blatantly apparent that sometimes that is not enough. To further the favourite themes of The Daily this past week, we need ‘light-giving’ social systems to remind us that we all have work to do, and to show us where to start. Whether one is

dressing up in blackface or in neverbeen-to-a-sex-club-and-has-someunwarranted-preconceptions-face, we need to take responsibility and actively participate in our own personal growth and understanding of our positions within our individual and community spheres. Opportunely, social commen-

tary exists so that fellow readers can rip you apart and then display all the nasty little pieces you didn’t know you had. All that Naked Business is a column on sex. Emery can be reached at allthatnakedbusi ness@mcgilldaily.com.

Seeking: Culture, Health & Education, and News editors Rundowns Nov. 27 | Elections Nov. 29 6 p.m. in The Daily office (SSMU B-24) Candidate statements due Nov. 25 to coordinating@mcgilldaily.com

Health&ed

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

We want you! Heather Munroe-Blum demands international students Ralph Haddad The McGill Daily

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

hen I walked onto McGill campus on my first day, the number of international students took me aback. Everywhere I went, I heard Spanish, German, Farsi and different Asian and Arabic dialects. On the surface, the University seems to admit a large number of students from all over the world, but according to Principal Heather Munroe-Blum, McGill – and Quebec – could still use more. Munroe-Blum, when addressing the situation at a conference held on October 19, said that Quebec needs more international students, and that the government should be doing everything in their power to increase the number of students in the province from abroad. According to a McGill Tribune article published on October 23, MunroeBlum stated: “We face an international race for talent and Quebecers are not winning. We can only win with incentives for universities to attract, support, and retain top talent with quality and accessibility.” Essentially, Munroe-Blum is arguing that international students pump life into the Canadian economy, and that in a free market global economy, attracting the best talent from around the world is necessary to keep a competitive edge. In an online article for McGill Newsroom, Munroe-Blum mentioned: “There are numerous benefits to recruiting international students… not the least of which is their impact on our economy. For example, international students in Canada have an economic impact of eight billion dollars annually. And according to the Conférence régionale des élus, one third of international students who study in Quebec choose to stay here after their studies.” While Munroe-Blum is quick to emphasize the positive economic and “cultural” impact of international students, she also emphasizes that McGill’s recruitment of international students has nothing to do with financial gain from their higher tuition. Speaking at an event hosted by the Montreal Council for Foreign Relations last month, Munroe-Blum said: “under the Quebec funding system, most of the tuition paid by students from outside Quebec returns to the government…Because of this, each year, McGill gives back around $55 million of its students’ fees.” Even though McGill wants more international students, there are a few reasons why it might not make sense for them. For Quebecers – and Quebec citizens living abroad – choosing McGill seems to be a no-brainer as the tuition for Quebec residents tallies up to around $2,000 yearly. For non-Quebec Canadians, tuition is still relatively cheap, averaging approximately $7,000 a year.

For international students, though, tuition ranges from $17,000 to $25,000 a year. This fee adds up to about the same – or sometimes more – expensive than what an international student would usually pay for university in their respective home countries, with the obvious exception of American private institutions. This is a clear financial barrier. While Munroe-Blum has reiterated on multiple occasions that there is no correlation between high tuition fees and university attendance, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), among others, disagrees. The CFS has made it clear that “high differential fees are an unfair burden and a barrier to postsecondary education for international students. Ultimately, such fees could threaten Canada’s ability to attract and retain foreign scholars.” Even if Quebec wants to attract international students to its universities, the tuition

fees are no encouragement. Furthermore, the Parti Québécois’ immigration policy states that it is easier for people who come from Frenchspeaking backgrounds and who have some knowledge of Quebec to attain citizenship. This may create obstacles for immigrants who want to study at one of Montreal’s English-speaking universities, and who have no background of French. According to JeanFrançois Lisée, a PQ MNA quoted in a Global Montreal article, “The Parti Québécois [will] change immigration criteria to favour people who already use French as their main language and draw up a plan to keep young families on the island of Montreal.” There are many other drawbacks for international students. As Principal Munroe-Blum has said, only one-third of international students who attend Quebec universities end up staying in Quebec. One expla-

nation is that non-Canadians may have a hard time finding jobs locally, as Quebecois companies allegedly favour Quebecois residents over immigrants or international job applicants. On the other hand, the graduates who stay here or don’t go back to their home countries are depriving their countries of the fresh human capital they need to innovate in a practice known as ‘brain drain.’ Additionally, students coming from abroad wouldn’t necessarily have the same educational standards as local students attending university, which might produce an inequality among students of the same faculty or major. In a brief interview with close friend of mine (an Engineering student) on whether he thought adjusting to the university’s educational standards was hard, he somewhat disagreed: “It is surprising. Coming from an educational sys-

tem that does not provide an interim education between high school and university (such as CEGEP), you would think people like me would have a hard time with their studies here,” he said. “For me and my highschool friends though,” he continued, “just as an example, we take Math as a whole, and Calculus within the Math syllabus. People here take Calculus as a class in itself, and so we may not acquire knowledge of other mathematical concepts before attending university.” It is absolutely possible for international students like myself to lead successful academic careers at McGill. But both McGill and the province of Quebec need to do more to foster an accepting social, political, and cultural environment for international students if Heather Munroe-Blum’s ambitious plans are to be successful.

culture

The McGill Daily Thursday, November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

Anything goes Contemporary dance in Montreal Bipasha Sultana Culture Writer

hat is one supposed to think of upon conjuring the image of our city’s dance scene? We’re not talking about the drunken, uncoordinated steps of people jamming to progressive house on a checkered dance floor. Okay, maybe Montreal’s clubs have left behind the checkered dance floor for snazzier, more up-to-date interiors. But you catch my drift. As a cultural hub, where does an artistic form of expression as broad and multidimensional as dance performance fit into the wider picture of Montreal? To get an accurate idea of Montreal’s dance culture one must, in fact, renounce the very notion of accuracy since, according to Montreal dance critic Stephanie Brody, the city’s dance scene follows an “anything goes” model. In other words, dance in Montreal is not only in a constant state of flux, but it has been liberated from the longstanding traditions of genre or style since the 1980s. As stated by the prominent local dance company Montréal Danse in their website, their company – and arguably many others – was “born out of the choreographic explosion that took place in Montreal in the eighties.” With the emergence of companies and presenters such as Montréal Danse (1986), La La La Human Steps (1980), and Tangente (1981), the teaching of dance and the production of dance shows was centred on what we now know as the contemporary genre. Ever seen an episode of Dancing With The Stars (don’t worry, you won’t be judged) or So You Think You Can Dance? You don’t have to be an avid fan or a religious viewer to realize that the episodes are divided more or less according to style or genre, and “contemporary” is one of them. But don’t let those isolated episodes fool you into concluding that’s what contemporary dance looks like. As Brody notes, contemporary in the context of dance is a wide-ranging term that encompasses varying influences, but ultimately is descended directly from ballet. The contemporary genre traces its lineage back to the highly influential American dancer/choreographer Martha Graham and her pupil Merce Cunningham. In 1953, the pair founded what can

be deemed the first contemporary styled dance company in North America, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. As Brody notes, Graham and Cunningham sought to “renew ballet, free people from the rigours of ballet and explore new ways of working with the body and gravity and balance and release.” Brody points out that although these pioneers of contemporary dance looked to liberate bodily movement from the constraints of ballet, they came to form their own schools of practice and technique that ended up as rigorous and conventionalized as the old tradition. Nonetheless, what dancers such as Graham and Cunningham forged is the notion of conflating the role of the dancer with the artist’s so that the dancer is to be understood as a force in and of itself imbued with creative potential and no longer restricted by genre conventions or techniques. Since anything that’s characterized as “contemporary” concerns the here and now, contemporary dance is to be understood as being in a perpetual state of development. Particularly in Montreal, a number of dancers and choreographers, many of whom have backgrounds rooted in classical or traditional training (mainly ballet, but also other popularized techniques and styles also apply) eventually venture out on their own and give birth to their individual styles. Brody explains that for this reason, the eighties in Montreal opened a floodgate of such artists who came to embody the emerging concept of danse d’auteur, or “dance of the author,” which allowed these dancers/artists to explore and tap into their creativity, and in turn led them to form their signature aesthetics and style. This coincided with the trend of not only breaking away from conventions within dance, but also of loosening the boundaries between different artistic mediums so that dance can be incorporated into a rock concert or a politically charged rant performance. Frédérick Gravel is an example of a contemporary Montreal-based dancer who incorporates dance into a performance-based rock concert – or vice versa. The predominant aim of many, if not most, up and coming dancers in Montreal is to present an amalgam of artistic forms of expression. In Gravel’s case, some of his shows visibly display the orchestra as the band members move

Illustration Yasha Ahmed and Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

along with the main performing artist(s), and are as central to the performance as the performer. Or take someone like Dave St-Pierre, who has a knack for including nudity in his shows, and presenting overt political and social commentary to address issues such as gender inequality, body image, and convention within art. In his 2011 show Un peu de tendresse bordel de Merde! (A Little tenderness for crying out loud!), St-Pierre seems to be implicitly (or otherwise) critiquing the oft-celebrated and now conventionalized Brechtian strategy of distanciation by wholly subverting the technique. In a nutshell, the famous early 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brecht espoused the notion that there needs to be a clear wall established between

the audience and the actors to remind the former that they are watching a performance, which would enable them to think critically about what is being presented to them. Fast forward a good nine decades or so and you have someone like St-Pierre rejecting distanciation by making his naked performers emerge out of the audience and physically engage with them by stroking them or sitting on them. Sound like it’s a little too close for comfort? Well, comfort isn’t the only thing St-Pierre is aiming at. Like Brecht and like countless contemporary artists in Montreal including Gravel, St-Pierre wants his viewers to re-think what he believes to be the constraints of artistic conventions and norms. Which is why his shows and Gravel’s are difficult

to pin down – we could argue, in fact, that they intentionally make it a challenge for us. Montreal is strapped for cash when it comes to staging larger, more elaborate classical pieces that an organization like The National Ballet of Canada (based in Toronto) can afford to stage, with shows like Giselle and The Nutcracker. So what does one do when the going gets tough in the dance world? In Montreal, the tough (and there are many) get going with wholly original, boundary-pushing signature styles that are bound to inspire current and upcoming dancers to carve out a piece of the pie – even if it’s a sliver – and branch out on their own. In our beloved city, where there’s passion, there’s bound to be some appreciation.

culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Illustration Juan Camilo Velásquez | The McGill Daily

Blogging the metropolis The passion of Kristian Gravenor for all things Montreal Ceren Eroglu Culture Writer

inding interesting blogs is difficult, because they have to be so many things at once. You should enjoy reading it. You should be able to read it in public and create envy among others; maybe a couple of people with good eyesight should jot down the name of the blog. It should be hip but not too hip, mainstream but not too mainstream. The background should be nice, the font should be nice, the colours, the pictures, the format should be nice. The best writing is found, however, in the most unexpected blogs. The ones that do not necessarily impress the guy sitting next to you on the metro, but the ones that want to make you wish you could string together words like those on the screen if only with the hopes to understand life better or something. Coolopolis, a blog by Kristian Gravenor, is just that – an unexpected and pleasant surprise, a blog so great I didn’t want to share with anyone. Then it would be like Kings of Leon, and soon everybody would know about it and

the situation would just go downhill after that. Regardless, having spent some time reading it, I’ve come to realize it’s a hidden gem on the internet, and somebody needs to put it on StumbleUpon, because it needs to be discovered. Most blogs about cities are just condensed, easier-to-read versions of travel guides, but Coolopolis stands out among the rest. As Gravenor aptly states on the blog itself, it is “[his] twisted, unique take on Montreal,” one that does not promote the city through restaurant recommendations, but rather focuses on crime, politics, and land use in Montreal. Gravenor says that he writes about what he feels passionate about and interests him, and over the last six years, the feedback and response he’s received has encouraged him to continue. The comments, he describes, are a “love affair, man,” and only rarely does it become YouTube-esque. Kristian Gravenor is a great conversationalist. Some people just have a way with words, are effortlessly talented with them, and Gravenor is one of those people. With his love for a good story and desire to share what he discovers

with others, Gravenor’s enthusiasm and good nature is reflected in both his writing and conversation. Even though he used to write for the Montreal Mirror, which he believes is where he learned to develop an ear for an offbeat story, Gravenor realized it was not what he wanted to do. However, that is exactly where he finds himself today: a part time, or as he calls it, a “wanna-be” journalist. He also works as a realtor on the side, about which he has published The Confessions of a Slumlord, along with his best-selling book, Montreal: The Unknown City. Born and raised in Westmount, Gravenor currently lives in downtown Montreal. Having spent his whole life here (with a few years in Vancouver to spare), Gravenor cannot imagine moving somewhere else, though he argues, “it would have to be warmer.” He finds Montreal a magical place, and feels a profound connection to the city. Gravenor sees Montreal as “hallowed ground,” and his love for the city is evident in his reflection of the city in Coolopolis. Gravenor says that through his blog he has found others that share his “weird passion,” and that working in a

domain that interests him has lead to a profound sense of enjoyment. Not only is Coolopolis Gravenor’s passion, it is also an implicit rebuttal to the mainstream media. He believes the mainstream Canadian media should be challenged because, he argues, they are scared, and he would love to see an energized, stronger media tradition rooted in the country. He holds that the media are swayed too much by the government and powerful corporations. Though Gravenor does appreciate the resources the mainstream media have provided him with, he believes this wealth of knowledge should become available to everyone, which is one of the reasons he writes Coolopolis. Gravenor writes about a variety of things, ranging from the Montreal mafia to “bonding through music in the internet age,” from Montreal in the 1920s to the largest cocaine busts in the city’s history. But though Gravenor covers dense topics (such as homicide or Montreal prisons), his personal and simplistic approach makes it intriguing for even the least curious of readers. Even if history, politics, or criminology is not your

thing, this blog is the best way to learn about those aspects of Montreal, from a true Montrealer. As a sucker for political criticism and a good put-down, I cannot explain the number of times I smile while reading Kristian Gravenor’s entries, especially those pertaining to Montreal’s government and judicial system, both past and present. It is not everyday someone stands up to call governmental leaders “squeaky-voiced men that [make] Mrs. Doubtfire look like the Hulk.” Gravenor proves that having an obsession with the past does not have to come at the expense of humour. However, Coolopolis is not only a ground for political statements – it is six years’ worth of information on Montreal’s history, culture, and land. Every once in a while, Gravenor even posts old photos of Montreal and asks where it was taken, though don’t feel bad if you can’t figure them out. Gravenor admits that he probably wouldn’t be able to guess them, either. Read about Gravenor’s “twisted, unique take on Montreal” at coolopolis.blogspot.ca.

culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 8, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Eastern Bloc encourages young artists

CULTURE HAPS

New media on the Bloc

Gone Wild: A Science Spectacular November 9, 7:30 p.m. MainLine Theatre 3997 St. Laurent $15 at the door

Gone Wild is a one-ofa-kind, one-night-only show. The event is a sciencethemed variety show, apparently the first one ever shown in Montreal. Gone Wild promises “biological bootyshaking,” “species-inspired poetry,” and “intellectual improv.” If a love of science doesn’t encourage you to go, curiosity alone about what exactly “biological bootyshaking” entails should be enticement enough.

Matthew Dear, Light Asylum November 10, 9 p.m. Il Motore 179 Jean-Talon West $15

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily Kira Walz The McGill Daily

s I was wandering around in Parc-Extension, with my iPhone and GPS to guide the way, I finally found the nondescript door of a seemingly barren building of Eastern Bloc. It seemed slightly odd that an artist centre would seem so desolate, but the intriguing graphic design on the door quickly began to change my initial impression. Eastern Bloc is a multidisciplinary art and production centre that focuses on new media and interdisciplinary art. The centre seeks to support young emerging artists and those trying to get started after graduation. Their mandate is to fill the void between art school and professional galleries by providing a platform where people can display their work, become exposed to a larger body of spectators, and become connected with more established artists. As I waited to begin an interview with Eliane Ellbogen, cofounder and artistic director for Eastern Bloc, I stared in awe at the surrounding graphic design and event posters that covered the wall. Before establishing anything else, I had to clarify one thing that had been gnawing at my mind: “What exactly is new media and digital art?” “It is the way that artists are reinterpreting the mediated language and how they are using these mediums, whether they be digital or electronic, offline or online, ana-

log, et cetera,” Ellbogen said. In the past, new media used purely analog technologies, but current artists are reinterpreting and reevaluating these technologies, Ellbogen explained. Current new media art focuses on how these systems are being used in our lives today, and what role they play with contemporary digital art. “A lot of this new media art kind of situates itself in relation to the internet, and through power structures and political structures that are prevalent in our daily lives,” Ellbogen said. According to Ellbogen, the internet has become such a ubiquitous tool that is so ingrained in our daily lives that we do not recognize or question the power that it has today. “New media and digital art is really about reinterpreting the media and the mediums that are present in our dayto-day lives.” While the theatre and music communities have spaces dedicated to young and emerging artists, the new media and digital art community did not have structure or a professional space, whether a private gallery or a non-profit artisan centre, before Eastern Bloc was founded. “Before we existed, there was no professional arts space that was dedicated to showing emerging artists’ work, in the visual arts or in new media digital arts,” Ellbogen explained. Perhaps unknown to many, Montreal is recognized internationally as a hub for new media and digital art. With the two major festivals, Elektra and Mutek, as well as

Sight and Sound, a spring festival created by Eastern Bloc that is now forging its way into the international community, Montreal’s scene is definitely thriving. In line with Eastern Bloc’s mandate, Sight and Sound levels the playing field for young artists. “We really do not make a distinction when we invite an established artist or an emerging artist, because they are all being promoted in the same way,” Ellbogen explained. By reaching out to the universities in Montreal, Eastern Bloc is able to establish direct professional relationships and work with students directly. Due to these privileged connections, students are then able to display their work, participate in festivals, and become better known in the professional world. Alongside Sight and Sound, Eastern Bloc runs a number of programs for young artists. Ellbogen explained the Data Salon series as “a bi-monthly event where artists are invited to showcase some progress, so it’s really informal and very accessible. [It] is a really good example of a way an artist can have first experience with a professional art gallery and open up their network.” However, this is not the only way an artist can become involved. “We have two major exhibits per year, in the fall and the winter, and those are about a month long each. Eastern Bloc also runs a residency program that helps young artists, who are otherwise excluded from institutionalized art spaces, to establish a foothold. That is not all, for Eastern Bloc

is constantly working on new projects. A bilateral residency exchange program with Latin America is currently in the works as well. The lab is showing equal potential. “A lot of the development here I think is going to happen with the lab,” Ellbogen said. “This includes expanding the workshop programming and discussion activities.” While Eastern Bloc has been forging its way into the international network and community for new media and digital art since its establishment five years ago, the centre struggled in the beginning. “Funding right off the bat was a huge challenge and remains so to this day. The [government arts] funding system is not set up for [a] new organization to come to life. Any new organizations have a hard time getting into the funding circuit and when they do it’s for measly amounts of money.” For the first few years, the centre focused on doing musicbased events and parties, so it came as a great shock when they decided three years ago to shift from these events to focusing on arts and exhibition-based programming. It was a challenge to establish that shift with the public that the centre was now a professional art space. “In terms of creating a reputation for ourselves within the local and international arts community, it was a fun challenge,” Ellbogen said. “However, the financial challenge was not.” Eastern Bloc is located at 7240 Clark. Visit easternbloc.ca for information about upcoming events.

Matthew Dear, cofounder of Detroit record label Ghostly International and maverick electronic producer of the last 13 years, will be holding it down on Saturday with a live band. Dear, known for the 1999 single “Hands up for Detroit,” specializes in house and experimental pop inspired by the sounds of the Motor City.

Drawn & Quarterly’s Fifth Anniversary featuring Adrian Tomine, Charles Burns, and Chris Ware November 11, 7 p.m. The Ukrainian Federation 5213 Hutchinson Free Montreal’s beloved Bernard Street comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly is hosting a conversation Sunday between three prominent graphic novelists. All three are veterans of the form. Incidentally, Tomine is on tour for his new book, New York Drawings.

Women in Music Montreal November 11, 7 p.m. Les 3 Minots 3812 St. Laurent $8 in advance, $10 at the door Women in Music Montreal is playing a showcase to raise funds for the Herstreet Foundation. The foundation helps women in need, such as homeless women and those who have suffered abuse. Bliss, Von Dalia, and Mona Lissa & the Brink are performing. Have a beer or two, support local musicians, a good cause, and take a break from the endless cycle of due dates.

EDITORIAL

volume 102 number 19

SSMU Council: illogical and misguided

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Nicolas Quiazua

rec@delitfrancais.com

Last week, a motion at SSMU Council to support CKUT 90.3 FM’s fee increase referendum failed, with 11 in favour and 11 against. CKUT – which is classified as an Independent Student Group (ISG), alongside the Daily Publications Society, the Tribune Publications Society, the Legal Information Clinic at McGill, and QPIRG, among others – won its fee renewal referendum last semester. This semester’s referendum maintains the fee’s optoutable nature, but increases it by $1: the first increase that the campus-community radio station has implemented since it was founded in 1988. SSMU VP Internal Michael Szpejda expressed concern over whether Council should take a position on a question where, “clearly, some students feel one way, and some students feel the other way.” To be clear, endorsing CKUT’s referendum – which The Daily and the Tribune did last week – does not force students to vote ‘yes.’ It does not penalize students for voting ‘no.’ It doesn’t even mean that SSMU Council endorses every initiative CKUT undertakes. Endorsing this referendum simply demonstrates Council’s support for the station and its existence. Yet this was deemed too divisive to be endorsed. This attitude, unfortunately, is not unique to this year’s Council. Last year, Isabelle Bi, one of SSMU’s Arts Representatives, told The Daily that she did not support AUS voting in favour of a one-day strike mandate because it was “telling to our 7,000 students that we favour one side.” Then, a motion to censure former VP External Joël Pedneault was put forth in March, focusing on Mob Squad using SSMU resources, which councillors – including President Maggie Knight – argued was in line with SSMU’s mandate to support and work for accessible education. The motion was widely seen as an attempt to both punish Pedneault for “politicizing” his position, and confine SSMU to apolitical positions – a student union that, in the past, held a political mandate to lobby for McGill’s divestment from South African companies in protest of apartheid, to divest from tar sands, and to support free education. By not endorsing the CKUT referendum, SSMU Council is symbolically withdrawing support from an ISG at a time when student groups are being forced to spend time, money, and energy on a referendum every few years, when online opt-outs are easier and more crippling than ever, and when costs continue to rise as revenue drops. By refusing to support CKUT, Council is not taking a neutral stance, but is sending a message to students that supporting student groups is not a priority. Szpejda told Le Délit this week that SSMU doesn’t need “to endorse a particular side as this may alienate us from some of our constituents.” Not every member of Council agrees with this – after all, 11 councillors voted to support the referendum, and VP Clubs & Services Allison Cooper sits on the ‘yes’ committee for both CKUT and M-SERT’s referenda. Yet, it is worrisome that any representative would take Szpejda’s position. SSMU executives, like all representatives, are elected in order to make decisions. Obviously “some students feel one way, and some students the other,” but that is why we elect representatives – so that, despite our differences, a decision is made. Does Szpejda want the student body to assemble for each and every decision SSMU must make? If so, that’s a morally commendable position, but unlikely to be one Szpejda considers practical. We vote for representatives based on their political platforms, to make decisions in our stead. As in any representative democracy, those elected individuals must act in a way that serves their constituents and adheres to the platform they ran on. If councillors feel that students are not being served by funding their own campus-community radio station, then they should say that. But misinterpreting representative democracy and claiming neutrality harms those constituents more than any dollar could.

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Errata In the article “The invisible gold rush” (Commentary, November 5, page 7), The Daily mistakenly listed the average size of an open pit mine as 250 square kilometres. The average size of a complete open-pit mining complex is 250 square kilometres, but the average size of a single pit is approximately 4 square kilometres. In the article “A-Branch seeks updates to University’s sexual harassment policy” (News, November 5, page 3) The Daily incorrectly stated that Professor Prakash Panangaden has been an Assessor since 2010. In fact, he has been an Assessor since 2007. The Daily regrets the errors.

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The McGill Daily Thursday, November 8, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

lies, half-truths, and beez in the trap

SSMU Council does nothing Very little else to say

Pádraic O’Muirchu The Twice-a-Weekly

fter over an hour of intense and sometimes heated debate, SSMU Council has decided not to do anything. While some councillors made impassioned yet reasoned arguments for doing something, the majority of the council – backed by their supporters in the student union’s executive – voted to do not a fucking thing. “We could do something, and many students want us to do something, but I believe that there may be students who don’t want us to do anything. Therefore, I think we really shouldn’t do anything,” said Basketweaving faculty representative Idiot Douchebag. “This is why my constituents elected me. I don’t do anything, and I never intend to. We need to adopt a reasoned approach to doing things,” Douchebag added. Representatives of campus

groups, who say they very much need their student union to do things, were on hand to make a last minute plea for something, anything. “Please. Please, we need you to do something, or else our club will cease to exist,” said a representative from McGill’s 25-yearold Morse Code and Telegraph Enthusiasts Society. “If you do something, it will help us to convince the student body that what we Telegraph Enthusiasts do is worthwhile, that the fucking $7-million budget that we pay to the SSMU every year is for more than bullshit overpriced espressos and to allow student politicians the joy of smelling their own farts,” said the Enthusiasts’ representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the perverse cynical shame associated with the charade that is the SSMU Council. After listening to the representative’s plea, councillors responded with a resounding “meh,” and provided to do nothing.

SSMU executives picked their noses as they looked on. “I know from the people I’ve spoken to in my constituency […] it feels as though it alienates people who don’t necessarily have the same opinion,” said Pointless Fuckface, from the Sophistry faculty.* “Human beings, in encountering external stimuli, respond in different ways. It is for this undeniable, eternal, and incontrovertible truth that we councillors should vote today to take no actions whatsoever,” said Fuckface. SSMU Council is continuing in a long tradition of never doing fucking anything, even when they could have, even when it would have helped students. Observers were left staggered by the realization that SSMU executives – whether they advocate for doing things, or advocate doing nothing – are paid tens of thousands of dollars a year in student fees. *This is an actual quote in The Daily article about SSMU Council and the CKUT referendum.

Obama will not ask for an extension President says he will get his work done on time Euan EK The Twice-a-Weekly

arack Obama, the newly re-elected President of the United Conglomerate of Supermarkets, has said he will not ask for an extension. The President said the time for fake doctor’s notes and half-assed excuses was over, and that he will try his best to be more disciplined about his working habits. Obama has long been criticized for failing to get things done, but some observers have noted an increased reluctance to do his Presidential homework in recent months. Mattias Romnuzzle, a keen wealth-embezzler and election enthusiast, said that he had seen the President flying around the country, to seemingly the middle of nowhere, with a regularity alarming “for someone who has lots of stuff to do.” “I’ve been observing Obama

for a few years now,” Romnuzzle told The Twice-a-Weekly from the yacht he hand-built out of the souls of laid-off blue-collar workers. “He’s never been great about deadlines, though he usually managed to turn something in eventually. But recently... well, he just doesn’t seem to care anymore. He’s never at his desk, he’s never at home, he hasn’t done groceries in months. I’m worried. I’m not sure what’s got into him.” Obama is known to have a very long to-do list, and Romnuzzle is worried that the President’s lackadaisical attitude to finishing stuff means he won’t get it all done by the deadline. “What with the ‘fiscal cliff’ coming up, all those things to say to the Repoopooblicans in Congress, and a dirty-laundry pile as full up as Zachariah Chewberg is of himself, I’m frankly surprised that he’s been jetting off to places like Ohio recently,” said Romnuzzle as he drank the blood of three prole-

tarians. “Where even is Ohio?” Economists and other small rodents concur with Romnuzzle that the President doesn’t have a small amount of things to do. “Time is tight: Bush-era tax cuts are due to expire at the end of 2012, and automatic, mandatory, across-the-board, cuts to all government spending are also in the pipeline unless Obama gets his work done on time,” said John Boner, federal town-crier. “He is really leaving stuff to the last minute.” Despite all this, the President is adamant that he will not ask for an extension at the end of his term. “I really don’t think I need more time...I’ll get my finger out, I swear to God,” Obama told The Twice-a-Weekly. “Look, I always come good in the end. I used to ask for extensions all the time, but I’m really trying to be more responsible about my work. I’ll knuckle down. No more jets. No more drone... Look, no more jets, I promise.”

Illustration Balls to the Wall | The Twice-a-Weekly

HMB “an apple” Board of Governors to proceed cautiously

Photo Hieronymus Chanski | The Twice-a-Weekly