February 2011: Ryerson Free Press

FEB 11

knowledge fuels revolution

NEWS

Extreme right Groups Unite in hatred

By Iain Alec Bain

The Jewish Defense League is an extreme right fringe organization that often counter-protest groups who often protest Palestinian solidarity events. The English Defense League was welcomed by the JDL and held a rally on January 11 against the “Islamification” of Canada.

The Anti-Racist Action faced a police barricade and pushed forward to protest the Jewish Defence League’s (JDL) anti-Muslim meeting. As violence escalated, mounted police charged the crowd of over 50 people and they dispersed. A police officer was rushed to a hospital with a broken rib after being hit by a flag pole. A police curser’s window was also smashed in.

This was the product of the English Defence League’s (EDL) anti-Muslim speech for the JDL on January 11 protesting the “Islamafication” of any nation at the Toronto Zionist centre. The Christian Peacemaking Team formed a candle light vigil at the north east corner of Laurence and Marlee Avenues in protest.

Rebecca Johnson, the organizer of the candle light vigil held signs high reading “Yes to our common humanity. No to Islamaphobia.”

“What is Islamafication?” asks Julian Gutierrez a peaceful protestor, “If you say you’re against the Chinafication of China town that’s like saying ‘I’m not against the Chinese people, just their culture.’ That’s racism no matter how you say it.”

The EDL is known for their rightwing mentality combined with extreme racism. Stephen Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, founder of the EDL, is on the front lines

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of Anti-Muslim propaganda. Lennon had scheduled a live Skype feed on a projector to the Zionist Centre for the JDL to unite the two organizations in their mutual hatred of Muslims. Last November the Muslims Against Crusades led a protest in London by burning poppies and chanting “British soldiers burn in hell.” The EDL led by Lennon, reacted violently. Four EDL members were arrested including Lennon.

The EDL was formed as a last resort against Muslim extremist and the lack of response by the government. “People are at fucking boiling point. There’s an undercurrent of anger from people living in towns like this. It’s ready to explode.

And the government needs to listen,” says Lennon.

National director of the Canadian branch of the JDL Meir Winestein led another protest, Hatefest, on Tuesday January 18 outside the George Ignatieff Theatre. A bearded man in tattered clothes and a vibrant orange vest and cap screamed through a megaphone: “The only safe place for queers in the Middle East is in Israel!”

The man next to him screamed at Dillpret Grewal, a philosophy student who had come for the Silencing Criticism of Israeli Apartheid seminar, “Get out of my country terrorist! Go Back to Iraq!” Grewal looked astounded “I’m not even from the Middle East. I’m Indian.”

Winestein was off to the side. His hair was slick back

and he wore a black pea coat. His hand cupped the base of the pole with the base of the flag rested on his shoulder as a soldier would a rifle at attention. “I don’t know much of the history of the English Defence League but I know they are against Islam oppressing peoples’ homeland and their terrible treatment towards women, and as far as I’m concerned that makes us on the same page.” Winestein elaborated that he opposed the Muslim culture due to their support for inherent belief in wife-beating, female circumcision, and intolerance of queer people.

Inside the theatre, a panel of four were speaking on the issues concerning Israeli Apartheid. Khaled Mouammar from the Canadian Arab Federation opened addressing the fact that the Canadian government deals with issues much like the Bush administration “either you’re evil, or good. There are so many voices not being heard when you choose sides like that.”

Winestein had said that Tim McCaskell from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid had chosen the wrong side since Israel was the only nation in the middle east that accepts queer people. McCaskell spoke second on the panel saying that freedom of speech allows for solidarity. He illustrated the plight of queer men and women in Toronto in parallel to the Palestinian relocation.

PHOTO: NORA LORETO

Egypt has largest protests in 40 years Observers suggest Tunisian uprising has set the scene for other movements in Arab world

By David Newberry Egyptian protestors in opposition to President Hosni Mubarak have brought the largest mass demonstrations in 40 years to the streets of Cairo. The protestors—who seem to be taking their lead from the so-called Tunisian Dignity Revolution—disobeyed state orders and filled the streets of a number of Egyptian cities last week.

On January 25 and 26, an estimated 15,000 people took to the streets of Cairo, chanting slogans against Egypt’s President of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, as well as against the United States (which backs Mubarak), and called for internal reforms and more democracy. The demonstrators, who gathered at Cairo’s Tehrir Square, were eventually removed by force around 1 AM on January 26 by police using rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons, and according to some reports, live ammunition. As of January 27, the death toll in Egypt has reportedly reached six people (four protestors and two police officers).

These events bare a striking resemblance to recent developments in Tunisia, the northernmost African country whose December protests forced longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee his office and the country. In Tunisia, his departure has led to the formation of an interim government, while large-scale protests continue. The specific event that seemingly triggered both protests involved people lighting themselves on fire, an act that Egyptian journalist Issandr El Amrani of Arabist.net attributes to the ongoing “desparation and humiliation” of those affected. As of January 27, six reports of selfimmolation have come out of the Egyptian protests alone.

Hossam El Hamalawy, a Journalist and activist in Egypt, drew parallels between the Tunisian and Egyptian version of events, telling Democracy Now! that “the Tunisian revolution against Ben Ali proved to be a major source of inspiration to the Egyptian people… People here in Egypt can draw parallels between Ben Ali and Mubarak…The chants yesterday that the people were chanting in Cairo and the provinces were very similar to the chants that our Tunisian brothers and sisters have been chanting over the last few weeks in their uprising.”

The demonstrations in Egypt, however, seem to be garnering more international attention, especially from the United States, who has been very supportive of Egypt and President Mubarak in the past.

While U.S. President Barack Obama was quick to applaud the ‘courage and dignity’ of Tunisian protestors, the government was just as quick to assure the world, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Egypt’s government was “stable,” despite the disruptive protests.

While this mass-outbreak of unrest is being called ‘spontaneous’ by some media outlets and participants, the underlying issues and movements have been developing for some time. Smaller, regional protest movements have come and gone over the last decade, and the current unrest has been endorsed by some long-standing opposition groups in Egypt, including the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Still, the sheer numbers that began to take to the streets on January 25 is unprecedented in contemporary Egypt. The list of complaints is broad, ranging from the ‘state of emergency’ that Egypt has been under almost uninterrupted since 1967, to high poverty and unemployment, to several specific incidences of police brutality that took place in 2010.

Egypt’s government, through the Ministry of Interior Affairs, stated that the country would not tolerate “provocative movements, or protest gatherings, or organizing marches or demonstrations.” Nongovernmental political activities are banned in Egypt under the seemingly perpetual Emergency Law, which gives police the power to arrest without warrant and detain without charge, and a new law specifically banning these protests was introduced Wednesday. President Mubarak announced on February 2 that he intended to resign in September, and his government has made few concessions to the crowds simply stating through Secretary General Safwat El-Sherif that “the minority does not force its will on the majority.”

Some reports have suggested that the government has blocked social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, in an effort to prevent protestors from communicating with each other, as well as with the rest of the world. There was also a rumour circulating online that the son of President Mubarak—who was touted a possible candidate in the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for September—has fled Egypt with his family, though these were unconfirmed.

In the mean time, organizers in Egypt have called for the protests to continue. On Friday, January 29, more than two million people demonstrated throughout Egypt.

Similar protests have also been reported in Algeria, and to a lesser extent, Jordan, Albania and several other countries in the region. On Thursday, protestors in Yemen—led by opposition politicians and youth organizations—called for the ouster of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has reined for over three decades.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that his government is “watching developments (in Egypt) with great attention.”

Ryerson Free Press The monthly newspaper for continuing education, distance education and part-time students at Ryerson Address Suite SCC-301 Ryerson Student Centre 55 Gould Street Toronto, ON CANADA M5B 1E9

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Ryerson Free Press february 2011 3

Environment Minister appeals to “ethics” in purchasing tar sands oil

By Mary Dirmeitis

If the reputation of the Alberta tar sands were its most pertinent environmental issue, then Peter Kent’s statement in his first media interview as Environment Minister would be appropriate.

Kent believes that part of his portfolio consists of cleaning up the tar sands’ “unmerited” bad name, and is launching a facelift campaign in an attempt to rebrand the tar sands operations as “ethical oil,” a term coined by Calgary author Ezra Levant, a one-time aide to Conservative MP Stockwell Day. Kent has popularized Levant’s argument that Canada’s petroleum represents an ethical alternative to that produced in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran because tar sands petroleum “is the product of a natural resource whose revenues don’t fund terrorism.”

Kent has also stated that “the profits from this oil are not used in undemocratic or unethical ways. The proceeds are used to better society in the great Canadian democracy. The wealth generated is shared with Canadians.”

These statements have stirred considerable controversy. University of Alberta political economist Gordon Laxer claims the oil sands boom has actually destroyed more jobs than it has created, making the wealth shared by the tar sands industry take the form of short-term construction work and low-wage service jobs.

Kent’s need to shift the focus from the tar sands’ greenhouse-gas-heavy extraction methods to its funding of Stephen Harper’s “ethical society” represents, according to Laxer, a rebranding effort that is doomed to fail. Laxer notes that not only is it impossible to “green” the tar sands, but the logic of the motive behind the rebranding is also flawed.

Kent’s “ethical oil” campaign is in response to a movement in the United States to boycott Canada’s oil for environmental reasons. To combat the potentially negative economic effect of the movement, as the U.S. is the tar sands’ biggest customer, the Conservative government is attempting to rebrand the tar sands in a manner that speaks to Americans; buying from us is more ethically sound than buying from ‘terrorists.’ To many the idea of ‘funding democracy,’ however, does not trump the environmental damage.

Laxer asks, “What’s ethical about tar sands oil that produces three times the greenhouse gases as conventional oil? About using three barrels of water for every barrel of tar sands oil?

About devouring two tons of earth for every barrel of tar sands oil?” The greenhouse gas emitted from the tar sands disrupts complex ecosystems and risks human and animal life, yet Kent sees this environmental destruction as secondary to supporting our democracy with petrodollars.

However, as this ethics debate ensues, Canada continues to import over 50 per cent of its oil from Kent’s apparently “unethical” sources, such as Saudi Arabia.

Originally printed in Arthur, The Peterborough and Trent University Independent Press.

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Garcia deported: Case highlights growing difficulty for Mexican refugees

By Scaachi Koul

After years of adjusting to a new life in Canada, going to school without English fluency and without his older sister and guardian, Daniel Garcia has been deported back to Mexico following a four-year battle to stay in Toronto.

19-year-old Garcia and his older sister Brenda, left Mexico three years ago after experiencing persecution and violence due to Brenda’s sexual orientation. They applied for refugee status but were both rejected, and Brenda was deported a week before her brother. Garcia had been living in Parkdale and attending school while fighting deportation.

When they fled from Mexico Brenda, now 30 years old, was his legal guardian. Her partner was attacked and murdered while Garcia was in the room and faced violent attacks due to her sexual orientation. The judge did not believe Brenda’s claims of persecution and was deported.

Mohan Mishra is an organizer with Toronto’s No One Is Illegal. He aided Garcia’s classmates, teachers and friends in organizing rallies, press conferences and meetings, along with helping get legal support in order. “We knew that it was going to be a really long shot to have him stay,” said Mishra. “Jason Kenney has been particularly dispiriting in his application and very aggressive in deporting people.”

At a rally held for Garcia on New Year’s Eve, more than 100 protesters asked Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, to grant a Temporary Resident Permit to Garcia, so he could complete the school year along with his request for political asylum with legal representation.

Garcia wasn’t alone in his fight for residency in the country. “We had literally thousands of people supporting Daniel, including

teachers and MPPs,” said Mishra.

Garcia had bad luck from the beginning. Soon after he and his sister lodged a refugee claim, their lawyer passed away.

Garcia was forced to fill out applications on his own as a minor and without legal aid. “An application that should have been a couple hundred pages turned out to be three or four pages,” says Mishra. “He was turned down.”

The official reasons behind Garcia’s deportation is due to “complete disregard” for Canada’s immigration laws. He failed to report a change of address in October and didn’t appear at a court date last year, which led to a warrant for his arrest.

Kenney has said publicly that he believes Garcia got fair treatment, and that he benefited from all the rights available to asylum seekers. “Nobody is deported until after they have exhausted their appeals,” he said to CBC.ca following Garcia’s deportation. “We expect them to leave our country and respect Canadian law.”

For Mishra and members of No One Is Illegal, Garcia’s deportation shows exactly how Canada’s reputation as a nation welcoming to all immigrants is still a myth for those trying to get in. “What the government has shown is that they have an axe to grind against people coming from Mexico in general,” said Mishra. Requirements for immigrants coming from Mexico have tightened, including the new requirement of a Visa.

Garcia may have already been deported, but No One Is Illegal continues to fight for his and other cases of deportation.

They are no longer in contact with Garcia’s sister, but have kept in touch with Garcia. “There’s a huge community of people still willing to support Daniel.”

HAMILTON STEELWORKERS STILL LOCKED OUT, RALLY AGAINST PENSION CUTS

By Molly Hayes Hamilton may be attempting to shed its ‘Steeltown’ reputation, but the steel industry is still the heart of the city. Local 1005 (the United Steelworkers Union) President Rolf Gerstenberger is confident that Hamiltonians still remember this as the workers he represents remain locked out of their jobs.

The lockout was sparked by a disagreement over pension package concessions. U.S. Steel wants their workers to agree to no longer index their pension plans to inflation and close the pension plan to new hires.

According to Gerstenberger, “For them just to say no, we want to smash up your pension plan, that didn’t sit well with the people of Hamilton. With the 9,000 pensioners who built this company.”

This isn’t the first struggle they’ve faced with their new U.S. owners, who bought Stelco in 2007 and renamed it U.S. Steel Canada.

The Hamilton plant shut down completely in 2009 because of the economy.

It was the first time in Stelco’s history that they were shut down. “It was quite dramatic for Hamilton,” Gerstenberger said, “A foreign company coming in here, buying us and then shutting us down. We used to be the biggest steel company in Canada.”

U.S. Steel Canada produces over 2 million tons of (semi-finished) steel annually.

They’ve had six strikes since the formation of the union in 1946. This is the only lockout in history.

But Hamiltonians have come through for their workers, and Gerstenberger is confident the support will continue through Saturday’s rally. News outlets estimated that more than 10,000 people attended the rally.

Before the rally, Gerstenberger said, “The support so far from the city has been overwhelming...As far as financial contributions not just from the union but also from individuals, people donating five hundred, three hundred dollars, plus everything that’s been brought down to the picket lines.” Local MPs and businesses have sent letters of endorsement to Stephen Harper.

The Community Open House held by the Union on Dec. 17 was met with an outpouring of support from local businesses, which included donations of food and toys – things that have become difficult to buy on the $200 in strike pay they currently receive every week. Santa was there, and not ironically, so was the Grinch.

In early January, Service Canada confirmed that they would allow claims of

$400 a week for workers in EI benefits, on top of the $200 a week they were currently getting from USW Local 1005 (the union).

Although this helps workers – and puts pressure on U.S. Steel Canada to get back into production – they really just want to get back to work.

On Jan. 29, U.S. Steel Canada workers hosted a Day of Action, which included a march through downtown. Representatives from the Union, the Hamilton and District Labour Council, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress stated in a press release before the rally that they are coming together to “denounce the arrogance of the global monopolies and their assault on people’s rights and wrecking of the economy and country.”

“This rally is going to symbolize the people vs. U.S. Steel,” said Gerstenberger before the rally. This rally will highlight “what a lot of these big companies are doing in Canada.”

To university students, Gerstenberger stresses the importance of unions: “The younger generation is going to have to deal with this mess. Everyone should be able to have a secure income when they retire, to be able to live. Without a union, it’s pretty hard to deal with these problems on your own.”

Ontario government launches OSAP app CFS-Ontario says student aid resources should be better allocated

By Emma Godmere, CUP Ottawa Bureau Chief OTTAWA (CUP) — The Ontario government seems to think that smartphones and extended deadlines are the keys to a student’s heart.

In a string of recent announcements, the Ontario government has launched a mobile site to help students find more information about the status of their Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) application on the go and also pushed back the annual opening of OSAP online applications from May to February.

John Milloy, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, was in Ottawa Jan. 24–25 to unveil the new “OSAP app” and speak to students and media at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and La Cité collégiale.

“Once the OSAP has been approved, you’ll be able to follow along — you’ll know payments that are forthcoming and payments that have been made,” Milloy explained.

“It’s a tool that’s obviously going to have a big impact on people going to post-secondary education for the first time.”

Not everyone applauded the new announcements, however.

“It’s really frustrating to see what the government is putting resources into when it comes to student financial aid,” said Sandy Hudson, chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario.

“I mean, this is an app that allows you to watch how much debt you have, see whether you’ve been approved — if you have a smartphone,” she said, adding that the it “does nothing” to

help more students access post-secondary education.

And technically speaking, the app isn’t actually a piece of application software for a smartphone, but rather a simple mobile site. Students are invited to visit ontario.ca/osapmobile, where they are redirected to a smartphone-friendly login portion of the OSAP website.

After logging in, they can only check the status of their application for the current academic year — no information is available about repayment assistance or deadlines.

Annette Phillips, the ministry’s director of communications, explained that the initiative is currently in a pilot stage.

“The mobile app is an additional step the ministry has taken to try and reach students where they are and make the process a bit easier,” she said in an email.

“The minister receives feedback from students regularly on a broad range of issues and will be discussing the new app, among other issues, with students,” she added. “If students feel repayment options should be included in the app, we will look into doing that for them.”

And while students cannot apply for OSAP directly on the mobile site, they now have a few extra months to do so on the complete and recently reformatted OSAP website.

Hudson noted that while the earlier application opening date was a welcome piece of news, the government needs to be focusing more of its attention elsewhere.

“Thousands of students, obviously, are going to be [using] OSAP, and having any more time to be able to plan their

financial future is going to be helpful — but really, these aren’t things that are improving access to post-secondary education,” she said.

“If the government wants to be doing that, they need to be concentrating on making sure that students have access to upfront, needs-based, non-repayable grants.”

Milloy explained that while the government’s recent individual announcements may seem small, they are still meant to make students’ lives easier.

“All these things in isolation, I can understand, are not cause for champagne; but you’ve got to look at it as part of a larger story and the story revolves around two things: one, around affordability, and the second, getting rid of some of the red tape. So things like the app, the dates, that’s all about the red tape — allowing students to access it easier,” he said.

“But they’re also a continuing part of a story that is being introduced this year and that is some pretty significant changes to OSAP,” said Milloy.

“We have invested $81 million in additional resources to OSAP and made some pretty significant changes that are in place right now,” he added, referring to changes announced last spring that include the doubling of the student income exemption cap, the addition of a six-month interest-free period after graduation and an updated Repayment Assistance Program.

Changes made to OSAP in March 2010 extended the borrowing limit for students from $7,000 per year to $7,300 enabling students to borrow up to $29,200 for four years.

Ryerson considers fall reading break

By Mai Habib

Ryerson students have long been lobbying for a fall semester reading week in hopes of matching fellow universities. This recent phenomenon in Ontario has Ryerson students begging the question, “why not us?”

Well lo and behold, the students have a voice at this university and the active pursuit of a fall reading week has begun.

The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) held a Town Hall meeting on January 13. Liana Salvador, RSU’s vice-president of education, headed the meeting which turned up around 25 bodies.

People attending were a mix of engineering, science and architecture students. These are the three departments that could be most affected by the prospect of a fall reading week.

The push for the extra week off during the fall term was started by students in the arts and business faculties. Both of these faculties do not require a preset number of class hours per week in order for their students to graduate. This hour per week requirement is known as accreditation and is used in the engineering and architecture departments. The accreditation system part of external requirements of independent bodies which makes this vote is not as simple as a couple of class hours lost. It is also very much the reason why the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science may have to opt out of the twelve-week semester option.

For students in the Engineering and Architecture departments, a twelve-week semester is not a matter of taking the extra week of classes and dividing those hours up. It would be a complete course and syllabus revamping and an increase in class hours per week in order to achieve the accreditation requirements.

The science departments do not have accreditation requirements, however, because there are so many Engineering students enrolled in the same science classes as part of their curriculum, Science students may have to conform to whatever the Engineering faculty decides.

The Town Hall shed light on how complicated the vote by senate and decision to move to a twelve week semester, really is as Ryerson would stand the chance of having every faculty run on different schedules.

If this separate schedule system is applied, all the faculties would start at the same time in

PHOTO: ANDY MANGOLD/FLICKR

September and January and end the same time in December and April. However, the number of weeks and the days each take off, will vary. On the upside for the faculties opting out the reading week, there would be no liberal classes during that week off.

The fall semester running on twelve weeks, would mean that the winter semester has to do the same. Due to restrictions on how late school can go in April, the extra week off in the winter term would be tacked onto the Mid-Year holiday break. This meaning that school would begin a week later in January.

Queen’s University currently runs on a twelve week syllabus for their engineering programs.

They have been on this system for a number of years. Some Queen’s students were contacted about their program and how they feel it varies in comparison to others. Most agreed that their work load and school hours are more intense; however, the extra week off in both semesters is a much needed time for them to catch up and prepare for the exams ahead.

Dr. Phillip Chan, the associate dean for undergraduate engineering programs and student affairs at Ryerson, has already made his decision clear - he will be opting out if the twelve-week semester is approved by senate. This decision is on behalf of the entire program.

In hopes of understanding the views among engineering, science and architecture students, the RSU asked if any students would be willing to take on more class or lab hours per week. The response was a unanimous “no.” The question of whether they would want a week off in exchange for more school hours still came back with a negative response. These assertive answers become clear to the average person when details are exposed. Students said that the average engineering student puts in 25-30 hours of classes a week.

The next steps of action for this possible semester reform are as follows: Senate votes on whether they approve a twelve-week semester system instead of our current thirteen-weeks. Then, if approved, each individual faculty has until December 2011 to opt out and continue with their current thirteen-week syllabus.

The decision on a fall reading week will take some time to implement. A fall reading week wouldn’t begin until either the fall of 2012 or the fall of 2013.

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Upcoming Ontario election sparks tuition fees talk Post-secondary education will be a hot topic in upcoming election: Milloy

By Alexandra Posadzki, CUP Ontario Bureau Chief TORONTO (CUP) — With a provincial election slated for October and the possibility of a federal election on the horizon, Ontario post-secondary students are wondering what that will mean for tuition fees.

“I think the changing nature of our economy is going to be a central issue [in the election], the role of public services is going to be a central issue, and within that postsecondary education is key,” said John Milloy, minister of training, colleges and universities.

There is currently no multi-year funding framework in place for post-secondary education, said Sandy Hudson, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario.

When the last framework expired, said Hudson, it was extended until the election.

“I think that means that the election is going to be very important for post-secondary education,” said Hudson, adding that Ontario students pay the highest tuition fees in the country.

Andrea Horwath, leader of the Ontario NDP, recently weighed in about the costs of tuition in the province.

“There’s no doubt that there needs to be a lot of work done on affordability of postsecondary education, and maintaining the quality of post-secondary education in this province,” said Horwath.

“I think the government makes a lot of promises, a lot of claims that don’t pass the

smell test when push comes to shove.”

But Horwath would not mention any specifics of the NDP’s upcoming campaign.

Meanwhile, McGuinty’s Liberals have been busy reminding voters of their track record on post-secondary issues in hopes of being re-elected.

“Post-secondary education has a much more important role these days because of the changing nature of the economy,” said Milloy. “That’s why, despite the fact the government has financial challenges, we’ve still found significant dollars to invest in it, because we realize it’s so important for the new economy.”

The new economy that Milloy referred to is one where, experts say, 70 per cent of new jobs will require a post-secondary education.

In response, Milloy hopes to ensure that 70 per cent of Ontario residents get post-secondary schooling. Currently, that figure falls just short at around 62 per cent.

He also hopes to increase accessibility for those who are under-represented in Ontario’s colleges and universities, such as Aboriginal students and students with disabilities.

In addition to the Liberals’ promise to create more spaces in Ontario’s schools through the Open Ontario program, Milloy pointed to the $81 million the government invested in the Ontario Student Assistance Program last spring as proof of their track

record on education.

But encouraging students to rack up more debt may not be the ideal solution, according to Hudson.

“I think the problems are just getting worse and worse. We see, in addition to the fee hikes, the government continually turning to debt as the way to fund post-secondary education,” she said.

The recession affects students in a disproportionate way, she added, because they are in a “precarious position in their lives when it comes to work,” making it difficult to pay back thousands of dollars in student loans.

But Milloy says he would happily put the Liberals’ record on post-secondary education up against the records of the Progressive Conservatives or the NDP. “The best predictor of future actions is past actions,” said Milloy. “We’ve made post-secondary education a priority. We’ve invested considerable resources, we’ve brought in policy changes, we’ve done everything we can to encourage more people to go into it.

“When you look at the other two parties when they were in power, post-secondary education quite frankly was at the bottom of the list of their priorities and you saw funding decreases and cuts to the system.”

Hudson disagrees.

“Students remember Dalton McGuinty

for breaking his promise of freezing tuition fees,” said Hudson, referring to the 2004 tuition freeze that was lifted after two years.

Tuition fees subsequently increased “far more than they would have been increased under previous policy of the Conservative government,” she added.

A recent story in The Globe and Mail dubbed McGuinty the “education premier” for his work on elementary and secondary education, as well as for creating full-day kindergarten classes.

“I think that if McGuinty wants to be known as an effective education premier, not one that saw tuition fees rise faster than they would have under a Conservative government, he’s going to need to take a good look at access to post-secondary education,” said Hudson.

The student federation will be focusing on lobbying the government and educating and mobilizing students to make sure that post-secondary issues are on the table during the election.

“We think it’s important to recognize that education does not only benefit the individual person who is enrolled in the program.

Education benefits the health of society as a whole,” said Hudson.

“It is something that our communities by and large should be thinking about when it comes to the election.”

GRADUATING IN SPRING 2011?

Simply completing your graduation requirements does not mean you have graduated.

If you are a student in your final year/semester/course, you are required to apply to graduate on RAMSS (my.ryerson.ca)

APPLICATION DEADLINES: Monday, February 28, 2011 Final date to apply for graduation on RAMSS for the Spring 2011 Convocation (with $40 graduation administation fee)

Friday, March 18, 2011 Final date to apply in person to graduate for the Spring 2011 Convocation (with $40 graduation administation fee and $50 late fee for a total of $90) Please remind your friends and classmates of these deadlines, especially those who are not regularly on campus!

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Applications to graduate will not be accepted after March 18, 2011.

Eligible students who either have outstanding debts in excess of $10 or who have equipment, cage cards, library books or RESNET cards overdue as of May 11, 2011 will still be invited to attend their Convocation ceremony but will not receive their award document at that time.

Log in to RAMSS to determine if you have a 'Negative Service Indicator' (Withhold) and contact the appropriate department immediately to make arrangements to clear the outstanding debt.

For more information visit: www.ryerson.ca/curriculumadvising

OPINION From a free press to revolution?

The public’s right to information and the struggle for democracy

By Nora Loreto, Editor in Chief As I write this, people are rapt in revolution.

President Hosni Mubarak has announced that he will not be seeking “re-election,” and some news outlets are reporting that U.S. officials are calling for his departure to happen immediately. The New York Times has reported that Jordan’s King Abdullah II has fired his entire government amid protests in that country. And the Associated Press has reported that the “Western-backed” Palestinian government in the West Bank will hold council elections sooner than had previously been expected. This government considers Egypt’s government an ally – and is desperately trying to back it.

Yemenis have also taken to the streets, demanding an end to the corruption of the government and poverty of the people. A day of rage was held in Lebanon’s Tripoli on January 25 and, by the time you read this, opposition supporters in Syria may have successfully had their protest in the capital city there, against President Bashar Al-Assad. Mass protests have also happened in Sudan and Algeria, while solidarity rallies have been held in cities around the world.

And in Tunisia, sparked by the suicide of 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17 in response to police repression and chronic unemployment, the so-called dignity revolution has toppled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The United Nations estimates that at least 219 people have died there.

While these events can all be linked to internal and external pressures on the people who live in each country, it is amazing that seemingly one after the other, countries have fallen into revolution. Was it Bouazizi alone who sparked revolution in Tunisia? Was it Yemen’s 35 per cent unemployment rate, the highest of the Arab nations? Was it the widespread repression, oppression, and corruption that characterize so many of the dictatorships that dot the Middle East?

Each of these events has been fuelled either directly or indirectly by WikiLeaks. At a time

PHOTOS: KARIM REZK/FLICKR (LEFT); C.ELLE/FLICKR (RIGHT)

when media concentration in Canada is dangerously high, and when mainstream journalists in the United States sound more like government mouthpieces than critical truth-seekers, WikiLeaks has come under fire in the West from all the right places.

Somehow, despite the progress that humanity has made, the simple act of releasing documents – especially those that the powerful don’t want the powerless to see – has become in itself a revolutionary act. And this act has no-doubt been fuel in the fires of peoples’ movements worldwide.

WikiLeaks information has been leaked steadily since 2007 and, depending on who you are, the leaked reports have been of varying importance. After leaking the operating procedures of Guantánamo Bay on December 4, 2007, and leaking Sarah Palin’s e-mail account on September 16, 2008, the Western world started to catch on that the anonymous whistleblower website could easily be passed information more damning and therefore more dangerous, over and over.

It wasn’t until videos were released of an Apache helicopter shooting and killing two Reuters journalists that WikiLeaks took centre stage as an agency with legitimate information that threatened to take down eminent global powers.

WikiLeaks has been credited with influencing the course and outcomes of the 2007 Kenyan elections and demonstrating the extent to which the U.S. manipulated the climate change debate. It is also credited for exposing what the U.S. really thought about the Tunisian president, which some have argued was the spark that ignited the Tunisian revolution, now spreading across the Arab world.

At the heart of the Tunisian struggle has been access to information and freedom of expression. Al Jazeera English reported that cyber activists identified that the Tunisian government was hacking into its own citizens’ Gmail, Facebook, Hotmail, and Yahoo! accounts. In response, a network of anonymous activists pushed back. They accelerated their attacks on the government’s censoring web infrastructure after the Tunisian government blocked access to WikiLeaks.

In Egypt, trailing a few weeks behind Tunisia, the Internet has again become a battleground for the government and activists, as access to Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet in general had been shut down entirely – a first in the Internet’s history.

In the West, if the February 1 interview with 60 Minutes is any indication, WikiLeaks is seen as a subversive plot hatched by the “mysterious” Julian Assange. But as information leaks continue, especially the recent Palestinian Papers, they reveal secrets that confirm suspicions widely held by the public, such as the quiet support many Arab leaders have for U.S. foreign policy. They also demonstrate the importance of anonymous online platforms for whistleblowers that have information that should be made public.

I’m writing this piece and watching Al Jazeera English’s live coverage from Tahrir Square in central Cairo. I can hear bullets ring out, crowds chanting.

There’s no doubt for me that seeing the streets of Cairo live will influence my opinion, and I have no doubt that technology-assisted activists will continue to let the information flow. As information flows, so too will people demand a more representative, equitable, and fair leadership in their own countries.

Knowledge is power. Just look at China, where “Egypt” and “Cairo” have been blocked from search terms by the country’s largest web-portals.

It’s no wonder that the rich and the powerful are so keen to restrict the flow of information and to control what we know.

And it’s why all of us who support freedom and democracy must do everything we can to keep that information flowing. Like the Egyptian Revolution, our future depends on it.

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Sudan and Darfur: why the numbers don’t add up

By Salmaan Abdul Hamid Khan

The nation of Sudan has once again graced the headlines of the mainstream Western press: less than one month ago, the people of the South embarked on an historic election when they voted “for freedom.” The referendum is expected to be a sure victory for those who wish to secede from the North of the country, and so Africa’s newest nation could come into fruition as early as July of this year.

Neglected by the government in Khartoum, Southern Sudan is characterized by endemic poverty and vast underdevelopment, a reality that most hope to change with the independence of a new nation. An independent and oil-rich South, however, does not necessarily mean an end to the troubles of this large, multicultural, and multiethnic region, as several outstanding issues such as the sharing of oil revenues, demarcation of borders, and citizenship remain on the table.

During this “re-exploration” of Sudan, a familiar topic appeared again in the media. Unlike most other African tragedies that seem to occur in “the dead of the night,” unreported, and largely ignored by the West, the conflict in Darfur has managed to generate international attention – and less than a year after violence had broken in 2003.

So what is going on in Darfur? Why has this conflict generated more outrage from the Western powers than any other past or ongoing conflict in Africa?

In a 2005 address to the United Nations, what drove George W. Bush to be the first to label what was happening in Darfur as “genocide” while others “pussyfooted” around the definition?

Just as impressive is the fact that Darfur made it into Ryerson’s official “News and Events” publication back in 2009, as well as the Ryersonian newspaper and our very own Ryerson Free Press. Articles in the latter two newspapers cited statistics of an alarming 300,000 people killed.

Yet during my research into the conflict in Darfur, I couldn’t find where these numbers were coming from. Why were our student newspapers, much of the mainstream press, as well as student groups such as STAND (a student-based anti-genocide coalition) mentioning figures of between 300,000

and 400,000 killed? By contrast, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the most reliable estimates – between 50,000 and 70,000 dead – came from the World Health Organization (WHO). The U.S. Academy of Sciences backed the numbers, following an audit of estimates by six different groups that asked: “How many people were killed in Darfur?”

In addition, the same study concluded that almost 80 per cent of those fatalities were caused by factors such as draught and desertification, and only about 20 per cent by violence.

Contrary to a headline that appeared in the April 2009 edition of the Ryerson Free Press that read “The crisis in Darfur has gotten even worse,” a report released by the UN force in Darfur a few months prior stated that “the total number of civilian deaths throughout 2008 was 1,500 civilians” with the “majority being killed by warring rebel groups.” The report represents a dramatic decline in mortality figures since January 2005.

The campus press aside, one of the central rallying groups around the “Darfur cause” has been the Save Darfur Coalition.

According to Mahmood Mamdani, Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, the “Save Darfur group has proven to be one of the most successful movements since the anti-war movements in the Vietnam years, in terms of organizing and creating a presence on university campuses, even more so than the anti-apartheid movements.”

However, unlike the anti-war movement of the Vietnam years, the “Save Darfur” movement is hardly a grassroots peace movement, and has “honed skills of advertizing media and put this in the service of a call to war.” Some of the earlier slogans of the movement included “Boots on the ground!” and “Out of Iraq, Into Darfur!”

In a 2009 debate with Professor Mamdani that was conducted at Columbia University, John Prendergast, a board member on the Save Darfur Coalition and co-founder of the ENOUGH project, argued that “we need to prepare for diplomatic, economic [sanctions], and as a last resort…the use of military force.” Another advocate of the “Save Darfur” cause is U.S vice-president Joe Biden, who said that “we don’t need any

more than 2,500 NATO forces to lead [African Union] forces to shut down the Janjaweed.” Biden later stated: “I think its genocide. We can act now. We should act now…. [I]f the president were asking me, I would use American force now.”

Threats of sanctions and the use of military force, as well as the exaggeration of mortality figures, aren’t the only bones that I have to pick with this so-called “anti-genocide” movement. One of the greater flaws of the Darfur campaign is that it fails to address some of the “multiple causes” of violence in the region, such as the militarization of the Darfur region due to Cold War politics during the 1980s, a fact that directly implicates the U.S. and its allies.

Another issue largely ignored is the environmental impact of draught and desertification in Darfur, which is pushing neighbouring groups of people into conflict with each other as they battle over water and scarce grazing lands.

As a result, the “Save Darfur” campaign tends to simplify the actors involved, reducing a complicated history of geo-politics to a child-like narrative. In the case of Darfur, the “murderers,” we are told, are the government-backed “Arabs,” while the victims are the “Africans.” In reality, and as revealed by a United Nations commission specifically tasked with making sense of the ethnic identities in the Darfur region, “it has never been easy to sort different tribes into categories of ‘Arab’ and ‘African.’ The various tribes that have been the object of attacks and killing (the Fur, Massalit, and Zeghawa tribes) do not appear to make up groups distinct from the ethnic groups to which persons from militias that attack them belong. They speak the same language (Arabic) and embrace the same religion (Islam).”

According to Professor Mamdani, “if the ‘Save Darfur’ campaign can be credited with anything, it has been the ability to capture and tame a part of this potential rebellious constituency, the students, thereby marginalizing and overshadowing those who continued to mobilize around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This successful displacement was indeed a model campaign, a successful lesson in depoliticization.”

Why is Black History Month just one month of the year?

By Haseena Manek Black History Month is a fine thing, I think. It’s a time of year when it’s okay to remind people about racism, to talk about Rosa Parks, or the Black Panthers.

Just like Christmas, it’s a time where people are called out to show off their finest in moral fibre.

Well, fuck that.

The Salvation Army is around for the other eleven months of the year, and so are Black people. It is not okay to just remember centuries of colonialism, ongoing oppression, or the reality that racism, in fact, has not evaporated, for just 28 days.

Black History Month is at once an educational opportunity and a sorry excuse for the way the history of marginalized peoples has been swept under the rug by the nation-state and is left out of the curriculum in the public education system. That is exactly the problem I have with Black History Month: its tokenism.

What is the point of a month-long battle to educate our oppressors about our history, our culture, our people, if they can just forget for the rest of the year? Are we to sit around waiting for our gift of time, just to start again every year? What’s the point of an International Day for the Elimination of Racism? It’s only one out of 365 days. Every day should be that day.

The oppressed need to make their voices heard every chance they get, and our oppressors should have to listen every single time.

Discussion surrounding Black History Month reminds me of the huge debate surrounding so-called “Black Focused” schools in Toronto.

While I personally don’t like the idea of segregated schools per se, why the hell shouldn’t young children from racialized background grow up learning about themselves? What is necessarily wrong with an alternative curriculum? We have the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board, we have French immersion and Saturday schools run by and for various immigrant and religious communities in Toronto.

Outside of that, the only time where children are taught about black history is during Black History Month. When you consider that February is the only time of year when we can talk about racism, about the diverse and varying histories of Black people, then it is really no surprise that someone wanted an alternative school, where these things can be talked about openly, and all the time.

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Whether or not students, regardless of their background, feel comfortable talking about racism and their identity can be debated on a case-by-case basis.

But just by identifying a Black History Month, we are declaring that people can get away with ignoring Black history, racism and the plight of Black people and other marginalized communities for the rest of the year.

I don’t believe that creating a safe temporal space for education and discussion once a year is enough. We have to ensure that issues regarding racism, diversity, power, and oppression are on the table for educators and politicians all year round.

Perhaps by looking at the history of Black History Month, we can understand why and how it has come about. In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson of West Virginia in the United States started promoting “Negro History Week,” the second week of February, which became the Black History Month celebrated today in the U.S. and in Canada (and in October in the United Kingdom).

He did so because he noticed that only a certain demographic was featured in the history books, and he decided to write a few more characters in.

So how is it that an effort that began to make public education more inclusive of marginalized communities, and more comprehensive (because really, any history books about Canada and the U.S. with only white people are just plain lacking in terms of academic integrity), became the opposite?

Because as I see it, Black History Month is more symbolic than it is productive. While on the one hand, it is nice to have an institutionally endorsed educational initiative specifically for marginalized peoples, I still say it is not enough. Black history, and the stories of all oppressed peoples, should be written into and featured in all history books.

In the case of a former colony like Canada, its institutions, railways, roadways, and very existence were built on the backs of slaves, immigrants, and Indigenous peoples, and their stories deserve respect. They deserve to be acknowledged and learned about in legislatures, in boardrooms and in classrooms – and not just for 28 days, but all year round.

Check out the education guide – for use all year round – on Black History in Canada: www. blackhistorycanada.ca/education.php

Climate criminals: Canada in Cancun

By Rhiannon Russell

World environmental leaders wrapped up 2010 by attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. From November 29 to December 10, delegates from 193 countries tried to reach an agreement on how to combat global warming.

Like 2009’s conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, this meeting was largely unproductive.

One of the main goals of Cancun was to decide what to do about greenhouse gas emissions after 2012. To date, the Kyoto Protocol is the only international treaty that sets legally binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012. It was written at the climate change talks in 1997 and ratified eight years later.

Under Kyoto, industrialized countries such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and most European nations agreed to take the lead in reducing their emissions. Most of these countries committed to cutting emissions by a minimum of five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Delegates agreed to set emissions targets, but for industrialized nations only; they agreed that these countries are most responsible for current greenhouse gas emissions levels. Under the protocol, developing nations such as India, China, and Iran aren’t legally bound to lower their emissions.

The economies of most of these countries rely heavily on the production and processing of fossil fuels. By attempting to reduce their emissions, these countries would likely see their economies suffer.

In Cancun, governments hoped to reach a consensus on whether to extend Kyoto or create a new protocol altogether. This didn’t happen.

Industrialized countries hoped for a new treaty that would give developing nations targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, while the developing nations planned to continue to stabilize their economies. Delegates agreed that climate change is one of today’s greatest challenges, that deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are necessary, and that the global temperature rise should be kept below two degrees Celsius.

How exactly will this be done? That’s still not entirely clear.

A package of decisions called the Cancun Agreements was written. Governments agreed to continue negotiations about reducing emissions.

One development in the package is the creation of a Green Climate Fund. Developed countries have committed to paying developing nations $1 million a year until 2020 to help them adapt to the effects of climate change and develop green technology. The fund is to be handled by the United Nations. It’s still unclear, at this point, where the money will come from.

John Dillon of KAIROS Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives says the Green Climate Fund has its loopholes: “It’s a very, very soft promise. There’s no real commitment from

governments,” he says. Dillon thinks the money will end up coming from carbon trading and private funding.

Industrialized nations also agreed to set up an adaptation committee to help developing countries deal with floods and droughts.

The issue of creating a successor to Kyoto was first broached in Copenhagen in 2009. No legally binding treaties were negotiated at this conference, although the Copenhagen Accord was written. It promotes the continuation of the protocol, acknowledges the importance of action against climate change, and calls for an assessment of the accord by 2015.

Due to its ineffectiveness, the conference was widely viewed as a failure. As a result, the general public’s expectations for Cancun were low. Canada’s delegates didn’t disappoint.

Activists and media outlets blamed John Baird, Canada’s environment minister, for hindering the possibility of progress at the conference. Ian Bruce, a climate change specialist, says Baird didn’t arrive in Cancun with a plan to communicate effectively with other nations.

Baird was resolute that Kyoto should be replaced by another treaty that legally binds all major greenhouse gas emitters, not just developed countries, to reduce emissions.

In particular, Baird singled out China: “If it’s two steps forward in Canada but eight steps back in China, that doesn’t deliver the goods in the fight against climate change,” he said.

“That doesn’t deliver the goods for the environment. It doesn’t deliver the goods for the world.”

Chinese delegates argued that industrialized nations such as Canada should continue to reduce their emissions and allow developing nations to flourish economically. While governments continue to procrastinate on the climate change issue, time is running out.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that 2010 has tied with 2005 and 1998 as the warmest year on record. According to WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud, this shows the Earth’s long-term warming trend: “The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998,” he said.

Environmental activists say action must be taken soon. “We have mucked up the world so badly that there is no easy way out,” said Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu of JustEarth and the Toronto Climate Campaign. “By the end of the century, we may be around six degrees warmer.”

Daniel T’seleie from the Canadian Youth Delegation agreed. “People are starting to realize that climate change is a huge problem, but it’s not urgent enough in the minds of most. We’re going to have to have real scares – natural disasters; food shortages in Canada, the US, and other developed countries – before we take the action we need to take.”

This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference is to be held in Durban, South Africa, at the end of November.

Read the Copenhagen Accord online: unfccc.int/home/items/5262.php

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 9

FEATURES Canada: An active proponent of child labour

By Jennifer Matthews

The Good Neighbours’ Club helps older men rebuild their lives

By Priyanka Jain

When we think of child labour, we don’t usually make any connection to it here in Canada. It is hard to believe that our country is an active proponent of it here at home, but it is.

In response to this unspeakable reality, the Canadian Labour Congress’s (CLC) Young Workers Working Group has launched the Minimum Age Campaign to pressure all levels of government to take a stand against child labour in Canada for good! Simply speaking, by virtue of its membership in the International Labour Organization (ILO), Canada has an obligation to ratify ILO’s Core Convention 138 on Minimum Age. Convention 138 permits the employment of children 15 years and older, reducing the age requirement to 14 years of age under certain conditions. C138 states that the age of employment “shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and in any case shall not be less than 15 years of age.” The article also states that “national laws or regulations may permit the employment of work of person 13-15 years of age” if it is “not likely to be harmful to their health or developments; and not such as to prejudice their attendance at school...” These standards are put in place to protect children and to make sure they finish compulsory schooling.

As of today, all provinces and territories in Canada permit the employment of children under the age of 14. The province of British Columbia permits the employment of children under the age of 12, while the province of Alberta permits the employment of 12-year old children with written consent of one parent or guardian. At the same time, young worker injury rates are rising and still too few young workers are aware of their rights at work.

Furthermore, most provincial and territorial governments and the federal government currently rely on a complaints registration process to enforce compliance. This process also needs to change by adopting effective inspections, monitoring, and reporting.

Canada remains one of only 27 countries that has not yet ratified C138 along with the likes of India, Iran, Mexico, and Myanmar.

The CLC and the wider labour movement in Canada firmly believe that Canada and the provinces and territories must pursue a policy to abolish child labour and to raise progressively the minimum age of employment. We need Canada to ratify ILO-C138.

If you agree that Canada should create a standard minimum age of employment across all jurisdictions, please send a letter to your Member of Parliament at: www.canadianlabour.ca/action-center/protect-young-workerssign-ilo-138.

You can also join the fight on facebook at: www.facebook.com/pages/CanadiansOpposed-to-Child-Labour/166107713429651.

Don’t forget to “like” the page and circulate it to your friends.

Jennifer Matthews is the student representative at the Canadian Labour Congress. For more information, visit: canadianlabour.ca/home

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The Good Neighbours’ Club, which is located at Shuter and Jarvis Streets, is a community drop-in centre for men aged 50 or older who are facing problems such as homelessness and addiction. The slim white building is located in a run-down part of Toronto, and welcomes more than 200 men to the centre daily.

It started off as a class assignment for me, to analyze carefully something happening in a designated part of Toronto. However, after visiting the Good Neighbours’ Club, I had realized that my assignment played an extremely minor role. The satisfaction of knowing that such a place existed was much appreciated.

Along with two classmates, the three of us anxiously walked up the narrow stairwell, and saw the main set of doors leading to a common area. Not knowing what to do, I quickly walked in, asked the receptionist for a pamphlet and walked right out. As we stood in the stairwell feeling a bit uneasy, the three of us decided to go outside and make conversation with two gentlemen having a cigarette. We kindly approached them, and right away started conversation about the Good Neighbours’ Club and its purpose.

Both men seemed extremely grateful for the drop-in centre, and looked forward to weekly day trips like the recent one to Science Centre.

The Good Neighbours’ Club is open 365

days a year from 8 AM to 5 PM. The centre provides free breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and they offer one-dollar dinners. Along with meals, the drop-in centre provides warm clothes, showers, laundry, telephones, a library, and much more to accommodate their members. The Good Neighbours’ Club asks that men become members upon entering the centre. As members, the men must abide by the centre’s policies and occasionally help out with errands to keep the centre running in good shape.

The Good Neighbours’ Club first opened in 1933 to aid war veterans who had become homeless due to family conflicts, drug or alcohol addiction, health problems, and so on.

Soon, the Good Neighbours’ Club became a place for not only veterans, but also for men who were much older. Today it is a place for men aged 50 and over, who are trying to improve their quality of life and rebuild their lives.

Antonio Bruno Scorsone, the executive director of the Good Neighbours’ Club, emphasized the importance of the drop-in centre, and why it serves such a significant purpose. “We’re here to provide these men with a stable environment, because that is what they need,” said Scorsone. After dinner, the men separate to various shelters for the night and return to the drop-in centre the next morning.

We had the opportunity to tour the

Good Neighbours’ Club and interact with some of the men. Although I was expecting daunting stares and comments as we passed, the men were extremely friendly and welcoming. Some simply minded their own business and didn’t make conversation, which was absolutely fine.

“Everyone needs love in their life,” Scorsone said before we left.

He was right. The men of the Good Neighbours’ Club are fathers, uncles, and grandfathers: knowing that there are people who love these men, dedicate their time to them, and take care of them, is a heartwarming feeling.

The white run-down building on Shuter and Jarvis Streets might look uninviting from the outside, but to hundreds of men, the Good Neighbours’ Club is a God-send.

Find out more about the Good Neighbours’ Club, and how you can help!

Visit www.goodneighboursclub.org

People with disabilities and the struggle for employment What it’s like looking for a job

By Ken Harrower I’ve been unemployed for over three months now, and I’ve been looking for a job that entire time. Having worked for a politician doesn’t make it any easier if you have a disability. In today’s economy, it’s hard for anybody to find a job. And it’s even harder for a person with a disability. The name of my disability is Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC). It is a rare congenital disorder that is characterized by multiple joint contractures and can include muscle weakness and fibrosis.

I first met George Smitherman in the summer of 1999 when I moved to Church Street in Toronto. He asked me to volunteer for him, so I started to volunteer periodically from about 2001 until he hired me in 2008. Mr. Smitherman gave me my first-ever paying job. I had recently overcome drug and alcohol addiction and was clean for about three months at the time. He saw in me a potential to work my way off the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), and for that I am very thankful. I have been free from alcohol and drugs for over two and-a-half years.

As many of you may know, George Smitherman ran to become Toronto’s next mayor in the municipal election in 2010.

However, he did not get elected. Since then, a number of people who once worked for him, including me, have lost our jobs. Since October 30, 2010, I have submitted my résumé to 121 people and places, but have received very little response.

The economy makes it tough to find paid work these days. But I have my art to fall back on. It’s not a steady source of income, but it helps me to keep myself busy. For the time being, I am alo back on ODSP, at least until I can find another steady paying job. I am working with two employment agencies that help people with disabilities find work.

I now understand when people say that looking for a job is a job in itself. To keep active, I also do some volunteer work for another politician. But it’s not constant, since they don’t have a whole lot for me to do. I also have three part-time helpers who help me out at home. One of my helpers has encouraged to me to do more of my art.

If you know of any data job positions, please let me know. You can reach me by e-mail at kenharrower1234@gmail.com or by phone at 647-348-1086. Thank you for your consideration.

PHOTO: goodneighboursclub.org

Flu season in Toronto Get a shot, not the flu!

By Peter Lewicki Homeless men gathered at St. James Cathedral in downtown Toronto as they do every Tuesday afternoon. The men ate hot soup and a fresh sandwich, got a free haircut— and bared their arms for their yearly flu shot.

Convincing the public to get a flu shot each year is a daunting challenge. But when the public also includes Toronto’s homeless community, the task may seem even more overwhelming.

“The homeless are often sceptical, but the Cathedral’s November 22 flu clinic was a resounding success,” says Gloria Wiebe, the staff nurse with the cathedral’s Outreach and Pastoral Care Ministries of the event. “We used our entire supply of flu vaccine, which means that the word is getting out to the homeless community about the importance of the shot.”

The City of Toronto has a number of free flu clinics scheduled throughout the season. They start in late October, run to the end of January, and are held in public locations such as community centres and libraries. Information about the shot is available on the city’s health website: http://www. toronto.ca/health/. Local media, the 311 service, and even Toronto Public Health’s Twitter feed also promote the shot.

But for the homeless, other avenues are needed to get the word out.

The flu is a serious respiratory illness with common symptoms including fever, cough, headache, runny eyes, stuffy nose, fatigue, and weakness. Influenza virus types A and B are responsible for the illnesses that occur nearly every winter and are the ones usually associated with hospitalization and death. The Evergreen Centre at 381 Yonge Street gives out flu shots five days a week, with or without a valid Ontario health card.

Health Canada reports that in an average season, the flu will kill about 4,000 people across the country. According to a recent study by the Canadian Medical Association, the mortality rate of homeless adult men in Toronto is nearly four times higher than that of the general population. For youth and women, the rate is eight to 10 times higher.

Last year, the Province of Ontario distributed nearly five million doses of flu vaccine, but only a few thousands of were given to Toronto’s homeless. The St. James clinic vaccinated just 30 people this year, but Wiebe is nonetheless pleased.

The Cathedral funded the clinic entirely itself through fundraising efforts.

John, one of the men who received his shot last week, has been living on the streets for about four years. It was his first flu shot in some time, but he still has misgivings about the safety and efficacy of the vaccination. “I’ve heard it does all kinds of bad stuff to you,” he says.

Meanwhile, Darren, another man who uses the St. James clinic regularly, refuses to get a flu shot because he’s heard a lot of rumours about it. “If you aren’t sick, then it’s just going to make you sick,” says Darren.

Wiebe feels says that trust is a big issue when delivering medical services to the homeless. “Many of our regular clients don’t trust hospitals for whatever reason, and we find that if they don’t get medical services, including flu shots, from us, it’s difficult to get them to go anywhere else.”

The clinic’s work also includes trying to dispel many of the myths surrounding flu vaccines.

“We are a very supportive community, and we’ve built a high level of trust with our clients,” adds Wiebe. “I think the success of our program shows we’ve helped people overcome their vaccine fears.”

Anyone who missed out on the St. James flu clinic is directed to one of the other shelters and centres serving the downtown community.

The Toronto Street Nurse Network sends out volunteer nurses to work with the homeless one-on-one, encouraging them to seek out flu shots.

Ruth Ewert is the health centre coordinator at the Evergreen Centre, a part of Yonge Street Missions. Each year, the centre gives out “several thousand” flu shots. Even so, she says “flu shot acceptance is still much lower among homeless people and marginalized groups than it is in other segments of society.”

The Evergreen Centre offers a drop-in health program five days a week with nurses, physicians, and a dentist on-site to offer care.

During the winter flu season, the health centre gets especially busy, with walk-ins available, along with a dedicated street team to reach those unwilling or unable to make it to the downtown location.

Each year, Evergreen automatically receives from the Ministry of Health 70 per cent of the quantity of vaccines that was used the year before. After that, Ewert says more vaccines are ordered as needed. “I don’t foresee any problems with shortages or panics this season,” she says, “and generally there is a year-over-year increase in the amount of shots we give out.”

Last year, there was a mad rush to public clinics when the sudden death of a 13-year-old boy, attributed to H1N1, caused widespread

panic. In many cases, shots had to be given twice – once for the seasonal flu and once to prevent H1N1. This year, neither Wiebe nor Ewert expect any glitches or panics.

“The panic last year over H1N1 among the public helped push flu shot awareness into the street community as well,” says Ewert. “It will also be easier to administer since this year’s seasonal flu vaccine has been designed to protect against two Type A viruses, H1N1 and H3N2, and one Type B virus. Last year, you can imagine the difficulty in giving out thousands of shots and then trying to encourage everyone to come back for another.”

Visit Toronto’s city health website: www.toronto.ca/health

Retirement security for everyone!

Or will Canadian workers have any savings by the time they retire?

By Jennifer Matthews Today’s post-secondary students will graduate into a very different reality from what their parents and grandparents faced. Saving for retirement over the next 40 years has been made nearly impossible by the ever-growing cost of post-secondary education, particularly here in Ontario.

Compared to many other advanced industrial countries, Canada’s public pension system is very under-developed. The private part of our pension system, which was meant to close the big gap between public pensions and adequate retirement incomes, is in serious trouble. Today, only one in five workers in the private sector belongs to an employer pension plan. Many of the plans which do exist are on shaky financial ground because of low interest rates and the recent collapse of stock markets.

Additionally, RRSPs have failed to counter the decline of defined benefit pension plan coverage because many people do not save enough, because administrative fees and costs are very high, and because financial returns are highly variable and uncertain.

Paying off current student loans and saving the extra that it’s going to cost for future children to pursue a post-secondary education mean less money to set aside for retirement – which is why the Canadian Labour Congress’s (CLC) plan to double future Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits is the best way for today’s students to guarantee enough savings for retirement.

The plan proposes a doubling of CPP benefits to ensure a better minimum pension for all Canadians. This would be financed through a modest and gradual increase in contributions over seven years, following the pattern set by CPP reforms in the 1990s. Labour’s plan is endorsed by Bernard Dussault, who was the Chief Actuary of the CPP and Old Age Security program from 1992 to 1997.

PHOTO: samantha celera/FLICKR

Labour’s plan to double future CPP benefits can be paid for by increasing what workers currently save through CPP contributions by 0.43 per cent of pensionable earnings each year for seven years. Pensionable earnings include all declared earnings above $3,500 up to $47,200 (the 2010 cap, established annually by the Canada Revenue Agency).

For a worker earning $47,200 or more per year, the initial cost of gradually doubling future CPP benefits works out to about nine cents an hour, or $3.57 a week. That’s less than the cost of a newspaper subscription. The CPP benefits are indexed, secure, and portable across jobs. And workers wouldn’t fear losing their pensions given the misdeeds of Bay Street and Wall Street.

Young workers stand to gain the most through this plan as they would contribute more to the CPP for longer in their career, and therefore earn a richer CPP pension.

Lastly, if you think this plan can’t get any better than this, it also proposes a 15 per cent increase to the Guaranteed Income Supplement of Old Age Security benefits to lift all seniors out of poverty immediately.

If you agree with the CLC’s Retirement Security for Everyone Plan, please find out more at: http://www.canadianlabour.ca/action-center/retirement-security-everyone/take-actionpensions.

Join the fight on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/labours.plan.retirement. Don’t forget to “like” the page and circulate it to your friends.

Jennifer Matthews is the student representative at the Canadian Labour Congress. For more information, visit: www.canadianlabour.ca/home

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 11

Fre

The legit N

‘Technology has created this window of opportunity for the public, but it has also made dangers for photojournalism’ 12 ryersonfreepress.ca

eeraj Singh’s curiosity took him outside of his office to Bay Street in Toronto. With his digital camera, he snapped pictures of what he calls the “fortress” of police officers pushing through the crowd. In the midst of gasmasks and booming voices of rebellion, his excitement grew.

He found himself in a swarm of people with digital cameras of their own, each trying to snap pictures of the G20 Summit protesters.

Singh posted his pictures on his blog later that day in June 2010 to tell the world about what he witnessed.

“Our world is the most snap-happy generation in history,” said James Wallace, editor-in-chief of the Toronto Sun. It has become wired together with digital photography, cell phones, and the Internet. This has birthed the citizen photojournalist, a public spectator with a camera to tell his or her own stories. Editors and photojournalists alike say citizen photojournalists have earned their place during spot news or dramatic situations when professionals cannot make the scene. For this reason, more and more publications often rely on citizens’ work.

Technology has created this window of opportunity for the public, but it has also made dangers for photojournalism. Publication executives say dishonest work can take away from the credibility of the industry. Citizen photojournalists have been questioned by editors and photojournalists if they are ignorant about the ethics of photojournalism. There is also the threat that citizens will purposefully break the ethics of manipulation and privacy due to personal bias. Can they be labelled journalists if they are not contributing to the effort of truth?

What is a citizen photojournalist?

tivation. “Citizens do it out of comm and interest or other personal reas says. “For professionals, it is their j The two are also separated by ence, he says. A professional is taug construct unbiased and accurate st

A new generation of ph journalists

Technology has opened doors new medium. With newer gadgets a picture is now an instant upload. nis Owen became photo editor of t and Mail just after the paper finali photography-based redesign in Au He says technology has changed th reaction to dramatic situations.

“People used to stand there in but now they take a picture,” he say we have potential access to people take a picture right then and there Kevin Van Paassen, a photojou for the Globe and Mail, says that ci tojournalists have a place in drama situations. “People’s cell phones are present,” he says. “It’s all about bein right place at the right time. There their photos and that’s why they’re During G20 preparations, Sin sat in his office at a bank on Bay St a camera in hand by the window. H capture what he calls the “eerie atm of the preparations, as the streets t normally bustling were now compl cleared. He says he had a great aer from his sixth-floor office window.

“At the riots, 90 per cent of the there were watching or taking pict 10 per cent were protestors,” says S was kind of funny actually.”

Why they’re used

Wallace says there are two types of citizen photojournalists.

“There are committed citizens who have a blog, take lots of pictures, and are part of an online community conducting photojournalism,” he says. “Then you have people who happen to have a camera with them. These are drive-by citizen photojournalists. They take a picture because they think people should know about what’s happening.”

He says the difference between professional and citizen photojournalism is mo-

“With citizen photojournalists media is better equipped to bring c issues into the public realm for dis sion,” said Wallace. For the G20 pr he said that because of their work, to bring a more comprehensive vie event because of the hundreds of d perspectives.

He says some of the stories pu in the Toronto Sun have been citize He says their photo submissions ou the problem of sleeping workers w

PHOTO: CAPT KODAK/FLICKR

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By Jasmine Pazzano Toronto Transit Commission. The January 2010 story was sparked by TTC rider Jason Wieler’s picture of a worker sleeping in a booth. As a result, the Commission came under intense scrutiny. That worker died of a stroke on November 28.

During the bombing of the London Underground in July 2005, citizens trapped inside the subway were the first to take pictures of the event. According to the BBC website, the network received around 1,000 photos just hours and even minutes after the event struck.

Owen says that most citizen photojournalism is of the aftermath of an event, which is what sets the Underground pictures apart from other citizen-taken pictures. “The amazing thing about those photos is that they were of the disaster itself,” he says.

The Internet has also created an avenue for citizen photojournalists to publish their photos, whether they’re uploaded onto a blog or sent to a news agency.

Singh has had his own Blogspot web page since 2008, where he posts many of his photos. He posted photos from the G20 preparations and demonstrations, as well as pictures from his travels. His photos range from smiling Burmese children to a silhouette of a camel treading along a beach in India.

“You’d have such a better understanding of what happened by looking at pictures by regular people than the media,” says Singh.

This is because citizens are not associated with any news network; they are merely taking pictures from a citizen’s point-of-view.

Dangers Citizen photojournalism opens up options for publications with its omnipresent nature. But technology has also created opportunities for the public to break basic ethics of photojournalism. Publication executives say they are reluctant to use their work for this reason.

The Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen website says that with the emergence of “cell journalists,” ethics are being broken because there is no way to verify that a cell journalist’s product is an honest representation of reality as opposed to a distorted, outdated, or biased image.

“Ethical problems faced by cell journalists include all the problems associated

with photojournalism in general: the digital manipulation of images, privacy concerns, and the use of graphic images,” states the website.

When evaluating citizen photojournalism during the editing process, Van Paassen says there are many dangers.

“You have to ask, has it been manipulated? Has a critical element been cropped out?

Does it clearly represent what’s happening?” he said.

“Photojournalism is under attack because of the many cases of it being misused,” Owen says. “If pictures aren’t adding to the effort of truth, it damages the reputation of the paper and is worse than not having any pictures at all.”

According to the Huffington Post, photos of Sarah Palin clad in a star-spangled bikini leaked onto the Internet shortly after John McCain selected her as his running mate in the 2008 election. The photos were deemed manipulated and is the work of a citizen using Photoshop.

“Those photos were leery of authenticity,” Wallace says about the photos.

“With professional news networks, you have reasonable expectations of what the product should be,” says Wallace. “Mainstream newspapers do not manipulate news pictures. When publications create photo illustrations to poke fun, we label it as an illustration.”

Wallace says citizen photojournalism does not have the framework of a newsroom, where editors and lawyers can look over their work, which takes away the level of expertise needed to publish stories. He also says the manipulation of citizen photojournalism is common because it’s so easy to do.

“A 10-year-old can manipulate a picture.

Anyone can have all kinds of fun and mischief with pictures.”

Owen says technology has become so advanced that editors cannot always tell which images have been deceptively changed. “An editor needs to make an educated guess, or you wouldn’t use it.”

Because citizen photojournalists may not know about the ethics of bias, their contribution is limited, he says, because they might not adhere to them. “If they were trained and had no other agenda, they’d be trustworthy. They are someone else first, reporting in a non-traditional manner, performing their own views.”

K.J. Mullins, a professional freelance journalist, often brings her digital camera to events to take pictures with her stories. She is a blogger for Digital Journal, a website for citizen and professional journalists to post their multimedia work. At the G20 demonstrations, she was among the media and citizens media taking pictures. As a journalist trained in the United States, she says citizens have to consider their morals when taking photos, like defending the innocent.

“Citizen photojournalism can let common sense out the door just to get the story out,” she says.

According to Van Paassen, “they’re not journalists if they don’t adhere to the same ethical standards that the industry respects.”

Although Singh admits not knowing about the ethics of photojournalism, he believes that citizens and news agencies alike are capable of breaking them. But Singh says he has never manipulated any of his photos.

“News agencies only show pictures of people shouting,” he says of the pictures published during the G20 Summit. “No one is going to show people silenced because it’s just not newsworthy. Everyone has that bias.”

Singh says blogs are less likely to have biases over regular papers. “You’re just reporting what you’re seeing. You’re not with any news agency. You have no other agenda.

You’re just putting them online.”

Public versus professional Despite the dangers of citizen photojournalism, it all comes down to the editorial selection. Which pictures will be published?

Owen says because the Globe and Mail is mainly comprised of feature stories that include planned photos, the publication does not rely heavily on citizen photojournalism.

“We use pictures that are most compelling and make people say, ‘Wow. That’s both great art and compelling.’”

Wallace also picks the most impactful pictures, but he is not concerned with the photographer.

“Who took the picture doesn’t matter,” he says. “Qualifications don’t really come into play unless it’s too blurry. As long as it tells the story, it’s a great picture.”

A revolutionized industry Owen compares a modern photojour-

nalist’s experience to that of one twenty years ago, saying that technology has revolutionized professionals’ work as well.

“It was a huge technical challenge,” says Owen. He recalls memories of working as a photojournalist in Asia during the 1980s and using a drum transmitter to send pictures back to Reuters headquarters in Canada. To print a photo on the other end, the negative had to be wound round a drum, and was rotated and scanned by a lamp and photo multiplier combined, according to Nikon Online. The image was then converted into an electric signal and sent.

Wallace says the industry has adapted well to technological developments. “Photojournalists used to show up with still cameras,” he says. “Now they bring BlackBerrys, still cameras, and video cameras.”

“The tables have turned,” Owen says.

“A photographer’s job used to be to take pictures. Now, it’s who has pictures. People are handing them to us because they know their pictures have journalistic value.”

In a 2005 article in the Washington Post, reporter Yuki Noguchi writes that the idea of a citizen photojournalist is nothing new. “History is full of accidental journalism using portable devices,” she says, “from the famous Abraham Zapruder film capturing President John F. Kennedy’s assassination (in 1963) to the videotape of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police (in 1991) and the incriminating snapshots taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (in 2004).”

Singh looks back on his experience and says that it was exciting to be a witness to the energy of the anti-G20 protests.

“Just the fact that I can do this when everyone else is sitting at home,” he says. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I don’t think I’m going to see another G20.”

Citizen photojournalists have become the extra eyes of the news industry. They are at the scene with their digital cameras when professionals cannot be. Although professionals say the threat of breaking ethics comes with citizens’ work, when the public offers truthful storytelling, publications can benefit from their pictures.

“Without citizen photojournalism, the journalism industry would be restricted to professionals,” says Owen. “Many photo opportunities would be missed, and many stories would be told third-hand. This is where citizen journalism will always have a place.”

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 13

Hrant Dink, four years later The assassination of a journalist in Turkey

By Daniel Ohanian January 19, 2007. Istanbul, Turkey. At this place and on this date, a middle-aged man in a black suit was shot dead at pointblank range. The three gunshots that shattered the cool air that day sent shockwaves through his country and the world at large.

Before looking into the identity of this man and the significance he had both in life and in death, we should take a step back and take a good, long look at the city where he lived and died. Istanbul can be described as a crossroad between East and West, where the Orient melts smoothly into the hustle and bustle of European urban centres. It can also been seen as a panicked metropolis caught between two competing identities, a microcosm of issues that plague Turkey as a whole.

As identity is fluid, constantly progressing and regressing, both visions of this city hold true, and one cannot understand the assassination of Hrant Dink without understanding the society – and the city – where he lived and in which life was taken from him.

Dink, ethnically Armenian, was born in the city of Malatya and moved to Istanbul at the age of six. It was there that he came to earn his bachelor’s degree and eventually founded Agos, a bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper. In 1996, many people realized that drastic changes needed to be made within Turkey’s politics and society if it were to become a democratic country.

Dink became one of the very few individuals who would put themselves in danger in order to make that dream a reality.

He spoke out bravely about the need for democratization and for freedom of expression, press, and assembly, and sought to dispel the strong taboos against discussion of the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s 15-20 million Kurdish citizens. For his

activism, he was tried under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code three times. Shockingly, his last trial continued until June 2007, five months after his murder. This oft-condemned censorship law grants the Turkish government the legal authority to imprison anyone who “publicly denigrates the Turkish nation, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.”

As a result of these very public trials, Dink found himself at the receiving end of a large-scale intimidation campaign. He received death threats (which were ignored by the authorities) and a constant stream of hate clogged his inbox and telephone line.

Hrant Dink was killed by Ogun Samast, a 17-yea-old Turkish youth who had travelled 900 km from his hometown to murder the journalist. After his arrest, Samast was photographed posing with a Turkish flag, flanked by two proudlooking policemen. Four years after the crime, observers of Turkish judicial law note that Samast may be released if the trial – already criticized for its slow pace – isn’t wrapped up by 2012.

What has changed since January 2007? Within the governmental sphere, not much at all. Some notable stories that made headlines are the imprisonment of a 15-year old Kurdish girl who was found guilty of throwing rocks during a political rally, the possible banning of Facebook (YouTube has been blocked since 2007), and the proposed dismantling of a Turkish-Armenian friendship statue. Although the Kurds – whose existence as a real ethnic group was denied by the state for decades – were recently granted the “right” to use the Kurdish language in the press and on TV, their political parties continue to be shut down by the Constitutional Court for alleged ties to the Kurdistan

Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terrorist group which nonetheless remains one of only a few organizations standing up for the rights of Kurds in Turkey.

Within Turkish society, the development of a conscious and reflective populace can be seen and has to be encouraged. Over 100,000 people marched down the streets of Istanbul carrying placards which read “We are all Armenian” and “We are all Hrant Dink” during Dink’s funeral. His newspaper, it should be noted, had a subscriber base of a meagre 5,000 readers. Yet his words rang loudly against the oppressive taboos of the Turkish government and conservative society.

Although Hrant Dink died four years ago, his memory and legacy live on. Posthumous recognition of his sacrifices includes the International Press Institute’s 2007 Press Freedom Hero designation and PEN Canada’s 2009 Empty Chair Award. More importantly, his vision of Turkey continues to be pursued by outspoken members of Turkish society. Among them are Ragip Zarakolu and his late wife, who have been taken to court over 40 times and imprisoned for the books they’ve published on the Armenian Genocide and other topics; Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk; Hrant’s son, Arat Dink; and Bendal Celil Ezman, a Turkish lawyer who pushed for an Ankara court to recognise the Armenian Genocide.

As we commemorate this anniversary on January 19, one cannot help but look back, at the same time as we try to we move forward. It is my hope that Turkey – both as a government and as a society – will be able to make amends for its crimes from 1915 to the present day, and will come to safeguard the rights of all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity.

Sudan: A nation split by oil

By Farid Omar

Following the weeklong United Nations-sponsored referendum held from January 9 to 15, early results indicate the people of South Sudan have overwhelmingly voted to separate from the north to create the world’s newest state and Africa’s 54th nation.

The referendum brings to a close the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed between the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The CPA committed both the SPLA and the central government to hold a referendum in the SPLA-controlled areas on the future of the south: whether it would remain as a semiautonomous region as called for in the initial agreement or secede from the Sudanese state as a whole.

The peace agreement ended the 22-year war that had been raging since the early 1980s. An estimated two million people died in the conflict while four million others were displaced. Was the drive for secession in South Sudan primarily an internal SPLA affair devoid of external orchestration? While a purely internal, South Sudan separation free from Western machinations is a desirable outcome for its people, experience in Africa has shown that the success or failure of any secessionist agenda is largely determined by U.S. geopolitical interests.

In 1967, the eastern region of Biafra declared independence from Nigeria. In a bloody three-year conflict that followed, Britain, the former colonial power, rushed large quantities of arms to Nigeria to help crush the rebellion. An estimated one million Biafrans lost their lives and their secessionist dreams were

shattered forever.

This is because pro-West, oilrich Nigeria is seen as a strategic ally of the U.S. and over the decades, the West has propped-up both its military and civilian dictatorships to protect its interests in the region.

Western corporations, including Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, tightly control Nigerian oil. It remains a major supplier of oil to the U.S. When Spanish colonizers left Western Sahara in 1975, Morocco moved in to occupy the territory. Despite the fact that the African Union (AU) recognizes its right to independence, the Sahrawi Republic is still under Moroccan rule. Morocco is a strong ally of the U.S. and France in the Maghreb region. Its Western backers have overlooked the illegal occupation of much of the Sahrawi territory.

In Ethiopia, the U.S., which uses the Horn of African nation as a front in its so-called “war on terror,” is seen as the stumbling block to secessionist aspirations in Oromia (central and southern regions) and in the predominantly Somali region of Ogaden.

On the flip side, the U.S. has orchestrated the break-up of Sudan into north and south, a move that secures it an unfettered access to South Sudan’s vast oil reserves. The U.S. is not done with Sudan yet. It is covertly seeking the further balkanization of the country with the potential split of resource rich Darfur, expected to fall under its sphere of influence. The U.S. stands to benefit from South Sudan’s secession as it would expand its geopolitical influence and gain access to the South’s vital resources including oil and minerals.

14 ryersonfreepress.ca

There are fears in the continent that the U.S. is bent on splitting the Congo into two to take full control of mineral-rich Eastern Congo that has descended into chaos stemming from yet another U.S.-instigated conflict in Africa.

Undoubtedly, geopolitical interests have largely fuelled the U.S.-backed war in Sudan. The U.S. and Israel have provided training, weapons and logistical support to the SPLA rebels while U.S.-based Evangelical groups provided other levels of support. Since independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956, the West has always sought to separate South Sudan from the North due to the oil reserves in the South. South Sudan sits on 85 per cent of the country’s oil reserves.

What was primarily a political conflict was misrepresented in the Western media as one pitting “the Muslim-Arab north against the Black-Christian/Animist south.”

Likewise, the false depictions of the conflict in Darfur (“Arab-Janjaweed versus Black-Africans”) were meant to mislead the world and used as a cover to mask the U.S.’s hidden agenda in Sudan. Clearly, the U.S. and its Western allies have used the false representation of the Southern Sudanese conflict and the Darfur crisis to justify Western intervention in Sudan. The U.S. is the primary instigator of both the Southern Sudan conflict and the crisis in Darfur.

The U.S. has pushed Salva Kiir, the SPLA leader, to reject a central aspect of the CPA, which is to make unity between the north and south as an attractive and viable option for the people under the control of the SPLM, the political wing of the SPLA.

To avoid a return to conflict, President al-Bashir of Sudan has emphasized that differences over the demarcation of the borders, the utilization of the Nile water resources and the ownership of the nation’s oil resources would have to be agreed upon first while the SPLA maintains that these issues should be tackled in post-referendum Sudan. But these calls for dialogue from northern Sudan have been ignored and pundits believe this would set the stage for a return to conflict – this time, an inter-state conflict between the north and south.

In terms of resource exploitation, what used to be a private hunting ground of the U.S. and its European allies has been interrupted by a new player, China, which now has access to oil concessions in Sudan and a grip on the continent’s vast mineral deposits. The Western agenda in Sudan is to win back control of natural resources in Sudan by weakening President al-Bashir’s government and establishing a more friendly government that will accommodate the corporate interests of the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Israel. Apart from oil, South Sudan is also rich in uranium, copper, magnesium, and timber.

The referendum has not yet resolved the fate of the oil-rich Abyei region, which is claimed by both the North and South. Situated along the north-south border, Abyei is expected to hold a separate referendum to determine whether it will join the South or remain in the North. Abyei can potentially trigger a large-scale north-south conflict.

As a potential flashpoint, Abyei’s disputed status plays perfectly well into U.S. designs as the break out of a

new major conflict in the area would allow for justification for U.S.-led militarization in the disputed zone and the region in general.

It would be an opportunity for the military-industrial complex to rip profits from another large scale, U.S.instigated war, where the U.S.-led Africa Command (Africom) will play a central role in the militarization process in the heart of Africa. Under the pretext of protecting Southern Sudanese sovereignty, the U.S. will deploy Special Forces, African proxies and oversee the deployment of “peacekeeping” forces to “contain” the situation.

Bringing South Sudan and Darfur under U.S. control would consolidate America’s geopolitical influence in a resource-rich region known for its close proximity to an equally strategic region dotting the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal in oil-rich Middle East. It would also hand the U.S. complete control of the Sahelian oil corridor stretching from Sudan, neighbouring Chad, Mali to Mauritania that have all spectacularly experienced new oil discoveries.

Lying to the south of this region is a cluster of pro-U.S., oil-producing countries in the Gulf of Guinea region: Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, etc.

Geopolitically, U.S. entry into South Sudan and impending control of Darfur would bring entire oil-producing African regions that are also mineral-rich firmly under Africom’s control.

This would have serious implications for regional security in a continent that has historically suffered from Western plunder of its resources fuelled by endless imperialist driven wars.

On your mark, get set, DATE! Just in time for Valentine’s Day, prepare for a 25-date marathon

By Amanda Cupido I run to class, skim my readings, and chug my drinks. In the busy life of a full-time undergraduate student, it seemed only normal to rush through 25 dates. With three minutes allotted for each guy, I was about to begin speed dating.

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and many singles in Toronto may be considering a different type of dating. Toronto has several companies that sell tickets to speed dating events. Prices usually range from $25 to $80. I chose to go with 25dates.com, which offered an event for singles from 20-29 years of age. What did I have to lose?

I roped my friend into coming with me, not knowing what kind of people go out to these things.

We walked into 6 Degrees, the lounge where the event was about to take place. There were dimly lit candles around the perimeter and, like any student, I locked my eyes on the trays of food: hummus and pita along with miniature salami sandwiches. It’s like they wanted our breath to repel the opposite sex.

Standing in the middle of the room, I realized I was back in high school. All the girls were sitting to one end, while most of the guys were hanging out on the opposite side. I scurried over to the girls’ corner and glanced over the imaginary line. All of the guys looked well dressed and put together. I have to admit, I was intrigued.

“Ding, ding, ding.”

The sound of the bell signified the start of the event. Every three minutes, the bell would sound and the guys would rotate.

I took my spot and it began. I had three minutes to decide if he was worth a second date. That is, if three minutes are enough time to qualify as a first date. Everyone had a checklist and, after each date, you simply put a mark beside “yes” or “no.” If two people pick each other, then the event organizers would e-mail you your match’s contact information.

This allows for no time to be wasted on exchanging phone numbers.

That alone can take six minutes.

Date one: it took one minute to figure out we went to the same high school, thirty seconds to realize we were six years apart, and fifteen seconds to realize he was judging me for being younger than him. No. Date two: the class clown sat down in front of me. He was a big guy with a great sense of humour. Yes. Date five: three minutes never felt so long. After what felt like an hour, I didn’t even try to save the conversation. No. Date 10: I started having some fun.

“Do I look like a cop?” he asked me.

I told him he didn’t. When he asked why, I replied, “Because you don’t look like any of the cops that have arrested me.”

He whispers, “What have you been arrested for?”

I start to laugh. I couldn’t keep the ridiculous charade up for longer than a few seconds, which in comparison to the length of the date, was nearly a quarter of the time we spent together.

After 13 dates, everyone got a much-needed break. By this point, the dates were becoming a blur and I was in desperate need of a glass of water.

Date 16: I was with a guy I’ve known for years.

We interned together at two different companies.

I used our three minutes to ask about the other girls. Supposedly one was showing off pictures of her gun collection from her cell phone. Is that considered hot?

By date 25, I was tapped out. I checked “yes” to a total four guys and cross-checked with my friend to make sure we didn’t pick the same ones.

We handed in our forms and called it a night.

Did I meet the love of my life? No. Was it fun? Yes. And everyone there was completely sane. Or at least they were smooth enough to put on a solid front for three minutes.

For more information, visit 25dates.com

Meet Kristyn Wong-Tam, Ryerson’s voice at City Hall

By Amy Ward Catastrophe is a tough way to start a new job. Kristyn Wong-Tam was a month into her new role as City Councillor for Ward 27, Ryerson’s riding, when the former Empress Hotel at Yonge and Gould Streets burned down.

It was a challenging start, but she improvised and focused her team to work with the Ontario Fire Marshall, the property owners, structural engineers, and other stakeholders on the recovery effort.

“I didn’t need to have been a city councillor to be a good city councillor,” Wong-Tam said.

Her compassion and life experience prepared her to dive into the crisis with confidence.

Add to that the pressure of taking over a seat held for 19 years by prominent councillor Kyle Rae, who retired at the end of last term. Though Wong-Tam shares the former councillor’s political persuasion, Rae endorsed Wong-Tam’s competitor, Ken Chan, in the election.

Wong-Tam welcomes the attention to her riding but is prepared to tackle things her own way.

“I’m a very different person,” she said about the shift. “I’m a much more collaborative person.”

That collaborative nature is evident in Wong-Tam’s background. A former real estate agent, Nuit Blanche curator, and gay rights activist, she speaks the language of many groups in the city. She was a member of the New Democratic Party, but she’s unfazed about working with Rob Ford.

“I believe in extending everyone courtesy. Dogmatic politics does not serve the common good. He has a lot of passion for the city, even if our visions don’t complement each other.”

Wong-Tam’s vision is one that combines her eye for business and real estate with a human sensitivity. Born in Hong Kong, she lived in Regent Park when she first came to Canada.

She founded a lesbian youth group and has been involved in queer and women’s rights activism ever since. Even her view of real estate development sounds like activism. She advocates PHOTO: FUGUFISH/FLICKR

for smart development, bringing parties together to find mutual solutions.

“We have more opportunities for development in Ward 27 than anywhere else in the city. We can bridge the gap of those who don’t have by taking development opportunities and integrating those with a social planning lens.”

Wong-Tam points out that Ryerson’s Master Plan has great prospect for the university, not only to build a presence on Yonge Street, but also to do so in a way that enhances the neighbourhood for everyone in it.

As a founding member of the Church-Wellesley Business Improvement Area and current counsellor representing the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area, Wong-Tam has a strong sense of the varied needs of the community.

“We need to think about how to ensure the development integrates with the existing fabric of the street,” Wong-Tam said. “Whenever I see an application for development close to Ryerson, I ask is there anything that Ryerson can benefit from?”

She encourages Ryerson to adopt a similar viewpoint in thinking about how its growth affects the city as a whole.

“The design standards have to be higher. We want to showcase Ryerson’s architecture students, with green technology and design that can withstand the test of time.”

Her vision is to balance affordability and growth to make Toronto a great place to work, study, and live. The self-professed shy woman confidently tackles the issues of the ward by engaging those who have the most at stake. She ties this approach back to her astrology.

“I’m a Cancer. We have an introvert side, but we’re fiercely loyal with a profound sense of justice. I guess that’s why I’m compelled to speak up for the voices who can’t.”

Astrologists say the water sign is also highly malleable, which means any catastrophes or social issues on Toronto’s horizon will be in the hands of an adaptable and compassionate councillor.

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 15

CULTURE Maclean’s continues to feel the heat

By Scaachi Koul Four months ago, Maclean’s magazine encountered controversy after printing an article titled “Too Asian?” in their university rankings issue. The editors of the publication probably haven’t had a good night’s sleep since.

The article claimed that Canadian universities like the University of Toronto are overpopulated by Asian students who limit the ability of Caucasian students to get into the schools of their choice. The article stated that for Caucasian students, going to a university highly populated

by Asian students means a higher level of competition and “requires a sacrifice of time and freedom [Caucasian students are] not willing to make.”

Brad Lee started the Facebook page “‘Too Asian?’

TALK BACK” in response to the article.

“I’m against the way they portrayed my community,” Lee says. “It fails to recognize the diversity within our community. I’m a fourth-generation Chinese-Canadian. I’m Canadian through and through. What the fuck am I even doing in this conversation?”

Lee spent 20 years as a journalist, writing for The Toronto Star before moving on to international agencies. He is now a self-proclaimed community activist. He believes that the “Too Asian?” article is but another link in Canada’s silent but dark history of racism.

“There’s a veneer of multiculturalism and diversity,” he says. “Racism and discrimination is very much a part of Canada’s past.”

Maclean’s has since edited the online version, going so far as to change the title of the piece from “Too Asian?” to “The enrollment controversy.” Following criticism from student unions, readers and politicians alike, Toronto’s city council voted to request an apology from Maclean’s on December 16. Toronto was the third city to make such a

request after Victoria and Vancouver.

Florence Li is a project coordinator at the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter. She helped start a youth coalition against Maclean’s after the “Too Asian?” article was published. “When I read it, I couldn’t believe that something like this could be printed,” she says.

Li helped organize the first meeting of the youth coalition through email and Facebook. Around 100 people showed up to respond to Maclean’s and the “Too Asian?” article.

“I have no doubt that there are some people that might think the same way,” says Li about the racial stereotypes in the article. “For a national magazine to be asking that question is different from a few students thinking that classes are too competitive now.”

Though the article claimed that a predominantly Asian population in universities is a problem that most schools avoid discussing, universities across the country are holding rallies against Maclean’s. Ryerson held “’Too Asian? Talk Back: Calling Media to Account” in January to discuss the media’s responsibility in perpetuating stereotypes. Universities like McMaster, U of T, UVIC and UBC have also held organized talks.

Lee doesn’t have faith that Maclean’s will apologize any time soon.

“Maclean’s has issued a clarification and I don’t think they’re going to go any further than that,” he says. “I would like them to apologize but I don’t think they’re going to.”

An apology is something Li would like to hear from Maclean’s, but she believes that isn’t the main issue.

“Even if we don’t get it, we still consider this a victory,” she says. “The general idea is to raise awareness about this issue. We might not get this apology.”

Museum Secrets Uncovered

By Amy Ward

The Royal Ontario Museum trades in secrets. Its artifacts, both the ones on display and the ones hidden in the collection, all come with a story.

It’s not hard to fill in the blanks when you’re standing under the skeleton of a 90-foot long Barosaurus, or to feel lost inside the bat cave. But for the novice audience, a room full of medieval pottery can be less inspiring.

Museum Secrets, a six-episode series on History Television, brings to life the artifacts in collections from the ROM to the Louvre to the Cairo Museum. Like a real-life Da Vinci Code, cameras take us to a pagan graveyard at the Vatican Museum. An examination of human skulls at London’s National History Museum reveals whether early Britons were cannibals. The show raises questions but also explores the answers.

In the ROM episode, curator Rob Mason investigates whether clay pots from twelfth and thirteenth century Egypt, Syria and Iran were originally used as bongs or bombs. After a lacklustre attempt in Kensington Market to smoke from a reproduction of the structure, the experimental archaeologist blows up some replica pots on the beach.

Outside of their museum home, the artifacts (and the curators) come to life on the show through dramatizations, historical footage and demonstrations. Later in the ROM episode, curator Corey Keeble takes a fifteenth century crossbow into the field to test the weapon’s power and aim against a musket. Both weapons were used during the same era, but the demonstration (courtesy of some altruistic watermelons that gave their lives for the cause) explains why crossbows aren’t our army’s weapon of choice today.

Robert Lang, executive producer of Museum Secrets, views the show as breathing life into lifeless objects.

“We tell stories [about the objects] that people don’t know about...with the help of enthusiastic scientists and researchers. Behind every object there’s a great story to tell,” he said.

The show employs the creativity and passion of curators and scientists who work in the museums and share the stories of artifacts they are intimate with. We not only learn the secrets of these historic materials, but also glimpse the excitement that comes from unearthing tales from a residue of clues.

“The age of dumbing down is gone,” Keeble says. “The general consensus in museums today is people want to learn more.”

With over six million objects in the ROM’s collection alone, an episode of Museum Secrets might only be an appetizer for exploring history firsthand. Take a trip to the museum and you might look twice at all those pots.

The show’s website features videos from previously aired episodes, interactive navigation features for the aspiring archaeologist and behind-the-scenes production secrets on the show’s blog, at MuseumSecrets.tv.

Museum Secrets airs on History Television Fridays at 8 p.m.

too asian Image courtesy of the RSU and produced by CUPE Local 1281; Barosaurus photo: andrea yeomans

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 17

Your guide to an active reading week Reading Week already? You bet. If you can’t afford a week in Cuba or that trip to Montreal, check out Haseena Manek’s schedule of home-grown activities for students prepared to do anything but read.

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Sunday 27

Home When was the last time you were home on a Monday night? Start Reading Week off right by curling up in your PJs with a good book - something for pleasure, not for marks!

Royal Ontario Museum Nerd out for cheap. Free admission for post-secondary students on Tuesdays with valid ID. (Special exhibitions subject to surcharge.) The ROM is free to everyone each night for the last 45 minutes of the day.

Have a friend meet you there and run through the museum. It’s fun.

Tobogganing What better way to forget the woes of university life than rewinding back a decade or two to our carefree youth. Back before all-nighters, energy drinks and midterms. No specific locale required, just bring a toboggan, dollar store crazy carpet or, if you really want to save, a large black garbage back to the nearest awesome hill.

The Ryerson Free Press’ Editor in Chief has a band and they have a show at The Boat in Kensington Market. If you contact her, she can get you on the guest list for free. Otherwise, cover is $5. Come check out the Sister Wives, Ultimate Most High, Mass Assembly and Cobra.

[This was an editor’s note].

Walking Tour of Toronto “This short but sweet mini-tour will take you around the few blocks surrounding Toronto City Hall. Starting at Old City Hall, the tour will take you past the Eaton Centre, Nathan Philips Square, and many more landmarks, before finishing back where you started. It is a great introduction to Toronto, and perfect for people new to the city, or for residents who want to learn more about the things they see every day downtown.” Fridays and Saturdays at 1pm. www.tourguys.ca

St. Lawrence Market: North Farmer’s Market Cooking enthusiasts beware! Fresh local produce is sold from 5 AM in the St. Lawrence Market’s North Building, continuing a 200-year-old tradition.

92 Front Street East.

St. Lawrence Market: Antiques Market Antique fiends beware! From jewellery to old license plates, random house wares to expensive heirloom-worthy pocket watches, the market has a huge variety of knick-knacks. Some are to be bargained for, but all are fun to see!

Snakes and Lattes Coolest haunt for nerds. Don’t let your brain atrophy entirely: Enjoy a nice cup of Joe or hot chocolate while playing any one of 1,500 games at Toronto’s first board game cafe.

Rainbow Cinemas Going to the movies is a classic pastime of those trying not to think about school.

Luckily for us poor students, Rainbow Cinemas only charges $5 per show on Tuesdays.

Their downtown location is Rainbow Cinemas Market Square at 80 Front Street, a ten-minute walk east of Union Station.

Nathan Phillips Square Though you may be inclined to stay indoors in frigid February, an afternoon or evening of skating at an outdoor rink could make a unique date or fun time with some friends. Adult skate rentals are $10 for two hours. Public skate 10:00 am – 10:00 pm every day.

Art Gallery of Ontario The AGO’s Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts exhibit displays centuries of Indian history through paintings, jewelry, clothing and a number of other unique objects including a bright orange Rolls Royce. 317 Dundas Street West. $12.50 for Students 26+, Everyone 25 and under gets in free.

Bloor Cinema It’s Friday night and you need somewhere to go, but you missed my well-recommended Tuesday night movie special. Instead of paying 14 bucks at the Yonge and Dundas AMC check out the Bloor Cinema where you can get your ticket and a membership (cheaper prices in the future) for $10. ($9 for matinees.) Check out Ghazali’s next door for some delicious, affordable eats. I recommend the rice wrapped in grape leaves.

Sneaky Dee’s 431 College St. (at Bathurst). Graffiti covered walls and tables. On their menu?

Possibly the sweetest words in the English language: All Day Breakfast. Conventional fare as well as great Tex-Mex creations including the Texas Egg and fried egg on chilli in a tortilla bowl. Great to start your night out or to finish off last night’s adventures. Best nachos in town.

Dundas Square Spend an evening enjoying the last few snowy nights before March rolls around and spring sets in. Grab a pal or date and a hot chocolate from the Tim Horton’s up at Yonge and College and enjoy the glitter of the city as it reflects off the, er, slush

Family Day Take your parents out and buy them supper!

ROM Special Exhibition: El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa “An extraordinary opportunity to see works by this influential artist created over the course of four decades, including his world-famous metallic wall sculptures,” in its last week!

Beer Makes History Better “Mix a little history and some great stories with the opportunity to sample several of the region’s finest local brews in unique and historical pubs in Old Toronto on this popular tour.

Along the way, shop for local delicacies in the famous St. Lawrence Market.” Tuesdays – Saturdays 3:00 pm, Sundays 2:00 pm. $37 www.torontourbanadventures.com

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Tonight they play Stravinksy’s Rite of Spring. Conducted

by Vasily Petrenko.

This show will run you somewhere between $35 and $141. Student rush tickets may be available, so visit www. tsosoundcheck.ca before you buy.

TIFF Bell Lightbox Straight from its time at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Tim Burton Exhibition is great viewing for everyone from diehard Burton fans to anyone who’s seen only one of his movies. Showcasing original artwork by teenage Burton and a number of unique props from his various movies. 350 King Street West. $18.20 for Students.

The Leafs are hosting the Penguins, and Cradle of Filth and Motorhead are performing. Pick your poison, there’s lots going on.

During the day, register for Podcamp, a conference at Ryerson dedicated to social media and communications.

Visit www.podcamptoronto.com.

Podcamp continues at Ryerson. If you’re not yet worn out by Reading Week, take in a few sessions while you pretend to finish your Reading Week readings!

FREE!

Monday 21

cheap not so cheap, but worth it

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This Ain’t Your Mom’s Oscars Party

By Kaitlin Fowlie The Academy Awards are one of the most celebrated events in the film industry. If you’re one of those movie lovers who tune in every year, why not throw an Oscar party?

More than your average bash, Oscar parties are an all out extravaganza, complete with costumes, champagne flutes and hilarious commentary. Follow these simple guidelines to ensure that Oscar night on February 27 is an evening to remember.

Take pride in your invitations. In the age of Facebook Events, the warm gesture of sending an invitation in the mail is underestimated. An Oscar party is just the type of celebration that deserves a formal invite.

Grab some cardstock and make an invitation to emulate the envelopes carrying winners’ names. Start it off with “And the winner is...” and seal it with a gold star.

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Make a statement with theatre-inspired decor. Remember those glow-in-thedark stars you put on your ceiling when you were a kid?

Those are key at any Oscar party. Put some film posters on the walls and arrange your chairs like a movie theatre. If you can swing it, commission your roommate to offer snacks to your guests like a concession attendant. If you really want to make everyone feel like stars, get your hands on a long piece of red felt and roll it down your hall like a red carpet.

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Costumes are optional. You don’t want someone to make other plans because they don’t feel like dressing up as Woody Allen. If your guests want to wear

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sweatpants, let them. However, for those willing to don a crafty costume, conjure up the past and dress like screen icons.

The Oscar pool. When your guests arrive, make them fill out Oscar ballots with predictions for the winners of each category. (You can download a ballot template, complete with all nominees, at Oscar.com.) This is a fun way to engage with the show and get people involved. If your guests arrive a little early, have a round of Oscar trivia to brush up (also found at Oscar.com).

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Serve simple theatre-inspired snacks.

You can’t go wrong with popcorn, nachos, pigs in a blanket and candy. Besides, if you’re planning on toasting the winners repeatedly, you need some eats to soak up the booze. Come up with a signature drink for the night; Make it a mocktail so everyone can participate. Finally, have plenty of water available: No one will come to your parties if you encourage hangovers!

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Give out prizes. After the show is over, give prizes to guests with winning predictions and those who wore the best costumes. If your friends happen to have good senses of humour, why not give a prize to the worst dressed, too? Ideal prize ideas include movie passes, boxes of popcorn, tabloid magazines and Polaroid cameras. Hand out the prizes ceremoniously and don’t forget to toast the winners and demand a speech. After all, everyone’s a star at your Oscar party.

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The Oscars: What’s the big deal?

By Desiree Buitenbos

On February 27, the who’s who of Hollywood will stroll down a rosy red carpet and make small talk with a freshly tanned Ryan Seacrest. They will drink champagne, laugh and listen to long-winded acceptance speeches. Meanwhile, this year’s hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, will make jokes that will leave viewers at home cringing in embarrassment.

Yep, it’s Oscar month. The time of year when Hollywood’s self-congratulatory spectacle of glitz and glamour dominates our television screens and every other media outlet in our lives. But aside from the state of California, entertainment journalists and celebrity-crazed fans, who really cares about the Academy Awards?

Ratings for the show have been sinking faster than the Titanic—the film that won eleven awards, and saw the Oscars hit its peak with 55 million viewers in 1997. Last year, however, ratings hit just over 41 million, a slight improvement from 37 million the year before.

In fact, Titanic is one of the only examples where the top grossing film of the year won the praise of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the awards’ voting committee comprised of 6,000 industry professionals.

The fact that Titanic is a diamond in the rough suggests two things: Firstly, we will tune in and cheer for films we care about, and, secondly, there is a disconnect between what we pay and like to see, and what the Academy deems award worthy.

For example, why was Martin Scorsese nominated six times before winning for popcorn photo: superiphi/flickr

The Departed, which was nowhere near as good as Raging Bull? How did Crash, the most racist anti-racism film ever made, win Best Picture while Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho wasn’t even nominated? And why has Quentin Tarantino never won an Oscar for directing?

Reasons for these hiccups are unknown, but my guess would be that the Academy sees itself as a tastemaker for widely distributed films and, thus, its opinion is superior to what the consuming audience and other film committees might think.

The problem, however, is that the Academy isn’t defined as a “high-brow” society; that title is reserved for organizations such as the National Society of Film Critics, which was established to counter middlebrow circles like the Academy.

The NSFC felt that the Academy was biased in honouring Hollywood films over foreign or art house pictures, and widened the discourse to allow those types of films to be recognized.

Ultimately, the Academy Awards are a trivial celebrity parade with no desire to recognize work that is avant-garde or even liked by the general public. The whole show is merely a large pat on Hollywood’s back.

It’s Meryl Streep catching up with Clint Eastwood while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie try to look like a loving couple.

These days, the Oscars are just another perspective in a world where the average person is reviewing movies through their blog or on websites like RottenTomatoes. com. So what’s the big deal?

Oscar or not, Incendies shines

By Manori Ravindran, Culture Editor

Scorched.

That’s the rough translation of Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies. The title fits. The Canadian film, which recently received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language feature, cuts to the bone. It’s a story that sears, then lingers. And it doesn’t need Oscar’s seal of approval to do so.

Based on the play by Wajdi Mouawad, the film begins with an unusual request from a deceased mother to her children.

Nawal Marwan’s (Lubna Azabal) will bares two letters to twins Simon (Maxim Gaudette) and Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin). One is addressed to their father. The other is addressed to their brother. Both are family they didn’t know they had. To fulfil their mother’s last wishes, the twins journey to the Middle East where they uncover Nawal’s dark past and expose their own.

“When you start making a movie, you never think about [getting an Oscar nomination],” Villeneuve told journalist Katherine Monk shortly after the January 25 announcement. “You just want to make a good film.”

For some, the Academy Awards are arbiters of taste, dictating the best films of the year.

The Toronto International Film Festival prides itself on selecting films that reach the Oscar podium. Even a quick Twitter search reveals filmgoers proudly announcing the number of Oscar-nominated films they’ve seen.

Going to the movies during awards season isn’t fun: It’s a duty. And although a nomination bodes well for films like Incendies, which will receive a wider release because of it, there’s the hazard that these powerful films simply become check marks on a list.

Incendies deserves better, especially among Canadians.

“I was afraid, at the beginning, of taking on a story set in the Middle East and one that dealt with Arabic culture, which I knew little about. It was a significant risk to make it,” Villeneuve says.

The Quebec filmmaker’s qualms about Incendies are understandable. Most of the film takes place in a fictional Middle Eastern country called Fuad, believed to be Civil War era Lebanon. It’s a sensitive topic to harness, especially if Villeneuve felt he lacked license to do so.

Nevertheless, the familiar immigrant story at the heart of Incendies will resonate with Canadian audiences. Nawal Marwan flees Fuad to come to Canada and raise her twins in Montreal. Like so many one-point-five generation Canadians, Simon and Jeanne are oblivious to their mother’s identity, which Nawal shed when she left Fuad. When the twins uncover their mother’s secrets, they also reveal truths about themselves.

Ultimately, the aesthetics of war are disturbing, made even more striking by the arid desert landscape, but it is the unravelling of a Greek tragedy that viewers won’t forget any time soon – even those who are watching on the Academy’s behalf.

The last Oscar-nominated full-length Canadian film was Deepa Mehta’s Water in 2007.

Prior to that, Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions won the trophy in 2003. Eight years later, it may be Denis Villeneuve’s turn to take home Hollywood’s top prize. Oscar or not, Incendies will stick with Canadians long after the curtains close in Los Angeles.

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 19

Canada Goose still flying off the shelves

By Amanda Cupido Alex Braletic wears a women’s extra-large Canada Goose jacket every day. It was too difficult for him to find a men’s medium during the winter season and he couldn’t resist owning the name brand. Despite the women’s cut, he’s proud of his purchase.

“It’s like a duvet cover with sleeves,” says the third-year engineering student.

Braletic is one of many people flocking to purchase Canada Goose jackets. The company, established in 1957, sold over 250,000 jackets last year. Prices for the popular gear range from $250 to over $700.

John-Paul Compagnone bought his Canada Goose jacket a few years ago and thinks it

was worth the money.

“This is probably the best investment I’ve ever made,” said the fourth-year engineering student. “I see people freezing outside but I’m really warm.”

For storeowners like Enza Monteleon, however, meeting the demand is a challenge. The owner of Femme Inc. says she has trouble keeping Canada Goose jackets on the shelves.

“I’ve never seen anything in such demand,” she says. “It’s ridiculous.”

Monteleon says that during the winter season, her store gets up to 30 calls a day from people asking for the jacket. “We would laugh every time the phone rang,” she says. “We knew it would be someone asking for Canada Goose.”

Monteleon has doubled her Canada Goose order from last year and has again doubled her order for next winter. “It’s an amazing jacket,” she says. “And it’s such a fad right now.”

She says she has seen parents come into her store with three or four kids and buy each of them a jacket.

The craze isn’t just in Canada either. In the early 1990s, Canada Goose expanded to Europe, creating headquarters in five European countries by 2010.

Dan Reiss, president and CEO of Canada Goose, told the Globe and Mail that he promoted the jackets by distributing them to people who worked outside, like bouncers and ticket scalpers.

“It was very much consumer-driven marketing and guerrilla marketing, no ad campaigns,” Reiss said. “We would go to people who worked outside who were very visible. People look at what these people wear because they are the coldest guys out there.”

Although the jackets continue to rise in popularity, there are still people who doubt their value.

“If that’s what keeps you warm and you have the money to spend on it, then good for you,” says Natalie Ciarallo, a fourth-year hospitality and tourism management student. Ciarallo says she has her own way of keeping warm.

“It’s all about the layers,” she said. “Put on a sweater and a couple of long sleeve shirts and a jacket on top and you should be fine.”

Braletic, however, is glad he stuck with Canada Goose. He bought his first jacket four years ago and expects to wear it for several years.

Still, even he thinks the buying frenzy needs to slow down.

“I would not recommend it to anyone else,” he said. “There’s too many of us.”

How to avoid purchasing a fake Canada Goose jacket Due to the high demand for Canada Goose, some websites have begun selling imitation jackets. Here are some tips to avoid purchasing a fake.

1. Don’t purchase a jacket that is on sale for an abnormally low price. Canada Goose jackets rarely go on sale, so expect to pay about a minimum $250.

2. Avoid buying jackets online. The official Canada Goose website is Canada-Goose. com and they don’t have an option for online orders.

3. Check your jacket before you pay. Things to look for include: • The logo: does it look like the one on the website?

• The fur on the hood: Canada Goose jackets are only made with coyote fur.

• The filling: Shake the jacket. If feathers or fluff falls out, it’s probably a fake.

Brand new Myspace, same old problems

By Jennifer Tse It’s about time for a new Myspace.

The social networking site has had an upheaval in the works since 2007, when it first began experiencing declining hits and revenue losses.

Four years later, a new logo, sleek redesign and shift in focus to social entertainment has signaled the rebirth of Myspace. The new start, however, is garnering mixed reactions from the online community and social media analysts.

“This marks the beginning of an exciting turning point for Myspace,” the company’s CEO Mike Jones said in a written statement last October, when the new site was launched.

“Our new strategy expands on Myspace’s existing strengths—a deep understanding of social, a wealth of entertainment content and the ability to surface emerging cultural trends in real time through our users.”

Only five years ago, Myspace was one of the most popular sites in the United States. In 2006, the social networking destination even surpassed Google Search and Yahoo! Mail in number of hits, according to online statistics resource Hitwise. Then Facebook came along and, suddenly, a flood of users waved Myspace goodbye.

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Since its main competitor won the popularity contest worldwide, Myspace has decided to play to its strengths, remodeling its focus around a strong arts and entertainment community base.

“Myspace is still a great way to promote music,” says Rebecca Suarez, a user from Chicago. “I used to use Myspace to talk to my friends, but since they stopped, I use it to meet people that like the same type of music that I do.”

Other changes include a more user-friendly layout and a revised colour scheme, both implemented in the hopes of imitating Facebook’s functionality, while maintaining the profile personalization Myspace is known for.

The website’s old customizability is even reflected in its new logo, “My_____.”

“The bracket in the logo represents a space where people can express themselves, enabling users to personalize the logo and make it their own—just as they can throughout Myspace,” wrote CEO Mike Jones.

But Myspace users aren’t embracing the changes.

“Myspace has actually eliminated the niche they once held for personalization,” says Mike Duderbody, a Myspace

user and fashion design student from California. “Some didn’t go to Facebook because they wanted to keep that kind of control.”

When Myspace fully integrated with Facebook Connect last November, calling it “Mash Up with Facebook,” many saw the move as a final acknowledgement of Facebook’s domination of the social networking market.

From there, things have continued to look dire.

In January 2011, parent company and media giant News Corp. announced that Myspace will undergo a “restructuring” that will result in the loss of 500 jobs worldwide, or about 47 per cent of the company’s employees.

Shortly after, Myspace confirmed that it was looking for someone to buy the failing web property.

“News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger and a spinout [sic],” MySpace’s Rosabel Tao told Bloomberg News after a company-wide briefing from Jones.

With a flagging reputation and a declining user adoption rate, redesign or not, it’s possible that Myspace will soon be no one’s space. canada goose jackets: nelson wu/flickr

Social Media: It’s Pete Cashmore’s World

By Richa Gomes In 2005, web technology consultant Pete Cashmore founded the social media news site Mashable.com.

It wasn’t exactly your typical Silicon Valley start-up.

Cashmore was working out of his bedroom in the small town of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He was also just 19 years old.

Cashmore got his start running a few small entrepreneurial businesses. It was during one of these ventures – selling ebooks on eBay – when he began to recognize the Internet’s potential.

Six years later, Cashmore is a social media expert presiding over a multimillion-dollar blogging empire that’s only getting bigger.

His website, now known as Mashable, is an online space where web users can access a mash-up (or mixing) of information from various sources.

Since its inception in 2005, Mashable has been breaking virtual ground.

With over 30 million monthly page hits and 9.7 million unique monthly visitors, Mashable is a top source for anyone looking for insight into social media. The site’s content bridges the information divide, catering to both tech-savvy veterans and mainstream web users.

Last year was especially notable for the website. In June 2010, Mashable hosted its first media summit during New York’s Internet Week, bringing together members from the marketing, media and technology industries. Mashable’s Social Media Day debuted in the same month, later inspiring the first Mashable Monthly Meetup to celebrate the site’s fifth birthday.

Now in its sixth year, the site has become a prolific hub for the latest news and trends in social media, technology and web culture. Mashable offers relevant resources, guides, how-tos, events and a job board.

In recognition of its excellence last year, Mashable won three Webby awards in two categories—Best Cultural blog and

Canada reads graphic novels

By Molly Hayes Jeff Lemire’s Essex County is profoundly Canadian. In a collection of stories that illustrates both small-town and big city life in Ontario, Lemire interweaves stories of hockey and superheroes with heartbreaking subtlety.

Lemire’s graphic novel is a finalist in CBC’s Canada Reads competition, an annual battle of books where five Canadian personalities select the book they think Canadians should read.

The inclusion of Essex County in the competition reflects the potential of the graphic novel. Previously stigmatized as kids’ books, it seems the medium is outgrowing its juvenile reputation.

Owner of The Beguiling, Toronto’s comic and graphic novel headquarters, and co-founder of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Peter Birkemoe is a local expert.

He explained, “[It took] many years to build up a large enough body of work so that comics could be taken seriously. People got really excited about reading, say, Maus, but you didn’t know what to put in their hands next.”

The fact that a niche bookstore like The Beguiling is able to prosper while so many independent bookstores are forced to close, demonstrates the strength of the comics industry.

pencil crayons: ross elliott/flickr

“We work very, very hard to try and get new readers, to engage readers, to promote the store, the art form, local artists,” Birkemoe says. “And as a result of all that work, we are able to see new clientele all the time.”

Media attention like Lemire’s doesn’t hurt either.

The medium now has its own bestsellers and classics. Even in traditional literary circles, graphic novelists are finally earning great respect. Though Lemire’s is the first to be included in Canada Reads (Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim cracked the Top 10 as well), this is by no means the first time a graphic novel has been singled out: For example, UK graphic novelist Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigon, Smartest Kid On Earth won the 2001 Guardian Book Award.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was Time Magazine’s 2007 Best Book. Dan Clowes’s (known best for Ghost World) Wilson recently made the Time Best Books of 2010 list.

Thus far, Essex County has found its success in the U.S., but Lemire - winner of the American Library Association’s prestigious Alex Award - hopes the CBC competition will attract a Canadian audience.

“It’s kind of nice to have my home country finally become aware of this book that was written for them,” Lemire said.

While he attributes his success to personal luck, it is well earned: It took ten years working the night shift as a line cook before the artist saw any profit from his comics.

Lemire sees his work now as the best of both worlds: “My work tends to... have one foot in the indie or alternative world of comics, but I also still do stuff that’s kind of genre-based, more commercial stuff...for DC.” Essex County was published three years ago and Lemire has since moved on to other projects. In addition to ongoing comic series, his latest graphic novel The Underwater Welder is set for release with Top Shelf later this year.

The great Canadian debate begins February 7 at 11 a.m. on CBC Radio One.

Best Business blog. Technorati, a blog ranking service, lists Mashable as one of its top ten blogs and Bloomberg Businessweek calls it one of the most profitable.

However, unlike other start-ups in similar positions, Cashmore has remained in charge of his creation.

Having come this far largely supported by advertising revenue, Cashmore expresses no immediate desire in venture capital partnership—a popular funding option among many social media start-ups.

Valued at $125-million (U.S.), Mashable runs on a bootstrap budget, focusing instead on strong editorial talent. There are currently 30 employees covering social media and publishing original content around the clock.

In a Bloomberg Venture interview, Cashmore said the growth of Mashable has been a learning process.

“We’re kind of defining social media,” he said, “and learning about it with our readers as we go along.”

Toronto Zine Library raises over $100 for building renovations

By Elizabeth Chiang In October 2005, four Torontonians with a vision began collecting zines with the goal of opening a library. Today, this unique collection of over 3,000 zines is located in the historic TRANZAC building on Brunswick Avenue.

A zine is a small-scale, non-commercial publication. The difference between a zine and a magazine is that the former isn’t usually out to make a profit, but, rather, provide a voice for alternative causes.

One of the many challenges in operating a not-for-profit organization is finding affordable space. Since 2006, the TRANZAC has graciously provided free space to the Toronto Zine Library. However, the building is in dire need of more than just a fresh coat of paint: the ceilings are leaky and the structure is slowly falling into disrepair.

To assist its hosts, the TZL held a fundraiser on January 8 at Caffiends that raised over $100. It was a cold January afternoon, but a steady stream of artists, writers, friends and supporters trekked through the snow to attend. Their perseverance was rewarded by fair trade tea and coffee, homemade vegan cookies, a live reading and a movie presentation of Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Co- founder Suzanne Sutherland, who left the TZL last year to focus on her writing, performed her soon-to-be published story “Why I’m Leaving” as part of the afternoon festivities. Sutherland says that although annual events like Canzine and Zinedream celebrate zine culture, they have their limitations.

“There’s so much enthusiasm in DIYculture that centered on the fairs. Where were the people during the year? The great thing about the TZL is that it’s year round.

The work that they continue to do is to make people aware that zine culture is always here,” Sutherland said.

Librarian and co-founder Patrick Mooney is still with the TZL. He was inspired to start the collection after seeing zine libraries in other cities. Mooney felt that Toronto needed a central location where zines could be organized and ac-

cessed.

When the project first started, material was collected through donations from various writers and publishers at Canzine and Zinedream. Since then, the collection has grown through word of mouth as more zinesters have become aware of the library.

Lifelong zine enthusiast Lyndall Musselman has known about the project for many years. “I was looking for a way to be productive with my time,” she says.

Musselman volunteers once a week and helps with the library’s organization and projects; she hopes to see more regular programming in the future.

“The zine scene in Toronto is more of an art based one...as opposed to music, politics or personal writing based,” Mooney says.

This makes the relationship between the Toronto Zine Library and the TRANZAC even more poignant. As one of the few not-for-profit, member-supported art spaces in Toronto, the TRANZAC continues to play a vital role in the community by supporting projects like the Toronto Zine Library.

Ryerson Free Press february 2011 21

Reviews

STAGE A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical comedy that first hit Broadway in 1962.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the show collected several Tony awards, including Best Musical.

The comedy recently wrapped up a month-long run in Toronto’s Canon Theatre where it proved to be a hit with the audience.

The show revolves around Pseudolus, a clever slave trying to wheel and deal his way to freedom. Pseudolus promises Prince Hero the woman of his dreams in exchange for his freedom.

Along the way, while trying to keep the deal under wraps, Pseudolus finds himself lying about his identity,

wealth and intentions in a way that is comically brilliant.

This production of the play had an alternating lead actor for all of its performances. Both Bruce Dow and Sean Cullen were cast to play Pseudolus. I had the pleasure of seeing Cullen, who stole the show with a strong stage presence and singing voice.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the musical’s strength in singing, acting and dancing. Musicals in Toronto tend to emphasize singing and acting, while the latter falls short. In this production, however, the dance numbers were more intricate and skillfully challenging than the usual musical.

The play’s scenes were situated on one street, so the set consisted of three homes. Although the set pieces were movable and revealed the interior of each house, it was still fairly static. This may not be aesthetically pleasing, but since the plot is laced with lies and hidden identities, a fixed set balanced the constant chaos.

There were no special effects when it came to technical direction: It could have been performed in a black box theatre and still have had the same impact on the audience. In fact, it may have had more of an impact, since a smaller venue would have brought the audience closer to the action.

Regardless of the theatre’s size, the comedy still translated well to a bigger stage. For scenes involving Erronius, a character who has been looking for his children for years, the large stage proved to be an advantage.

At one point, Pseudolus needs to distract Erronius as part of one of his many plans. He tells Erronius that his house is haunted and in order to get rid of the ghost, Erronius needs to do seven laps around the town. Erronius sporadically runs across the stage shouting each lap number and consistently gets laughs from the audience.

Comedy doesn’t always translate well to the big stage, but A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum brings the funny, and then some. —Amanda Cupido

MUSIC

Little Dragon: Ethereal vibes, earthly personas

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oordinating an interview with Swedish band Little Dragon isn’t difficult. Not because they’re obscure and eager for fame, but because they’re a group that sees their relationship with fans as integral to their identity.

Yukimi Nagano (vocals), Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards), Fredrik Källgren Wallin (bass) and Erik Bodin (drums) met at a music high school in Gothenburg. They experimented together, eventually releasing a single and self-titled album on the Peacefrog label in 2007.

Equal parts synthpop, down tempo and soul, the album leaned towards the electronic genre and highlighted Nagano’s stunning vocal capacity. Amidst the dreaminess of “Constant Surprises,” her honey-coated voice oozes, “The higher forces want to connect,” later carrying a note like a plume of smoke swirling in air.

Machine Dreams was given more of an electronic feel, with some tracks like “Thunder Love” tender and evocative while others like “Looking Glass” markedly more upbeat. Although there’s an ’80s sensibility to songs like “My Step,” they are remarkably fresh and timeless. Throughout the album, Nagano’s lyrics remain ethereal.

Little Dragon recently caught the attention of Damon Albarn and the Gorillaz who featured the band in Plastic Beach and provided them with an ample stage presence during the Gorillaz’ 2010 North American tour. Disregarding the benefits of exposure to a wider audience, Wallin says the experience gave them a chance to interact with great artists.

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“It’s all about making music, and you feel that with all those guys and girls. If you worry about pleasing others, you lose it. For example, the Clash and De la Soul, they’ve always done their thing and it’s been a great experience to hang out with those people.”

What separates Little Dragon from the flock of mainstream artists, then, is not so much their sensuous music as their willingness to remain true to themselves and connect with fellow audiophiles – musicians and fans alike.

“We still try to go out and sell some merch because it’s a great way to meet people and communicate. I don’t think we’ll ever run in with some shades and some bouncers. You don’t want to distance yourself.”

Little Dragon is appreciative of the important role their fans play in exposing their music to others.

“We haven’t had that much support from our label in terms of publicity or press, so it’s been people just dedicated to spreading [our music] and we’re really thankful for that.”

In fact, it was likely word of mouth that led to their song “Twice” being featured in a season five episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

Their third album, to be released sometime this spring, will be “a bit more soulful, dancier, tribal... It’s a bit more organic, I think,” Wallin says.

But Little Dragon harbours no desire to conquer the world.

“We just want to make music and play that music live and hopefully make a living on that, because it’s our passion.” ­­—Mark Naser

interviews

Forever Storm’s Stefan KovaCeviC talks writing and politics

Deanna Mac-Neil had the chance to interview musician Stefan Kovacevic of Serbian heavy metal band, Forever Storm. Kovacevic is the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. Based in Kragujevac, the band has toured across the country and played Serbia’s biggest music festivals. Soul Revolution is their first studio album.

Ryerson Free Press: Tell me a little bit about how you and the band became Forever Storm.

Stefan Kovacevic: Milos and I have known each other for a long time. We talked much about music and figured that we like almost the same style, so at the end of 2006 (New Year’s Eve), we decided to start a band that would play that kind of metal. At first, we were called “Steel Storm,” but we figured that “Forever Storm” better corresponds with the story and the message that we wanted to tell and that is to, “Wake the storm, the lust for life in you and hold it forever!”

RFP: What bands influence your [song] writing?

SK: There are so many bands, but I can, for now, set aside Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath (with Dio and Martin), Megadeth, Metallica, Gamma Ray, Dream Theatre, Threshold, Firewind etc.

RFP: Are there any films, writers or activists that influence your writing style?

SK: The truly great thing about art is that it is only changing mediums. So we found it logical to also look for our inspiration in the work of Stephen King (The Dark Tower), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), in Al Gore’s theory and presentation about global warming, the Zeitgeist movement and in movies like V for Vendetta, To End all Wars, etc.

For me, personally, heavy metal speaks of alienation and oppression on micro and macro levels (big and small, personal and political). What does heavy metal mean to you? Are you aware of the ways in which your words, your message and your music speak to the disenfranchised?

As I grew older, I came to understand the message behind the music. I became more aware of my surroundings and life as a cycle of good and evil and all the things in between. After some time I started to realize that my life is being changed by this newfound revelation, and that I am every time falling deeper into the message. From that moment, I started to cherish what I have and what life has to offer and realized that love is one of the most important things in this forsaken world and began my journey to carry on the flame.

RFP: When did you start playing guitar and song writing?

SK: I was nearly 13 when I got my first guitar. It was an old Hawaiian with only one string on it at that time. I started some classes and gained the right amount of knowledge to carry on by myself.

The song writing started almost instantly [because at] that time I already listened to Iron Maiden (it was my favourite band back then) and was greatly inspired by their music. As time passed, I got more independent in writing and started doing my own thing. The rest is history!

RFP: Would you mind telling me a little bit about the political conditions of Serbia right now? What kind of music is popular in Kragujevac?

SK: Political conditions are ever changing but not evolving I’m afraid. The music that is the most popular in Kragujevac is the music that is popular in the whole damn country and that is “turbo” folk.

The hollow and assaulting lyrics came to be the best thing that the most people could relate to. So you can only imagine how hard it is for a metal or a rock band to progress in that kind of environment.

RFP: How is the song writing coming along for the second album?

SK: The song writing is going great, most of the songs are prepared for the final arrangement and most of the lyrics are finished. The working title of the album is Euthanasia for Mankind and the idea in [terms] of cover design is already being executed.

Big things in store for The Unravelling’s Steve Moore

Steve Moore is a singer and songwriter for West Coast heavy metal bands The Unravelling and Post Death Soundtrack. Deanna Mac-Neil chats with Moore about his intellectual and spiritual influences.

Ryerson Free Press: When did you start writing music?

Steve Moore: I started writing music at age 15. Soon after, I began recording albums on four tracks, eight tracks and on and on. None of them were good and I’m glad they’re not heavily distributed, but they helped me move forward and gain confidence slowly but surely.

RFP: Who were your earliest influences?

SM: My very earliest influences were probably Public Enemy and Guns n’ Roses. Both were bands that I wasn’t really “supposed” to listen to because of the language and themes, and this made both bands that much more appealing in my eyes! They were really bands that you could open up the album, read the lyrics and find lots of surprising and shocking things. That has stuck with me to this day – the importance of lyrics and uncensored self-expression.

RFP: How did you form your bands?

SM: Post Death Soundtrack formed as a duo way back in 2005 when me and Kenneth Buck started recording electronic music. We released Music As Weaponry in 2008 when we realized the music had potential, and connected with Jon Ireson and Colin Everall soon after to bring the project [to life]. We ended up becoming best friends with both of them and the project legitimately became a four piece. It’s a rare occurrence for this to happen. Post Death Soundtrack is like a tribe. We take each other’s health and happiness very seriously and no one messes with the tribe, so to speak. The music is secondary to the friendship.

The Unravelling was formed when Gus contacted me via email through the Inner Surge website (my former band), after the band had split. I liked his demos and we started recording on the weekends. As the recordings got polished and we enlisted the help of Casey Lewis for the mastering (and drums), this became 13 Arcane Hymns. We’re now playing live with Scott Taylor, Bryan Sandau and Randy Burton.

RFP: How is Calgary treating you? What is the music scene like?

SM: The scene has improved for me in particular. I used to feel like an outsider on the scene, and still do when it comes to the hipster types, but my work with The Unravelling and Post Death Soundtrack has definitely created more interest and I appreciate it. Good things seem to be happening and it inspires me to do more.

RFP: Tell me about your projects and your upcoming albums. What can we expect to hear? What do you have [in store] for us in regards to video and album production?

SM: The Unravelling will be releasing our music video for “Move Forward Until You Are Dead” in January 2011. We shot the video with Doug Cook and he did an amazing job. I’m very proud that the message of the song came through. We’ll also be working on some new material. No word at the moment what that will turn into.

Post Death Soundtrack is working on new material for a new full length and this is exciting for all of us. We’re also in the middle of a remix campaign, where we’re encouraging fans and producers to re-imagine our material, particularly the tracks “Our Time Is Now” and “Ultraviolence.” All of the remixes get posted to our Remix section on our new website, which will be launched very shortly.

It’s kind of a digital band, so there will most likely be all kinds of new MP3s released over the next year, as well as potentially another music video.

RFP: Do you plan on touring anytime soon? Will you visit Toronto?

SM: Yes, I definitely hope to tour and visit Toronto. I’m not sure of the logistics at the moment but I’ll put it out there.

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