CLIMATE

CLIMATE Rebel says civil disobedience is only way to avert a disaster

by Charlie Smith

At the start of this month, a small group of SFU students won a remarkable environmental victory on campus. A er they threatened a hunger strike to demand that the university divest from fossil fuels, the administration capitulated. All investments in oil, gas, and coal companies will be sold by 2025.

“I believe we have the record now for the shortest hunger strike in history,” thirdyear economics student and Extinction Rebellion Vancouver coordinator Zain Haq told the Straight over Zoom.

It came a er eight years of campaigning by SFU350 and various faculty and sta members. And it demonstrated to Haq the power of peaceful civil disobedience in bringing about societal change.

“I think Extinction Rebellion is centred around the idea that the past 30 years of sort of consciousness-raising and campaigning haven’t worked,” Haq said. “So now we need to communicate with the public in a manner that engages them emotionally.” is is why he and other members of the group block tra c. He fully acknowledged that when they do that, people get upset.

“And when people get upset, that’s when you really get their attention, even if you’re despised by the population,” Haq noted. “ at doesn’t really matter because, as you know, the su ragettes used to stop horse races all the time. at was a massive sort of inconvenience.”

Back in the days when women were struggling for the right to vote, people would ask what that issue had to do with interfering with horse races.

“But they did that because that is what got them the attention—and that engaged the public,” Haq explained. is explains why Extinction Rebellion Vancouver held 14 consecutive days of protests in the streets of Metro Vancouver in October. e activists had a single demand: stop all government subsidies to the fossil-fuel sector.

Haq, 20, grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. He very clearly remembers a deadly heat wave in June 2015 that killed about 2,000 people. Temperatures rose to 49° C in the cities of Turbat, Larkana, and Sibi.

“Hundreds of people died in my city,” Haq explained. “And no one was talking about climate change.” ree years ago, Haq moved to Toronto, where an uncle and cousins are living. But he didn’t like it there, so he moved to Vancouver and enrolled as an international student at SFU. e biggest cultural shock was the difference in the standard of living in Canada compared to his home country. He became engaged in climate activism a er attending an Extinction Rebellion Vancouver protest on the Burrard Bridge on October 7, 2019.

“We need to be more humble in the sense that we’re going to lose all our savings,” Haq said. “People are going to lose the future for their children, and so they need to recognize that and confront that emotionally. And once you confront that emotionally—and the fact that you’re faced with a genocidal government—the only rational response to that is to listen to your emotions.

“If you recognize that you’re faced with a genocidal government, getting arrested is like a small step,” Haq continued. “But I think that’s the main challenge, to communicate that to the public: that their kids are going to starve and that they need to act without the expectation of a result.”

He added that some people are only prepared to be arrested if they’ll achieve a certain outcome. But he said that history has taught him that movements are only successful in driving societal change when they stop worrying about the consequences of their protests.

“ ey sort of enter into service to society, which involves sacri ce,” Haq stated. “It involves getting arrested, doing hunger strikes, going to prison, even. And I think we can learn a lot from the Indigenous community that’s been doing that for a while.” g

Zain Haq was part of a group that convinced the SFU administration to divest from fossil fuels. November 18-25 / 2021

12 COVER

Meet seven Vancouver artists who are participating in this year’s 25th annual Eastside Culture Crawl.

By Martin Dunphy, Steve Newton, Carlito Pablo, and Charlie Smith Cover photo by Liza Heider

6 EDUCATION

With the B.C. government’s encouragement, postsecondary institutions are striving to offer microcredentials to students hoping to get ahead. By Charlie Smith

17 MUSIC

Soul crooner Krystle Dos Santos talks about the abundance of great vocalists in Vancouver and that time she sang with Stevie Wonder. By Steve Newton

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