Mcgill Daily 98_30_29jan09

Volume 98, Issue 30

Harper’s faulty budget Editorial 19

Art’s curtain call Features 10+11

January 29, 2009

McGill THE

DAILY

Armed and dangerous since 1911

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The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Canadian students 13billion dollars in debt Quebec has lowest provincial average Henry Gass

The McGill Daily

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ast week the amount of debt Canadian students owed to the Federal Government for student loans surpassed $13-billion. Rising student debt has been brought to the foreground due to Canada’s current economic crisis. Quebec’s debt averages are the lowest in the country, at $13,000 per person who has student debt. The Maritimes have the highest regional average at $28,000. Approximately 360,000 students are currently taking out loans from the Canada Student Loans Program, but an extra $5-billion is taken out from provincial loan programs and more still from other loans, including from credit cards, banks, and family, resulting in a broad spectrum of student debt volume across the country. “[The student loan process] is all so confusing for young students,” wrote Julian Benedict, co-founder of the Coalition for Student Loan Fairness (CSLF), in an email. “[Students are] just trying to get their education without falling into a debt trap.” Many believe that the effect of student debt runs deeper than monetary and academic concerns. “[Student debt] affects people’s health, the chances of their completing their degrees, and their impact on society,”

Sally Lin / The McGill Daily

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said Katherine Giroux-Bougard, Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) President. “Students with a lot of debt are less likely to contribute to the economy, and are less likely to buy houses, start a family, and raise children.” The solutions to rising student debt vary widely, from tackling the debt itself, to lowering to interest rates, which are presently about one three per cent above bank lines of credit, to lowering tuition fees. Giroux-Bougard and the CFS’s initiatives are based on increasing the funding channelled to postsecondary education via the Canada Social Transfer, increasing graduate student funding and financial support for First Nations students, increasing funding for the Canada Summer Jobs program – designed to help students get jobs during the summer to help pay off debt. The goals for Benedict and the CSLF, the only national non-profit organization in Canada whose mandate is focused on student loan borrowers, include democratizing the student loan system by calling for an ombudsperson office, eliminating high interest rates on loans in repayment, abolishing interest during the six-month grace repayment period following graduation, and improving debt reduction measures. The issue of student debt in Canada is broad and diverse, and likely will not be solved quickly or comprehensively. Giroux-Bougard was concerned that if high student debt isn’t tackled soon, it could have far-reaching consequences for the already crippled Canadian economy. “Tuition fees increase year after year,” said Giroux-Bougard. “We’re on a slippery slope in Canada.”

News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Overloaded myMcGill crashes

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System designed to service only five per cent of student body at one time Kartiga Thiyagarajah News Writer

Will Vanderbilt / The McGill Daily

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Users attempting to access Minerva via myMcGill at the start of the semester, coupled with a new mass of users from the removal of the myEmail tab from the McGill homepage send the system more concurrent users than ever before.

Unable to handle the extra users, myMcGill goes offline, at times without any indication of how to access its services individually.

Users are forced to find McGill’s web resources in their old, dispersed locations on mcgill.ca

tudents and staff have consistently had problems accessing the myMcGill portal throughout January due to a higher than expected demand on the system. According to Doug Jackson, the Director of Information System Resources, myMcGill has been experiencing problems since the first day of the this semester. “The portal has been going in and out of service for the past two weeks,” said Jackson. “Each day, the system has been easily down a minimum of one to two hours.” Jackson explained that the hardware housing the portal simply could not cope with the high number of users. “When the system was first put together, we anticipated an average number of 3,500 users at one time,” said Jackson. “However, that number increased to 6,000 last Fall and increased again this Winter.” The system collapsed primarily because of high usage during the course change period, a shift that Network Communication Services (NCS) – which provides campuswide access to the Internet and McGill central systems – was unprepared for.

“Initially, we assumed that about five per cent of the student population would access the portal at any given time,” Jackson said. “However, it turned out the portal is much more popular than we first anticipated.” Jackson added that improving the system afterward proved to be a difficult task. While NCS did not receive complaints during myMcGill’s downtime directly, the Information Technology helpline did receive several. “Everyone uses myMcGill – students, academic staff, and administrative staff,” said Jackson. “Complaints were heard from all constituents.” Currently, the portal is up and running again, as the number of users normally drops after the course change period. Jackson, however, is looking for a more permanent solution to myMcGill’s capacity problem. “We’ve been working on a project since last Fall to increase the number of users the portal can handle,” said Jackson. “Unfortunately, we could not finish the project by the beginning of January.” The project is still in the works and will be launched in late February, during reading week, when the number of myMcGill users is low.

No one wants to reclaim their campus Student interest in SSMU activist initiative continues to steadily decline Lucy Mair

News Writer

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nly four people attended the re-launch of Reclaim Your Campus (RYC) this Monday – three were representatives from McGill unions, and the last was from CKUT, a campus -community radio station. SSMU VP External Devin Alfaro and coordinator of RYC, attributed the low turnout at the meeting to general student apathy. “I would like to see this turn into a strong group, but people are not willing to put in enough time and effort to make it work,” he said. “If a student organization loses its space on campus, it’s easy to bring people together and turn their anger into a campaign for change, but when there isn’t a specific issue that unites students, it becomes difficult to motivate them.” But with such a low turnout at the meeting, little progress could be made on the group’s mandate. Alfaro launched RYC last semester to give a voice back to students, in response to concern that their interests are being ignored by McGill administration. But, after holding a demonstration in September against

McGill’s union relations, a Board of Governors staffed by appointed members, and undemocratic administrative decision-making processes, interest in the group dwindled and the campaign collapsed. A meeting later that month was attended by only 20 people, a small fraction of the approximately 100 people at the demonstration. Attendees at this week’s meeting aired grievances against McGill and discussed ways of using the media to put pressure on McGill administration and push for change. Maria Ruocco, President of McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), that represents lab technicians, librarians, and porters, shared her experience of working with the media. “Bad press does work; you have to hit the Principal and you have to hit key dates. By using the local and national media, your discontent will be registered. McGill has a great reputation worldwide, and the administration does not want it to be tarnished,” Ruocco said. Dan Pujdak, a representative from Association of McGill Undergraduate Student Employees (AMUSE), discussed plans to launch a “Screwed by McGill” essay contest later this semester that would give students

Rachael Wine / The McGill Daily

a venue to express their issues with McGill and to increase awareness about the widespread discontent among the student body. While a second meeting for this semester was not scheduled, and

advertising remains minimal, Alfaro remains committed to the concept of RYC. “The problems that sparked the campaign last semester are still very pressing. The whole idea

of the group is to draw the links between different organizations at McGill so they can work together to overcome difficulties they share with the McGill administration,” Alfaro said.

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Putting freedom back in software Free software movement founder speaks on software human rights Nicholas Smith

The McGill Daily

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he father of the free software movement descended into a packed room at Concordia Monday explaining to 125 people why freedom is just as important in software as it is in the rest of life. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and lead architect of the GNU Project – which developed part of the GNU/Linux operating system – stressed that there is an ethical requirement to use software that is “free as in freedom, not as in beer.” “People are not taught to ask ‘how will it affect my freedom?’” Stallman said of software. “A program is free software if it respects a user’s freedom and the social solidarity of its community.” He argued all ethical programs must allow the four freedoms: the freedom to run the program for any purpose, the freedom to study how it works and adapt it to your needs, the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour, and the freedom to improve the program and release it to the public to benefit the community. The vast majority of computer programs are proprietary software, containing licences that make it illegal to exercise some or all of the four freedoms. This leads to ethical dilemmas, according to Stallman. “Whenever a friend says, ‘I like this program, can I have a copy?’ you have a dilemma,” he said. “[One solution] is don’t have any friends; the other is to reject proprietary software.” Stallman has always focused on freedom since beginning the GNU Project in 1983 and maintains that software is undemocratic if it fails to provide the four freedoms to users. In his own life, Stallman tries not to use propriety software, such as Microsoft Word and iTunes. His boycott leaves him unable to use cell phones, taxis with map finders, and most laptops. He admitted in the talk, though, that his flight to

NEWS BRIEF Management students go green Students from across Canada will convene at McGill this week to discuss ways to mix business with sustainability. The sixth annual McGill Business Sustainability Conference, which begins today and runs until Saturday, is focusing on the theme “Awake.” According to conference co-chair Jacob Schickler, this year’s organizers chose the theme in order to reflect on the prominence that sustainability initiatives have taken in recent years. “Five years ago, people used the

Montreal likely used some proprietary software. “If someone offers you a proprietary program to use, you should say no, for your freedom’s sake,” he said, emphasizing that the relative freedom of programs concern all consumers, not just programmers. While Stallman supports free software, such as Firefox, OpenOffice, and different distributions of the GNU/Linux operating system, he said that calling these projects “open source” dilutes the emphasis on freedom. He also encouraged schools to teach students how to use free software, so that students are not locked into using proprietary software from a young age – a preference which becomes costly once they leave school.

“If we want freedom to prevail, we have to fight for it,” he said. “If you teach people about freedom, they’re more likely to care about yours.”

word sustainability in a different way, it was a buzzword,” he said. “It’s not about people turning their lights off anymore; it’s about how we’ve become awakened to the fact that we have to do something right now.” The conference organizers hope participants will critically analyze current sustainable business models, and discuss those that are mutually beneficial to the environment and the economy. While the daytime sessions – which bring together representatives of corporations, NGOs, and professors for small presentations – are open only to pre-registered attendees, students may purchase tickets to attend either of the two keynote speeches, taking place on Thursday and Friday evening. Tonight’s keynote speech features Steven Guilbeault, a founding member of Équiterre, which cam-

paigns for ecological agriculture, fair trade goods, energy efficiency, and sustainable transportation in Montreal. He is also a spokesperson for Greenpeace’s climate and energy campaign. Robert D. Weese, a Vice President at General Electric (GE) Canada who works with all levels of government in support of GE’s Canadian business, will give Friday’s keynote speech. The conference will also host green groups from various universities at a sustainability fair from 3-5 p.m. on Friday in the Shatner ballroom, which is open to the public. Both keynotes take place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday’s speech will be held in Moot Court, Chancellor Day Hall, and Friday’s speech will be held in Bronfman 151. Tickets to each event are available at the door and cost $5.

Sally Lin / The McGill Daily

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– Will Vanderbilt

News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

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Inuit HPV rates soar

Lack of resources in the North makes screening sparse Juliana Dalley

The McGill Daily

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s many as 30 per cent of Northern Quebec’s Inuit women could be infected with human papilloma virus (HPV), according to new findings presented Monday by Dr. Paul Brassard of the McGill Department of Epidemiology. Of the 550 surveyed Inuit women from Nunavik, Quebec, about a quarter carried high-risk strains of HPV, a viral infection that accounts for most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts. The rates were especially high among girls aged 15-19, 60 per cent of whom carried some form of HPV, with some carrying high-risk strains responsible for dangerous reproductive cancers. While cervical cancer was once one of the most common cancers in Canadian women, it has been in decline for the past 50 years, likely due to increased awareness and wider availability of the Pap test. According to the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 1,500 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in Canada every year, though the figures are likely much higher for under-screened lower socioeconomic groups, including immigrant, and First Nations women. Brassard found that only about half of Nunavik women went for regular pap tests, well below the Quebec

average, and that these low screening rates may explain the prevalence of HPV and cervical cancer in First Nations communities. “Sixty per cent of cervical cancers appear in women who have not been screened in the past three years,” said Brassard, adding that low screening levels put middle-aged women particularly at risk. “[There is] sub-optimal [Pap test] coverage in women over 40, when risk of cervical cancer reaches its peak,” he said. Brassard noted that rates of HPV in First Nations women are between two and six times the national average, and that a systematic testing like that used for mammograms would be the best form of prevention – since early detection could make most cervical cancer avoidable. But in order to implement such a substantive program, vast resources would be necessary. He explained that with a high turnover of nurses and doctors, many new medical professionals are unfamiliar with the procedures and require proper training. He also claimed the written pamphlets and educational brochures produced by the province were an inappropriate medium to reach Inuit communities, who have strong oral traditions. While doing his fieldwork, Brassard worked on community awareness by speaking on the local radio show about HPV prevention and encouraging women to call in

with questions. While local Inuit leaders were supportive during his eight-year study, Brassard noted that they were often constrained by their lack of resources and other community problems. “The other big issue up North is ‘competing priorities,’” Brassard said, citing the environment, social issues, and more pressing primary care health issues as competiting for the resources and attention of local leaders. “When you go in and try to improve these preventable diseases, it usually gets put on the back burner.” Last fall, the Quebec government implemented a province-wide HPV vaccination program, offered free of charge to girls aged 9-16 through the school system. Girls who are younger than 18 but not attending school could be vaccinated for free while women over the age of 18 must pay for the vaccine, which costs up to $400, and lasts only six years. The government of Canada allotted $300-million in its 2006 budget to provide HPV vaccinations until 2010, but Brassard estimates it will be 20 years before the results are measurable. The Quebec government is currently working on a systematic Pap screening process, but has not implemented one yet. Systematic screening processes exist in other provinces and territories, such as the Northwest Territories, where up to 80 per cent of women are screened regularly.

Bilingualism is key to access to justice in Canada French has improved among judges Gregory Ko

The McGill Daily

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ustice Pierre Dalphond of the Court of Appeal of Quebec called for strengthened bilingualism in federal and Quebec courts, while he spoke to a small crowd of students gathered for SSMU’s Francofête’s inaugural event at the Faculty of Law on Wednesday. “Access to justice means being able to be heard in one’s language and to be understood in it,” said Dalphond, one of 25 judges sitting on Quebec’s highest appellate court. Both Quebec and Canada have strong constitutional protections to ensure that citizens have the right to bring cases forward, to be heard and to testify before courts in either English or French. While bilingualism has greatly increased among Canadian judges in recent years, institutional unilingualism was prevalent in the Supreme Court of Canada until just a few

decades ago, according to Dalphond. In 1979, a majority of the judges sitting on Canada’s highest court were unilingual anglophones. Today, the court is composed by and large of bilingual or functionally bilingual judges, with a few exceptions. “Federal Courts, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Tax Court of Canada are all able to ensure that its judges understand its proceedings without an interpreter.” Nonetheless, he stressed there is still room for improvement. “The Supreme Court of Canada stands alone in having non-functionally bilingual judges hearing cases in both official languages. Ideally, we’d have [all] bilingual judges,” said Dalphond. Dalphond’s sentiments were echoed by Liberal Party MP Denis Coderre’s proposal prior to Parliament’s prorogation last December to require Canada’s top court be functionally bilingual prior to appointment. Dalphond also commented on lagging bilingualism within Quebec’s judiciary. “We in Quebec cite cases coming from English Canada all the time, but since most of our judgments aren’t

translated in English, coupled with Quebec’s distinct civil law tradition, most anglo-Canadian jurists are kept in the dark.” As a means to disseminate Quebec’s jurisprudential contribution, Dalphond proposed that translations of Quebec’s most relevant cases be made available in English, though he recognizes that the province has a legitimate desire to project a staunchly francophone identity. “I understand that the easiest route to spread Quebec’s legal thinking would be simply to translate cases. But out of principle, there ought to be greater initiative from judges from the rest of Canada to be open to the French language,” said Hughes DoréBergeron, the event’s organizer and a member of SSMU’s Commission des affaires francophones. Kay Turner, SSMU President, who helped put on Francofête, emphasized the importance of francophone events at McGill. “Sometimes francophones feel excluded from events on campus.... It’s really nice to have a series of events that celebrate franco culture, and sharing it with other students,” she said. – with files from Shannon Kiely

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News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

B.C. mom finds American Apparel mag too raunchy Vancouver store fined, BUTT continues to be sold Victoria Diplacido News Writer

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merican Apparel’s West Vancouver location was recently fined $100 for improperly displaying an “adult publication,” BUTT Magazine, within the store. The fine was the indirect result of mother Trina Campbell’s complaint to mall management about the easy accessibility of the magazine. On January 13, Campbell was shopping with her 13-year-old daughter in Park Royal Shopping Centre’s American Apparel store, when she picked up an unwrapped copy of BUTT Magazine, a quarterly gay culture publication from the Netherlands, out of a backpack of a mannequin in the window display, according to the local West Vancouver paper North Shore News. Campbell told the paper that upon opening the magazine, she was exposed to “a double-page spread of two men having full-on sexual activity, not just suggestive.” In a statement to the media, American Apparel called the incident “regrettable,” but defended the validity of BUTT as “a respected publica-

tion of art, fashion, and gay culture.” Patricia Leslie, communications manager for the West Vancouver municipality explained that no direct complaint about American Apparel was filed. “We responded to a complaint we heard through the media. The store was fined for not following by-laws,” Leslie said. According to West Vancouver’s by-laws, any “adult publications” are to be stored on a shelf at least 1.2 metres from the floor, and covered by opaque plastic. Media coverage of the event prompted reactions from those who supported Campbell’s complaints. In a letter to the editor of the North Shore News, a fellow Vancouverite applauded Campbell for protesting a “highly pornographic magazine.” According to the supporter, “Our children’s innocence is a precious commodity and to defend this in the public forum takes a lot of courage. Hopefully other parents will follow suit and let retailers who market to children know that they will not spend their money in stores where the environment is highly sexualized.” However, Campbell maintained that she was not so much concerned with the nature of the content, but the

ease with which she, and youth such as her daughter, were able to access it, according to the report in the paper. Ren Haskett, Policy and Equity Coordinator for Queer McGill, stressed the importance of having gay publications such as BUTT available to the public. “Having representations of gay men – and queer people generally – in the media and easily accessible at stores such as American Apparel helps promote positive sexual images for people in the community, and especially for people who may be questioning,” Haskett said. American Apparel recognized that some of the content within the magazine is classified as mature, but reinforced that the company has taken measures to ensure the magazine is not available to minors. “We have always taken the precaution to shrink wrap the publication and we do require I.D. (18 and over) to purchase [it],” their press release read. Moreover, American Apparel asserted that no nudity was in direct view of the public. “The woman in question went out of her way to retrieve an unwrapped copy of the magazine that was inside of the backpack of the mannequin on

Aquil Virani for The McGill Daily

an off-limits store display,” explained the release. This is not the first time American Apparel has come under scrutiny for sexual content; the retail chain is well known for their infamously pro-

vocative ad campaigns, and CEO Dov Charney has faced several counts of sexual harassment. BUTT Magazine will continue to be sold at American Apparel locations nationwide.

MUNACA crashes McGill’s open house Hundreds of demonstrators await collective agreement on salary levels Ethan Feldman

The McGill Daily

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rospective students visiting McGill’s Open House on Sunday, January 25, may have noticed a tangled mass of demonstrators at the Roddick Gates. Hundreds of members from the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) responded to a January 21 executive bulletin urging members to prove the seriousness of their cause by using the Open House to draw attention to their search for a collective agreement with the University.

“Let us show the University that we are willing to give up our time on a Sunday to demonstrate how unhappy we are with the state of negotiations,” said Maria Ruocco, the union president. The demonstrators picketed the Roddick Gates between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and the demonstration was covered by CTV News at 6 p.m. “It was to expose ourselves, we just want to make more people aware of our cause,” said Ruocco. Mookie Kideckel, U1 History student and Daily contributor, volunteered at the Open House for the History faculty and witnessed the demonstration.

“I thought they were on strike when I first saw them, but they were just demonstrating,” said Kideckel. “They were walking in circles. I didn’t know what it was, but I got closer [I noticed] it was MUNACA. Cars were honking, [but] it seemed friendly.” MUNACA has been searching for a new collective agreement with the University for the past 13 months. The union now has a mandate from its members to use pressure tactics up to and including a general strike. The University has promised to keep open the services that MUNACA employees operate in the event of a strike, although it has noted that some services will be scaled back.

Both the University and MUNACA employ a negotiator who is working with a third-party conciliator to reach a settlement. Ruocco stressed that McGill and the union have long agreed on every point in negotiation except salary increases. “Basically, all we want are fair wage increases. We’re hoping that the University comes back to the table with a fair proposal.” Where the Univesity is currently offering 8.5 per cent over three years, MUNACA is requesting ten per cent. According to McGill Human Resources’s web site, budget constraints are complicating an agree-

ment with MUNACA’s demands. “It is important to note that Quebec universities, including McGill University, are facing significant budget deficits which the Ministry of Education has directed must be eliminated within the next three years,” reads their web site. Neither McGill Human Resources nor the MUNACA web site have updated details regarding the negotiations since December. But Ruocco said that their message has not changed. “We want a fair collective agreement and that’s always been the message that we’re giving the administration.”

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Letters

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

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Re: “Israel supporters want peace” | News | January 22

Oh! A peace protest!? Oops, I think I passed the wrong protest that day. I mean, my friends and I were called “Fascist Arabs” – highly annoying given two of us are, like, so not Arab. Sana Saeed U3 Honours Political Science

Good luck with that peace thing Re: “Israel supporters want peace” | News | January 22 Oh! A peace protest!? Oops, I think I passed the wrong protest that day. The one I passed certainly wasn’t asking for peace. I mean, my friends and I were called “Fascist Arabs” – highly annoying given two of us are, like, so not Arab. Also, there were about 150 students, primarily CEGEP, at the protest I passed – according to McGill

Arab parties aren’t banned Re: “Censorship a sign of desperation?” | Letters | January 26 Moral relativism in leftist politics drives me batshit insane. But let’s not get into that: there’s a bit of misinformation that’s been flying around I feel the need to correct it. Shirley mentions the “arbitrary ban” of the Arab parties in Israel. That is false. The Central Elections Committee of the Knesset has indeed voted to stop Balad and United Arab List from running in the next elections, but the committee knew the decision would never be implemented. While it’s tempting for many to jump on this shiny argument against Israeli democracy, it’s invalid. The Supreme Court must accept or deny the committee’s requests – and it has revoked the ban. Balaad and UAL are not disqualified, and I am happy about it. Ahmed Tibi has every right to speak in the Knesset, and he will run in February.

Hooray for lifting the stupid and lazy tax Re: “I want my bottled water” | Letters | January 26 I applaud Residence Food Services for stopping bottled water service in their bagged lunch. Bottled water is a scam – taking water, cleaned by the municipal government funded by taxpayers, and putting it in a wasteful, plastic bottle to sell back to us gullible idiots for more then the price of gasoline. Furthermore, any explicit condoning of the privatization of our water is abhorrent. This parasitic industry is below our dignity, let alone our monetary support. Mr. Majumdar mentions his concern about losing alternatives for lunchtime, citing health problems and the loss of choice in this decision; I think he is missing the fact that, unlike every other avail-

security. Additionally, I remember a Rabbi saying something about how only when Palestinians will start loving their children will there be peace in the Middle East. Also something about Arabs not knowing what peace is. Too bad I missed the Hillel peace protest though! Good luck with stuff. Sana Saeed U3 Honours Political Science Daily columnist

However: every election, Beiteinu/Jewish Home and other right-wing parties issue a disqualification request to grab more votes from the extreme right. Every time, it is revoked by the Supreme Court. I don’t expect any better from those parties, nor do I expect the court to grant them the ban. True, Kadima and Labor’s condoning the ban this time around is disturbing and frankly appalling, although the decision has been widely disputed within Labor ranks. What irks me is that many people have pointed to this “ban” as a sensational antidemocratic and fascist result of the Gaza onslaught, when it’s merely a ritual of Israeli right-wing politics. It’s nothing new. Please remember the only party to have ever been banned by the Supreme Court in the 60 years of Israel’s history is Zionist racist extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane’s in 1986. Steph Ouaknine U3 Theatre and History

able drink, water comes out of the numerous fountains spread about our campus for free, and all we need to do is bring a reusable water bottle from home! This “tapwater” has the added benefit of not being exposed to polyethylene terephthalate for an unspecified time, which has been shown to leak endocrine-disrupting phthalates into the water. Not to mention the fact that tapwater must pass government wide standards to even enter the supply, but the bottled water he is so keen to drink is not. I question his thought that the 30 per cent waste generated from a completely redundant industry is really a “green” solution. Residence Food Services should be thanked for lifting this tax on the stupid and lazy. Andrew Komar U2 Civil Engineering

Defending the born Re: “Pro-lifer seeks liberal support” | News | January 22 Pro-life speaker Mary Meehan argued that we should defend the unborn. I would argue that we should defend the born. First, it is simply for arithmetic reason as we live 100 times longer than we “do” inside the womb. Secondly, the suffering outside of the womb is graphically more gut-wrenching than all the photos of aborted fetuses put together. But don’t ask me – ask the 30 per cent of families in Toronto who are living in poverty! This real-life perspective is exactly what has been missing in the debate – and not merely debates on morality, freedom of choice, or when life truly begins; all of which are nothing more than just a philosophical masturbation. Abortion is a painful process. However, in this wretched society where it is getting harder and harder to raise a family because good paying jobs are getting scarce, more often than not you are left with no choice. Unless you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth, abortion seems to be the only choice so that you don’t have to raise your family on food stamps. The pro-life people seem to be obsessed only by the unborn. Once you are born, that’s it. They leave you to fend for yourself in this world of disappearing jobs, plummeting wages, and crumbling social system. So, if the pro-life people really love life as much as they claim, they should focus on creating a condition where women don’t have to face such a horrifying decision in the first place. That is by providing them a better place to raise their families: reduce the wage gap between women and men, fight for free universal quality day care, longer paid maternal leave, a living wage and not a minimum wage, etc. The Pharisees would have just banned abortion and turned blind eyes to the real suffering of women. Jesus would have done other wise. There lies the revolutionary character of Jesus, of early Christianity – the religion of women and slaves, before it was hijacked again by our modern Pharisees.

Some rules about the Palestinian conflict

Consider tapping into truly sustainable options

Re: “Applying some logic to conflict terminology” | Commentary | January 22

Re: “I want my bottled water” | Letters | January 26

I am sure Gilad Ben-Shach is an excellent mathematician, but it seems he leaves aside logic when defending Israel. Shouting something confidently and consistently without justification is not sufficient to constitute a proof. Or maybe he is assuming the well-known universal rules. Let me mention a few of them. First, some beliefs: 1. Israel is promoting peace by constructing illegal settlements in occupied areas in the Westbank. 2. Israel is promoting peace by bombing UN schools that preach hatred and teach Palestinian right of self-determination, which is the biggest threat to peace. 3. Israel is promoting Palestinians’ well-being by imposing hundreds of checkpoints inside occupied territories; this is for Palestinians’ own security. 4. Israel is promoting the environment by uprooting thousands of olive trees. These trees are used to hide terrorists. 5. Palestinians promote hatred. Then, rights: 1. Palestinians cannot kill Israeli civilians; this is terrorism. 2. Israel can kill Palestinian civilians, this is self-defence, and Hamas will be held responsible for it. 3. Palestinians are not allowed to have rockets, because they will use them for terrorism. 4. Israel can have nuclear weapons, because they will be used for self-defence only. And finally, anyone who does not respect the rules above is a pro-Palestinian propagandist.

While I understand the reader’s concern for choice, and appreciate the skepticism of acts of “sustainability” by McGill administrators, I’d like to ask them to reconsider their position on bottled water. Yes, it is true that plastic bottles are made of PET and easily recyclable, the reality is that Quebecers don’t seem to do so. The statement that Québec recycles up to 70 per cent of its plastic bottles is misleading. While this province does have a limited deposit return system for certain bottles resulting in a recycling rate of 72 per cent this is specific only to plastic bottles containing soft drinks. The environment and plastics industry council estimates that only 30 per cent of non-soft drink plastic beverage bottles are recycled in Quebec (water bottles included). Furthermore, I would like to ask the reader to consider the various other environmental impacts that are involved in the production and transportation of these bottles, the inflated cost, and potential health concerns. Yes, it is true that many people drink bottled water as a healthy alternative to sugary soft-drinks. However, with less frequent government inspection and a history of contaminants, is bottled water really a healthier option than tap water? I suggest that the reader, rather than buy a coke, buy themselves a nice re-usable stainless steel water bottle and take it upon themselves to fill it up at the many water fountains found all over campus. The reader should take pride that McGill has taken this small initiative in working towards a greener campus, and tap in to the accessible, affordable, and sustainable alternative of tap water.

Omar Fawzi PhD I Computer Science

Dana Holtby U1 Environment and Development

Ted Sprague Master’s II Chemistry The Daily received more letters than it could print this issue, they will appear in the next possible issue. Send your non-offensive letters to [email protected] at 300 words or less, and include your year and program.

Mind&Body

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Cómo preparar sopa de tortilla Serena’s Tarascan soup

Friends with food Sophie Busby & Olivia Hoffmeyer

What? Serena’s Tarascan soup How much? Approximately $10 depending on how organic you go. Why? Because combining the warmth of chilli with the fantasy of Mexico will help you weather the coldest winter months… and it’s just delish. Can’t make it to Cabo San Lucas for reading week this year? Love anything and everything chili? Why not bring all that warmth into your kitchen this semester with this delightfully simple pinto bean soup? A number of years ago, after spending a few weeks in Mexico, Sophie’s family friend brought this soup back to Canada. Not only is it easy, tasty, and cheap, but the presentation makes it look oh-so-fancy. Fun fact: Tarascan is another name for the ethnic-linguistic group in Mexico, also known as P’urhépecha from the state Michoacán.

Tips and Tricks: You can use refried pinto beans instead of mushing them up yourself; this is the easiest but most expensive route. You can also use dry pinto beans and soak them with 3-4 cups of water or broth. Just give yourself a few more hours. If you use refried beans, diced tomatoes, and cut the onions super small tyou won’t need to blend all the ingredients together. [Note: If you’re vegetarian and buying refried beans, be careful – the cheap ones often have pork in them!] This soup also makes great leftovers. The longer it sits on the oven and simmers, the stronger the flavour becomes!

• 2 large (or 3 small) onions • 3 cloves of garlic • 1 can (28 oz) of whole tomatoes (1 ½ cups freshly diced tomatoes) • 2 cans pinto beans • 2 ½ cups broth (veggie or meat based) • 1 tsp sugar • Salt and pepper to taste Garnish : cheddar cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, and fresh cilantro (optional)

Nadja Popovich / The McGill Daily

For a picture-by-picture assembly process of the perfect bowl of Tarascan soup, visit mcgilldaily.com and click on Mind & Body. Mush together the two cans of pinto beans (preferably with a blender of some sort). Add a bit of oil to a to a large pot, fry the garlic and onions until they are just getting soft. Add the tomatoes. Simmer the mixture for a few minutes; add the bean-mush, and then cook for ten minutes. Add the broth and a tiny spoon of sugar. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook ten minutes more. Transfer the soup into a blender or food processor

(a hand blender can work nicely here too), and cream until you get a smooth texture. Serve the soup on top of crushed tortilla chips and grated cheese, and top it off with a dollup of sour cream and a bit of fresh cilantro. For a pitcureby-picture assembly process of the perfect bowl of Tarascan soup, see mcgilldaily.com.

Check out the Friends with food’s blog on mcgilldaily.com for some more South-of-the-border cookin’, featuring an extravaganza of dips, just in time for the Super Bowl. The gals will be back in print every other Thursday.

One breath at a time Beginning to find awareness of self in the depths of Buddhist meditation Emily Clare

The McGill Daily

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reathe in and out. The mind is blank and relaxes in a pensive pose. We are far away from civilization in a haze of incense, listening to the sound of waves; we have never been so at peace. Ommanipadmehum. As with the great “Eastern traditions” of Hinduism and Buddhism, we are closer to understanding life through meditation. While this may be a beautiful image, it reinforces some commonly held misconceptions of meditation. “Meditation isn’t about getting into a comfortable part of your mind but an uncomfortable one,” says Myoky, a Zen practitioner and Associate Buddhist Chaplain at McGill. Meditation is not an easy thing to accomplish and requires a lifetime of

learning. There is no specific moment of becoming a great meditator; it is a process of active inquiry. The goal isn’t to achieve a blank mind – this would be impossible – but to engage in mindfulness. A thought is simply a thought. The intent is to become aware of our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and to challenge our misconceptions. “There is a Western misunderstanding of the mind-body relationship. It takes a long time to sit still and be quiet,” says Myokyo. “When your mind isn’t still, your body isn’t, and vice versa.” Scientists have been able to observe the mind-body relation and there are undeniable benefits. According to a November 2005 article in the New Scientist, meditation helps to reduce stress, increase attention span, and can alter ones mood. What’s more, a Boston-based study discovered that meditation enhances

the brain’s cortex in areas responsible for attention and sensory processing. The lead researcher, Sara Lazar, is quoted as saying that this is evidence that those who meditate “aren’t just sitting there doing nothing.” They are in fact exercising their minds.

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oseph Emet, 70, is a Montreal meditation coach and founder of the Mindfulness Meditation Centre. He claims to have taken a majority of his life learning how to meditate because of the distinctly internal nature of the process. He notes that there is a physical technique, but that it is the part that is easy to master. Going through the physical process of meditation without a sense of mindfulness can reinforce negative habits instead of overcoming them. “It is like a musician doing the formal action of playing scales. That isn’t the end of it – you have to tune yourself,” he says.

Emet and Myokyo are also proponents of the commonly held Buddhist belief that meditation should be guided by a teacher or a group and not in isolation. A group gives structure, and the others’ energy serves as feedback. In this, the group becomes a teacher that helps the individual from straying. What’s more, practicing in a group allows the individual to become a teacher to others as well; you practice for others as much as for yourself. “My teacher would say, ‘sit in a quiet place with like-minded people in an upright and stable posture and your breath will become full and complete. With that, your mind will become full and complete,’” Myokyo says. The physical act works to establish a bridge of continuous mindfulness between each practice. One of the core beliefs of Buddhism is the capability of cre-

ating change in the world through the individual, in contrast to prayer, which emphasizes a higher power. Through meditation, we ourselves become more peaceful, and in turn, the world becomes a more peaceful place. “We can say, ‘Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.’ This sets the stage for real transformation,” Emet says. The techniques and insights achieved through meditation should not be divorced from everyday life, but integrated into whatever we are doing, whether it is driving or doing chores. These ideas are not as archaic or alternative as they may appear; you do not have to be a practicing Buddhist to effect change in the world. To quote President Barack Obama, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Mind&Body

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Healing words

9

Dr. Rafael Campo uses poetry to heal, even where there is no cure OVERVIEW

Megan Galeucia

Mind&Body writer

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here is something deeply dissatisfying about going to the doctor and leaving emptyhanded – no prescription, no pills. It’s as if we need to put something external into our bodies in order to feel better, or to feel healed. Western society is deeply-rooted in this paradigm of the dualism of mind and body. We often believe that any bodily illness will disappear once we ingest the appropriate pill. Aspirin cures headaches, caffeine wakes us up, and going to the doctor when we’re sick is the magic ticket for an antibiotic that will quickly restore our health. Dr. Rafael Campo, however, is a physician who attempts to transcend the separation of the mind and body entrenched in our biomedical system, and he does, perhaps surprisingly, by writing poetry. A Harvard Medical School trained physician, Campo’s aim is to heal the body, but he also branches away from classical medicine by using poetry to heal the soul. Last Thursday at Concorida, Campo read a variety of his poems and gave a lecture called “What the Body Told: Poetry and HIV/AIDS.” He specifically outlined his work

with HIV/AIDS patients, with whom he looks to develop a special relationship through poetry. To Campo, poetry “reinterprets [illness] as the beginning point to healing.” In relation to mind-body dualism, Campo sees a similar contrast in the roles of doctor and patient. He attempts to become a part of his patients’ narratives through poetry, exploring the realities of their suffering along with them. More than once, Campo has been criticized for becoming too close with his patients, but that is exactly his intention. In Campo’s office, patients’ files are not composed with the expected pages of test results and doctor’s scrawl. Instead, they narrate each patient’s history and personal account of his or her deep suffering and fear. The narratives from his patients’ files migrate into Campo’s own notebooks, where he reappropriates medical jargon like “needles,” “somaticism,” and “cervical lymph nodes” into explorative terms that create imagery and evoke empathy. The poems’ organic tempos and cadences emulate the body’s rhythms. Campo takes an innovative and dynamic stance on medical consultation by inviting his patients to participate in the writing process. Together, they explore the ways in

which HIV is affecting them, not just what they should do about it. The reasons “why” encompass both the cultural context and other external socioeconomic forces relating to the patient’s situation. These aspects need to be considered to a greater extent in Western medicine than they are today. Maybe then the poet-physician combination wouldn’t seem so counterintuitive. While I must admit that Campo’s skills as a medical practitioner most likely exceed his skills as a poet, this is of little matter – his poems are important for their impact in initiating the healing process.

strengthens the doctor-patient trust which is so crucial for healing,” Campo says. Campo explains that poetry was the first medium that allowed him to speak empathetically with his patients. For Campo, poetry is a tool for fostering self-knowledge and self-awareness, both crucial first steps in being able to empathize with others. “Poetry asked me to immerse myself in the voice of another consciousness. By practicing poetry I have learned to listen more… deeply, and [thereby] have become a more effective healer,” he says. Initially, Campo turned to poetry as a coping mechanism for the alienation he experienced during his formal medical training. He recalled how disheartening it was to witness the distance between doctors and their patients during his training at Harvard Medical School. “When I encountered the modern day approach of treatment and doctor-patient interactions in medical school, poetry became important to me to keep my heart open to my patients even though I was being crushed by the medical training. It kept me sane and allowed me to

make sense of the absolute suffering I heard from my patients,” Campo said. Campo feels that the Western emphasis on the distancing between patient and physician has come from the expansion of technology in the medical field. Personal contact is no longer a requirement, as long as a quick-fix, physical solution can be achieved. More problematically, because of this phenomenon, physicians are not even trying to emotionally invest themselves in patients’ care, which explains why patients so often feel silenced and ignored. Campo sees a need to return to the holistic view of medicine by resuscitating the physician’s role as healer, rather than merely curer of physical illness. “The distinction between a physician and a healer is really an important one that we often fail to make. Patients whom I have cared for feel healed even though they ultimately are succumbing to a disease that we don’t yet have a cure for. It becomes incredibly vital for someone to be able to have the possibility of being healed even in the face of failing the cure,” Campo said.

Alyson Digby for The McGill Daily

CLOSE-UP

Mathura Thevarajah The McGill Daily

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major complaint of patients today is that they are not being heard. While society seems to be moving toward a model of minimal social contact, where language in not employed effectively to connect with others, one need only think about the large-scale appeal of Facebook. For his part, Dr. Raphael Campo believes that we all have an inborn capacity for expressive language, which could help improve physicians’ connections with their patients. Campo stresses the role of expressive language and empathetic listening, both of which can help physicians to better understand how a patient copes with and perceives their illness. This understanding would make physicians more attuned to the important socio-psychological aspects of living with a specific illness that bear directly on patients’ response to treatment. “Empathetic listening not only helps physicians make sense of the report of symptoms, but [it] also

For Campo, poetry is not only at the disposal of the physician – it can also be prescribed to the patient as a tool for self-healing. He has encouraged patients living with HIV/AIDS to express their personal struggles with the disease, demonstrating the mutual benefits of poetry in reviving the doctorpatient relationship.

HIV in a way that is not accessible in the confines of a clinic encounter.” More than just a personal catharsis, Campo also argues that poetic expression is a way for whole families to cope with illness. “When a patient goes to a page and leaves something written for their loved ones, there is a way that they persist in this world, [and] that

“By practicing poetry, I have learned to listen more...deeply, and [thereby] have become a more effective healer.” Dr.Rafael Campo, physician, poet, and activist “HIV is a particularly difficult illness in that it engenders so many silences and stigmas. What I find so useful in caring for these patients is [the formation of] a writing group where patients share poetry, prose narratives, or journals,” he says. “We talk about their poetry and articulating aspects of living with

challenges the notion of a cure,” he says. Campo’s ultimate philosophy – that all patients should be offered relief, even when there is no cure – is a testament to his commitment to promoting the overall well-being of the patient, as well as the importance of the doctor-patient bond.

10 Features

Art’s curtain call Five months after Harper axed two vital arts funding programs, Amelia Schonbek assesses the damage done to our cultural landscape and literacy

Evan Newton / The McGill Daily

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ast August, while the majority of McGill’s student population was likely lazing through the final days of summer, Canada’s arts community was gearing up for a fight. Earlier in the month, artists and arts organizations nationwide had been blindsided by the Harper Government’s announcement of new cuts to federal arts funding programs, bringing the total amount of arts funding cut in 2008 to $45 million. Arts advocacy groups were quick to call for the reversal of this decision, and artists and their supporters began a wave of protests in cities across Canada. When the dust settled, Canadian artists were left to confront a troubling question: in what ways would these cuts affect their ability to pursue their craft? While several federally-administered programs were affected by the budget cuts, the complete elimination of both PromArt and Trade Routes, programs designed to advance Canadian culture abroad, threatens the nation’s artists most. PromArt, overseen

by the department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, offered grants to be used toward international touring to Canadian artists and arts organizations. Trade Routes, a Canadian Heritage program, was designed to promote the export of Canadian cultural goods to the international marketplace. Both these functions are crucial for the survival of Canada’s artists; the country’s relatively small population places a limit on the size of the domestic audience. In a 2006 statement, Canadian Heritage said outright that “Canada’s cultural enterprises must look increasingly to world markets in order to remain viable and competitive.”

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or the arts community, any cuts to funding have the potential to be disastrous. It’s no secret that artists typically live what Alanna Thain, a professor of Cultural Studies at McGill, calls a “hand-to-mouth existence.” Though Stephen Harper seems to think that Canada’s artists spend their time hob-knobbing at “rich

galas,” the truth is that an artist living in Canada makes, on average, $23,000 a year, and half of Quebec’s artists live on less than that amount – meaning that nearly half fall below the poverty line. “When you have to cobble together funding from a variety of sources, even small grants and small amounts of money can make the difference between being able to pursue your career or not,” says Thain. “We already have artists who have to work part-time or full-time to support their art.” She notes that the government doesn’t seem to understand that art is a viable career in and of itself: artists are labourers, and though society often conjures an image of the artist as dreamer, the fact is that just as autoworkers produce cars or farmers tend cows that produce milk, artists commit hours of work to produce the cultural material that is consumed by the public. The funding that came from PromArt and Trade Routes had a huge impact on the ability of arts groups and individuals to tour,

and was also largely responsible for supporting their general functioning. PromArt awarded 312 grants in 2006-2007, and according to a study prepared by the Conférence Internationale des Arts de la Scène (CINARS), the average organization that received funding from PromArt that year was awarded about $26,000. This may seem like a relatively small sum, but for many organizations, losing this money can set off a train leading to more losses; the average PromArt grant can enable artists to bring in more than five times its original value in revenue. Grants facilitate travel overseas, and, by extension, a company’s performances, an author’s literary tour, or a painter’s exhibition. All these are a major source of revenue and publicity for artists. A $26,000 grant can make it possible for a company or individual to raise well over $100,000. That money can, in turn, be reinvested to support one’s further artistic endeavors. Thus, the loss of this government funding has wide-ranging consequences, not

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

only for touring but also for ensuring the long-term viability of an artist’s career.

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hile all artistic disciplines will feel the cuts’ impacts, Thain explains that performing artists will likely suffer most from the disappearance of PromArt and Trade Routes. “Performing arts companies have a particular set of challenges, because their infrastructure needs are so great,” she says. “Filmmakers can send their films to a festival, for instance, and not physically go along – dance companies or theatre groups cannot do that.” Indeed, following last August’s announcement, performing arts groups have been canceling tours left and right. In a recent survey of past PromArt and Trade Routes beneficiaries, CINARS found that 80 per cent of respondents had international tours planned for the 20082009 year, but 92 per cent of those believe that the elimination of PromArt and Trade Routes funding has threatened the feasibility of the international engagements. While is it possible that larger organizations may be able to operate tours at a deficit in the short term, CINARS notes that “it is inconceivable for many companies to carry out a tour that will incur a loss, to absorb the costs, or to renegotiate a higher fee; these companies will instead be forced to cancel tours.” The recent experiences of artists and arts organizations themselves confirm the study’s findings. “I’ve had to abandon certain ideas and projects, because I know there won’t be the funds to support them,” explains Margie Gillis, an internationally-acclaimed contemporary dancer from Montreal. Similarly, the Blue Metropolis Foundation, a Montreal-based nonprofit that promotes cross-cultural exchange through reading and writing, has been forced to drastically scale back its operations this year, including its annual literary festival. Blue Metropolis general manager Michelle Sylvestre says that the organization is choosing to sacrifice quantity in order to retain quality, a conservative strategy designed to ensure the foundation’s long-term survival. Even the Theatre of Early Music, a group that, according to director Daniel Taylor, is “supported primarily by private donations,” worries that future lack of public funding will affect their operations.

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hen coupled with the current economic crunch, the effects of the PromArt and Trade Routes cuts are even more severe. Artists mention the desire to turn to the private sector to fill the gap left by federal cuts, but, as Sylvestre notes, “this year is really hard. The private side is reluctant to contribute now because of the financial situation.” Taylor adds that securing private funding is “a particularly difficult challenge for the younger, smaller groups. It’s hardly a level playing field since the oldest groups seem to know just which doors to knock on, and many have already received

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$45

92%

$23,000 $26,000

million cut from federal arts funding in August

survey respondents who doubt their planned international arts tours will pan out due to cuts

average annual salary of a practicing artist in Canada

promises of multi-year funding through PR contracts with major companies.” Gillis highlights another facet to the difficulty in finding private donors, saying that the recent funding cuts “make it harder for us to go into the private sector and get help, because the private sector has just been told by the government that [arts groups] are not worthy of support. So our job, in convincing, becomes harder.” Gillis’s comments highlight another, less self-evident consequence of paring down federal money for the arts: that is, the way in which a withdrawal of government funds signifies the government’s disdain for the nation’s cultural workers. In cutting funding, “the government is devaluing the arts,” Gillis says, noting that the derogatory manner in which the Conservative leadership has spoken about the arts in recent months, especially during last fall’s Parliamentary election, only adds to the feeling that the arts community has been abandoned. “To accuse a population that has no real income and is subsidizing its own contribution to society of taking advantage of the general population is insulting. It’s insulting to the people who’ve spent years advancing the field, and it’s insulting to society in general,” Gillis says. “It’s a question of what our society is choosing to value, what seeds we’re watering. This government is refusing to recognize the incredibly important contribution to society that art makes.” Thain believes that this attitude is widespread among artists at the moment. “It’s been months now since the cuts were announced, and there is still a lot of ongoing activism around the question, which suggests to me that artists don’t feel any support from the government. I don’t get any sense that artists have confidence in this government at all.”

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hat comes to the surface when speaking with arts groups and individuals about the loss of federal funding is that, in cutting off vital monetary support, they feel that the government is actively working to take away their voices. In a fragile industry that often must struggle to stay afloat, even during the sunniest of economic times, it’s not a misguided fear. The truth is that a lack of funding often means an inability to pursue artistic expression. “I think that the question of censorship needs to be part of the debate,” Thain states, “especially when you look at these cuts in light of past actions that this government has taken, like Bill C-10.” The bill, which aimed to limit funding to arts productions considered to be inappropriate, died when the federal election was called last fall. Indeed, as information began to circulate and leaked government memos were uncovered, it became increasingly difficult to avoid the idea that the Harper government had cut arts funding due to the perception that the wrong kind of Canadians were profiting from it. A now-infamous Conservative Party document

disclosed to the press expressed concern that PromArt and Trade Routes beneficiaries like the band Holy Fuck, broadcaster Avi Lewis, and left-wing columnist Gwynne Dyer were “not exactly the foot that most Canadians would want to see put forward.” “The idea of policing values does seem to be at the heart of this,” Thain says. “Harper framed his original justification of the cuts by saying that ordinary people weren’t interested in the arts. Well, who are these ordinary people? It is a de facto mode of censorship when people are not given opportunities to pursue modes of expression.” Gillis makes an extreme statement of concurrence. “To have a government where you control what your people are saying, and where you cut the throats of those who are weaker than you are, that’s moving toward a fascist regime,” she says.

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erhaps more frightening, however, is the long-term impact that decreased funding for the arts could have on the Canadian arts community as a whole, and on the country’s cultural literacy. “We’re coming out of a period where Canada has emerged onto the world arts scene, due in part to the spread of popular groups like Cirque du Soleil,” says Thain. “The literary scene has exploded, film directors have been able to work successfully at home in Canada rather than moving to Hollywood. When there’s no long – or even medium-term – sense of security about arts funding, what happens is that these projects disappear, and in time, so do the audiences for them.” Gillis adds that institutional memory is quick to disappear in artistic fields. “Generations and generations have been building on ideas, but if you take away the support for that, you lose not only your own work but the work of generations before,” she comments. Thain agrees that foundational work in the arts takes years to rebuild. She also notes that “you have to think of all the jobs that are constellated around the arts. Think of this city in the summertime – it’s one festival after another. Art works to draw people into cities, and therefore supports a whole range of other industries.” The funding drought will also likely lead to shifts in the geographical locations where Canadian artists are working. Lorraine Hebert, the general manager of the Regroupement Québécois de la Danse, an organization that works to defend the rights of professional dancers, notes that “On the international scene, the artistic quality of our companies’ productions is evaluated in comparison to those of other foreign companies, who are often better pro-

average grant awarded to a single artist or organization by axed program PromArt in 2006-07

vided for.” The reality that artists may be better-supported in other place will likely lead to the relocation of Canadian talent, a move that, according to Thain, just makes sense for artists in terms of sustaining fruitful careers. The consequence, though, is that audiences and community support will be degraded and lost. For Sylvestre, the worry is about the probable loss of important cross-cultural exchange that has stemmed from PromArt- and Trade Routes-financed projects. Speaking about her work with Blue Metropolis, she says, “What the international work does is bring people of different cultures to Montreal and allows them to share their stories with Quebeckers and Canadians. It also allows us to go abroad and open up the doors to our own national literature there. When you’re reading a work by a Latin American writer, for example, you are not only reading a story but you’re learning about how a people group lives, about what they do. That’s a good thing.” Thain echoes the importance of such exchange, but is quick to point

“It’s a question of what our society is choosing to value, what seeds we’re watering.” Margie Gillis Contemporary dancer out that “If those roots are lost, you also lose the opportunity for cross-cultural fertilizations. Artists can’t interact and be influenced by other cultures, other traditions, other artists that they might otherwise be able to learn about, bring home, and rework.” For now, artists must wait and see whether the money cut from PromArt and Trade Routes will be channelled back into other arts initiatives. Gillis and Thain think this is unlikely; the federal budget that was released on Tuesday included investments in arts and culture, but made no mention of bolstering funding for the promotion of Canadian culture abroad. And while Minister of Culture James Moore has promised that money cut will be reinvested into different culture programs, Ian Rae, a professor at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, points out that “It’s worth keeping in mind that when the Conservatives talk about the ‘arts,’ they mean programs funded by the Ministry of Heritage, which also administers sports in Canada. Hence, money for a symphony could be redirected into a luge trial and still count as an ‘arts’ investment.” “Art is indeed a necessity of the human spirit,” Gillis comments. “Art can give people hope and courage, it can drive them to change their circumstances. You would hope that the leaders of our society would be smart enough to know that and to try and safeguard it.”

12 Commentary

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Patrick, the ideological rationalist

Aristotle’s Lackey Sana Saeed This is the first of a two part-piece looking at secularism. This first part acts as a loose introduction to a discussion on the negative approach secularism has taken toward fundamentalism, ideology, and essentialism. If we consider secularism to be the governing ideal of the future and the modern state, then we must reconsider the popular form it has taken within the past decade.

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eet Patrick*, a young 22-yearold living and attending school in Alberta. Patrick’s your stereotypical college guy. He’s intelligent, good-looking, well-liked, laid-back, politically active, well-read, and knowledgeable about current affairs. The ladies love him and the guys want to be him. That kind of guy. But behind his bright I-want-toknock-his-teeth-out kind of smile, there lies a deafening darkness. See, Patrick’s a conservative. Not usually a big deal, but having known Patrick for almost six years, his evolution into his current manifestation of neo-conservatism has shown me the dangers of ideology. I had always believed that ideology, no matter where on that sham of a spectrum it fell, was inherently poisonous and conducive to loss of rationality, even if that ideology was rationalism. Patrick wasn’t always a huge ideologue. He used to be cool. Like “Whoa! Even though you’re from, like, hick-chuck Alberta, you’re still so awesome!” sort of cool. We met through our love for political discourse and international affairs six years ago. I was sarcastically dabbling in Communism, a result of my high school teacher who was the former head of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and, unapologetically, really NDP. Patrick was dabbling in green politics, holding favour toward the Green Party while

still grasping onto the prepubescent beginnings of conservatism. I thought Karl Marx had a sick beard; he thought John Locke was a saviour. Juxtaposed properly, we fit. We met through mutual friends, and formed a good platonic relationship, filled with enlightening conversation and musicfile sharing. Our common thirst for knowledge despite dissimilar views, allowed us to have civil conversations and grow together intellectually. But things began to change by the time I hit university. Patrick had already been in university for about a year by the time I made my historical entrance into McGill in 2005. His views had become more refined and his MSN citations were also more impressive. He had also begun to get heavily involved with local prominent conservatives in Alberta – something that concerned me as he had always said he felt the only party decent in the Canadian system was the Green Party. Slowly but surely, classes with leading conservative scholars in a conservative university and close relations with prominent Conservative politicians led to a hardening of Patrick’s prepubescent conservatism. He had hit political puberty. While he became conservative, but not Conservative, in most aspects, his greatest concentration took the form of the superiority of the West. Seriously. During the next four years, I would see the radicalization of Patrick; from a moderate young guy with conservative tendencies to an ideological rationalist. Don’t get me wrong – I love rationalism, it’s great and whatever, but to be such a proponent of it so as to believe that it’s inherent to the so-called West and lacking in “other” cultures? That’s enough to get Edward Said to bust a cap in his own, now deceased, ass. But this extremely erroneous line of thinking did not stop Patrick from

fighting against what he thought was the antithesis of Western rationalism. The major part of this antithesis was “Islam” – a religion he believes needs a Protestant revolution, but with a “Mohammadan” twist of course. After a while, I just came to the conclusion that he had become reactionary to cultural globalization. After all, he had begun seeking what “Western culture” really entailed. To him, it was a given (albeit a fallacious one) that the Ancient Greeks were the forefathers of Western awesomeness. He felt, however, that there must be more to being Western other than the suffocatingly brilliant works of Hegel, Kant, Locke, Rousseau, and Dershowitz. Patrick found this awesomeness in the American South and secularism. Patrick started asserting that the real heart of the West, everything it stood for, was found in the South, in the form of rock ‘n’ roll. Rock ‘n’ roll, he said, encapsulated the very essence of everything associated with the West, including freedom. Aside from the geographical misnomer, I didn’t have the heart to tell the only person I know who identifies so strongly with his hemisphere, that even rock ‘n’ roll, his emblem of the West, was rooted deeply in African music traditions brought over on the slave ships and into the cotton fields. And while he claimed he was an internally religious person, his rhetoric claimed religion to be the most destructive of forces, unless it was liberalized – in other words, regardless of origin and belief, religions needed to conform to his Western ideals of liberalism. The implications of such a line of thinking are tremendous and reflective of a growing trend within popular ideas of secularism, all of with

which Patrick has been acquainted. During the past year, especially more recently, Patrick has become unbearable. He has become rabid about the West, which excludes Russia, but includes Israel and Turkey. He quietly refuses all opposing perspectives, and when debate is ended with frustration by his opponents, he claims they are against dialogue and thus against the core of sweet, sweet Western values. Secularism, rationalism, and the so-called West have been rolled into one massive and ticking package of ideology. All three of these components are fine in and of themselves as ideas and practices, to a large extent. However, as soon as we turn these into a cohesive unwavering ideology, which we have seen happen in the past decade, we begin to see a sort of fundamentalism arise. In my next column, I will address the fundamentalism of secularism from which, I will argue, rationalism and the idea of the “West” cannot be separated. *name has been changed

Part II of Sana’s short series on secularism will appear two Thursdays from now. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss political puberty, especially if your name isn’t Patrick and used to be Sana’s friend, email aristotleslackey@ mcgilldaily.com.

Aquil Virani / The McGill Daily

Commentary

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

13

Use News to report, not explore Public Editor Marc Selles

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s it stands today, The Daily’s News section is used less for reporting relevant news and more for exploring issues that would best be addressed in other sections of the paper, such as Culture or Features. According to its Statement of Principles (SoP), The Daily should focus on two broad types of news stories: those relevant and related to the McGill community, and those which depict and analyze power relations. In this light, reporting on the three-cat limit in Rosemont borough (November 24) is weak, and reporting that Google has mapped the Montreal metro system (November 6) is out of place. On the other hand, the coverage of the Adil Charkaoui case or the labour disputes on campus, both of which have been thoroughly followed up, was excellent. Similarly, the News piece informing us that the bike collective in Shatner has time reserved for non-males (November 13) was spot on. Other news articles are of two kinds, and neither has its place in the News section. The first are really articles that should have made

it to the Features section, but for one reason or another didn’t. For instance, I was delighted to read about Antifa (November 17), an antifascist collective in Montreal North. However, the article was a meagre 300 words and merely glossed over the collective’s history and current issues. In addition, the text was generously illustrated – much like a Features article – by photographs of tags and graffiti, which, incidentally, were simply horrendous by Montreal urban art standards. Why not have replaced them with a more detailed text and placed the piece in the Features section? The most prominent and visible kind of articles wrongly tucked into the News section are those dealing with broader issues, only loosely connected to current events. Take for instance the article highlighting voting rights for felons in U.S. presidential elections (November 3). While the subject matter is clearly relevant to The Daily’s SoP, the only news part of this article is the fact that the U.S. presidential election was the following day. This article and many others like it use current events as a gateway

to address a wider variety of topics relevant to The Daily’s SoP. However, the very nature of the News section prevents those articles from achieving the depth of coverage for which The Daily should be striving. It is important that The Daily continue and even increase its reporting of news not adequately covered in other media outlets, including other campus publications. In line with The Daily’s SoP, the News section should report on alternative or poorly-covered issues and keep its readers updated on their developments, but in no case should The Daily be using the News section as a tool to explore those issues. News articles which lump together exploration and reporting often end up failing at one or both. Focusing exclusively on current events, especially those which are underreported, would allow the News section to increase its coverage of events at McGill and in Montreal that readers would not otherwise know about. The exercise of explaining, contextualizing, and linking issues is central to The Daily, but it belongs in such sections as Culture or Features, or perhaps even an entirely new section. It is up the editorial board to decide whether and how to expand or reform those sections, especially Features, in order to increase the scope and quality of coverage. Marc Selles serves as the readers’ representative, and his column appears every other Thursday. Send your gripes to [email protected].

HYDE PARK

Deface this! Reclaiming campus space for education over propaganda Hartlee Zucker

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ark Twain once said that he “never let [his] school interfere with education.” Granted, I doubt he was referring to the physical space of his institutions, but this sentiment still resonated with me this week. I’m referring to the McLennan Library, which was used to further the agenda of an organization interested in only one side of an intensely complicated issue. An institution of higher learning should promote free speech and provoke healthy debate among its students. And where better to exercise that than in the heart of its largest library? As intelligent and motivated young adults, we should cherish our library as a forum for broadening our minds and expanding our knowledge. We should be confronted with shocking or thought-provoking information, and contentious issues are certainly fair game. But to be frank, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights’ (SPHR’s) exhibit was just insulting.

I do not deem it insulting on the grounds of its condemning the actions of the State of Israel. Rather, I would say that SPHR insults the collective intelligence of the McGill student population by once again presenting only one perspective of this highly complex situation. Not to mention the signs proclaiming, “defacement of this exhibit is considered a hate crime.” Is this the atmosphere of fairness and dialogue we should be striving for? On the contrary, we should be trusted to make up our own minds if given the tools to form a holistic understanding of this crisis. This is not meant to be a critique of the installation itself. Instead, I hope to engage some kind of “bigger picture” thinking that seems to be strangely absent from campus as of late. Given the number of students who chose to file complaints about this particular use of the area, I would guess they were not speaking out to defile the good name of free speech, or to promote censorship and limitation of personal free-

doms. These students – who had no choice but to walk through the corridor should they wish to make use of their library – had the integrity to demand more of their learning environment. Maybe it’s time for all of us to insist upon education over propaganda, both in and outside of our classrooms. Do we want McLennan to be a vehicle for growth and reflection, a space to foster a healthy exchange of ideas, as perhaps it might have been had others shared in the planning of this exhibit? Or shall we again allow hyper-political, highly divisive groups to command the use of our public spaces? By the way, defacement of this article will be considered free speech. Hartlee Zucker is a U2 Humanistic Studies student, and the President of Hillel-McGill, though the views expressed here are her own. Send big pictures to hartlee. [email protected].

Sally Lin / The McGill Daily

HYDE PARK

York: McGill TAs are behind you Hariyanto Darmawan and Richard Hink

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ast year, McGill teaching assistants braved an 11-week strike to pressure the University to negotiate a fair contract. The battle was won, but not without a bitter struggle. This year, our colleagues at York University – members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 3903 – have also taken to the picket lines after negotiations with their university’s administration failed to address the legitimate concerns of more than 3,000 parttime faculty, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants. Twelve weeks into the strike, it’s clear that the York administration has had little intention of working toward compromise. Instead, they have created a one-sided deadlock and refused to negotiate further. Last weekend, the government of Ontario recalled the Legislative Assembly and pushed through legislation forcing the union back to work and ending the strike. The Association of Graduate Student Employed at McGill (AGSEM) stands in full solidarity with our colleagues at York. We are completely opposed to the back-to-work legislation imposed by the Ontario Legislative Assembly (over the lone objection of the New Democratic Party). Back-to-work legislation tramples upon workers’ right to strike. This right is the tool that secured the eight-hour work day, maternity leave, safe working conditions, and many other benefits – most of which we now take for granted. Those rights have never been offered to workers on a silver platter. They have been fought for and defended on picket lines. This back-to-work legislation subverts the right of York’s part-time teachers and graduate assistants to bargain collectively and, more gener-

ally, sets a dangerous precedent for all public sector and public service workers across Canada. We must not allow recession to become a justification for threatening the long-held legal rights to negotiate, bargain, and strike. This piece of legislation sends a message to employers throughout Canada that the appropriate approach to a labour dispute is to wait out the workers and to depend on government intervention to force them back to work. AGSEM also stands against this back-to-work legislation because it legitimates and rewards the increasingly heavy-handed approach of university administrations toward their employees. Our strike last year provides clear evidence of this approach, from scab work performed by professors to McGill firing AGSEM members from campus jobs unrelated to the labour dispute. If we invested the same amount of time and energy to solving the problem of our chronically under-funded universities that is currently spent on obscuring the facts and bargaining in bad faith, we could likely find win-win solutions that would foster a better learning environment for students, a better working environment for teachers, and most importantly, the kind of collegial environment that rests at the heart of each and every university community. Instead, the McGuinty government has chosen an approach that will only heighten tensions and prolong the painful division inherent in any campus labour dispute. To send a letter of protest to Dalton McGuinty, see demandastance.com/ cupe, or to send a letter of support to CUPE 3903, email 3903hq@gmail. com. Hariyanto Darmawan is the AGSEM delegate in the Department of Chemistry. Richard Hink is the current AGSEM president. AGSEM can be reached at [email protected].

14 Commentary

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

HYDE PARK

Enough with Parliament’s masked sexism Aquil Virani

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Aquil Virani / The McGill Daily

Canada’s phallic Parliament needs more female representation.

t wasn’t long ago that America was buzzing feverishly about the possibility of the first female president ever. With the country’s recent obsession with Barack Obama, the absence of estrogen within the confines of the governing bodies of the Western world has receded into the depths of memory faster than Dick Cheney’s dirty little hunting secret. It seems the advancement of women into North American government has settled down since the exciting days of suffrage and the boom that followed. Canada as a nation is far behind. In this overly politically-correct country where diversity is a national selling point, one might think governmental representation of the female gender would be respectable. Think again; here are some realities you might be surprised with. Currently in the House of Commons, the place where all Canadian MPs meet to yell at each other, there are about four men for every woman. It seems Parliament doesn’t quite walk the walk at all. In fact, Canada ranks 46th among world nations regarding the percentage of women in the Lower House. So what’s the problem? There are numerous obstacles standing in the way of women in

Parliament. Unfortunately, there is undisputedly a degree of residual sexism in the way we perceive the ideal leader. A politician’s image is a major ingredient to success – we want a capable, accountable, and downto-earth individual. The accepted stereotype is a physically powerful man, a strong jaw line, a reassuring smile – heck, let’s just say we want a Barack. The problem, however, is not as much among the voting constituents, as it is the lack of women running for office. But things won’t simply change overnight. Consider a parallel to the freedom of black people in North America. Abe Lincoln officially gave African-Americans full rights in 1863, and yet it took until this year to elect a black president. Just like LeChatelier’s principle of chemical balance, our society resists change, and it’s rather easy to forget that these human rights for females are only a century old. The inertia of social attitudes explains this painfully slow process of gradual change. Thirty per cent has been adopted as an acceptable target of female representation, and there seem to be a variety of ways to achieve this goal. Just over half of Canadians feel that political parties should be obliged to support a certain proportion of women as candidates, and the idea of financial benefits awarded to parties who choose more female candi-

dates has yielded mixed reviews. In the most recent federal election, the NDP led the way in gender balance with around one third of their elected MPs being women. This being our most recent representation, Canada set its new record with the proportion of women forming 28 per cent of candidates nation-wide. These solutions have to be implemented consistently, and will take some time. It’s simply astounding that Canada is so behind on this issue. For all ourpride in tolerance, acceptance, and pluralism, 46 is too large a number on the world scale, and 22 is too small of a percentage. Rwanda leads the world with over half of their Lower House members being female. If anyone can further influence change, it is the youth of our nation. If you’re interested in learning more, apply for Women In House, a program that gives female students the opportunity to shadow important women in Parliament, learn more in-depth about the issue of equal representation, and collaborate with other women to create networking bridges. As citizens we can be patient for new changes to start creating substantial results enough is enough? Aquil Virani is a U0 Arts&Science student, and can be reached at aquil. [email protected].

HYDE PARK

The Bloc legitimizes Canadian democracy David Searle

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ver since the Bloc Québécois’ formal introduction to federal politics in 1991, Canadians have been outraged over Ottawa’s funding of the party. The very idea that we should subsidize a party whose main platform is the dismemberment of Canada seems preposterous to many. In his Fall update, Stephen Harper used this same argument to defend his initial scrapping of political party financing – which currently provides $1.95 per vote to federal parties. Now he’s promising that, come the next election, he will scrap party financing for good. However, it is in the interest of all Canadians that the Bloc remain a viable political option for Quebeckers. The Bloc represents the greatest and most effective means to pro-

mote national unity in Canada and deserves our wholehearted support, if not necessarily our votes. By defending the interests of separatists, the party allows a significant percentage of Quebeckers to espouse their ideas in the Canadian democratic system. Since its first election in 1997, the Bloc has garnered approximately 40 per cent of the popular vote in every subsequent election in Quebec and represents the largest proportion of Quebeckers today. Through proposing various bills and participating in parliamentary sessions, the Bloc legitimizes the federal political system. Most importantly, the Bloc’s involvement allows for the inclusion of many Quebeckers who might otherwise feel absolutely no attachment to their federal government. Since the Conservatives’s win in 2006, the Bloc has enjoyed an extremely pow-

erful position in Parliament as the balance of power, which allows in turn an even greater participation in the Canadian government. Some might say that by funding the Bloc Québécois, Canadians are allowing the promotion of sepa-

come from the National Assembly. The Bloc has become a party that defends the interests of Quebec as a whole, due to the relative unpopularity of separatism and the irrelevance of a separatist agenda on the federal level. Bloc leader Gilles

Stop antagonising separatist sympathizers and start treating them like Canadians ratist ideas. However, the province’s most driven and important politicians flock to the National Assembly in Quebec City, given the greater impact they can have on the province, and because a referendum on Quebec separation would

Duceppe’s decision not to discuss Quebec independence during the October federal elections is no coincidence. The Bloc acts most often as a staunch critic of the government, whether it is Liberal or Conservative.

Indeed, the biggest issues of the last three federal elections for the Bloc were cuts to cultural programs and the sponsorship scandal, not separatism. We should avoid stigmatizing the Bloc, which represents the views of almost 1.4-million Canadians whose voices deserve to be heard. After all, history has proven throughout the world that separatist movements must be integrated into the national political system in order to be overcome, as was the case in Spain and Scotland. Since the Bloc is an example of such integration, it is time to stop antagonizing separatist sympathizers and start treating them like Canadians. This starts with scrapping measures that target the Bloc for their political beliefs. David Searle is a U1 History student. Send your scraps to david.searle@ mail.mcgill.ca.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Same old dystopia

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ulsating, static-laced noise ran through my nerves. TVs flickered on and off wildly with delirious intensity. It would paralyze any synesthete – the pixels, the distortions, the entire electric sensory spectrum made painfully visible. The “No Signal” video installation at Concordia’s VAV Gallery could be used for malicious intent. Entering the gallery, sounds – if you can even call them that – reverberate through one’s ears with a festering swell, a repeated thumping that you’d rather not hear. As you drift through the gallery, the noise eventually seeps into the background, and it is not recognizable anymore. You learn to get by with the headache. Multidisciplinary artists Vincent Drolet and Hubert R. De Roy appear to be the architects of an audiovisual penal colony for the quieted modern man. Defining their intent as “exploring the impact of technology on the audiovisual sensorium, communications, social structures, and the human body,” one imagines them as angry Neo-Luddites employing a common mode of expression. The exhibit assumes the complete subjugation of the individual to the wave of technology and its byproducts. But with digital prints entitled “We Are All Machines” and “Dystopia,” and an installation of three seizureinducing televisions entitled “P3 [electronoisexperimentalanalogthrashvideoshit],” Drolet and De Roy’s commentary on the effect of technology on communications and social structures mostly comes off as a washedup restatement of what people like William Wordsworth were more or less saying 200 years ago: “The world is too much with us; late and soon / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” If only the Romantics had had “thrash video shit” to work with, it’d be blatant that the statement made by “We are all Machines” has finally become as commonplace and cliché as quoting poetry to prove points. Yet “No Signal” does achieve its

aim: to explore the “audiovisual sensorium” and the human body. A series of prints in the exhibit, entitled “Deterior,” by De Roy, begins with a digital rendering of a photograph of two human heads – barely recognizable and blanketed in small pockets of static. As the prints evolve, the noise collects and a Rorschach inkblot aesthetic takes over in a conglomerate of pixels and uncomfortable colour contrasts. The exhibit clearly directs us to watch the human being dissolve into thin air – and we all know the culprit because it’s been buzzing in our ears the entire time we’ve been in the gallery. “No Signal” never really shows us why we did this to ourselves, but seems to claim that humans are of a masochistic nature. This reduces a much more complicated element of the relationship between technology and the human mind: the disappointment of creating more problems from our attempts to resolve them. This insight is far more troubling than any short-term physical effects: we cut one head off the Hydra, and two grow back, equally or more horrific. From this perspective, “progress” in its traditional sense is no longer a goal to pursue, but a terrible agenda. “No Signal” does not address the complete nature of the dynamic relationship between technology and the human individual. It merely embodies the blunt, visceral side of the recognized problem that technology’s white noise is antagonistic to our senses. Though the installation does not survey the entirety of their objectives, I cannot discredit the artists’ ability to manipulate the human senses and wake up what might have hitherto been softly sleeping. The most harrowing piece in the gallery is the last one, entitled “transmission001 [the escape version]” by De Roy. The same blurred image is projected onto two perpendicular walls in a corner: a man standing shirtless, his head back and unseen. The film begins with him gyrating softly, until sud-

denly the image starts shaking wildly with loud, irritating broken-record sounds – the man trembles uncontrollably, soon grasping his head, struggling with the rending force until he slumps over. The sounds slow down again, and the man sways like before until he abruptly disappears. The effect of the exhibit is troubling, more so because of the insidious function of the distortions of sound and image: one never sees them coming. As I stepped out of the building, my head aching and the city now providing relative silence, the cold air stung with a sharper bite, the taste of car exhaust painfully unappetizing. While my “sensorium” spun in new awareness, my mindlessness in the physical world nearly got me hit by a car on Ste. Catherine. In the guest book of the gallery, someone, most likely derisively, wrote “You are God, you put the lights in the sky.” Man, acting as God, puts the lights in the sky in order to see, but those very same lights are uncomfortable to look at. Drolet and De Roy are no gods, but instead, the wild-eyed doomsayers pointing at comets we’ve all seen before, making us look once more to the streak of light and sound we’ve always accepted. This time maybe we won’t wave them away with impatience and return to our work – no, this time we must look with them in terrible awe.

Sally Lin / The McGill Daily

Ryan Healey embraces the static at multimedia exhibit “No Signal”

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16 Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Living in the gutter, looking at the stars Danny Boyle’s latest film finds romance in the harsh reality of Mumbai slums Mathura Thevaraja Culture writer

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n the spirit of President Barack Obama’s victory, it is fitting that one of 2008’s most memorable films, Slumdog Millionaire, is the story of achieving one’s dreams despite all odds. The film’s main character, Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel), dreams not of a high-powered career or financial wealth, but of being reunited with his childhood love, Latika (played by Freida Pinto), despite the unbelievable hardships he must face. As the movie opens, Jamal is being interrogated by city officials who believe he cheated his way to the top of the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Jamal astonishes everyone – including himself – when he answers all questions correctly and finds himself one question away from winning 20-million rupees. Those who doubt that a young boy who grew up in the depths of poverty can achieve the improbable have a lot to learn about how far perseverance, determination, and a little bit of chance can go. Through a series of flashbacks that highlight how Jamal is blindsided by struggle after struggle, viewers learn that all Jamal needed to answer the questions correctly was his own life experience. We also learn how he and his brother, Salim (played by Madhur Mittal), are orphaned when brutal, religiously-motivated hate crimes sweep through the slums of Mumbai, how he survived his difficult childhood days through grit and fear, and how his lifelong journey to find Latika finally brings him to the hot seat of the city’s most popular game show. Categorizing Slumdog as a romantic drama falls drastically short of accurately describing this whirlwind

of a film. After witnessing the miserable conditions the young characters are forced to cope with, Jamal and Latika’s love story is the last thing on one’s mind by the movie’s end. During the closing credits, characters break out into a typical uplifting Bollywood dance sequence, yet one does not know whether to feel crushed, overjoyed, or relieved. The film intricately weaves together the harsh, inescapable realities of impoverished India while still embodying the vibrancy and beauty of the country’s people and culture. Hailed as one of the best contemporary repre-

sentations of India on film, Slumdog captures the raw, contagious energy that arises from the country’s astounding heterogeneity. What further validates the film’s hype is the flawless and natural acting of child actors, Ayush Khedekar (youngest Jamal), Azharuddin Ismail (youngest Salim), and Rubiana Ali (youngest Latika). The latter two were in fact street kids with no prior acting experience. That the movie’s director, Danny Boyle, is providing them with an education and a trust fund makes this film all the more praiseworthy. Intertwined with a captivating

plot and dynamic characters are the upbeat and infectious sounds of musical genius A.R. Rahman. Through his collaboration with Maya Arulpragasam, popularly known as M.I.A., the songs capture each moment of the film seamlessly with extraordinary prowess and a brilliant fusion of Western and Eastern sound and language. Couple this with the considerable talent of Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, and it is no wonder that Slumdog garnered all four of the Golden Globe Awards it was nominated for and, that it is nominated for an additional ten

Oscars. In truth, Slumdog is a film about real-life struggles and the vast discrepancy between the ugliness of reality and the sugarcoated tourist version. The film offers true-tolife insight into a world that many Westerners can hardly fathom. As the young kids in the movie transcend hurdle after hurdle, one realizes that this is an atypical film that is not gift-wrapped neatly in shiny wrapping paper, topped with a bow. Slumdog, then, is a film for the realist, the romantic, the cynic, and the believer.

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

La vie en rose, from Montreal to Manila French chanteuse’s songs transcend language barriers in Piaf: Love Conquers All Jacqueline Bird

The McGill Daily

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dith Piaf was a French icon and international star consumed by love, substance abuse, and most notably, by music. Piaf was a meager 4’10”, but her distinctive voice possessed a strength that could move even the meatiest of meatheads. Her life and songs are said to be inseparable – one always directly affecting the other. Piaf: Love Conquers All, presented by Tone Poet Productions and written by Canadian playwright Roger Peace, is about the life and times of Edith Piaf. The Brooklyn-based production has amassed momentous success

worldwide; it was picked as “Top Ten of the Fringe” at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2005, and has been performed as far as the Philippines. The play’s associate director Adam Blanshay, who graduated from McGill in 2004, is especially enthusiastic about returning to Montreal to share his work. “McGill was definitely an amazing ground for student theatre and I got unbelievable training there.” Piaf: Love Conquers All focuses on the last decade of Piaf’s life, with flashbacks to her younger years. The intimate production portrays a sprightly character with a certain joie-de-vivre. Director/designer/producer Naomi Emmerson, who plays Edith Piaf, says her interpretation is

based on “how [Piaf might] speak to you and tell you her story if you were in her living room and having a cocktail.” Blanshay adds, “We focus on the relationship between the romances that she had in her life and their influence on her music.” Emmerson explains that the aesthetic of the production’s vintage set is inspired by Charles Kiffer – a French artist whose iconic art-deco posters advertised entertainers such as Piaf. She continues, “Nothing is in parallel lines. It’s off-kilter; it tries to give a sense that there’s an unbalance, an unsettledness to her story.” To prepare for the part, Emmerson studied Piaf’s mannerisms, by watching her films and taped live performances. She will be performing the

songs herself, supported by a live acoustic piano and an accordion. “It’s definitely Naomi [Emmerson]’s interpretation that impresses them the most,” says Blanshay. Emmerson adds, “I own about 12 biographies and two autobiographies. A lot of the things I take [as inspiration] are what Piaf says about herself – she’s very honest in her self-reflections.” The play’s songs are performed in French, but the dialogue is in English. “People don’t really need to speak French to understand or to get the full gist of the performance,” Blanshay explains. “We’ve performed the same version in South Carolina. These songs are so resonant and descriptive, that no matter [the audience’s] level of French, they’ll get the

full dramatic tone of what Piaf is saying.” Get out of the McGill bubble for a night of cultural entertainment at the Centaur Theatre in the Old Port. Piaf: Love Conquers All runs from January 28 - February 8, and there are many student discounts to take into account: there is a discounted price for students to all performances at $30, ten rush tickets will be available for purchase at the box office an hour before each performance for $24, and there are two pay-whatyou-can performances – the 28 at 3 p.m., and February 4 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, please visit the Centaur Theatre web site: centaurtheatre.com

Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

CULTURE BRIEFS

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Meet the experts

Nietzsche once declared that, “Without music, life would be an error.” If you want to infuse a bit of warmth into the frigid Montreal week, there is a free organ concert taking place this Friday at Redpath Hall as part of the McGill Noon-hour Organ Recital Series. The event features internationally-renowned Italian musician Federico Andreoni, who performed the complete works of J.S. Bach at the tender age of 25, and has since toured throughout Europe, the U.S., and Canada. He is currently a Master’s student at McGill, studying Organ Performance and Theory. Andreoni will be playing works by Baroque composers including Frescobaldi, Bach, and Cabanilles. Even if you missed celebrating Mozart’s 253rd birthday this past Tuesday – the concert will no doubt be overflowing with enough Baroque drama and grandeur to stir even the most tone-deaf. And since admission is free, you can refine your musical tastes while saving your pennies for the upcoming Katy Perry concert. Perfetto!

Anyone who knows Dr. Norman Cornett – whether by that name, or by one of his many in-class aliases – knows that the man can put together a panel discussion like few others. The former Religious Studies professor has organized talks on topics as diverse as religion, politics, the crisis in Uganda, and art, giving his students the opportunity to speak faceto-face with experts in these fields. Guest panel speakers have included award-winning documentarian Alanis Obomsawin (who is currently making a movie about Cornett and his dialogic sessions), Ethan Hawke, former Prime Minister Paul Martin, colleagues of Jack Kerouac, and countless others. While Cornett is no longer teaching at McGill, he hasn’t stopped organizing these dialogic sessions. Most recently, Cornett set up discussion sessions with Neil Bisoondath, one of Canada’s foremost authors who’s recently completed his 6th novel, The Soul of All Great Designs, available at the McGill Bookstore. The upcoming sessions on January 27, February 3 (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.) and February 7 (1 p.m. to 3 p.m.) promise to be just as inspiring. They will be taking place at 3475 Rue University, for a charge of $50 for all sessions.

– Allison Friedman

– Aly Jivraj

A baroque lunch date

FROM THE PRODUCERS OF “THE RING” AND “DISTURBIA” THE MOST SHOCKING ENDING YOU’LL EVER EXPERIENCE!

Braden Goyette / The McGill Daily

Tearing it up at a noontime organ recital

Culture section of

twice-weekly pinko rag seeks open-minded, creative individuals for cultural criticism (high-, low-, or no-brow), spirited discussion, and romantic microwaved dinners. Let’s meet, Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., in the basement of the Shatner building. No writing samples required.

HORROR Copyright © 2009 DW Studios L.L.C. and Cold Spring Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE JANUARY 30

Compendium! Lies, half-truths, and a shit-ton of content Corpus Christi

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Dan Hawkins / The McGill Daily

This hilarity originally appeared at yourcorpuschristi.blogspot.com.

Garden of Even

Katherine Milbers for The McGill Daily

Sterling Street appears every Thursday, but we can’t promise it’ll be in technicolour every time.

Opposing groups yell that others all wrong Kyle Manfeldt

The McGill Daily

T

Angel Chen for the McGill Daily

ensions ran high at a peace protest on campus earlier this week when two groups of individuals with equal moral standing chose to be extremely opinionated about something that barely affects them. There has been global unrest ever since perpetual underdog Israel invaded perpetual underdog Palestine. At the protest, both sides preached peace, love, unity, respect, and how the other side is sub-human. “It’s really so obvious,” supporters from both sides of the clash shouted

in unison, “the other side is wrong.” “I can’t speak on behalf of my group, whose opinion is well known,” said the an executive member of a local university club, “but I’ll have you know that my personal opinions are strikingly similar.” The most elaborate sign reading “nuke the land mass and start fresh” was held up by a group of Dolphins, obviously furthering their own agenda. The message was also transcribed in Esperanto, Latin, Hieroglyphs, and a curious Martian text which the Dolphins would not comment on. Representatives from every faction released a joint statement which read: “We’re for peace, but those other guys can fuck off and die.”

The next second Monday of an even-numbered month is February 9. For more information about this bimonthly gathering, please write to [email protected]. For real.

19

The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009

volume 98 number 30

EDITORIAL

Budget throws money in all the wrong places

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

The opposition parties demanded a stimulus, and the Tories heard this loud and clear Tuesday. With their fourth-straight record spending budget, big-C Conservatives are being criticized by small-c conservatives for abandoning any semblance of restraint and increasing the federal debt in two years by a massive 14 per cent, to the level it was at in 2001. While this willingness to provide economic stimulus is an improvement from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s denial of the recession just three months ago, the Conservatives have failed to target these funds properly. In short, Canada’s chance to spend big is being wasted. Perhaps the most disappointing trend throughout the budget is the government’s choice to put environmental concerns on the backburner in the name of economic progress – rather than realizing the potential to use the moment to address both crises. For instance, the government’s plan to accelerate municipal access to infrastructure funding removes vital environmental assessments from the process, and a $12-billion fund to encourage the purchase of new equipment and vehicles apparently contains no requirements for energy efficiency. Similarly, the new $3-billion tax credit for home renovations isn’t targeted to increase energy efficiency, putting new countertops on par with better insulation. These funds would have been better allocated to the smaller $300-million for the ecoENERGY Retrofit program and $1-billion for renovating and increasing energy efficiency in social housing units. The home renovation credit is also bizarre in the context of Canada’s progressive tax structure, as it provides no help to renters or homeowners who can’t afford renovations. Further, of the respectable $12-billion allotted to infrastructure over five years, just $1-billion of that will support sustainable energy – showing the Tories’ claim of “real action on climate change” as empty as oil execs’ promises to do all they can to maintain the environmental integrity of the Alberta tar sands. The Conservatives also failed to adequately aid funding problems at postsecondary institutions. Although the budget allocates over $2-billion to knowledge infrastructure at universities and colleges, it actually cuts funding to the federal granting agencies, and spends a paltry $87.5-million for scholarships, all for graduate students. Speaking to the Globe and Mail, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum was just as confused as we are about buying microscopes while reducing the budget for researchers. “I’m mystified at any move to cut operating support at the very time they are sending such a powerful signal on their priorities by investing in infrastructure and scholarships,” Munroe-Blum said. However, there are some measures that will help stimulate the economy progressively over the short- and long-term: adding a third track in key parts of the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor to improve passenger train service, expanding programs to train and retrain workers, and helping calm credit market jitters by strengthening securities regulation and increasing financial literacy. But eligibility for employment insurance has barely been expanded, and as we highlighted above, the government is neglecting the environment at a time when green stimulus is so desperately needed. We doubt the Conservative Government will properly steer the country’s economy out of this storm by manning the Liberalesque budget they just introduced. As NDP leader Jack Layton said in a press release, we have “no confidence in Harper to implement policies he’s spent a lifetime opposing.” But jumping ship in the middle of this storm will plunge us deeper into troubled waters, as it will take months to pass a new budget in a new coalition government. The opposition needs to make a few quick, intelligent amendments to this budget, get it passed, and let the spending start. But considering an Ekos poll last week that showed support for a coalition government ahead of that for a Conservative one, we can’t wait much past the spring’s first bloom to re-evaluate who should be running this country.

coordinating editor

Jennifer Markowitz [email protected] coordinating news editor

Shannon Kiely news editors

Erin Hale Nicholas Smith Alison Withers features editor

Claire Caldwell commentary&compendium editor

Max Halparin

coordinating culture editor

Braden Goyette culture editors

Joshua Frank Whitney Mallett science+technology editor

Nikki Bozinoff mind&body editor

Nadja Popovich photo editor

Stephen Davis graphics editor

Evan Newton production & design editors

Will Vanderbilt Aaron Vansintjan web editor

Ian Beattie copy editor

Jaco Mysterious cover design

Evan Newton le délit

Maysa Phares [email protected] Contributors

Jacqueline Bird, Niko Block, Angel Chen, Juliana Dalley, Hariyanto Darmawan, Victoria Diplacido, Ethan Feldman, Allison Friedman, Henry Gass, Myles Gualin, Dan Hawkins, Ryan Healey, Richard Hink, Aly Jivraj, Gregory Ko, Derrick Lovell, Lucy Mair, Kata Masa, Katherine Milbers, Margot Nossal, Kady Paterson, David Polluck, Sana Saeed, Amelia Schonbek, David Searle, Marc Selles, Mathura Thevaraja, Kartiga Thiyagarajah, Aquil Virani, Rachel Wine, Hartlee Zucker

The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit organization whose membership includes all McGill undergraduates and most graduate students.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal QC, H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

Boris Shedov Pierre Bouillon Geneviève Robert

advertising & general manager treasury & fiscal manager ad layout & design

dps board of directors

Angel Chen, Ana Gray Richardson-Bachand, Braden Goyette, Lauren Chang MacLean, Jennifer Markowitz, Lawrence Monoson, Maysa Phares, Perrin Valli, Eric Van Eyken ([email protected])

The Daily is proud to be a founding member of the Canadian University Press. All contents © 2009 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff. Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec. ISSN 1192-4608.

Errata In “Police shootings connected to racial profiling” (News, January 25), Samir Shaheen-Hussain, a member of the Justice for Anas Coalition, was incorrectly quoted as saying “Coming out of a Mosque, bearded and wearing a skullcap and djellabah, Anas was an obvious racial target.” In fact, this was originally written by co-author Caitlin Manicom.

Further, the article incorrectly attributed the statistic stating that 43 people having being killed by police officers since 1987 to No One Is Illegal, whereas the true source was the Collective Against Police Brutality.

In “Introducing SSMU to the wild world of email” (Commentary, January 26), Yahel Carmon appeared to be complaining that the SSMU listserv does not generate revenue. In fact, he originally intended to complain that SSMU doesn’t spend any money to improve its email marketing.

Interested in student issues? Want to get involved in campus life? Elections McGill is accepting nominations for the following positions with the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU): 1.President 2.VP University Affairs 3.VP External 4.VP Clubs and Services 5.VP Internal 6.VP Finance and Operations 7. Student Senators (one from each faculty) 8. Financial Ethics Research Committee (3 FERC Councilors) Elections McGill is also accepting nominations for Yes / No committees for the next set of referendum questions. Nomination kits are available online at www.electionsmcgill.ca or from the Elections McGill office, Shatner 405.

Nominations are due Tuesday, February 20th at noon. Shatner, salle 405 Téléphone: (514) 398-6474 [email protected]