Author Russel Smith: Sarcasm and satire means success

By: Angela Walcott

November 2008 Issue

Russell Smith has many talents. He speaks French and he’s obsessed with clothing. So how does he know about the inner thoughts of a West Indian writer who comes to Canada on an exchange program? Well, it’s his job. He’s a writer and that is what writers do — they get inside the minds of the characters they create.

In 2004, Smith released, the novel Muriella Pent. The book traced the story of Marcus Royston, an Oxford educated writer from St. Andrews, who is sent to Canada on a cultural exchange. He lodges in the sprouting art nouveau mansion of middle-aged socialite Muriella Pent.

“It is really a satire about youth and age and art among people from different parts of the British Empire,” Smith explains.

Told in a variety of formats ranging from letters to diary entries, Muriella Pent is a sardonic look at the juxtaposition of the rich versus the poor.

Smith himself is no stranger to cultural exchanges. Born in South Africa, but raised in Halifax, he went on to live in Britain and study French literature at the University Poitiers in France. In writing Muriella Pent, he draws from that familiar environment. The main character, Royston, is an outsider and in some ways, the character’s experiences mirrors his own life. Moving to England was a post-colonial experience for Smith. The international flavor he infuses into his work is evident as a result of his multicultural existence.

Smith has invested his time in writing books commonly classified as borderline spoof in the world of literature, such as the highly successful novel How Insensitive, a comedy of young people adrift and Noise, an urban satire. How Insensitive, his first novel, was widely-acclaimed and he was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium award back when it was published in 1994. He has also been nominated for a Toronto Book Award for other works. All together, he has written six novels.

The author, who seems to have made a habit of writing satirically, says the significance of the satire is difficult to pinpoint. But he revisits this form because he is interested in it as a reader.

“It is the province of the angry,” he states. “It is about reading and writing through dissatisfaction and satire, as a form of literary expression, is a love/ hate relationship as well as a mockery of sorts.”

When asked if experiencing new cultures is an important element in order to be a well-rounded writer, Smith answered, “To some degree, yes.” He admits that although French literature and culture influenced his work while he was studying in France, it is not the same for others.

“Many Canadian writers don’t agree. Many writers make specific stories on specific regions,” he says. “They concentrate on specific areas regionally in their writing. Kenneth Harvey knows Newfoundland well and writes specifically about the region in his novels. David Adams Richards writes about specific regions.”

Smith’s resume is rich and random. He did a radio show on CBC Radio One about language in 2006, has served as a juror for the Governor General’s Award in 2005, and was a restaurant reviewer. He currently writes a men’s clothing advice column for The Globe and Mail called, “Ask Mr. Smith.” But where did the idea to start writing a column about men’s clothing come from?

“I have always been interested in clothing – and spend meticulous attention to detail,” he says, explaining that he was taken by Emile Zola and his descriptive skills in writing. He remembers reading a highly detailed description of a large department store. The depiction of surface description of the store was impressive.

Smith, who recently participated in the Word On The Street Festival, has been coming out to the event for the past 10 years.

“It is great fun and a very well-attended event,” he says, adding that he likes that people come and go as they please and the interesting readings are important. He loves to attend the festival because Toronto is a fascinating place which is therefore a great setting for books.

Smith has just finished a novel called Girl Crazy, in which readers can expect his regular style which fuses humour and serious life issues into its pages. It will be published in 2009.

Author uses nursery rhyme as inspiration for social commentary

By Angela Walcott

November 2008 Issue

Maggie Helwig’s third novel, Girls Fall Down, is both powerful and poetic. Meant to allude to the well-known nursery rhyme ‘Ring Around the Rosy,’ Helwig describes the story as an easy and gentle slide into paranoia. Another theme she followed was that of the Christian myth of the fall of society. Just as the title puts it, the novel’s purpose was to evoke the idea of a downward slope into society — and quite obviously, how to pick yourself if you fall. The novel is a lesson on how to negotiate fear and anxiety, she says.

A scene in the book describes how chaos ensues after a girl faints on the subway. Helwig was inspired to write the story after reading about the subway gas attack in Japan by the Aum Shinriko cult. The popular contemporary Japanese author, Haruki Murakami, wrote of the event in his novel Underground — a story about survivors which Helwig believes employed a unique story-telling technique.

“This book functions as a poem with subtle connections running through the text,” says Helwig, admitting that this novel was hard to write because every piece is dependent on every other piece. It was her experience writing poetry that influenced her fiction writing.

Being Associate Director of the 2006 Scream Festival, has broadened her perspective. When she was in this position she asked herself, “What are we good at that other festivals aren’t?” In answering this, she discovered the answer: bringing experimental, conceptual and different performance-related aspects to the table. It is a multi-day affair consisting of a reading series, with venues all across the city.

“It says a lot about Toronto — namely that the literary scene is rich and broad,” says Helwig. “There is such a deep base to draw from.”

A member of PEN Canada’s “Embedded in Exile” panel and a human rights activist working on War Resisters International, she notes that the precision of language as a moral necessity is also political. It can guard you from necessity. Helwig firmly believes that she has a moral responsibility as a writer to write what is given to her (through inspiration). According to this outlook, she simply has no choice in the matter. She admits that as a writer, she lives in complete terror that one day she will wake up and her gift will be gone.

But given her body of work, this seems highly unlikely.

Not as simple as it seems: Director Mike Leigh

By: Max Arumbolo

November 2008 Issue

Twenty minutes into Mike Leigh’s newest film, Happy-Go-Lucky, there are seemingly no signs of drama. There’s nothing but an annoyingly upbeat elementary school teacher hanging out with her friends. There is no Neo-Nazi (Meantime), no black lady searching out her white mom (Secrets and Lies), no Gilbert, no Sullivan (Topsy Turvy), no old school abortionist (Vera Drake). As it turns out, though Happy-Go-Lucky is softer Mike Leigh, it is still, nonetheless, a typical Mike Leigh film: full and affecting.

Poppy (Sally Hawkins), whose wardrobe is limited to neon leggings and flowy tops, has Bizarro-tourettes: she uncontrollably giggles and greets almost everyone she passes. Social conventions? Flaunted. In the opening scene, Poppy peppers a bookstore employee, who clearly does not want to be bothered with chatter. He does his best and ignores her first, second, and third ice-breaking attempts before finally submitting and looking up. She’s a weirdo — at first glance.

But unlike the poor bookseller who sees her only once, the audience learns she’s more than just mindless outgoingness. We get to see her quiet and thoughtful moments, as rare as they are, and understand her desire — both compulsive and genuine — to relieve everyone around her of their troubles. She digs, for example, for the cause behind one of her students’ violent outbursts. When her unhappy, pregnant sister does nothing but criticize, Poppy simply smiles to avoid any conflict. A lesser person would have told her to fuck off.

In a more remarkable instance, Poppy wanders under an overpass one evening, drawn to the angry mutterings of a homeless man. Though aware of the danger, she can’t help but try here, too. He rejects her offer of food, but appreciates that she listens to his failed attempts at coherent sentences. Exhausted, he finally reaches out for Poppy’s face and asks, “You know?” There’s nothing to know in his words, but there is something in his heavy sigh that follows. Poppy answers “I do.” Grateful, he leaves her, the five minutes of companionship serving as more than enough.

Her driving teacher, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is a different challenge — one that even Poppy might not be up to. He is angry, racist, and shows hints of violence. Despite his rants about the pigeon-holing school system and the hazards of multiculturalism, Poppy can’t simply abandon him. “Why are you so unhappy?” she asks. And after each dreadful lesson, she comes back with more jokes and cheerful banter. And each time, something dangerous is further fueled in Scott. In this circumstance, however, she is not the teacher and Scott is not a vulnerable pupil, but a fully-formed adult full of fossilized flaws. Hers is a wasted effort here, or worse.

“You can’t be so good all the time,” Poppy’s roommate advises. True, but simplistic. It would be a mistake to sum up the film into that lesson and nothing else.

This is not a message movie. More valuable in Happy-Go-Lucky is the pathos that comes from watching the characters orbit each other, the so-natural-it’s-almost-unnatural banter, each character’s palatable sadness. Of course, this all hinges on the acting and there’s no working director better than Leigh at drawing naturalistic feats of strength from his performers. Four of his actresses have been nominated for Oscars and David Thewlis won the best actor award at Cannes for Naked.

Here, Eddie Marsen, whose unexpectedly deep IMDB entry includes MI3, V for Vendetta, and Miami Vice, is amazing as a black hole of loneliness. We get glimpses of Scott’s history, his dislike of school and the mother he does not speak to. Nothing too racy. But to believe the character, we don’t need much more than the spittle and the so genuine it’s scary hate speech that flies from Marsen’s mouth.

There’s been much said about Sally Hawkins’s performance, and the praise is well-deserved. Her Poppy, who initially seems a limited sketch, becomes, after an-hour-and-a-half, a rounded, deep person. With every interaction, Hawkins adds another layer, and Poppy unfolds a bit more. Though the character’s single obvious quality is her charity, she eventually stops seeming one-dimensional, the ache she feels about others’ suffering just too real for that. There’s the tender look she gives the homeless man that makes it clear what Poppy is about. And the look is only either authentic or the illusion that comes with the best acting. Or a bit of both.

Mike Leigh told the Toronto Star that he makes movies of how we are in the world. A simple, old idea, that’s nigh-impossible to truly understand, much less dramatize. He is the rare artist who aims so high yet never truly fails. Though Happy-Go-Lucky initially appears rather aimless, do not be surprised with the stark human drama that Leigh ultimately achieves.

Local author brings light to the darkness lurking in Toronto’s streets

By: Angela Walcott

November 2008 Issue

There is a war going breaking out in the streets of Toronto and local author Austin Clarke gives us a glimpse into the challenging lives of troubled black teens.

Clarke is no stranger to controversy and critics are saying his latest novel, More, is his most controversial yet. It spells out the problems that are crippling Toronto today — namely guns, gangs and crime.

It is evident in More that the narrative is a commentary of race, identity, struggle and survival in Toronto. The story circles around West Indian immigrants who are struggling to maintain cultural identity while supporting their families, issues of single-parenthood and loss of security are crucial elements that make up the subplot.

But what makes the book all the more engaging is his treatment of Toronto. In the eyes of Canadians (according to his perspective), Toronto has no problems and can do no wrong. It is this common perception that Clarke attempts to deconstruct in the novel.

Once the Mecca of American tourists whose weekends involved shopping, taking in shows and embracing our city for its safety factor, the new troubled Toronto serves as the backdrop from which More’s tale unfolds. The recognizable setting – an-all-too-familiar Eaton Centre, Yonge-Dundas Square and Shuter Street, helps to make the problem seem more urgent because it is, in fact, a local one. The notion that you aren’t safe anywhere doesn’t appear to be the crux of the argument. The message meaning to be conveyed is that crime in Toronto is closer to home and is a growing concern — especially for the youth.

Problems in the city are personified and it appears our familiarity with a safe Toronto has begun to breed a deeper contempt. The multicultural metropolis has gained a new reputation by losing its innocence. The city is erupting with crime and terror and our downtown core is at the heart of explosion, something we see in More. This problem is mirrored by real-life occurrences, as week after week, we hear of the violence and the senseless killings on the news and in the papers — drive-by murders, school shootings, innocent bystanders gunned down because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and killings based on gang retaliation. If the author didn’t spell out the locale of the story, one could easily mistake it for a U.S. city brimming in gang warfare.

Clarke cites E. Franklin Frazier when discussing the current crime in the black community. Frazier talked about black-on-black violence, as a parallel to what is happening on our side of the border. “Black America has nowhere to go. Since the anger existed, it could only be made against other blacks. There is a sociological conclusion that can be reached in this country that violence is contained in certain areas.” And his words ring true as gunshots resonate through the air of Toronto. The author treats the decay in moral values as a reason for the rise of Toronto’s mean streets. Increased gang violence in Toronto causes us to ask how this problem has reached such epic proportions. In 2005, gun-related homicides doubled in what was called the Year of the Gun. Between 1997 and 2005, 300 gang-related deaths occurred.

In the wake of increased shootings, Clarke comments on this epidemic: “Violence is the very spreading of a disease. Violence is an insult to all living in Toronto and we look at ourselves and think that solutions could be applied like a band-aid on a festering sore. If it is really a disease, we have to treat the entire body. It’s embarrassing. How does it contribute to a jaundiced view society has of us – a view of what young blacks have of themselves?” he asks, realizing his question may never be answered.

Once described as an angry writer, he sees this as a profound misstatement. “It is an easy way for the establishment to dismiss black writers,” Clarke explains. “The way I am treated and looked at based on my history, of course I am angry to be disregarded as a person. Not to be angry would be to accept it.”

Some critics have said that More is a political novel because it is an indictment of iniquities of racial discrimination. It is, to use the pun, this and a whole lot more. Clarke characterizes it as “a rumination of a woman’s life and her deliberate withdrawal from life. The effect of that act is dramatized by the departure of her husband. It is the story of a fatherless boy, guns and violence. It is a soliloquy that Idora [the main character] is conducting with herself. Forty days and nights correspond with atonement in a biblical sense. Revisiting all things she did. Feelings she had and the experiences of life’s discrimination.”

Clarke started writing the book several years ago but was interrupted. The book started out with six upper-class female characters, women who were his own personal friends. But Clarke began to examine things from a different angle. The book morphed into what it is presently “a book of unease, discussion and doubt while assuming the physical dress of gang members.” It examines what it is like to really be black through society posters about multiculturalism, he explains. More chronicles the life of Idora, a single mother from Barbados, who works in a cafeteria to support her teenaged son BJ. The story evolves as gangs and crime come into the equation.

Although the novel headlines the violence of young blacks, Clarke sees it as a situation that can be alleviated perhaps by non-black kids demonstrating their disappointment of the problem. Protests that are organized by blacks make it a black problem only, and to him, it is a national problem. At some point, it affects everyone, he says.

Born in Barbados, Clarke came to Toronto in 1955. He has published over 20 novels including the 1992 non-fiction work Public Enemies: Police Violence and Black Youth. He has been awarded the W.O. Mitchell Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 1997 and was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 1998. Clarke, winner of the 2002 Giller Prize for The Polished Hoe has visited almost every imaginable topic in a writing career that spans 46 years. He approached politics and cultural identity with a humorous touch under the guise of cooking lessons, in Breadfruit and Pigtails. In stark contrast, he took a more serious approach in a narrative of the history of slavery with The Polished Hoe.

More, which made the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize long-list, bravely confronts the issues that have changed the fabric of our city. This is a territorial war, in a different sense. Street corners replace international borders and handguns replace missiles. The conflict rages within the minds of the marginalized for control and respect, but conflicts are never private because one wrong look or a misspoken word can result in a turf war. Conflicts always spill out into public spaces – and the streets of Toronto are no exception

Ordinary Canadians, extraordinary art: With millions of dollars cut from arts funding, who will stand up for Canadian identity?

By Wendy Gillis The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan)

November 2008 Issue

SASKATOON (CUP) – Last month, arts funding unexpectedly became a top election issue when Prime Minister Stephen Harper pronounced art did not resonate with “ordinary Canadians.”

Until then, Canadian culture had not received much attention in the election, despite Harper’s Conservative government cutting approximately $45 million of culture funding in the last few months.

With the arts community and its supporters up in arms, the Conservatives went into damage control, while all other parties chomped at the bit to prove they would have valued and supported Canada’s arts and culture if elected.

All of this has left many Canadians – perhaps even the “ordinary” ones – asking themselves and their political leaders what role government has in supporting arts and culture. Is a country’s government inherently charged with the task of promoting arts and culture? Where does art fit in the hierarchy of a country’s priorities? How should Canadians react when arts programs are first on the chopping block in the name of economic efficiency?

Underlying all of these questions, of course, is a larger and more important one: how is a country to define itself if not through its culture?

Glossy pages of Canadiana

On my desk sits an especially colourful issue of The Walrus – the Toronto-based magazine launched in 2003.

Featuring long and short pieces of journalism, artwork, poetry and more, the publication’s mandate is to be a “Canadian general-interest magazine . . . committed to publishing the best work by the best writers from Canada.”

This month’s anniversary issue is especially Canadian: a special cover collage by Canadian literary icon Douglas Coupland reflects five years’ worth of previous Walrus covers, many depicting typical Canadian scenes and emblems.

Though the magazine is a Canadian cultural product itself, in this instance, I see it as representative of the Canadian cultural and artistic environment as a whole.

Relatively young, both Canadian culture and The Walrus are only just beginning to make names for themselves; early on, no one remarked upon either, but now the momentum has grown and the word is spreading quickly.

As The Walrus’ co-publishers Shelley Ambrose and John Macfarlane write, the magazine is “hard to ignore.” The same can be said for Canada’s music and literature, as well as its burgeoning film and television industry.

Additionally, both inevitably contain a portion of an American quality – The Walrus is often compared to American equivalents such as Harper’s or The New Yorker, while Canadian culture is inescapably and characteristically United States-influenced.

Most relevant in this instance, though, is that fact that both require outside funding. Advertising and sales, whatever form they take, simply aren’t enough to make ends meet in the small Canadian market; both require investment to keep going.

The companies, parties, organizations, or individuals who answer the funding call deem Canadian art not only beneficial to Canadians as a form of entertainment or enlightenment, or more practically as an employer, but ultimately a necessary element of Canadian life and identity.

Outside funding, then, is not something to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of, as it demonstrates that Canadian creations are highly valued.

Conservative cuts kill culture

With that in mind, the Canadian arts community was rightly offended when, this summer, the Conservative government cut millions of dollars of arts funding, bringing the total since Harper came into office to about $45 million.

Included amongst those cuts were programs such as the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust, which archived and distributed Canadian film, television, and music; the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, which helped fund independent film; and the Stabilization Project and Capacity Building program, which provided art groups with financial and administrative support.

Hit especially hard – to the tune of $4.7 million – was the PromArts program, which sent Canadian artists abroad with the objective to promote Canadian culture. Because of its now complete cancellation, Canadian filmmakers, musicians, artists, and composers will have a tough time competing in the international marketplace.

When Penn Kemp, a London, Ontario-based editor, publisher, and poet heard the news about the PromArt cancellation, she was compelled to do something, so she started the Facebook group “Save Prom-Art: Promote Canadian Arts and Culture.”

“I started the group because . . . I was appalled at the short-sightedness of the Harper government in cutting back such essential services,” said Kemp. “Programs like PromArt have allowed contemporary Canadian artists and writers to develop from provincial to international status.”

“I so regret the young artists of today might not have the same soul-enhancing opportunities to expand beyond the borders of the known,” she added.

Despite these significant cuts, arts and culture funding was not made an issue for the Oct. 14 federal election until late September, when Harper made surprisingly derogatory remarks on a campaign stop in Saskatoon – deemed the 2006 Cultural Capital of Canada.

“I think when ordinary working people come home and turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, all subsidized by taxpayers, claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know they’ve actually gone up, I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people,” Harper said in the Sept. 23 news conference.

Immediately, artists and their supporters banded together in response to Harper’s comments. Numerous notable Canadian television and film actors threw a news conference the very next day, protesting both the cuts and comments.

Taking it a step further, though, was one of Canada’s best-known authors, Margaret Atwood.

In a scathing opinions piece in the Sept. 25 issue of the Globe and Mail, the author tore into Harper for cutting funds to an industry that generated $46 billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product.

The arts industry also provides 600,000 Canadians with employment, prompting Atwood to question if Harper is suggesting “Canadians ought not to make money from wicked arts but from virtuous oil.”

Perhaps the most interesting segment of Atwood’s piece, however, is where she alludes to Harper being in the early stages of a dictatorship.

“Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling artists, because they’re a mouthy lot and they don’t line up and salute very well. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you and so forth – the only kind of art you might need – but individual voices must be silenced, because there must only be One Voice: Our Master’s Voice. Maybe that’s why Mr. Harper began shutting down funding for our artists abroad.”

At first, this seems a touch inflammatory, but a look at some of the facts reveals proof that artists are undeniably being silenced.

In the case of PromArts, a major reason the program was cancelled was because it sent artists abroad who were “not exactly the foot that most Canadians would want to see put forward,” according to an Aug. 8 article in the Ottawa Citizen.

Presumably that undesirable figurative foot included the band whose name contains an expletive (Holy Fuck), who received $3,000 for a week-long tour of the United Kingdom.

It also likely included former CBC broadcaster Avi Lewis, who received funding for his travel to international films festivals, and who is described as “a general radical” in a Conservative memo.

And let’s not forget the controversial Bill C-10. Drafted by the Conservatives, the bill would have given Canada’s heritage department the power to withhold tax credits to films and television shows it considered offensive – a move many opponents say can be called nothing, if not censorship.

So while it’s unlikely that anybody, including Atwoot, truly believes Harper is Canada’s next great dictator, her message is that the Canada as we know is about to change. If these cuts, these changes that symbolize our current government’s lack of priority for the Canadian arts, are allowed to stand, they will set a precedent that says Canadian culture is disposable.

They will come to be known as the beginning of the new Canadian image, the one where our country is rich in money, and little else.

Ordinary Canadians

So if this a-cultural shift is to be avoided, who is able to stand up and stop it? Naturally, it is us – the “ordinary Canadians.”

But the question remains: do Canadians look to their government to support arts and culture? Does art “resonate” enough with average Canucks to make them dig a little deeper into their pockets for the greater cultural good?

Harper would have us believe the answer is no. But Donald Story, a University of Saskatchewan professor of Canadian government and policy, begs to differ.

Story says, without hesitation, the majority of Canadians agree it’s the role of the government to promote the arts. This stems from the perennial identity crisis that has dogged Canadians since Confederation – a natural consequence of such a close proximity to the world’s cultural superpower.

“We’ve seen that [art] helps us define who we are,” he said. “Exactly what it means to be Canadian is very important, possibly even more important than what it means to be American in America, because we’ve always struggled with this lack of clarity in terms of what it is to be Canadian.”

But he says in the recent election, arts funding became such a partisan issue that’s it hard to “pierce through the cloud in the debate” to the consensus that Canadian culture is good and deserving of preservation.

In reference to Harper claiming the ordinary Canadian doesn’t care about art, Story said Harper “has targeted a particular sector, the middle class, and he’s really jettisoned everybody else.”

“He’s thinking about what your average redneck guy has to say about culture – your potash worker,” said Story. “But you know what, that’s hardly a characterization, and that’s insulting to the potash worker. There’s so much of a stereotype.”

The importance of breaking that stereotype was what inspired Keith Barker to also turn to Facebook to spread the word.

Thanks to Barker, a Toronto-based actor and the artistic associate for Native Earth performing arts, thousands of Canadians have gone “Faceless for the Arts.”

According to the website, Canadians across the country are changing their profile photograph to a silhouette of a face to symbolize “the loss of identity Canadians will experience if funding to the arts is cut.”

“We were trying to find a way for people to show their support for the arts in the easiest way possible,” said Barker. “I tried to think of something that would be seen everyday by people and would have the ability to spread by word-of-mouth and curiosity. We wanted it to be public without it being a protest.”

Barker also says he wanted the site to be a place for people to discuss the issues, post links, and share articles.

But most of all, he says, he wanted it to be an apolitical place of communication. People from across the political spectrum care about the arts, he says.

The time has come (for funding) said The Walrus

I still have Ken Alexander’s home telephone number written on a random page in my agenda.

The frank, jaded man with the sardonic wit has since resigned from his role as editor-in-chief of The Walrus, but back in January, Alexander made no bones about giving away his digits while presenting at a student journalism conference in Ottawa.

Still an editor then, Alexander also clearly had no problem pleading for everybody to go out and buy a subscription to The Walrus. Maybe two. And one for your dad. Hell, you could even call him at home to order one. Or to make a donation.

Even though Alexander was hands-down the coolest journalist at the conference, there was still something incredibly sad about his desperate pleas for financial support.

Despite the fact that The Walrus was, and is, a magazine unlike any other in Canada, one that provides commentary and information about the Canadian situation, one that provides a means of employment for many Canadian writers and artists, and one that was Canada’s magazine of the year, Alexander was passing around the proverbial hat to keep up his craft.

To be clear, what is saddening is not the fact that The Walrus needs outside funding; it’s that Alexander needed to make an anguished appeal to student journalists, and likely everyone he knew, to maintain this substantial contribution to Canadian culture.

It’s scary that our current political climate has forced Canadian artists to do much the same thing. The creators of our film, television, music, art, dance, and literature – the very things that simultaneously unite and distinguish us as people and as Canadians – are entitled to financial support because our country values celebrating, maintaining, and developing culture.

They should, therefore, not be forced to justify the work that makes Canada anything but ordinary.

Children find hope in music, illustrated in War/Dance

By Mai Nguyen

November 2008 Issue

A violent civil war has gripped northern Uganda for more than 20 years. War/Dance is a documentary that reveals the remaining hope hidden underneath the horror.

The Government of Uganda has been clashing with a guerilla group called the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Christian militia that has relentlessly claimed thousands of lives.

Even more disturbing, their common tactic is abducting children straight from their families, forcing them to fight for their army or become sexual slaves. Nearly 30,000 children have been abducted by the rebels since the conflict began in the 1980s.

Directed by husband and wife duo, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix, War/Dance is a documentary that beautifully displays the hope and strengths of the Acholi people who fear violence and death on a daily basis. With a Sundance Film Festival award under its belt, the documentary touches the audience by carrying them through the heart-wrenching stories of three children who triumph over their horror stories through music and dance.

Dominic, Nancy and Rose (all just under 15 years old at the time of filming) live in government-protected displacement camps in Patongo among almost two million others who have moved there to seek refuge from the rebels.

The children are all students of the Patongo Primary School and their school has qualified to compete in one of the most prestigious competitions in Uganda - the National Music Competition held in the capital city, Kampala. They are competing against more than 20,000 schools in the country and what’s more, they’re proving to other schools that war has not defeated them.

Before the film showcases the school’s performances at the competition, it delves into the unique stories of each of the three children. One by one, the film focuses the attention on each child.

An unforgettable account that I can picture so vividly is Rose’s narrative of her encounter with the rebels.

Wondering what had happened to her parents after they were taken by the rebels, Rose was brought to a place where several pots lined up in a row on the ground, swarmed by ants and flies. When she asked about her parents, the rebel took out human heads from a pot one at a time, until her mother’s head was pulled out. “When I saw my mother’s head being pulled from the pot, I felt like I was losing my mind. There is nothing more I can say,” Rose recounted in the film.

The documentary isn’t short of accounts like these. Dominic was abducted when he was nine and was forced to murder civilians as a soldier. Nancy’s father was killed with a machete by rebels, leaving her mother to bury the pieces of his body.

But where the directors illustrate their craft is that they don’t make these children out to be primarily victims of such tragedies. They highlight the children for the performers they are. Rose is the choir singer, Dominic, the xylophone player and Nancy, the dancer.

When the children arrive at Kampala for the competition, they’re immediately awestruck by simple things like tall buildings and electricity. They compete in eight categories and for the first time having competed in the competition, the war-torn school exceeds the expectations of others.

The screening of the documentary was presented by the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and GuluWalk. AMREF works with children in war-torn countries, building shelters and sanitation projects as well as providing health education to prevent hygiene-related diseases.

In addition, AMREF works with the children of northern Uganda to help them stay safe from rebels, sex and violence.

Salima Pirani, communications manager for AMREF, describes how many children have been walking to the central towns every night to sleep because to them, these towns are safer than the refugee camps. They’re known as the “night commuters” and nearly 40,000 of them flee from abduction at their parents’ instructions.

“The camps are so vast and wide that the (Ugandan) government’s army can’t protect all of them,” she said. “The rebels are still coming in and abducting these children.”

The civil war in northern Uganda is one of the worst humanitarian crises. Schools close for one day out of the month in Patongo when the United Nations arrives with truckloads of food. But, after almost 12 years of living in refugee camps, families are just beginning to feel safe enough to move back to their homes.

GuluWalk is a world movement to support the children of Uganda with a call for peace. Adrian Bradbury, co-founder of the international campaign made a plea for peace through policy. “These issues will still remain unless there is a signed peace deal,” he said. “There’s no resolution, no step forward unless that happens.”

The documentary showed that the National Music Competition has helped to rehabilitate these children and give them back their hope and confidence, while they wait for peace to come to them.

Unveiling the veil - Why wear the niqab?

By: Suniya Kukaswadia

November 2008 Issue

Erin Mills Town Centre in Mississauga is quiet on a Monday morning. The stores are just opening as the occasional window shopper strolls by. I find a deserted bench and make myself comfortable. I am early for my interview.

I look up and see a woman walking toward me. She is definitely a head-turner.

“That has got to be her,” I think to myself.

We make ourselves comfortable at the Second Cup on the main floor of the mall. The elderly man sitting at the table across from us stares at the head-turner. It’s hard not to stare at a woman who looks like she just walked off the set of Arabian Nights. It’s not her height, confident stride, or welcoming aura that attracts so much attention. Rather, it is Maryam Rana’s twinkling eyes, the only part of her face that is visible.

Rana is a niqabi.

There are various forms of religious dress that Muslim women may wear. The most well-known is the hijab, or headscarf, and is usually accompanied by modest attire. Along with the hijab, a woman may chose to wear an abaya, which is essentially a long, loose coat to be worn over other clothes and comes in different styles and lengths. Finally, there is the niqab, or face veil.

The niqab arrived in Canada with the new immigrant populations in the 1960s. Many of these women decided to take off the face veil when they arrived, as it made it harder for them to assimilate. The niqab became more familiar to Canadians as they consumed post-9/11 media coverage that depicted niqabi women under the oppressive Taliban regime. It re-appeared during coverage of the “Toronto 18” case, a group of Canadian men and boys who were arrested for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack. Female family members who covered their faces had their pictures splashed throughout the media, along with the term “home-grown terrorists,” in news coverage of the arrests and the public’s response.

Post-9/11 Islamophobia has led many Canadians to believe that the niqab is something to be feared. The Toronto 18 media coverage seems to suggest that niqabi women breed fanatical terrorists. But for the Muslim women who choose to wear it, the niqab is not a symbol of fear. For them, it is a symbol of their faith.

Rana grew up in Canada in a devout Muslim family. She started wearing the hijab in grade three, according to her mother’s wishes. But Rana, and her friends who also wore hijab, didn’t understand its true meaning.

“We didn’t wear it properly. We weren’t properly covered [clothing-wise], but we would cover our heads.”

Rana moved to Pakistan for three years when she was 12. It was there she was introduced to the niqab. Her family lived in a village where her father was an influential figure. Accordingly, Rana was expected to wear the niqab, as a means of preserving family pride. But wearing hihab made Rana feel hypocritical.

“I had to wear it in the village in front of the poor people, but when I went to the city, I didn’t wear it. Everyone was more modern and well off there, and in order to conform to that, I had to take my niqab off.”

When she came back to Canada, Rana decided stop wearing it.

“I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t at a level of faith to do it, and I didn’t even want to be at that level. Also, I was rebelling. I didn’t want to wear it because my mom wanted me to.”

Like many Canadian Muslim teens, Rana felt torn between doing what she considered to be Islamically acceptable, according to her own views, and trying to fit in with all of the “cool” kids. She felt guilty about hanging out with guys and being too forward with them, but she did it anyway (in Islam, women and men who aren’t blood relatives maintain a respectable distance both physically and socially). She felt her faith begin to waver.

This changed when she began university and decided to explore Islam.

“I wanted to become closer to my deen [faith]. I started doing more research and practicing what I learned.”

Rana found herself contemplating wearing the niqab.

“I couldn’t bring myself to do it because it seemed so hard. People have trouble wearing just the hijab. Imagine covering your face.”

She worried about being isolated and finding a job. Her biggest fear was that she would lose her sense of self.

“It’s hard not to lose your distinct personality to the personality of a niqabi.”

Rana’s hesitancy was driven by some very valid concerns. Veiled women have to deal with racial slurs and social marginalization. They also face economic instability, because it can be almost impossible to get a good job.

Was the niqab Islamically obligatory? This was one of the biggest questions Rana faced. Her research revealed conflicting views, both of which seemed valid. Some say it is highly recommended, but not obligatory, because it could make the life of the veiled woman difficult, and devotion in Islam is not supposed to be hard.

The other side believes that Prophet Mohammed’s wives wore it, so therefore all Muslim women have to wear it too. The conflicting messages frustrated Rana, but her epiphany would come during the summer of her second year, on a bus in Pakistan.

Rana was always told she was pretty. She had been whistled at earlier that year at school, which shocked her.

“There is something wrong if I am getting whistled at. I’m not supposed to be attracting that kind of attention. I’m not a show piece, and guys aren’t supposed to be looking at me and saying that I’m hot.”

That summer, she went back to Pakistan to visit her family. All she could do was think about wearing the niqab. In her eyes, that would signify reaching the highest level of spiritual devotion.

She finally made her decision on a two-hour bus ride into the city. She spent the first hour of the trip going over all the pros and cons of wearing the niqab.

“It was all I could think about, and the whole time my cheeks were tingling. I asked my cousin if my cheeks were red and she said no. The tingling continued, and all of a sudden, I just knew. I took the end of my hijab and covered my face with it, and instantly, I felt at ease.”

Rana soon had that feeling from knowing she had made the right decision, which, for her, was to wear the niqab. This meant she was improving her faith and herself. The months of back-and-forth, second-guessing, and contemplation had finally come to an end. Rana was happy.

According to Katherine Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, there is a growing trend of second-generation Muslim women, as well as new converts, adopting the face veil.

“The new generation has been educated here. They know their rights and know they are able to practice their religion. They are also able to better withstand the negative backlash they may face.”

This resilience to backlash comes from living in a much more multicultural Canada than their parents did in the 1960s, and also from knowing they don’t have to face the same settlement issues their parents did.

Rana’s new life change was welcomed with open arms by her mother.

“I came home from Pakistan, and my mom had decorated my room and got a cake. She was very happy I made that step.”

However, her mom did caution her about what she would have to face.

“I was motivated. I had a reason and, inshallah [God willing], I was going to go with it this time. Finally, after all these years, I didn’t feel like a hypocrite. Now I was doing the right thing.”

Rana was most worried about reactions from outsiders. Although she had a few incidents where she was given a mean look or comment, she was mostly left alone. Non-Muslims who were curious about the niqab would ask her about it. She felt more respected after she started wearing the niqab. However, this support wasn’t extended from the Muslim community.

Aunts and uncles tried to talk her out of wearing the niqab, and at dinner parties and gatherings, she found people mocking her. She would be called backwards, and people assumed she thought she was better than they were. Rana thinks this is because they feel ashamed. She says everyone knows they should struggle to reach that level of faith, but feel that they can’t. In order to appease their guilty consciences, they try to put others down.

These experiences were shared by Fatima, Rana’s close friend. Fatima is a 20-year-old science student in her second year at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. Fatima was raised in Saudi Arabia, an Islamic state governed by one interpretation of Sharia law. She, like other women in the country, was forced to wear the niqab, and it was because of this that she began to hate that aspect of Islam.

Fatima moved to Canada with her family when she was 12.

“I was so happy because I didn’t have to wear hijab or niqab, and I could finally wear shorts,” she recalls, laughing. It’s hard to imagine Fatima in shorts. She dresses much like Rana, in a black abaya, hijab and niqab. Her two-year-old daughter, whom Rana says is a spitting image of her, plays beside our table in a pink-and-orange pantsuit.

As she grew up, Fatima began to understand the importance of covering herself, which is to practice modesty. She would get verbally harassed by the boys at school, and saw that her hijabi friends didn’t get the same treatment. In Grade 11, she started wearing the hijab, and it was during this time that she got closer to Islam. One of her main areas of research was the niqab. She read many articles written by respected religious scholars and came to believe that this was obligatory.

On the first day of Ramadan 2002, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, Fatima put on her hijab, abaya and, the newest addition to her ensemble, the niqab, and went to school. She was in Grade 12 at the time. Her mother found out and locked herself in her room and cried for a whole day.

Her mother was scared that Fatima would be harmed in the streets or at school, since post 9/11 Islamaphobia was at its worst. Fatima’s principal, a non-Muslim, had done her own research and tried to convince Fatima that the niqab wasn’t obligatory. Muslim teachers in the school got other Muslim girls to try to talk Fatima out of it. She would walk into class and have boys scream hateful things in her face. She had no support from family or old friends, who had stopped associating with her.

All of this isn’t surprising to Bullock.

“The face veil is a visually shocking way of dressing in a society that’s used to baring it all. And so the opposite, not seeing much at all except the eyes, is a real shock. It takes a lot of commitment on the part of society to get over this shock.”

Bullock goes on to say that society needs to understand that the women who wear the niqab don’t pose a threat to Canadian values. Bullock feels that the media are guilty of perpetuating Islamaphobia, which in turn leads to the stigmas attached to the face veil.

John Miller, a professor at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, feels that these stigmas are the result of convenient stereotypes used by the media. He says by refraining to use stereotypes, the media can help to change public opinion for the better.

Both Rana and Fatima share concerns about finding jobs. Fatima is scared to try to get a job outside the Muslim community for fear of rejection. According to Alfonisa Chang, a human resources instructor at Seneca College, it would be illegal to discriminate against a woman based on her religious attire, unless the job has a bona fide occupational requirement.

For example, pilots need to have a certain level of vision in order to do their jobs safely. Likewise, a veiled woman could be turned down from a job that requires her to show her face, such as modeling.

Rana and Fatima say they have contemplated taking off the veil, if negative repercussions become unbearable.

“Everything comes with a sacrifice. If I didn’t continue, I don’t believe Allah [God] would have blessed me with the things that he has. Things in life are going to get hard. This is who I am. Every time I look in the mirror I think, ‘alhumdullilah [praise be to God], God has given me the strength to do this.’ When I think about not wearing it, I get scared, because it means I have lost.”

Rana says she would consider taking off the niqab if it were banned in Canada, or if her husband asked her to take it off.

Fatima’s husband finds it hard to sit back and watch as his wife gets hurt by people around her. He hates that she has to endure the negative attention, but provides her with unconditional support. Although he has broached the idea of her taking the niqab off, he would never explicitly force her to. For Fatima, niqab symbolizes modesty, and a big part of Islam is modesty. It’s also a way for her to set her personal bar higher, according to her faith.

“I was always struggling to get better, but nothing was pulling me higher. The niqab ensures that I better myself in terms of my deen [religion].”

Bullock says the niqab can be integrated into Canadian society. She feels that Canadians are committed to freedom of religion, identity, and integration. In theory, an individual should be able to accept that some women choose to cover their faces, whereas others do not.

“Education is key in combating growing anti-Islamic sentiments. A good place to start is with the media, which should be executing more restraint in portraying negative images of women in the niqab.”

Bullock also thinks that there needs to be person-to-person interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims through such media as conferences and seminars, which will allow these women to be appreciated as human beings. This would allow people to socialize one-on-one with niqabis in an open-minded forum, an opportunity that may not arise on the street.

Rana and Fatima have high hopes for the future.

“Niqabi women need to be out there. They can’t be labeled weak and stay at home; it’s detrimental,” says Rana.

Fatima believes in being an active member of society and does her part by getting an education and participating in extracurricular clubs on campus, such as the Muslim Students Association (MSA).

Rana looks at her watch and is startled to see that we’ve been talking for almost three hours. She’s going to be late for class. We gather up our things and throw out our now cold and stale coffees. A group of teens pass by us and start snickering at Rana and Fatima. Rana sees them and her eyes light up.

“You know what the best part of wearing a niqab is? I can make a face at people and they will never know!”

No mandate for Harper’s agenda

By Jesse McLaren

November 2008 Issue

Since he was first elected Prime Minister in 2006, Stephen Harper has been dreaming of a majority government. Thinking the time was right, Harper called a federal election on September 7, later declaring that Canadians had moved to the right.

But from the outset of the campaign, the Conservatives campaigned from a position of weakness. Fearful of a declining economy, Harper called the election early—in violation of his own promise of “fixed” election dates.

Near the beginning of the campaign, Harper scrapped the unpopular anti-choice legislation, Bill C-484, paid lip service to Quebec’s right to self-determination, and announced that Canadian troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan—by 2011. This is hardly a confident appeal to right-wing policies.

By contrast, Harper had to appeal to the left, and kept most of his platform under cover until even after the leadership debates. Knowing the unpopularity of his positions, Harper kept a tight grip on his party, and tried to brand himself as a nice family-oriented man, complete with baby-blue cardigan.

When Harper was more honest and open about his policies, he met a backlash. Harper’s mean-spirited cuts to arts funding was seen a declaration of war on the arts community. In Quebec, the cuts translated into an attack on Quebec’s national identity. The resulting protests undermined Conservative gains in Quebec, and ruined Harper’s chances of winning a majority government.

His draconian stance on youth crime was also widely condemned. And his indifferent attitude toward the economic crisis, especially its effects on ordinary people, lost him even more support. Harper showed how out-of-touch he is by declaring that an economic crisis can be a good time to buy stocks.

Artists, women’s groups, environmentalists, war resister supporters and other activists mobilized against Harper’s agenda throughout the campaign, at demonstrations, pickets, all-candidates’ meetings, and elsewhere.

These actions helped prevent Harper from achieving a majority government, and forced the Conservatives to retreat from unpopular legislation in the middle of the campaign, including Bill C-10 which threatened film censorship.

One million desert corporate parties

In the wake of the election, Harper claims that he has won a “strong mandate.” But the figures don’t support him. A clear majority of 62 percent voted against Harper.

The Conservatives’ vote only increased by one percent, and their total vote actually dropped by almost 170,000 votes since 2006.

That fewer Conservative votes translated into 16 more seats was only possible because of a large collapse of Liberal support. Conservative gains are more a reflection of Liberal losses than a shift to the right.

Seen through the lens of “Anybody but Conservative” (ABC), the election results seem to indicate a rise in Conservative voters. But the real story of the election is not a 16 seat gain for the Conservatives. The real story is a dramatic drop in votes for the twin parties of corporate Canada—the Conservatives and the Liberals.

In 2000, the combined corporate vote was 78 percent. In 2004—after the anti-capitalist mobilization against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Quebec City in 2001, the G8 protests in Calgary in 2002, and the historic demonstrations against the war in Iraq in 2003—the combined corporate vote fell to 66 percent. It stayed the same in 2006, but with growing anger over the war and the economic crisis, it has fallen again, now down to 63.8 percent.

Though the Conservatives gained seats, the combined number of Conservative and Liberal seats actually decreased, from 227 in 2006 to 219 in 2008. Most significantly, one million fewer people voted for corporate Canada, a drop of 10 per cent.

On the other hand, anti-corporate votes for the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party have increased from 20 per cent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2004 and 2006. In 2008, it increased to 35 percent.

The lesser of evils, or the evil of lessers

Because of widespread anti-Harper anger, there was a strong push for “strategic voting”—an approach that will, no doubt, resurface at the next election. This strategy largely benefits the Liberals, on the premise that they are a better choice than the Conservatives. But a quick look at past and present Liberal records calls that logic into question.

Led by Jean Chrétien, the Liberals came to power in 1993, defeating the massively unpopular Tory government of Brian Mulroney. By 1995, they had implemented the largest social spending cuts in Canadian history.

They extended the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to the rest of North America, despite a promise to scrap it, and pushed neo-liberalism across the hemisphere with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

They failed to implement Kyoto, and allowed Canada’s carbon emissions to rise at a faster rate than in the United States.

They sent troops to Afghanistan, approved the counter-insurgency mission in Kandahar, began a massive build-up in military spending, and were only prevented from joining the war in Iraq by unprecedented protests that threatened to divide their party.

As the largest opposition party in the last parliament, the Liberals failed to oppose Harper’s agenda, allowing fully 43 Conservative bills to pass.

On Afghanistan, they voted with Harper to extend the mission, not once but twice, and voted against a motion to withdraw troops from their combat role.

On the environment, they abstained on Harper’s plan to end Canada’s participation in Kyoto. On the budget, they abstained from $5 billion cuts to public services and a $50 billion-corporate give-away.

On human rights, they voted with Harper to reinstate “security certificates.” On immigration, they voted with Harper to defeat an NDP motion to stop the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from acquiring arbitrary powers and centralizing control.

Green Liberals?

The ABC approach also paints the Greens as a left-wing alternative when their platform is remarkably neo-liberal—epitomized by the market-driven carbon tax.

The Greens portray themselves as neither left nor right, but in reality they are much the same as the Liberals: paying lip-service to socially progressive causes, but driving an economically conservative agenda that undermines the causes they claim to support.

The Greens are nominally tied to social movements, but this connection has been eroded in recent years with the right-wing turn from a protest party to a full-platform party under the leadership of ex-Tory Jim Harris in 2004 and 2006.

Elizabeth May is supposed to be left wing, but her positions on the war, tax cuts, a woman’s right to choose, and the environment are well to the right of the NDP.

Social democracy

Ultimately, the ABC approach counter-poses parliamentary politics with grassroots struggles. The record-low voter turn-out seems to suggest that the public is increasingly frustrated with the electoral process and the lack of real alternatives in federal politics.

While the past few years have seen widespread mobilizations on issues including the war in Afghanistan, the environment, Native rights, tuition fees and access to post-secondary education, a women’s right to choose, war resisters, health care, funding for the arts, and others, voter turn-out reached an historic low.

Falling below 60 percent, it reflects not apathy, but a crisis in federal politics, when no party campaigns on the issues that affect ordinary people on a daily basis, and that mobilize them to fight back. Voters felt that the parties offered no real solutions.

As a result, the $300 million-reconfiguration of a minority government was achieved largely based on who lost the highest number of votes.

One million people left the two corporate parties. The resulting Liberal collapse—their worst ever results—allowed the Conservatives to pick up seats, while winning fewer votes. The Liberals also hemorrhaged to the left, allowing the NDP to pick up seats, while also winning fewer votes.

The only party to gain votes was the Greens, who successfully portrayed themselves as a real alternative to the mainstream parties—despite the reality of their platform.

This doesn’t mean that social justice campaigners should turn their backs on Parliament, or on everyone but the NDP. The issue of war resisters, for example, shows how the opposition parties can join together on specific issues to try to force concessions from the Conservatives. Similar coalition work in Parliament amongst the opposition could lead to important reforms on a variety of issues.

But the best way to keep all parties working on progressive causes is to have a well mobilized population demanding it, as was the case with the issue of the war resisters.

A broad public campaign in locations all over Canada forced the opposition parties to vote unanimously on June 3, 2008 to support a parliamentary motion allowing war resisters to stay in Canada, and to stop deportations against them. The lesson here is that the social movements need to build both during elections and in between them.

This is an excerpt from “No mandate for Harper’s agenda” by Jesse McLaren, originally published in Socialist Worker election supplement (October 18, 2008) and available online at www.socialist.ca.

We want you! Canada’s recruitment policy comes under fire on Quebec campus

 

By Darren Shore

The Link (Concordia University)

November 2008 Issue

MONTREAL (CUP) - Despite the cold and pouring rain, more than 500 people marched through downtown Montreal on Saturday, October 28, joining a cross-country day of actions and demonstrations against Canada’s participation in the Afghanistan war. One street-wide line of dripping umbrellas and placards moved smoothly east along Ste-Catherine from Dorchester Square to Complexe Guy-Favreau, merging there with a second contingent of anti-war demonstrators.

The march included supporters of a campaign called “Operation Objection” which seeks to counter the present Conservative government’s plans to increase the military’s strength by 5,000 people over the next five years, raising personnel to over 67,000.

General Rick Hillier said last February that the military would increase its recruiters from 300 to 30,000, “and then eventually to 80,000 recruiters touching every community, geographical and ethnic, in Canada.”

From libraries to latrines

The Canadian Forces will try to recruit about 5,800 people each year until 2010, targeting Canadians aged 16 to 34, especially young women, Aboriginals, and visible minorities. Around a third of soldiers stay on and serve, according to a May 2006 report by Canada’s Auditor General.

These new recruits will be wooed all year long during hundreds of public events like sporting activities and festivals, and specifically from Canadian schools and on university campuses, says the Department of National Defence.

Concordia University doesn’t seek out military recruiters, but allows them to recruit on campus, said Chris Mota, director of Concordia media relations.

“We treat them the way we would treat any other employer.”

Some counter-demonstrators expressed support for the government’s initiative.

“If the army wants to send recruiters onto campus, that should definitely be an option,” said a Concordia student who wished to be identified only as John.

“The army isn’t about just going overseas and killing innocent people, as some of these people here would simplify it,” he said. “The army is an opportunity for many individuals to learn about the world and learn about themselves, and gain new skills in the process.”

Conscientious objection?

The Objection campaign’s promoters think a more important skill is getting organized against recruitment. The group Act for the Earth, which launched the campaign, has set up a website to make anti-war materials available to Canadian students, including a downloadable anti-war activist organizing kit, and information on the Afghanistan war for potential recruits.

The campaign is supported by Collectif Échec à la guerre, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Islamic Congress and the New Democratic Party, groups that all favour bringing the soldiers home.

The intensified recruitment speaks to Canada’s new, enthusiastic military agenda, said Rebecca Blaikie as she helped carry a large NDP banner during the protest march. Blaikie recently graduated from Concordia’s school of community and public affairs, and ran for the NDP in the 2004 federal election against former Prime Minister Paul Martin in the LaSalle-Émard riding.

She said that the recruitment pitch for the war in Afghanistan amounts to propaganda, since the government has specified no criteria to measure the war’s success or failure. And troops deployed to Afghanistan would be involved in a conflict where Canada spends one dollar on Afghan development for every $9 spent on direct military action, according to the NDP.

“These are not the priorities of Canadians,” said Blaikie. “They’re definitely not my priorities.”

As humanitarian goals in Afghanistan failed to reach their targets, infant mortality soared to twice the average for the developing world, and 70 percent of Afghans went undernourished in 2005, according to the Scotsman, a Scottish daily newspaper. A 2005 Amnesty International report states that Afghan women and girls are still subjected to abduction and rape by armed individuals, forced into marriage, used as currency to settle disputes and debts, and face daily discrimination from state officials.

Operation Objection organizers have asked just how much good Canada is doing in Afghanistan, and by extension, what good more troops there would do, noting extensive corruption in the Afghan government, the explosion of Afghanistan’s heroin trade, and Human Rights Watch accounts of human rights abuses by US troops.

The recruitment campaign avoids a constructive public debate over whether Canada should be in Afghanistan in the first place, Blaikie said.

“There’s been absolutely no dialogue with the Canadian people, especially young people, on these issues.”

Some students in the march expressed resentment that they were not consulted on the recruitment issue itself, let alone the war.

“I think we should have the right to choose who comes into our CEGEPs and universities to recruit. They’re imposing this on the student population,” said Marie-Ève Lecours, a student at CEGEP de Trois-Rivières. She came for the day on a bus rented out by Comité de solidarité de Trois-Rivières, bringing CEGEP and university students, and representatives of several NGOs.

Lecours said she finds the idea of recruiters on campus revolting.

“They tell students you’re a man if you join the army, you’ll really change, you’ll help your country, and people will recognize that,” she said. “But in the end, I think joining the army is pointless.”

Marie-Eve Rheault, from the same CEGEP, said she deplores that the army under-informs students about the negative sides of a military career.

“They promise they’ll pay for your school, you’ll get to travel and have many interesting experiences for free, [and that’s easily sold] to students who are living on student loans and need money,” she said.

“But many young people are easily influenced, aren’t strong-minded, and sign up without being really conscious.”

The Operation Objection website notes that many students who join the army because it can pay for their education wouldn’t be joining if education were properly funded. The Canadian Federation of Students is asking for $4.5 billion for education while the Conservatives plan to increase military spending to $20 billion by 2010. The Conservatives have also pledged $490 billion to military spending over the next 20 years.

As for the risks involved, no fresh recruit goes directly to Afghanistan, or into any other direct military service, said Capt. Renaud Chartier, who does basic military training at the garrison in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

“Units are specially trained for those missions.”

A personal choice

Nevertheless, twice as many Canadian soldiers – 708 soldiers compared to 340, as reported by the London Free Press last July – were convicted of going absent without leave (AWOL) in 2005 as in 2000.

Some of the students at the demonstration were more ambivalent about recruitment. Camille Bussières-Hamel, also from Trois-Rivières, said she opposes the war in Afghanistan and wants the troops to come home, but recruitment on campus doesn’t really bother her because recruiters can’t force her to listen.

“Joining the army is a personal decision, and people who want to join should have the choice to do so,” she said.

Myriam Faraj, a political science undergraduate at Université du Québec à Montréal, said she would confront recruiters on her campus to open their minds.

“As people, we should try to communicate with each other, and question and debate. I would want to make [a recruiter] question what he’s part of,” she said. “And I can be quite an annoying person sometimes, [I could] talk with him for hours,” she added.

Changing the mission

The Bloc Québécois has taken a less critical tone in its stance toward recruiting, which it does not outright oppose, said Bloc spokesperson Frédéric Lepage.

“The Canadian Forces’ role in Afghanistan means we need to replace more troops than usual,” said Lepage. “The problem is that this government has no clear foreign policy, which needs to be defined before defence spending can be done responsibly.”

That sentiment is echoed by groups like the Council of Canadians, which has no opinion on recruitment per se, but is calling for Canada’s role in Afghanistan to change from a combat mission to a focus on humanitarian work, reconstruction, development and peacekeeping, said Meera Karunanthan, the Council’s media officer. As peacekeeping funds go toward Afghanistan, Canada has reduced its number of peacekeepers to 56, no more than Mali, the Council says.

“The personnel shortage in the Canadian Forces is approximately the same as the number of Canadian troops in Afghanistan,” says Operation Objection’s downloadable anti-war campaign kit. “Ironically, there would be no ‘troop shortage’ if we brought them home.”

More importantly, Karunanthan said, the increased military recruitment helps the Conservative government’s deep integration policy with the US, which cedes Canadian sovereignty and sends troops to fight a Taliban movement that is no threat to Canadians.

But others weren’t so sure.

“To say [the war] is hopeless is a legitimate argument, but [Canada] is a target,” said one of the counter-protesters named Jay, a McGill student who joined the army voluntarily and wished not to reveal his family name.

He pointed out the day’s National Post headline “Al Qaida warns Canada” and mentioned the 18 terror suspects arrested in Toronto in 2006.

“I believe there’s a real need to fight this war. I hope I’m nuts. And maybe [these demonstrators] are right. But I don’t see it that way.”

He added that one of his hobbies is studying the history of the first and second World Wars.

“I see the courage that our soldiers displayed. If we had the same mentality then [that] we have now, we wouldn’t have won those wars,” he said.

Project Threadbare responds to rash arrest of 26 Muslim men

By James Clark Features and Opinion Editor

November 2008 Issue

This photo essay by Salma Khan, inspired by the Project, deals with the detention and deportation of Muslim men held in Canada without charge

Project Thread was a joint CSIS-RCMP operation in August 2003 that led to the arrest of 19 international students, who were accused of organizing an Al-Qaeda “sleeper cell” in Toronto. Eighteen were from Pakistan, and one was from India. The number of arrests later expanded to 26. All the students were Muslims.

 None of the men were ever charged with a crime, but were detained for weeks under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The arrests sparked a media frenzy, and the men were labeled “terrorists” in countless media reports around the world. At the time, the Canadian government cited the arrests as evidence of Canada’s commitment to “fighting terror”.

 Weeks later, most of the men were quietly released and deported to their home countries, where they faced harrassment, intimidation, job losses, family strife, and political persecution as a result of the allegations made against them. The safety and whereabouts of some of the men are now unknown to this day. Despite the fact that the men had never been involved in any terrorist activity or had never committed a crime, the federal government continues to refuse an apology or compensation for the men and their families.

 A defence campaign, called Project Threadbare, came together in response to the arrests. Montreal-based film-maker Arshad Khan documented the experience in a film called Threadbare. The trailer is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzL5W_DWk2w.

Next Page »