All Posts Tagged With: "protest"
Islamic State Apartheid Week coming to campus
Jewish Defence League to hold event to counter Israeli Apartheid Week
The Jewish Defence League of Canada has announced it will be hosting an event called “Islamic State Apartheid Week” in Toronto next week. Its stated goal is to “counter the campus lies against Jews and highlight the truth of Islam,” as well as “expose and confront the Israel bashers and Jew haters during IAW [Israeli Apartheid Week].”
Sounds like this all should go off without a hitch, no?
So far, it seems the program consists of protesting IAW events. The first gathering is scheduled for Tuesday, March 8, to protest a screening of “Jaffa the Oranges Clockwork,” which (to add another twist) is being sponsored by the Ryerson Student Union. Two more protests–one at the University of Toronto and another at York University–have been scheduled so far.
As of yet, just over 100 people have confirmed attendance on Facebook.
York student group hosts Iranium screening despite protests
Controversial documentary creates tension rather than discussion
Because the political climate at York University isn’t quite hot enough, a group of students decided to host a screening of Iranium on campus last week.
The controversial documentary made headlines last month after a screening scheduled at the National Archives was canceled due to complaints from the Iranian Embassy. But this past Thursday, the movie was successfully screened at York University’s Computer Science and Engineering Centre.
Organized by Hasbara@York, the film was originally to be shown at Vari Hall but the location was moved after Toronto Police received “unspecified threats.” About 50 to 60 people showed up to protest the screening, organized by the Iranian Student Association at York.
My apologizes if I’ve led you to a yawning fit. Obviously, this sort of issue is not new for York University. Generally speaking, Group A will host controversial speaker/association/screening, Group B will protest said speaker/association/screening, and Group A will assert its right to free speech/peaceful assembly. Is everyone following so far?
I’ve seen Iranium and it is certainly not a feel-good flick. While obviously centred on the Iranian ruling regime, I took it as highly critical of the U.S. government as well. Of course, none of that should really matter. The belief that a documentary is biased or propagandistic does not give one the right to prohibit others from seeing it, especially on a shared campus.
A more tactful approach for dealing with this or similar issues would be to tackle the content directly, rather than try to stifle the message overall. The first five minutes or so of Iranium could probably make for an hour-long lecture on Orientalism, for example. Another missed opportunity was when George Galloway spoke at York in November. Instead of protesting his presence, why not host a subsequent event titled “Funding Hamas and Other Poor PR Moves” instead?
Questioned by York University’s Excalibur, Iranian Student Association at York president Mehraz Javadyniya said, “We acknowledge that there are human rights issues in Iran [...] but the Iranian community within the university do not agree with them speaking about our human rights issues when it’s our problem.” His statement is problematic for a number of reasons–namely for suggesting that discussion of issues in a community should be exclusive to its members. Rather than trying to quiet other people’s discussions, why not seize the opportunity to add to the conversation?
Now I think I’ve got a whole new group of people yawning (and probably preparing their placards). As you were, York University.
Why student protests don’t work
Tuition keeps rising despite street protests
Today, students in Montreal set off smoke bombs in the offices of Quebecor, a large media and retail company who owns the Sun newspaper chain, as part of a protest against tuition increases. Last week students in Nova Scotia had their annual “day of action” protest against tuition hikes. In the U.K., tuition massive tuition hikes lead to months of protests.
Student protests against tuition increases are a regular event in Canada. Yet tuition continues to rise. Even the extremely large and sometimes violent protests in Britain failed to convince the government to change course.
Why? Because in electoral democracies street protests generally don’t work.
Certainly there are some times when street protests may be effective, the large protests against Canada’s participation in the invasion of Iraq were at least indicative of public sentiment and may indeed have have helped keep our country out of that war.
But they don’t help when it comes to tuition because students don’t vote in elections.
Contrary to popular belief, governments don’t have endless supplies of money, more funding for education means one of two things: taxes have to go up or something else has to be cut. The Canadian Federation of Students has made it clear that they support tax increases to fund education, while other student groups have at times called for unspecified spending cuts (I once asked a student politician what he thought the government should cut, perhaps health care or elementary school funding? He was unable to answer the question).
The fact is that government policy is shaped by the desire to remain in power, no party typifies this more than the federal Conservatives, while opposition policy is shaped by the goal of gaining power, the federal Liberals for instance. It is only those parties that have no chance of being elected, the Greens, the NDP and those parties on your ballot you’ve never heard of before (there are two communist parties in my riding now?), for whom ideology figures as anything more than an obstacle.
How do you get elected? You please the voters. Not the general public, not the people protesting in the streets but those people who are more likely to vote. This is why health care is a sacred cow, while international students are cash cows. Older people, those more likely to use the health care system, vote. International students can’t and their Canadian colleagues don’t.
For the same reason, taxes won’t go up to pay for post-secondary education, older higher-income people are the most likely to vote, while young people are the least likely.
If anything, protests are probably hurting the cause. Direct action has a tendency to preach to the converted, people who already think students are self-interested whiners aren’t going to be impressed by street theatre – it’s only going to reinforce their previously held positions.
Chanting catchy slogans along with a like-minded crowd is a great feeling but it’s not going to change a politician’s mind.
Students stage mock execution to protest tuition fees
Students need to get real if they want to be taken seriously
Some political savants participating in the Canadian Federation of Students’ Day of Action decided it would be a good idea to wheel a guillotine into a crowd and stage a mock execution as a way to protest tuition fees.
The demonstration—which can only be described as one of the most sensible and appropriate of its kind—was captured in a video shot by the ‘fax, a news channel run by the journalism students at University of King’s College. The clip shows members of a political street theatre troupe setting up a guillotine emblazoned with the sign, “The Cuts We’d Like To See.” One fellow proceeds to chant, “NDP, Liberal, Tory—same damn story,” while his comrades bang drums and cheer. He then flops a dummy on the guillotine—a dummy, which, I’m assuming, is supposed to be representative of some political figure—and leads the crowd in a few rounds of “They all must go! They all must go!” Yes, you’re watching a protest taking place in Canada.
The blade drops, unfortunately proving itself faulty as it fails to sever the head of its fee-happy victim. No fear—an executioner swoops in to manually break the neck and drop the head in the basket. And the crowd erupts in whoops and cheers. Beautiful, isn’t it?
The crowd assembled February 2 to protest, among other things, the rising cost of tuition and the expiration of a fee freeze on March 31. According to reports, more than one thousand students gathered from various Halifax universities to demonstrate against the rising cost of post-secondary education in Nova Scotia. The issue, of course, I can understand. How a medieval decapitation device works into the equation—well, there I’m having a bit more trouble.
For politicians to truly understand the financial pressures faced by students, there’s going to have to be some sort of dialogue. That dialogue is made immeasurably more difficult if students choose to stage these politicians’ preemptive deaths. And then, of course, there’s that nagging issue of the gross barbarity of the scene. These are not things we do in Canada. (Sorry, am I ‘Othering’?)
If students want political leaders to take them seriously, they need to start behaving seriously. That means no more mock executions, postcard bombardments, or other high style/low substance demonstrations. I hope not to see a public stoning, symbolic of corporate “blows” to education, at the next Student Day of Action.
UBC students heckle prime minister
Pearson speech from 1965 shows how much the issues facing higher education have changed and how much they’ve stayed the same
Aaron Wherry linked to a particularly interesting speech today, given by then prime minister Lester B. Pearson at the University of British Columbia in 1965.
As Wherry points out, there are some big differences between Pearson’s speech and the speeches we hear politicians giving nowadays. Pearson is subject to boos and a lot of heckling from students who didn’t agree with his stance on nuclear disarmament and felt his government was moving too slowly on student aid. At the time, The Saskatoon Star Phoenix described the heckling as “good-natured needling,” something I wouldn’t expect to see if our current prime minister was heckled in a similar way.
Quite simply, politicians don’t make speeches like this anymore, Pearson spoke to 4,000 students, the night before he spoke to 2,900 members of the general public. As Wherry says, “few leaders now ever put themselves in front of crowds that aren’t controlled or selected.”
But the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Early in the talk he says, “I know there is one subject in which you are particularly interested and that is higher education, the place of universities in our society, the obligation of governments to higher education and the obligations of those who receive higher education to their society and to their country.”
Pearson also wonders whether “the emphasis on wise and unhurried teaching and research be replaced by the demands and dimensions of a knowledge factory?”
The speech comes at an interesting time, Canada student loans had only been introduced the year before and universities were asking for–and getting a lot more money from Ottawa than they ever had before.
While Pearson says that all those who can qualify for university should be able to attend, regardless of finances, he believes that in exchange for government support of universities all graduates should have a “priority to service to their country over advantage to themselves.” A sentiment we don’t hear that much these days.
Interestingly, Pearson says that he thinks university education will eventually be like high school and become free.
Of course, some of the issues facing universities in 1965 are very different from those today, Pearson talks about the possibility of nuclear war which could make survival a more important priority for the government than post secondary education.
But some of it is the man more than the times. He suggests that those who question what Canada has done to ensure world peace and avoid World War III should go down to the United Nations and ask the other delegations what they think.
UBC shouldn’t cede to superstition
‘Bad luck’ hospice should be built as planned
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” By that logic, a society that chooses to shun its sick and dying is not worthy of exaltation. I think I can hear Gandhi rolling in his grave.
Residents of a condominium on the University of British Columbia campus are protesting plans to build a 15-bed palliative care unit next to their building. According to resident Janet Fan, “Eighty per cent of the residents in this building are Asian, and 100 per cent of them are very upset.” Fan says that condo-dwellers are worried that the hospice will bring “ghosts” and “bad luck.” “In Chinese culture, we are against having dying people in your backyard,” she told CBC News. “We cannot accept this. It’s against our belief, against our culture. It’s not culturally sensitive.” Residents of the condo have organized a petition and building plans have now been put on hold.
The fact that UBC is considering these claims is nothing short of preposterous. The functioning of any city, province, democratic country, is dependent on an unyielding separation from religious and/or cultural pressure. Simply put, you can’t run a society based on ghost stories. Community resistance to certain new facilities is not new, but usually arise when some sort of tangible threat is posed; a halfway house is proposed, a registered sex offender moves into the area, a rehab centre opens. But this case is unique in that a material threat isn’t readily apparent. In any case, the claim that the plans for the hospice is “not culturally sensitive” should be immediately dismissed. It holds no more validity than would a claim, for example, by a homeowner saying it is against his “cultural values” to have a homosexual couple move next door. We can’t start looking to religious texts to format property laws.
As well, even though Fan refers to the intended site of the hospice as her “backyard,” it is certainly not. Owned by the university, residents took a risk when purchasing property with nearby vacant space. Perhaps the one tangible danger posed to these condo-dwellers is declining property values if the hospice is indeed built. After all, how is a million-dollar unit to keep its value when a cultural taboo moves into the neighborhood? Still, I would hope if money was the real issue, which it appears (at least on the surface) it is not, it wouldn’t be shielded by a guise of cultural concern.
It’s also important to consider the immersive value offered to our society by hospices and hospice workers. Many people who have set foot in palliative care units can attest to the concept that they are very much centres for the living, even though by definition, they are where people go to die. They offer havens for families who can no longer care for loved ones, and indeed, places for the sick and dying to go when cultural taboos consider it “bad luck” to keep those near death in the home. UBC is not proposing a cemetery be built next to the condo, but a home for people still living. It will say something profound about our attitudes towards the critically ill if we decide they must be sequestered. Superstition shouldn’t stand in the way of the new hospice at UBC.
Activism 101
Do we really need a course on how to stage a protest?
As if there wasn’t enough ammunition for the naysayers deploring the state of the current Canadian university, there is now a course teaching activism at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Earlier this month, the Globe and Mail covered the enrollees’ class project, whereby they marched through the streets, chanting and carrying placards reading “You Can’t Eat Money and Less Cash Cropping = More Hunger Stopping,” to raise awareness for global hunger issues. The event was worth 15 per cent of the students’ final mark.
No word yet on how the classes entitled “Explorations of Why Not to Stick your Finger in an Electrical Outlet” and “Dreadlocks and Social Conscience: An Intimate Relationship” are coming along. In the meantime, Prof. Robert Huish is leading the class of 70 students as they explore aspects of social activism.
While the concept practically begs skeptics to cast a pitiful sigh, there seems there are some functional benefits to be reaped from such a class. Students, for example, are instructed how to compose a press release, contact a member of Parliament, and obtain street permits for events. Of course, the same sort of information could be gathered from a few Google searches. On the theoretical end, students enrolled in the development and activism course also explore the history of activism and theories related to social change. As of yet, no unit on how to torch a police cruiser.
Irresistible jabs aside, the real demerits of such a class are few and largely irrelevant. Is it ideologically skewed? Probably, but find me a politics or sociology course at the higher level that isn’t. Will it fuel students’ radical energy? Maybe, but at least they’ll be taught the tools to go about their endeavors legally and perhaps from a pragmatic perspective. Campuses are hotbeds of political restlessness anyway; this course isn’t going to ignite anything new. And those who are committed to urinating on statues or staging sit-ins at presidents’ offices will do so anyway.
Personally, it’s not how I’d spend my tuition dollars–to me, university is about more than placards and hollers.
A+?
Banning British protests will only fan flames
Britain’s top police chief considers prohibiting student protests if violence continues
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson is considering banning student protests after a series of violent demonstrations have erupted across Britain.
British Parliament approved tuition fee increases about a week ago, meaning that tuition fees across the country could triple in the coming years. Predictably, many students weren’t happy with the move and some took to the streets to demonstrate their displeasure.
Among the gestures of disapproval were students throwing objects at police, lighting benches on fire, and urinating on a statue of Winston Churchill. According to the Independent, Stephenson says police have the power to ban students from marching adding that, “If we think it is the right thing to do then we will do it.”
He did acknowledge that the move could cause more trouble, however. “When you have got people willing to break the law in this way, what is the likelihood of them obeying an order not to march or complying with conditions on a demonstration?” he said.
That point, of course, is at the crux of why such a prohibition will ultimately fail. Undoubtedly, the statue-soiler, for example, will not suddenly decide to zip when police move to outlaw peaceful protest. Those determined to break the law will do so anyway.
It seems these students feel disenfranchised by a government deaf to their concerns, so banning protest of any kind will surely just inflame their feelings. I suspect punishing the peaceful will result in the same type of vehement backlash faced by Toronto police following the G20 summit this summer. And indeed, the situation seems quite similar; a group of violent protesters get away with wreaking havoc, and the police, in turn, overcompensate. It is the peaceful protesters who get stuck in the middle.
While I suspect a few fluorescent signs won’t move British Parliament to retract their decision, taking away that right for students will just exacerbate the feeling that they are voiceless.
No surprises at Quebec education consultation
Province confirms plans to increase tuition but questions remain
The Quebec government held its big meeting of “education partners” on Monday and it pretty much went down exactly as expected: students held a large protest and the government reaffirmed their commitment to increasing tuition.
The only unexpected event of the day was when representatives from labour and student groups walked out of the meeting. While I didn’t see the walkout coming, I can’t say it was a surprise; these groups had already condemned the meeting and other student groups boycotted it. The reason for the walkout and the boycott, that the government came into the meeting with its mind already made up, does seem to have merit. At a press conference following the meeting, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand reminded reporters that the government had promised a tuition increase in last spring’s budget.
As for the protests, they were huge. I’ve been to a lot of tuition related protests in my time as a student journalist and without a doubt this was the biggest one I’ve ever covered. The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec protest, outside the hotel where the meeting took place, had numbers in the high hundreds all afternoon. For their part, the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante had a larger protest, which started outside the National Assembly, across the street from the hotel, snaked its way through old Quebec and then back up to the hotel. It’s hard to come up with a number. I’d guess around 2,000 people, maybe more.
The big question now is what happens next. While the government has promised tuition increases it’s still not clear how much fees will rise or even when that will be announced.
The government has dropped some hints though. At the press conference on Monday, Bachand was echoing some talking points from the group that represents university administrators, saying that due to inflation students are now paying less than they were in 1968. The Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities has called for tuition to increase by $500 a year over three years. An increase of that size would bring tuition fees for Quebec residents to just under $3,700, certainly a major increase but still less than the current national average.
Obviously, there’s no guarantee that this is what the government will do but if I were to put money on it, I’d bet that the government will put forward a similar plan.
CREPUQ has also called for significant increases to financial aid, with 25 per cent of funds raised through any increase being put towards grants and loans. While the government hasn’t offered any numbers on financial aid increases, they have promised to increase aid levels in conjunction with a rise in tuition.
How any increase will affect students from out of province also remains very unclear. Canadian students who are not Quebec residents already pay significantly more than Quebecers, over $5,600 a year. Those rates are already increasing faster than tuition for Quebec residents who have seen tuition rise by $100 a semester since 2007. It’s probably a given that out-of-province tuition will rise along with the Quebec resident rate but given that these fees are already the third highest for Canadians in the country, only Nova Scotia, which has a higher out-of-province rate and Ontario, which does not have separate rates based on provincial residency, have higher undergraduate fees.
Lawyering up impedes progress
There are better ways to deal with an unresponsive administration than sit-ins, violence and lawsuits
(Editor’s note: This post has been updated below)
The legal action a group of University of Toronto protesters hinted at two years ago has been filed. In March 2008, about 35 students staged a sit-in at U of T’s administrative officers hoping to discuss a fee hike to a campus residence building with president David Naylor. Four hours into the protest, campus security was called to remove the protesters.
The students say the officers assaulted them as they were forcibly removed from campus, while a letter from Naylor a week after the incident said the students were removed because they “verbally harassed and attempted to impede staff moving in the halls.”
The students were barred from campus, and 14 of them were arrested and charged. In September 2009, all charges were either stayed or dropped. And now, two of the students who were arrested are suing the university, police, Naylor and other administrators, claiming that the university targeted them because they were student leaders even though they took no active part in the altercation with campus security.
The university is standing its ground, intending to contest the suit. In a written statement to the Globe and Mail, U of T explained their position:
“The University of Toronto, and its staff members who have been unfairly targeted by the plaintiffs, will be defending the claim vigorously. Remarkably, the claim goes so far as to sue the innocent victims who were confined in an office against their will in an incident inside Simcoe Hall in 2008. The university believes the claim to be entirely without merit, and it will be seeking to have it dismissed, with costs.”
While it seems the university’s actions did indeed go to far having students arrested rather than engaging in discussion is a bit of an overreaction — a judge has ruled as much (Update: The charges were stayed “on the grounds that the over 17 month time-period between their arrest and the scheduled trial date has been a breach of their Charter right to a trial within a reasonable time“) — protesters that use a big scene to make a point rarely get remembered for the point they are trying to make. Rather than engage in a constructive discussion with the university about an important student issue, this attempt to reverse a fee increase is now only remembered for the aggressive assaults and lawsuits that have embroiled it for the past two and a half years.
Stories like this only serve to make things more difficult the next time a student group tries to effect change. What administrator is going to engage in a meaningful conversation with concerned students if the memory of their predecessors is still so fresh? There has to be other ways to deal with an unresponsive administration than sit-ins, violence and lawsuits.
The goal of the student movement is constructive, which is to say that it builds on the work of those who came before. What this conflict achieved was not only a setback for that discussion, but also for the many that are yet to come.
Mark Steyn headed to UWO
Will the controversial speaker be warmly received?
Who can forget the embarrassing debacle that occurred in March when Ann Coulter embarked on her Canadian university tour? And no, I’m not just talking about what she said. Students and community members gathered outside of the University of Ottawa to protest the right wing pundit’s planned address, and effectively had the event shut down. Coulter went on to speak at the University of Calgary, but the fiasco left a black eye on Canadian Universities’ reputation for tolerance of free speech.
Now, the University of Western Ontario, which was the first school to host Coulter back in March, is set to welcome another controversial speaker: Mark Steyn. Perhaps best known for his contentious views on the nature of Islam, Steyn was originally supposed to speak on Western’s campus as coordinated by the Campus Coalition for Democracy. However, due to capacity constraints, the venue had to be moved.
Then, yesterday, the new venue—the London Convention Centre—denied the Steyn camp its room rental request. StrictlyRight.com, one of the organizers of the event, called foul, saying that the denial amounts to censorship at a city-owned facility, adding that the centre was caving to pressure from local Islamic groups. The centre’s general manager countered the allegation, saying that the decision to deny the request was business-driven—not politically.
In any case, the venue has been moved yet again and it seems as thought Steyn will take to the podium as planned on November 1. And even though it’s to be held off campus, students are still talking about implications of the contentious speaker’s arrival. According to the Western Gazette, the Muslim Students’ Association has already expressed concern to UWO’s administration about Steyn promoting Islamophobia on campus, though president Selma Tobah said there are better ways to oppose Steyn’s beliefs than boycott or protest. And Ryan Ruppert, president of the Campus Coalition for Democracy, told the Gazette he is hoping for “backlash through intelligent questioning.”
Who knows–maybe this time, things will go off without a hitch?
Hey valedictorian, watch the soapbox
UWinnipeg valedictorian should have left her protest against an honourary degree for Vic Toews outside
The convocation ceremony at the University of Winnipeg this past Sunday became more than just an educational rite of passage when valedictorian Erin Larson took to the podium. “While I’m immensely proud to be an alumnus of the University of Winnipeg and extremely honoured to have been selected valedictorian,” Larson began, “I have to admit I’m not proud to share the stage with everyone who is on it today.”
Behind Larson sat Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who was being awarded an honourary degree by the University of Winnipeg. Toews, who is staunchly opposed to gay marriage, abortion, and other positions sure to reckon him unpopular at a university, stared at his program while Larson continued her valedictorian address.
“I feel the University of Winnipeg has recently suffered a profound loss of integrity due to the actions of the administration,” Lawson continued. “The decision to give an honorary law degree to someone who is best known to my generation of students as being a vocal opponent of expanding human rights is questionable at best.”
The decision was indeed a dubious one for the liberally-reputed University of Winnipeg. Some students, in fact, chose to forgo their walk across the stage in favour of a protest outside the university, where about 40 people gathered holding placards condemning the university’s bestowment of the honorary doctor of laws degree on Toews. It was inside, however, in front of hundreds of alumni, students, family and friends, where Larson chose to make her beliefs known.
She had every right to do so, of course. As valedictorian, those few minutes were her own, to do with whatever she pleased. Though just because we have the right, say, to wave an aluminum rod around amid a lightning storm, it doesn’t mean the idea is suddenly a good one. Larson began her speech commenting on her desire to properly reflect the sentiments of the graduating body, yet continued by expressing her own profound disappointment with the university’s honourary degree decision. Was she speaking on behalf of the student body? Or momentarily abandoning her pledge to do so?
In any case, a valedictory address should not be a political soapbox. While it could be said that granting an honourary degree to a cabinet minister is a political statement in itself, the valedictorian’s speech is not the time to initiate forthright political debate, particularly in front of friends and family who have come to watch their graduate cross the stage.
Larson’s approach simply comes off as crass. She could have joined the group of protestors outside the convocation, or declined her role as valedictorian, a move that would have sent the same point without hijacking the event to tout her ideological message. While holding your breath and plugging your ears is sometimes championed as valiant political activism amid the cozy walls of the university campus, the real world expects some tact when trying to make a political statement. (Well, except in the House of Commons.)
Larson made a point of mentioning the university’s mission statement while drilling home her position, reading that it strives to “Offer a community which appreciates, fosters and promotes values of human dignity, equality, nondiscrimination and appreciation of diversity.” Yet Larson, trying to emphasize that the university has forfeited its integrity by bestowing an honour on a man who doesn’t represent its mission statement, inadvertently forfeits her own by resorting to a tactless, ill-timed public statement. Whether or not you agree with Toews politically, subjecting him to public humiliation certainly does not further any efforts to promote “human dignity.” Though compassion and tolerance for ideological diversity–maybe that’s something one picks up in post-grad.
Toronto’s G20 summit: a failure all around
Sometimes, even peaceful protest isn’t the answer
There are several ways one could have gone about making a point regarding this weekend’s G20 summit in Toronto. Some opted to break windows and throw feces—not so subtle. Others selected arson as their method of choice—a brilliant (excuse the pun) way to illuminate (excuse again) their serious socio-economic concerns. But the majority chose “peaceful protest.” They gathered at Queen’s Park, chanted and held signs, and marched through the streets of Toronto, calling for free tuition, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and, most collectively, for G20 leaders to go home.
For complete coverage click here
Yet to me, the futility was obvious. Don’t get me wrong; I recognize the value of the right to protest. And I, too, was outraged at the $1 billion security bill, the evacuation of University of Toronto residences, the security fence and “fake lake.” But a protest—peaceful or otherwise—was not, in this case, an effective way to call attention to frivolous G20 measures. If everyone, and I mean everyone, had stayed home drinking tea on Saturday and Sunday, the message would have been way more effective (there’s that word again) than 10,000 protesters taking to the street. What better way to “humiliate the apparatus” (to borrow a phrase from the anarchists) than to really demonstrate the uselessness of a billion dollar security fleet?
Of course, no such concerted effort was made. While protesters spent time dousing their handkerchiefs in vinegar and silkscreening “F*** the G20” on their brightly-coloured tees, the effectiveness of a strategic, silent protest seemed to evade most of the outraged. I should apologize, though—I haven’t completely shaken the youthful naïveté that a protest should be about actually getting something done. But I’m working on it. After all, this weekend confirmed—at least to me—that demonstrations are more about hearing yourself than actually being heard.
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On Saturday afternoon, I went to check out the Canadian Federation of Student’s Student Feeder March. Like an idiot, I thought the march was to demonstrate Canadian students’ objection to the G20 summit, specifically regarding the evacuation of U of T’s downtown campus. Obviously I’m new, because I was surprised when I was treated to a megaphone lecture about Indigenous rights, Stephen Harper’s maternal health plan, and the evils of corporate America. After the obligatory “Education is a Right!” chant and a few dozen “Shame!’s,” we were off.
The group marched through the spitting rain, east from Bloor and Spadina towards the desolate U of T campus. There were a few hundred students, and no police escort. Despite the grey skies and murky ground runoff, energy was high. The chanting was constant (and, I’ll admit, quite catchy). As students turned onto U of T’s closed campus they got louder. “Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? OUR STREETS!” Followed by, “This is what democracy looks like!” which evolved into a confusing “This is what democracy smells like!” And, of course, it wouldn’t be a student march without, “We gotta beat, back, the corporate attack.”
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When I was in Grade Six I learned about the standard, five-paragraph argumentative essay. “You need a thesis,” said my teacher from front of the elementary school classroom. “One point that you will argue,” she continued. “The rest of the essay will support this point.”
Could you have two theses, I wondered? Three? Four? Like most eager 11-year-olds, I wanted to impress my teacher. “Just one,” Ms. Levitt reminded the class. “A focused argument will always be stronger.”
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The CFS placards on Saturday afternoon read, “Keep Education Public!” But to the uniformed bystander, the group could have been marching about anything. Native land rights? Corporate greed? A woman’s right to choose? While marchers took great pride in reminding spectators that, “The people, united, will never be defeated,” they really should have kept in mind that a message, diluted, is not properly entreated. (See? I can rhyme too!)
It just got worse when we reached Queen’s Park, the designated protest site. I saw signs about occupation in India, a group for animal liberation, and a slew of unionized men and women advocating for workers’ rights. Okay, I get it; I saw the “Long Live Socialism” sign. The idea was undoubtedly to highlight the causes that could have done with some diverted G20 cash. But as long as protesters were present, there needed to be police. And when store windows were crashed, riot cops had to be brought in. The Toronto Transit Commission lost revenue because of afternoon system closures and someone’s gonna have to pay for that damaged public property.
I’m not saying we should be silent on the issues that matter most. But ironically, silence might have been the way to go on this most important matter. Imagine how silly it would have looked if the feds spent a billion dollars on riot gear, bringing in the RCMP, army, private security and swarms of police on bikes, motorcycles, and horseback, and the downtown core turned out to be empty as air. The Black Bloc certainly made things worse for everyone, but even the “peaceful protesters” weren’t really helping their cause.
I would hope students, as the “bright thinkers of tomorrow” would lead the way by initiating constructive means of protest. Or, at the very least, come with a focused, coherent message. I wasn’t beaming with pride when I spotted student leaders amid a mob standoff with riot police, nor was I pleased to accompany a student march rallying for a mess of different causes, only some of which I supported.
Police certainly overreacted, peaceful protesters were detained, media was arrested, and rioters wreaked havoc. So, until next time, G20, I’ll be drinking my tea.
Has apathy been prorogued?
Students’ engagement with abstract political issues faces a test this week
Unless you live under a rock off campus, someone has probably informed you that federal Parliament has been prorogued, and that this raises various concerns about constitutional law, democratic process, legitimate governance…or not. More likely you’ve just heard about this prorogue thing in terms that suggests it’s bad. Because going any further than that requires a very involved discussion.
I won’t attempt to summarize the running dialogue on exactly what it means that Parliament has been prorogued. There is a huge amount of news coverage available on the topic. But it is highly significant that a lot of the energy and organization against this action, by the government, is based on and around Canada’s post-secondary campuses.
All of this is leading up to protests planned across Canada (and in some cases abroad) this Saturday. Will they materialize? Will they be well attended? Will they be significant enough to gain some attention and coverage, competing as they are with the disaster in Haiti and the political realignment occurring in the U.S.? Side note there, by the way. If the issue loses to Haiti that’s entirely justified. People are dying over there. But if folks would rather read about Obama than take the time to think about our own government that’s rather sad.
Any time students seem to get excited about something it raises questions about just how real and genuine it is, at the grassroots level. The CFS can usually manage some kind of a demonstration around tuition — but we all know those are fairly well stage-managed and they go directly to students’ self-interests. Meanwhile, the much talked-about walk out by Ontario college students barely materialized at all. And yet, when student anger does solidify it can be very powerful indeed. Vietnam War era protests come to mind. There was even a shadow of that around the invasion of Iraq.
Complicating this long-standing question of just how angry students really are, and how to tell when they’re serious, is the new phenomenon of social media. As Obama’s campaign demonstrated, social media and digital communities can certainly be rallied to produce tangible and dramatic results. At the same time, thousands of people in a Facebook group can produce the illusion of a movement with no real substance. And as heavy adopters and users of social media, it’s hard to know when students are seriously pissed off and when a lot of them have simply joined a digital fad.
One thing is for certain. The organizers of these protests and the promoters of this issue have succeeded, at least, in getting “prorogue” into the public vocabulary. And that’s no simple feat. Their campaign for attention has been effective and clever. But the test is this Saturday. Will it translate into real bodies? Will people stand in the cold and give real voice to their displeasure, or is this popular discontent only sufficient to prompt the creation of Facebook groups? Because it still comes down to that. Without feet on the street no one will care.
Personally, I’m hoping for a large turn-out. Not merely because of my position on the issue, but because I’d like to believe that students do have the capacity to become active and engaged over such an abstract issue. Students pissed off about the cost of their tuition isn’t news and in fact it’s barely political engagement. It’s just obvious self-interest made manifest. Students pissed off about the state of their democracy — now that’s pretty cool.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Despite opposition, N.B. premier gets honorary degree
More than 100 faculty signed a letter of protest opposing the honour
To polite applause from the crowd, Premier Shawn Graham accepted an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of New Brunswick on Wednesday, despite earlier opposition from more than 100 members of the faculty.
Jack Gegenberg, a professor of mathematics at UNB, called it an insult to graduating students.
“By including him in that process of awarding degrees, then it’s a slap in the face to students who had to pay too much to get an education which is being squeezed by the government,” he said.
“Students have had to struggle too hard financially and in other ways to get the kind of education that they want, and it’s certainly because of government policies that maybe they aren’t quite getting their money’s worth.”
The profs are upset that a report sponsored by Graham’s Liberal government recommended major changes to the structure of UNB and the University of Moncton.
The government backed away from the changes as a result of widespread protest.
The open letter signed by the profs states in part that “regardless of any other contributions Mr. Graham might have made to this point in his career, his actions in this respect cannot be regarded as having made an outstanding contribution to our communities, nor do they show regard for higher education in the province.”
Graham, who graduated from UNB 18 years ago with a degree in physical education, told the commencement crowd that he’s pleased people can challenge him.
“What I learned here at UNB was that people who challenged my opinions weren’t enemies,” he said. “Those who made me think about my views did me a favour.”
Despite controversy, N.B. premier will accept university degree
About 100 staff and faculty sign letter of protest
Premier Shawn Graham says he is humbled by the University of New Brunswick’s decision to give him an honorary degree, despite protests about the honour in the university community.
Graham says the debate around the degree is what universities are all about.
Robert Whitney, a professor at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, is one of the authors of a protest letter, signed by about 100 faculty and staff from the school’s Saint John and Fredericton campuses.
The letter states it would be “impossible” to forget Graham’s proposed changes to post-secondary education.
Graham’s government was forced by widespread protests to back away from changes recommended in a controversial report, including changing the UNB satellite campus in Saint John into a polytechnic institution.
Some of the recommendations would have seen major changes to the structure of the University in New Brunswick in Saint John and the University of Moncton.
- The Canadian Press
“We do not accede to thuggish tactics by mobs”
U of T president responds to campus protest; says charges may be laid
University of Toronto President David Naylor’s response to last week’s protest and sit-in at the university’s administrative building, Simcoe Hall.
* Click here to read the original story.
* Click here for video of the incident
* For an analysis of the New College fee increase that sparked the protest, click here.
President’s Statement on the Events at Simcoe Hall on March 20th, 2008
to the University of Toronto Community
By David Naylor, President
March 24, 2008
Introduction
On the afternoon of March 20th, a small group of protesters entered Simcoe Hall and conducted themselves in a fashion antithetical to the University’s values and traditions of peaceful assembly. This statement addresses the background to this incident, reviews the unacceptable conduct, summarizes the actions that will be taken by the University, notes with concern the alleged role of some recognized student organizations in this incident, and re-states certain basic principles for general reference.
The Role of Students and the Right to Dissent
The University of Toronto has long upheld its fundamental belief in freedom of expression. We have done so in the basic belief that debate is a central and historic role of any university in a free society. The right of students to assemble peacefully and to express support for, or opposition to, courses of action taken by the University is similarly protected.
To ensure that students are heard systemically, the University also ensures that literally hundreds of students are actively engaged and consulted in the broadest range of university affairs, from setting budgets — including tuitions and ancillary fees — to setting codes of research ethics and planning building projects.
