so.to.say.

80 DEFUNCT FOR A WHILE

2010-09-18T04:20:00.002-04:00

Four years later I return here, surprised to find this dwarf standing in this same window. This blog has been defunct for a while. Feel free to browse the archives. So long.

79

2006-08-25T12:55:00.000-04:00

Dwarf in Window, Ottawa Ontario

78

2006-08-01T18:10:00.000-04:00

Survive

77

2006-08-01T12:45:00.000-04:00

Resistance

76

2006-07-31T16:21:00.000-04:00

To be Free

75

2006-07-29T14:26:00.000-04:00

Reflections on Class, Struggle, and Solidarity

There is an interesting discussion currently going on at my friend Victor Serge's blog, Monuments are for Pigeons (formerly titled And your little dog, too). Victor and his cadre of Marxist blogger friends had the great idea of holding a virtual reading group. The plan is to choose a book, and have each member of the group host a discussion on his or her blog about one of the chapters. The first book they're reading is Perry Anderson's 1976 book Considerations on Western Marxism.

Not having read Considerations on Western Marxism (and not having much time to delve into it right now), I feel hesitant to enter the conversation on Victor's site; is there anything more annoying than that member of the reading group who shows up -- if virtually -- without reading the book?! But Victor's commentary on Chapter 1 of Anderson's book raised some questions for me, which I feel compelled to discuss. (Since this post directly engages the discussion on Victor's blog, I suggest that you read that discussion-- including the comments -- before proceeding).

In particular, I want to contest the claim that Victor made in a comment following his first post (to which other posters implicitly or explicitly assented) that "there's fuck-all going in the struggle on right now, at least in North America" and that, consequently, "[o]ur tenuous links with class struggle threaten to devolve into a moral commitment to other people's class struggle".

In my estimation, the first part of the claim, i.e., that there is no class struggle currently being undertaken in North America at the present time, is just empirically incorrect. We just witnessed, earlier this spring, the largest demonstration in recent memory in the U.S.

we are america.
may day 2006.

On May Day, 700,000 immigrant and non-status workers marched in Chicago; over 1 million in L.A. (and 72,00 students, approximately 1/4, walked out of classes); 75,000 in Denver; 100,000 in New York City. In a recent article published on Znet and republished in New Socialist, Brian Kwoba argues that this uprising of immigrant labour represents the "birth of a new left". (I would add to Kwoba's claim that immigrant and migrant workers have always been, in Canada and in the U.S., at the forefront of class struggle and revolutionary politics. So I am not sure to what extent we can call this something "new" -- it is perhaps better thought of as a "resurgence" or "rejuvenation" of a long tradition of resistance.) In Montréal, where I am based, there's an active, militant, community-based movement for the regularization of non-status migrant and refugee people. Given that the politics and vicissitudes of (im)migration are inextricable from the needs of capital, these have to be understood -- indeed, they have to be seriously analyzed -- as instances of class struggle. The anti-colonial resistance of First Nations people for self-determination would also be productively read in these terms.

If this sounds like a strange proposal, perhaps it is because of the way in which -- despite their claims to the opposite -- many Marxists continue to conceptualize "class" and "class struggle". It seems to me (and here I go on to make a polemical generalization without providing much by way of evidence) that even as antiracist and feminist critiques of Marxism are nominally embraced by the political centre of Marxist thought, the categories of analysis remain more or less unchanged. What would a Marxist analysis that put immigrant racialized women at the centre look like?

The claim that there is no class struggle going on in North America (which I assume excludes Mexico in Victor's original formulation) -- or in the Global North more generally -- renders invisible the struggles of racialized, minoritized, and gendered communities, for whom class struggle takes place not only at the macropolitical level (as the May Day demonstrations evince) but also at the micropolitical level: in the terrain of the everyday; in the so-called private sphere; in regions of social life which an analysis which understands "class struggle" in classical terms might not be able to comprehend.

who will pick your tomatoes?
a slogan of the "day without immigrants"

On a related point, I worry about this nostalgia for the glory days of classical Marxism, which supposedly manifested a praxiology and a worldly orientation which Western Marxists or contemporary Marxists ostensibly lack. It may be true that one is a better Marxist if one is enmeshed in revolutionary struggle; but how do we understand "revolution" or "revolutionary politics"? What does a revolution look like? Who is the normative subject of this revolutionary politics (i.e., who is the representative figure, the ideal-typical person on whose behalf this politics agitates?)? Do revolutions take place only in street battles with bayonets, or might they also be said to take place in bedrooms and in kitchens? Is not this nostalgia for a Marxist past a way to avoid confronting the real battles in the political present, and the shape that these battles take? Such a confrontation might require that we develop new categories of analysis, new ways of understanding the political problem, and that we privilege different -- i.e., heretofore marginalized -- subjects of collective struggle.

Finally, I'd like to say something about the second part of Victor's claim, i.e., that "[o]ur tenuous links with class struggle threaten to devolve into a moral commitment to other people's class struggle". I have two questions to pose in response here.

First, I don't understand this idea of "other people's class struggle" -- is there not one class struggle, which transcends the borders of nation-states, of categories of "race" and gender, which exceeds the geopolitical divisions between Global North and Global South? As a member of the (international or transnational) working class, when I engage in this struggle, am I not struggling for the total transformation of society? Isn't this the supposed advantage of revolutionary socialism over so-called "identity politics"? That is, that it provides a way to understand my local experience of exploitation and oppression in terms of globalized structural relations?

Second, it seems to me that one of the most pressing and intractable problems of political resistance -- and this is by no means principally a theoretical problem -- is presented by the question of how to organize across lines of difference produced by dominance (e.g., across lines of "race," gender, and class); in other words, how to form political coalition with global Others; how to struggle -- in some cases -- against one's immediate interest; how to transcend one's descriptive social location (e.g., bourgeois white citizen of the global North) in solidarity with a "universal" politics of social transformation; how to conceptualize and relate to one's political allies, and so on. Framing political solidarity or participation in global struggle as "moral commitment to other people's class struggle" seems to suggest that such questions should take a back-seat, so to speak, to a class struggle that is properly one's own. But surely this is a false dilemma, if we want to maintain a simultaneous political emphasis on the local and on the global aspects of class struggle?

What is more, to return to the question of the relation between historical struggle and Marxist theory, it seems that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, all had this -- implicitly -- in mind. When I teach Marx to undergraduate students, one of the first questions they have is why and how would someone like Marx -- a university educated petit bourgeois philosopher -- become involved in, and devote his life to the revolutionary overcoming of a social formation which conferred on him relative social privilege? In other words, why and how would someone take on -- as a life project -- "other people's class struggle"?

Marx and Engels inspire these students to think about their relation and the nature of their commitment to a project of social transformation that does not follow immediately from their "identity." I should think that, asMarxists, we would be the first to do the same.

74

2006-05-21T18:21:00.000-04:00

utensils. b's kitchen. winter 2006.

73

2006-04-11T21:51:00.000-04:00

Demonstrator marching to stop the eviction of the student-run sexual assault centre by the administration of McGill University, at a rally held yesterday, Monday April 10 at McGill (in Montréal). This is the second time in less than a year that the administration has evicted the centre, citing space constraints. The office in question measures a mere 70 square feet.

To learn how to support the struggle to keep the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students' Society (SACOMSS) open, visit the website of the SACOMSS solidarity committee, Save SACOMSS!

72

2006-04-03T14:31:00.000-04:00

71

2006-03-26T14:53:00.000-05:00

a found composition: heap of wood scraps, in an alley near waverly/laurier

70

2006-03-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

shrine on esplanade

69

2006-03-26T14:48:00.000-05:00

organise
in an alley off waverly near laurier, montréal.

68

2006-03-18T18:54:00.000-05:00

banner of the communist party,
global day of action against war and occupation in iraq

67

2006-03-12T22:56:00.000-05:00

(g)rève générale/stationnement privé
boulevard st-laurent, montréal

66

2006-03-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

autogestion
on mont-royal near iberville, montréal

65

2006-03-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

fire hydrant no. 4
near the village, montréal

64

2006-03-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

vivre libre
near the village, montréal

63

2006-03-05T17:34:00.000-05:00

hydrant u.s.a.
off amsterdam avenue, morningside heights, new york

62

2006-02-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

stencil, in alley off st-viateur, montréal

61

2006-02-19T14:27:00.000-05:00

stencil, alley off st-viateur, montréal

60

2006-02-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

stencil in alley, off st-viateur, montréal

59

2006-02-18T00:20:00.000-05:00

58 REIGN OF THE PEOPLES

2006-02-18T00:13:00.000-05:00

You say democracy
and we know it is Bolivia's tin
Chile's copper
Venezuela's oil
Cuba's sugar
raw materials and profits

You say democracy
and it's the annexation of Texas
the hold up of the Panama Canal
the occupation of Haiti
the colonization of Puerto-Rico
the bombing of Guatemala

You say democracy
and it's America to the Yankee
it's the rape of nations
it's Sandino's blood
and Peralte's crucifixion

You say democracy
and it's the plunder of our wealth
from Hiroshima to Indochina
you spread the slaughter everywhere
and everywhere ruin

You say democracy
and it's the Ku Klux Klan
o hidden people
inside your own cities
an ogre is devouring your children

Ubu from the empire of robots
you let your ravens fly
from Harlem to Jerusalem
from Wounded Knee to Haiti
from Santo Domingo to Soweto
the people will be waving
the torch of revolution

Night is a tunnel opening on the dawn
Viet-Nam stands like a tree in the storm
the frontier which marks the place of your defeat
history's lessons have no recourse
a footbridge stretches from Asia to Africa
the reign of the white race is ending on earth
and the reign of the peoples in the universe is beginning.

-- Pòl Larak / Paul Laraque
(Translation from French by Rosemary Manno)

57

2006-02-17T10:25:00.000-05:00

René Préval. Image by Ariana Cubillos. Source: Associated Press

As of yesterday, the long-awaited results of Haiti's February 7 elections are in: René Préval has won with 51.15% of the vote, with 96% of votes counted. After ballots were found in a garbage dump and pro-Préval protesters "paralyzed" Port-au-Prince with demonstrations, charging the interim government with electoral fraud, the decision was made to allocate blank ballots on a pro-rated basis to each candidate, so as to arrive at a resolution of the increasingly explosive situation. Now, as protests turn to celebrations, questions as to Préval's plans are emerging: will he bring Aristide back to Haiti out of exile, despite opposition of global powers? Will he remain true to his popular base, or realign himself with imperialist interests under economic pressure? Will he join the self-described Castro-Chavez-Morales "axis of good" in Latin America? What of the continued presence of MINUSTAH in Haiti, hundreds of political prisoners, and widespread human rights violations at the hands of the security force and Haitian police?

56

2006-02-17T00:37:00.000-05:00

55 Madigra/Mardi Gras

2006-02-15T15:24:00.000-05:00

yo met yon mas sou figi Ayiti
mas la pran ri
li ri tout wa ak renn kanaval
e tout lòt madriga mal maske
k’ap chante ponpe danse
an Ayiti tankou aletranje
olye nèg ap prepare revolisyon
yo tonbe lan pyèj eleksyon
mas-la ri jouk kò-l fè l’mal

yo met yon mas sou figi Ayiti
mas la pran kriye
dlo ki soti lan je-l wouj tankou san
san ki te kouri lan je Jak Aleksi
san tout moun makout touye
san prizonye lame ap tòtire
san peyizan grangou ap fin manje
san malere boujwa ap esplwate
san ti Jozèf gwo zouzounn ap souse

yo achte-n an kreyòl
yo vann nou an franse
yo achte-n pou senk kòb
yo vann nou pou dola
men pa pè ti frè pa pè
tout madigra gen pou vole gagè
tankou Kiba Vyetnam Angola
Ayiti va pran chemen geriya
Ayiti va pran chemen libète

*

they put a mask on Haiti’s face
the mask starts laughing
it laughs at all the carnival kings and queens
and at all the other badly adjusted masks
that are singing jumping dancing
in Haiti as well as in exile
instead of preparing the revolution
they fell into the trap of elections
the mask laughs until its body aches

they put a mask on Haiti’s face
the mask starts crying
tears falling from its eyes are red as blood
the blood that ran from the eyes of Jacques Alexis
the blood of all the people the macoutes killed
the blood of all the prisoners the army tortured
the blood of the peasants hunger is devouring
the blood of the poor that the rich are exploiting
the blood of the little guys the bigshots are sucking

they buy us in Creole
they sell us in French
they buy us for pennies
they sell us for dollars
but don’t worry young brother don’t worry
all the clowns are gonna have to beat it
Like Cuba Vietnam Angola
Haiti’s taking the path of the guerrilla
Haiti’s taking the road to liberty

-- Pòl Larak / Paul Laraque

54

2006-02-15T14:40:00.000-05:00

53 Haiti: Elections Under Occupation

2006-02-14T11:38:00.000-05:00

A week later, the results of Haiti's first ostensibly "democratic" presidential election since the ousting of democratically-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide are still indeterminate. Why is that?

image by Dominique Esser from HaitiAction.org

As Brian Concannon reports on HaitiAction.net

"Haiti's elections on February 7 went well enough that the post-election vote counting should have been uncontroversial. The turnout was huge, there was almost no violence, and the people's choice was so clear that the second place finisher received less than 12% of the vote. But incredibly, a week later the final results have not been declared, and the Electoral Council is in disarray. The voters have taken to the streets to protect their vote, and the clear winner is alleging fraud"

René Preval, who, in the most recent reported count, won 48.76% of the vote with 90% of the ballots counted, is calling for an inquiry into the election, charging fraud:

We are convinced that either massive fraud or gross errors stain the (electoral) process" Preval said earlier in the day, adding that the official results "do not correspond with reality."

A pro-Preval demonstrator. Image from La Patria

Pro-Preval and anti-imperialist demonstrations continue despite the repressive tactics of the occupying force (consisting of approximately 7,300 U.N. troops and 1,750 international police). One person was brutally killed when "peacekeepers" opened fire on a demonstration yesterday.

Under conditions of ongoing occupation (now entering its third year, as we near the second anniversary of the coup in which democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted by a coalition of imperialist nations) how can elections be anything but anti-democratic? In nations that support the occupation, the Haitian elections are trumpeted as a sign of democracy returning to Haiti; but democracy is not compossible or compatible with occupation.

Brazilian Juan Gabriel Valdés, commander of MINUSTAH (the Brazilian-led UN "security" force in Haiti) and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, remarked to an Associated Press reporter that “If you have had elections in Iraq and in Afghanistan, I don't see why you can't have elections in this country. Elections are not only positive but indispensable.”

The comparison is instructive: in all three cases, elections are a tactic callously used by the occupying force to evince the supposed democratic order it has "restored" to the occupied region. The thing is, the occupying force didn't depose a dictator or an oppressive regime in Haiti, like it did -- still problematically -- in Iraq and in Afghanistan; it deposed a democratically elected president, who had a mandate which he won with over 90% of the vote. Meanwhile MINUSTAH force is perpetrating human rights abuses and securing the region for lucrative "reconstruction" projects which make billions for foreign capital. The majority of MINUSTAH's victims have been unarmed civilians (especially in marginalized neighbourhoods like Cité Soleil) and dissidents. There are hundreds of political prisoners in Haiti, many of whom are being held without trial, contrary to stipulations in Haiti's constitution and to internationally recognized human rights convention.

A recent Harvard Law School Report on the UN presence in Haiti, quoted in LiP Magazine, concluded that

“MINUSTAH has provided cover for abuses committed by the HNP [Haitian police] during operations in poor, historically tense Port-au-Prince neighborhoods such as Bel-Air, La Saline, and lower Delmas. Rather than advising and instructing the police in best practices, and monitoring their missteps, MINUSTAH has been the midwife of their abuses. In essence, MINUSTAH has provided to the HNP the very implements of repression.”

Providing the implements of repression while claiming to restore democracy? That is an unforgivable tension. And any claim that the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and other nations making up the occupying force, are bringing democracy to Haiti is -- perhaps in this occupation, more than in any other -- a callous lie.

So if it wasn't to make Haiti more democratic, why was Aristide deposed in a coup organized by the U.S., France, Canada, and other nations?

Aristide, March 2, 2004: "I call it a coup d'état."

Back in January 2004, Peter Hallward in The Guardian argued that

[Aristide] remained indelibly associated with what's left of a genuine popular movement for political and economic empowerment. For this reason alone, it was essential that he not only be forced from office but utterly discredited in the eyes of his people and the world. As Noam Chomsky has said, the "threat of a good example" solicits measures of retaliation that bear no relation to the strategic or economic importance of the country in question. This is why the leaders of the world have joined together to crush a democracy in the name of democracy.("Why they had to crush Aristide" by Peter Hallward in The Guardian, January 2004):

For Canadians who like to regard themselves as the world's peacekeepers, not as the world's imperial invaders, Canada's role in all this should give them pause:

"There appears to be blood all over Canada's hands: first because it was on board for the removal of Aristide and second because it is supporting, both politically and financially, an illegitimate government that appears dead set on violently crushing any opposition. It also has a contingent of some 125 police officers who train the Haitian National Police accused of massacring civilians. And yet, the fate of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, perfectly situated between Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, sweatshop armpit to Canadian T-shirt manufacturers, the mine pit to Canadian copper companies, is scarcely discussed or covered by Canadian media.""We Turned our Back on Haiti",Toronto Star

The oppression of Haitians means unregulated, hyperexploited labour, access to resources, lucrative reconstruction contracts spun as "aid," cheap t-shirts -- a familiar story.

But popular resistance -- both inside Haiti and around the world -- continues. After all, resistance to oppression is Haiti's legacy:

In spite of horrific repression, Haitians remain conscious of their country’s heritage as the first free black republic, and, despite repeated police shootings of non-violent protestors, regularly march in the thousands to demand Aristide’s return. It is entirely apt that soon after being forced into exile, Aristide referred to the “tree of liberty”: As the slave general and hero of Haitian independence Toussaint l’Overture declared upon his forced removal two hundred years earlier, “In overthrowing me, you have cut down in San Domingo only the trunk of the tree of black liberty. It will spring up again by the roots, for they are numerous and deep.”"The Roots of Liberty: Repression and Resistance in Haiti" by Ben Terrell in LiP magazine

So much for teaching democracy to Haiti. One might say that they invented it, at least in this hemisphere.

52

2006-02-14T00:27:00.000-05:00

50

2006-02-08T22:57:00.000-05:00

49

2006-02-08T22:54:00.000-05:00

48

2006-02-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

47

2006-02-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

46

2006-02-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

I've added a new link to my growing list of blogs I rely on for news and analysis. It's to misnomer, "a weblog about the politics of new and old media, foreign policy, tech, culture, philosophy, and photography," written by Dru Oja Jay, who edits The Dominion, a national grassroots newspaper. If you're looking for an incisive alternative to McConrad news, consider subscribing.

45

2006-02-01T12:06:00.000-05:00

Anne McLellan on the legality of security certificates, 16 Nov 2005

44

2006-02-01T11:51:00.000-05:00

43

2006-02-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

eleventh thesis on feuerbach

i'm learning how to make stencils with help from stnclrvltn. check out their easy as 1-2-3 photoshop tutorial. it shows you how to convert a photograph into a stencil.

42 Canadian Election Redux

2006-01-25T10:59:00.000-05:00

So the election came and went, and with it, it seems, nearly all sense of civic engagement. It was amazing, walking from voting station to voting station (trying to figure out where i was supposed to vote in my disorganized state matching a notoriously disorganized province), seeing so many people on the street, talking about politics. And i was struck by this disproportion: perhaps the most energy expended by most people toward things political is directed toward this, possibly the least effectual thing one can do - as an individual - in the public sphere.

To return to the running theme of my election "coverage," that is, gender parity, here are the final numbers:

63 women were elected (20.45%)
Conservative: 14 out of 124 seats
Liberal : 21 out of 103 seats
Bloc: 16 out of 51 seats
NDP: 12 out of 29 seats

Remember, in 2004, it turned out that 65/308, or 21.1% of parliamentarians were women. So things are actually getting worse, not better, for women in the House of Commons?

Also, Alberta went totally to the conservatives this time around. A sea of blue, rising tides of desperation.

Anne McLellan, former Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

The only up-side: Anne McLellan, Liberal incumbent in Edmonton Centre, is finally out of the House -- you may remember McLellan as the intrepid Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness who callously defended the supposed constitutionality of security certificates.

Security certificates are issued by this ministry, at the advice of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service). These certificates, under the the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) allow the State to arrest permanent residents or refugees who have committed no crime, throw them in jail, and detain them indefinitely, without charging them publicly, with the aim of deporting them. Neither the accused nor their lawyers are allowed to know the content or the basis of their charge.

Amnesty International has denounced security certificates, saying that "the security certificate process falls far short of international standards for fair trials and may result in arbitrary detention and violation of the right to liberty." In a letter to Anne McLellan, Canadian legal experts argue that the certificates violate human rights, and not only the letter of Canadian law.

Now McLellan is gone, but security certificates -- and the draconian IRPA remain. It's unlikely that the Conservative party will do anything to improve the situation, given its stated platform commitment to "quickly deporting non-citizen criminals." Which is code for "arrest and deport first, ask questions later... if ever."

Another issue pushed aside by non-debates about corruption, Québec independence, and manners in the House of Commons.

41

2006-01-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Bachelet: "A country of greater solidarity"

In Chile Michelle Bachelet has won the run-off election, to become Chile's first president who is a woman. A socialist who is widely considered to be a truly populist leader, she beat her chief opponent, billionaire Sebastián Piñera, taking 53.5% of the vote. The main issues of her winning platform were a promise to construct a national program subsidizing child care, improving labour laws and working conditions, and decreasing the gap between rich and poor. Imagine if these were elements of a winning platform in Canada!Bachelet has also pledged to create a cabinet with equal representation of men and women. Stick that to NDP tokenism.

What's amazing is that North American coverage of her election continues to emphasize the masculinist culture of Chile, with a supercilious tone. But someone like Bachelet -- even someone like Stronach! -- wouldn't stand a chance as a prime ministerial candidate in Canada, much less in the U.S. She's separated, a single mother, a feminist, and she seems to take women's political situation seriously, making it a campaign issue. But she won in Chile -- doesn't that say a little something about a slow transformation of gender politics in that culture? In Canada, the leader of the New Democrat party is still spewing rhetoric about women's virtue from the nineteenth century! How's that for social change!

40 Gender Parity (or lack thereof) in Canadian Electoral Politics, II

2006-01-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

Women are vastly underrepresented in Canadian representational politics -- at all levels. The numbers are pathetic.

At the federal level, this time around, women constitute a mere 23.2% of candidates.

The raw data:

* Only 380 women (as opposed to 1,254 men) are running for parliament. Some ridings have no women candidates in any party -- you can only potentially vote for a woman in 78.2% of ridings.

* O.k., yes, that's an improvement since the days of Agnes Campbell McPhail (the first woman elected to the House of Commons, in 1921). But the number of women candidates actually fell from 2004. And the percentage of women who are actually elected has, lately, been even lower than the percentage of women who run for government -- 16.62% (in 2000 and in 2004).

* The party with the highest percentage of candidates who are women in this election? The one-woman-party Animal Alliance Environment Voters, at 100%, followed, at a long distance, by the New Democrats at 35.1%, also the party with the highest number of women candidates, 108 (as opposed to 200 men -- no transgender candidates are listed by any party).

* The Progressive Canadian and Marijuana parties are nearly tied for last place in terms of gender parity, at around 4% -- or, one woman candidate. But the other three major national parties aren't lagging too far behind:

* The Conservative Party boasts 38 women (versus 270 men), or 12.4%. No big surprises there.

* The Liberal Party is running 79 women (as opposed to 229 chubby-jowled white men), i.e., 25.6%. Well, that's easily explained: not many shipping magnates are women.

* And the Bloc Québécois 23 women (and 52 men), or 30.7%. Tabernacle.

As for aspiring national parties, the Green Party is hovering at the standard set by the Liberals - 72 women or 25.3%. But then, voting for any Green, man or woman, is voting for Mother Nature. Uh, right. And the Communist Party is running 7 women, or 33.3% -- don't worry, they're for the elimination of gender oppression...after the revolution.

So, in the 2004 election, 65/308, or 21.1% of parliamentarians were women. How does this compare to other nation-states? No nation has perfect parliamentary parity. But some states -- especially those engaged in post-war and post-colonial reconstruction -- have quotas that aim for parity; Canada does not. Since 2003, Rwanda has the highest percentage of women in its parliament, at 48.8%, or 39/80 seats. This is the closest any national government in the world has come to equal representation of women. Yet women have only had the right to vote in Rwanda since 1961.

Source: UNFPA

The current heads of government who are women (all nine of them) could fit around my dinner table (if we squished a little). Not that I'd very much like to invite many of them... Listing past women heads of government would take about 1 minute (there are thirty). If invited to a dinner party, Thatcher's first move would be to slash appetizers (the main course would soon be similarly imperiled). Bhutto and Macapagal-Arroyo would exchange stories of corruption ad nausaeum. Throughout, I'd be worried that Meir would decide to set up house in my apartment. And Campbell would leave no sooner than she walked through the door, to many exclamations of "good riddance."

What explains this global state of affairs? Why are women in this overdeveloped country underrepresented? Maybe Jack Layton has it the wrong way around: electing more women to government might not change things, but we need to change things in order to elect more women to government. And then, we need to elect women who change things.

39 Gender Parity (or lack thereof) in Canadian Electoral Politics, I

2006-01-11T19:56:00.000-05:00

Women's issues - or, for that matter, gender oppression - have hardly registered on the election campaign radar, report Andrea D'Sylva and Linda Christiansen-Ruffman of rabble.ca:

"In the most recent House of Commons, women comprised only 21 per cent of the elected total. Currently, women make up 25 per cent of all party candidates, which does not augur well for change. This disparity in representation affects the way women's voices are heard and creates a serious imbalance in a theoretically equal society. Thus, candidates in this election must be made aware of concerns that matter to women: livable incomes, affordable housing, absence of violence, and the presence of quality, public services. These concerns not only matter, but they affect women's access to their basic human rights."

During Monday's debate, New Democrat leader Jack Layton argued that the election of more women to parliament will change both the style and the substance of Canadian politics. In a rather self-congratulatory tone (mitigated only by the recognition that "we still have some way to go"), Layton reported that 37% of the NDP's candidates are women, and strongly intimated that if we want to "clean up" Canadian politics (get rid of the scrappy culture of question period, and teach those MPs some decorum) we'd better elect some of 'em. I'm all for gender parity in government (and, duh, universal suffrage) -- but the argument that electing women will somehow infuse politics with moral virtue is as old as Christabel Pankhurst.

Christabel Pankhurst

It may have been a strategically effective argument for suffragists to make in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it is just a plain old anachronism coming from the 'stachioed lips of Jack. Will electing more women to federal government change conditions for women? Maybe, if these women are feminists. Will it civilize the house of commons? Maybe, if these women are civil (but even then, probably not). In this day and age, is there a more wishy-washy liberal way to argue that women are under-represented in Canadian parliament than this? Hardly. This under-representation needs to be analyzed as forming part of a system of oppression, in which women are exploited, violated, and, by insidious as well as overt means, destroyed. Try: still earning 71 cents to the man's dollar; lack of access to abortion and basic health care in rural Canada; second-class, heteronormative immigration and residency laws that trap women in abusive domestic relationships; sexual assault rates showing no sign of diminishment; the rise in homelessness, poverty, and the corresponding deterioration of women's mental and physical health; eighty women missing from Vancouver's Downtown East Side; five hundred aboriginal women murdered or missing in the last thirty years... What might it mean to make these election issues? What would this take? Probably more than a few more good, upright women teaching manners to politicians -- and maybe manners are overrated, anyway.

P.S. If you haven't already, you have to head over to and your little dog too to see the implicit logic of campaign signs teased out (with a little help from Illustrator) by Victor Serge! Worth a laugh.

38 Redefining Generosity

2006-01-08T21:53:00.000-05:00

The rich-as-shit step up to the plate of global poverty...And TIME Magazine gobbles it up.

"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year" -- TIME Magazine, December 2005.

What is wrong with charity? What, more precisely, is wrong with celebrity charity? Am i just being cynical if i condemn it as being fatuous, mere hot air that does nothing to change the status quo and even can be said to preserve the very social structures that make charity possible in the first place?

"This was already a year that redefined generosity. Americans gave more money to tsunami relief, more than $1.6 billion, than to any overseas mission ever before. The Hurricane Season from Hell brought another outpouring of money and time and water bottles and socks and coats and offers of refuge, some $2.7 billion so far. The public failure of government to manage disaster became the political story of the year. But the private response of individuals, from every last lemonade stand to every mitten drive, is the human story of 2005." -- TIME Magazine

But can private responses resolve public problems, or are they structurally-necessary safety valves in an inhuman, dehumanizing political system? Can transnational responses to global poverty -- along the lines of what Bono et al advocate -- on the charity model be anything more than a refusal of historical responsibility: a twenty-first century version of the white man's burden, which seeks to bury the history of colonialism and imperialism that conditions the dismal present under a mythology of the "generosity" of western civilisation? Plus ça change, my friends: this is the real human story, that the charity-mania of media and pop mediocrities renders invisible.

Hey, look, i like to dance in my kitchen to "where the streets have no name," too. I've also pondered the sweet contradictions of "with or without you." I've got nothing against the constantly bespectacled Irish king of pop. As such. But Good Samaritans, no matter how cool, no matter how jazzy, no matter how rich, can't eradicate cruel systems: only the people can do that, together, for each other. And this means that people like Bono, actually, need to give up -- not gain -- power. "Apart from his music stardom, Bono is a busy capitalist (he's a named partner in a $2 billion private equity firm)..." reports the adulatory TIME article -- so he "spends several thousand dollars at a restaurant for a nice Pinot Noir" once in a while; so what? Doesn't he deserve a little break from redefining generosity?

Ah...

Weeell, he might fancy himself a man of the people, but that nice Pinot Noir makes for a dark stain against Bono's prole cred. As does his bizarre on-again, off-again friendship with Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. But that's a sordid story for another day. The point is, TIME's Persons of the Year work their shit on the backs of the People of the World, even as they make self-congratulatory efforts to "rescue" us. Who is going blind soldering those circuit boards to run your buggy programs, Billy boy? Who is losing fingers -- and squandering their human possibility -- making those wrap-around shades for your mass-marketed-charity-king-cool, Bono baby? Those making poverty history bracelets produced by structurally empoverished, hyper-exploited Shenzhen workers -- what's the deal, Geldof? The point is, to be brief, that engaging in revolutionary politics requires making actual choices. One of them, if your gig is making poverty history, might be giving up the Pinot Noir... or at least giving it away. Now that's redefining generosity. Or at least putting your money where your mouth is.

37

2005-10-16T11:21:00.000-04:00

I've neglected this blog over the last two months...in the meantime, the Omni workers ended their strike after management yielded to their demands. The disaster of American domestic policy that Hurricane Katrina made visible indisputably showed the world the foundation of injustice on which U.S. society is based. A Muslim infant was listed on Canada's no-fly list, propelling the Muslim-Canadian community into taking legal action against the government. Teachers in British Columbia have gone on strike, and the government and its legislative branch have imposed draconian restrictions on their right to fight for better working conditions. Another "natural" disaster has devastated South Asia, bringing into relief the inhumanity of the unnatural disaster that is global capitalism. No shortage of occasions to struggle...

36

2005-09-14T17:45:00.000-04:00

The struggle of Omni hotel workers continues. This is a struggle for respect, as they write in their blog:

Nous avons l’intention d’obtenir le respect qui nous est dû. C’est pourquoi, nous entendons bien rester dehors tant qu’il ne sera pas possible de rentrer au travail dignement avec une convention cinq étoiles comme les autres travailleuses et travailleurs de l’hôtellerie.

(My) Translation: They're not giving up until they get the respect they fucking deserve!

You can, perhaps, tell I'm very angry about this. It's because what the workers are asking for is so minimal, that it exposes with incredible accuracy the brutality and callousness of capitalism. Omni management refuse to grant the CSN-represented workers the following demands:

"1. des augmentations salariales de 3%, 4% et 4% respectivement, pour chacune des trois années du contrat de travail venant à échéance le 30 juin 2008
[salary increases of 3%, 4% and 4% respectively, each year for three years of the contract going into effect on June 30 2008];

2. l’obtention d’une allocation de départ à la retraite pour les salarié-e-s de 55 ans et plus
[a retirement allowance for workers over 55 years];

3. huit jours de congé de maladie par année payables la première journée dont sept sont monnayables
[eight (!) paid sick days per year];

4. le partage des primes d’assurance et l’avance des prestations par l’employeur en cas de non-paiement par l’assureur
[that the employer pays a share of insurance premiums].

For those of you not familiar with the economic landscape of downtown Montréal, let me put it to you this way: the Omni hotel is not "just" exploiting workers; it is superexploiting their labour for hyper-inflated profits by denying them these basic rights (sick leave, security in retirement, a living wage with standard of living increases). In other words, ceding to the workers' demands would hardly bankrupt the Omni (as if that even should matter!). The Omni is a five-star hotel that caters to the international jet-set: it makes a shitload of money off workers' backs; it can afford to treat them (a little more) like human beings.

To show solidarity with striking workers, we can show up at the picket line at the corner of Sherbrooke (west) and Peel, any day, any time between 8:00 a.m. and 8 p.m. Or, you can make a donation to their strike fund. As they say, it takes just a little bit of our time, but it means a lot to them:

Les personnes qui voudraient nous témoigner leur $olidarité sont invitées à se rendre sur la ligne de piquetage, tous les jours, de 8 heures à 20 heures, au coin des rues Sherbrooke Ouest et Peel et/ou à faire parvenir leur don au CCMM. C’est un geste qui prend peu de temps mais qui fait tellement chaud au cœur quand on se heurte à un employeur aussi têtu et irrespectueux que l’Omni Montréal.

And of course -- boycott the Omni! (Not like for most of us it is even within the realm of possibility to enter through its gilded doors!)

35

2005-08-29T23:35:00.000-04:00

Workers at the Hotel Omni on Sherbrooke Street in Montréal are still on strike after a lock-out on July 8th, holding out despite management's illegal hiring of scab labour to keep the hotel running, intimidation tactics, and the international jet set crossing the picket lines. For almost three months, they have been marching in a tight circle on Sherbrooke at Peel. Their demands? Minimal, to say the least: a gradual wage increase (11% over three years) and the abolition of the "wage ladder" (so, after 30 days on the job, it's equal pay for equal work (from Strike/A Infos). These have been won by other hotel workers in the city, who participated in the general strike of July 8 and have since arrived at agreement with management. But since workers at each hotel have to negotiate separately with management, and Omni management refuses to negotiate, the workers at the Omni are still on the picket line.

I walk past the Omni picket line nearly every day, and I am struck by the energy and commitment of the striking workers. It's audible, it's visible, it's palpable. And there is a larger lesson, in this, for non-unionized workers, namely, that only with collective action can better working conditions be won. As Utah Phillips, bard of the insurgent worker, croons, better conditions won't come as a gift from the benevolent bosses, and they won't come without struggle. The so-called hospitality and service sectors are largely non-unionized, and attempts to form workers' associations in these industries has been met with union-busting and even the wholesale relocation of business (as happened after attempts to unionize WalMarts in Québec). Insecurity and violations of labour rights abound in the kitchens of your city, between stacks of sweaters at the shopping mall, under high-thread-count sheets and inside toilets scrubbed daily where you lie your head and seat your seat. To abide the violence of drudgery is one thing. To live under constant fear of being fired, of becoming homeless, of inescapable poverty, of humiliation, is another. Drudgery, more than insecurity, is perhaps an inescapable feature of work under capitalism. If only a revolution can do something about the former, a militant union can do something about the latter.

So while we are "waiting" for the revolution...let's support workers in their struggle at the Omni. in Montréal, this Thursday, at 6:15 p.m., there is a solidarity rally with the Omni Hotel workers. Meeting spot is Metro Peel, at the exit on Stanley. Soyons Omniprésent-e-s

**************
Dans la lutte, soyons Omniprésent-e-s!
Jeudi 1er septembre 18h15
Métro Peel (sortie Stanley)

Alors que les conflits dans la plupart des hôtels de Montréal ont été réglés au début de l'été en faveur des employé-e-s , le conflit à l'hôtel Omni (coin Sherbrooke et Peel) perdure. Les grèvistes, de par la loi, sont limités dans leurs moyens d'action. À chaque jour, ils et elles voient des scabs faire leur travail, pour ainsi assurer que l'argent continue d'entrer pour les patrons. En fait, l'Omni, un hôtel 4 étoiles, roule présentement à plein régime, toutes ses chambres sont occupées.

Le Réseau de Solidarité des Travailleurs-euses, un nouveau regroupement syndical de travailleurs-euses basé sur la démocratie et l'action directe, dénonce l'utilisation de scabs à l'Omni et l'arrogance des patrons qui refusent de négocier. En réponse à cette situation, le Réseau a organisé déjà deux actions de solidarité avec les travailleurs-euses en grève visant
à augmenter la pression sur les patrons de l'Omni afin qu'ils cèdent aux revendications des grévistes.

Ces actions de solidarité avaient pour but concret de contrer les effets injustes que les lois imposent aux grévistes et qui leur font craindre les injonctions. En d'autres mots, renforcir le combat des grévistes en impliquant des gens non directement touchés par le conflit. Malgré que cela n'a pas encore débouché sur un dénouement positif dans les négociations, les syndiqué-e-s de la base ont semblé dans leur ensemble fortement apprécié notre présence et notre solidarité.

Ce jeudi 1er septembre à 18h15 au métro Peel (sortie Stanley), c'est un autre rendez-vous à tous et toutes intéressé-e-s à venir faire acte de présence sur la ligne de piquetage afin de témoigner encore une fois notre solidarité envers nos camarades en lutte à l'hôtel Omni.

Confrontons les patrons avec notre meilleure arme : notre solidarité !

"Pour un syndicalisme de combat"
Réseau de Solidarité des Travailleurs-euses
rst.wsn@gmail.com, 859-9092

37

2005-08-14T17:28:00.000-04:00

Disturbed by the idea that a pledge to "commit to struggle to eliminate violence against women" might fail to ellicit more than seven responses? Then go sign it!

I started this pledge a few weeks ago on PledgeBank as a way of promoting discussion of gendered violence and generating reflection on the ways in which we can fight to eliminate it, in our local communities and around the world. But it is not doing well at all! Only seven people have signed (six of whom are feminist friends of mine, rather like preaching to the choir!) and a mere three weeks remain to reach the target of 100 signatories...

Here, again, is the full text of the pledge:

"I will commit to struggle to eliminate violence against women in my community; formally or informally support women in my life or in my community who are in abusive situations to escape them; and help to create a culture of non-violence and respect for women, starting with the way I interact with acquaintances, colleagues, friends, family, children, and my partner(s). but only if 100 other people from anywhere in this dangerous world will commit to do the same."

Link to it on your (pro-)feminist blogs, take it to the streets...Anything to start a discussion about this issue.

Because violence against women is a global epidemic. Take a look at Amnesty International's Campaign to Stop Violence Against Women to gain a transnational perspective.

Where there is oppression, there is resistance. While in Iraq feminists are fighting for the codification of human rights in the new Iraqi constitution, in the State of Lagos, Nigeria, new laws to prosecute acts of domestic violence are currently under debate:

"The Lagos State House of Assembly is currently considering a state-level bill in Nigeria on violence in the family, which provides remedies under civil and criminal law. Lagos State is Nigeria’s most populous state, containing within its borders the nation’s economic capital. Moves to confront violence against women in Lagos are likely to have a major impact elsewhere in Nigeria.

And in Uganda, according to women's rights activist Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng,

“Women’s bodies have actually become battle grounds, not only to … the rebels who are fighting government, but … even the government soldiers are violating women, and targeting their sexuality… the violation is all about destroying … the inbuilt strength of a woman to build a community, so both warring factions are targeting the woman’s body to make sure that they destroy that community through this woman."

Read the stories of activists struggling to eliminate violence against women here.

36

2005-08-14T16:43:00.000-04:00

Below is a press release from No one is Illegal Vancouver, criticizing the proposed security measures in Canada's public transit system made by the Minister of Transportation, Jean Lapierre recently. It confirms the fears of diasporic Muslim and racialized communities living in the west, that governments will exploit "the need" for heightened security after the London bombings in order to persecute racialized immigrant, refugee, and non-status populations. Western governments want docile immigrant populations; making them subject to arbitrary search and arrest practices, racial profiling, and forcing them to live in a climate of insecurity by criminalizing them is one way to produce this docility. Which is not to say that the Canadian public's fear of terrorist attack is unjustified, even if it is highly exaggerated, and mobilized by governments in insidious ways (and this fear is widespread: the CBC reports that 72% of respondents in a recent poll would support security camera surveillance in subways). It is, however, to say that it is misdirected -- and precisely in choosing, as its target, immigrants, refugees, and non-status people, it becomes xenophobic. Canadians should be worried: about their civil rights, about their complicity in the occupation of Iraq (26,705 Iraqi civilians killed to date, with Canadian bullets), about a government that is trying to divide and conquer its people, by making the safety of some contingent on the insecurity of others.

OPPOSITION TO BEEFING OF TRANSIT SECURITY
[No one is Illegal, Vancouver]

Vancouver August 9, 2005- Immigrant and refugee communities represented in No One is Illegal Vancouver are outraged at the security meetings conducted by Federal Transportation Minister Jean Lapierre to discuss security in Canada’s public transit system in the wake of the London bombings.

Upgraded security measures in the post 9/11 climate have led to an increase of racial profiling and invasion of privacy rights. Within weeks of 9/11, Canada has implemented a wide array of laws and practices in the areas of criminal law, immigration law, tax law, employment, intelligence services, and airport security. Further Orwellian measures, such as the increased use of cameras in subway and trains proposed by LaPierre, will have a devastating effect on the right to privacy in public spaces and despite government assurances, will have a disproportionate impact on racialized communities.

“We are increasingly moving towards a paranoid police state as Canada is moving towards harmonizing security policies with the United States,” states Amal Rana, member of the immigrant and refugee rights group No One is Illegal.

In the United States, two elected officials Dov Hikind and James Oddo, have publicly stated that Middle Easterners should be targeted for searches on city subways as they fit the “terrorist profile.” Hikind further stated, “They all look a certain way and …[they are] a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.”

According to a January 2004 handout, the Department of Homeland Security advises U.S. border authorities to look out for certain "suicide bomber indicators." They include a "A short haircut or recently shaved beard or moustache may be evident by differences in skin complexion on the head or face. May smell of herbal or flower water (most likely flower water), as they may have sprayed perfume on themselves, their clothing, and weapons to prepare for Paradise."

The American Civil Liberties Union- New York Chapter filed a lawsuit on August 4, 2005 in response to the New York Police Department's unprecedented policy of subjecting millions of New Yorkers to suspicionless searches in subways. Since the police adopted this policy just days after the London bombings, officers have searched the purses, handbags, briefcases and backpacks of thousands of people, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Harsha Walia, member of No One is Illegal, further states, “Like many human rights organizations throughout the world, we are deeply concerned about the erosion of rights since September 11, 2001. The recent push for transit security by Jean Lapierre , along with all the other so-called security measures such as Canada’s Anti-terrorism legislation and harmonization of border policies, have a fundamentally adverse impact on civil liberties, human rights, refugee rights, and political dissent.”

35 Resisting Racialized Exploitation: South African Mineworkers on Strike

2005-08-09T21:47:00.000-04:00

110,000 gold miners, members of the National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity, are striking in South Africa for better wages, in the first industry-wide strike in 18 years. The strike started on Sunday, after union-management negotiations collapsed. Miners' wages are 2500-3000 rand (around 400USD) per month, and work in dangerous and stressful conditions -- descending as far as 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) into the earth to extract gold ore. Unions are demanding a wage raise of 10-12% (so, around 40USD per worker per month), whereas the Chamber of Mines was offering 4.5-5% (around 20USD, at best) at the time the strike was called. Now, Solidarity reports that the Chamber of Mines

"will no longer take an active part in wage negotiations in the gold mining industry during the current critical phase of strikes in the industry. This comes after mining groups Anglo Gold Ashanti and Southdeep yesterday broke ranks by making individual offers to the various trade unions. The offer ranged from 5,25% for miners, tradesmen and officials; 6% for workers in categories 5 to 8 and 6,5% for category 3 to 4 workers."

The strike is reportedly hitting the gold industry where it hurts. According to CNN,

"The strike paralyzed the South African mines of the world's No. 2 gold producer AngloGold Ashanti, fourth-ranked Gold Fields, sixth-placed Harmony Gold and South Deep, Barker said Monday.

The chamber, which negotiates wages on behalf of gold producers, estimated a daily loss of around 40,000 ounces of gold production and 130 million rand ($20.17 million) in combined lost revenue per day due to the strike."

The history of labour organizing in South Africa is fraught with the same racism as pervades the wider society, even after the abolition of apartheid. According to an essay written by one M.P. Naicker about the historic 1946 African miners' strike and published in 1976,

"Solidarity between white and black workers was lost in those first thirty years, never to be regained to this day. The result has been that the white workers became the aristocrats of labour in South Africa, being among the highest paid workers in the world, while their black compatriots are, in the main, still living below the breadline. What is worse, the overwhelming majority of white workers in South Africa became the main and the most vociferous supporters of successive racist regimes."

It was not until 1941 that African workers formed the African Mine Workers' Union, under deadly conditions:

"Any attempt at organisation exposed them to the wiles of employers, the antagonism of white workers and the ferocious arm of the law...Many unsuccessful attempts were made to form a trade union prior to 1941. But in that year, on 3 August, a very representative miners' conference was called by the Transvaal Provincial Committee of the African National Congress. The conference was attended not only by workers from many mines, but also by delegates from a large number of African, Indian, Coloured and white organisations, as well as representatives from a number of black unions. Some white unions gave their moral support..."

But intimidation, arrests, and scare-tactics were widespread:

"From the first the [union organizing] committee encountered innumerable obstacles. The miners were ready to listen to its speakers, but the employers and the authorities were determined to prevent organisational meetings. Speakers were arrested and meetings broken up...With the formal establishment of the Union, organisational work began in earnest in the face of increased harassment, arrests, dismissals, and deportation of workers by the police and the mine management. Nevertheless, the Union grew in strength and influence. The Chamber of Mines, however, refused even to acknowledge the existence of the African Mine Workers` Union, much less to negotiate with its representatives. The Chamber`s secretary instructed the office staff not to reply to communications from the Union...Another serious obstacle was the wide-scale use of spies by the mine owners."

One expression of South African anti-black racism that the African Mine Workers' Union combatted in that first strike was, unsurprisingly, unequal pay for equal work:

"In 1946, the year of the great strike the wages were: Africans R87 and whites R1,106... the wage gap between the white worker and the black worker was 12:1"

When the Union first raised this issue with the Chamber of Mines, the latter apparently "made no serious attempt to rebut the Union's case, reiterating that its policy was to employ cheap African labour."

So, the workers decided to strike. On Sunday, August 4, 1946, over one thousand delegates assembled at an open air conference held in the Newtown Market Square: no hall where Africans could hold meetings was big enough to accommodate those present. Their demands were minimal, to say the least: a minimum wage of 10 shillings per day and better conditions of work for African miners. The general strike began on August 12, 1946.

Immediately, the striking miners were met with violence and repression:

"The police batoned, bayoneted and fired on the striking workers to force them down the mine shafts. The full extent of police repression is not known but reports from miners and some newspapers reveal intense persecution and terror during the week following Monday, 12 August.

A peaceful procession of workers began to march to Johannesburg on what became known as Bloody Tuesday, 13 August, from the East Rand. They wanted to get their passes and go back home. Police opened fire on the procession and a number of workers were killed. At one mine workers, forced to go down the mine, started a sit-down strike underground. The police drove the workers up - according to the Star - "stope by stope, level by level" to the surface. They then started beating them up, chasing them into the veld with baton charges. Then the workers were "re-assembled" in the compound yard and, said the Star, "volunteered to go back to work."

By Friday, 16 August, the striking workers (around the same number as are striking today) were "bludgeoned back to work." The strike was over. But, even though the state, the press and industry management called it a "failure," its political effects were lasting:

The African miners' strike was one of those historic events that, in a flash of illumination, educate a nation, reveal what has been hidden and destroy lies and illusions. The strike transformed African politics overnight. It spelt the end of the compromising, concession-begging tendencies that dominated African politics. The timid opportunism and servile begging for favours disappeared for all practical purposes. The Native Representative Council which, in a sense, embodied that spirit, in its session on Thursday, 15 August, in Pretoria, decided to adjourn as a protest against the Government's "breach of faith towards the African people". They never met again.

Nearly 60 years later, South African mine workers are, again, resisting racialized exploitation. The political conditions may have changed (some say only superficially, others say profoundly); but mine workers are still denied a living wage for performing dangerous work; mine workers are still getting the shaft while gold companies are reaping obscene profits. And once again, mine workers are courageously "challenging the very basis of the cheap labour system" and are struggling "for the right to live as human beings."

34

2005-08-07T15:29:00.000-04:00

Think cyberspace could use a little gender parity? Wondering where all the feminist and pro-feminist bloggers hang out? Take a look at the BlogsByWomen Blogroll (links on sidebar). From a teenaged university student who is thinking aloud in Kuwait, to a twenty-something butch lesbian physics graduate student searching for her truth in Texas; from a 49-year old woman reporting on her struggles for her marriage to be legally recognized in Rochester, New York, to a woman who's lost her mother to breast cancer and is sending the world postcards of grief; from the semantically driven to the philoillogical (the latter has a great critique of the misogynist drivel in today's National Post); from sisters talk (which today reviews the first televised beauty pageant for fat women in the U.S.), to talking to god -- navigate using the links on the sidebar. And be sure to check out the BlogsByWomen Directory for even more exciting blogs by women -- these are some of my favourites (mind you, I've only just started exploring): decksitter's photoblog, brown rab girl fish, renaissance culinaire, transcending gender, pinko feminist hellcat, the green lantern. Link to the BlogsbyWomen 'roll because blogs by women rock!

33

2005-08-05T12:17:00.000-04:00

The Guardian has published the full text of Tony Blair's speech on the new anti-terrorism measures that the administration is trying to implement. Unsurpringly, they focus on "foreign nationals" - non-status residents, refugees, and asylum-seekers. Here's a sampling (excerpted from Blair's speech, emphasis mine):

"1. New grounds for deportation and exclusion...The new grounds will include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs or justifying or validating such violence...We are today signalling a new approach to deportation orders. Let no one be in any doubt. The rules of the game are changing.

...One other point on deportations. Once the new grounds take effect, there will be a list drawn up of specific extremist websites, bookshops, centres, networks and particular organisations of concern. Active engagement with any of these will be a trigger for the home secretary to consider the deportation of any foreign national.

2. New anti-terrorism legislation [will be introduced] in the autumn. This will include an offence of condoning or glorifying terrorism. The sort of remarks made in recent days should be covered by such laws. But this will also be applied to justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere, not just in the UK.

3. Anyone who has participated in terrorism or has anything to do with it anywhere will automatically be refused asylum.

4. We have already powers to strip citizenship from those individuals with British or dual nationality who act in a way that is contrary to the interests of this country. We will now consult on extending these powers, applying them to naturalised citizens engaged in extremism and making the procedures simpler and more effective.

5. Cases such as Rashid Ramda wanted for the Paris metro bombing 10 years ago and who is still in the UK whilst France seeks extradition, are completely unacceptable. We will begin consultation, on setting a maximum time limit for all future extradition cases involving terrorism.

6. A new court procedure which would allow a pre-trial process. We will also examine whether the necessary procedure can be brought about to give us a way of meeting the police and security service request that detention pre-charge of terrorist suspects be significantly extended

7. For those who are [non-naturalized] British nationals and who cannot be deported, we will extend the use of control orders. Any breach can mean imprisonment.

8. To expand the court capacity necessary to deal with this and other related issues, the Lord Chancellor will increase the number of special judges hearing such cases.

9. We will proscribe Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the successor organisation of Al Muhajiroun. We will also examine the grounds of proscription to widen them and put proposals forward in the new legislation.

10. It is now necessary, in order to acquire British citizenship, that people attend a citizenship ceremony, swear allegiance to the country and have a rudimentary grasp of the English language. We will review the threshold for this to make sure it is adequate and we will establish, with the Muslim community, a commission to advise on how, consistent with people's complete freedom to worship in the way they want, and to follow their own religion and culture, there is better integration of those parts of the community presently inadequately integrated. I have asked Hazel Blears [!] to make this part of the work she is currently undertaking.

11. A new power to order closure of a place of worship which is used as a centre for fomenting extremism and will consult with Muslim leaders in respect of those clerics who are not British citizens, to draw up a list of those not suitable to preach who will be excluded from Britain.

12. We will bring forward the proposed measures on the security of our borders, with a series of countries specifically designated for biometric visas over the next year. Meanwhile, the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office are compiling an international database of those individuals whose activities or views pose a threat to Britain's security. Anyone on the database will be excluded from entry with any appeal only taking place outside the country.

...If legislation can be made ready in time and the right consensus is achieved, we are ready to recall parliament in September, at least to begin the debate over the measures.

...Coming to Britain is not a right. And even when people have come here, staying here carries with it a duty. That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life. Those that break that duty and try to incite hatred or engage in violence against our country and its people, have no place here. Over the coming months, in the courts, in parliament, in debate and engagement with all parts of our communities, we will work to turn those sentiments into reality. That is my duty as prime minister."

Scary shit, indeed. The Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, nationalist tenor of the proposed measures is not, to my mind, at all tempered by Blair's question-begging disclaimer, that "this is [legislation] not in any way whatever aimed at the decent, law-abiding Muslim community of Britain." It is clear that this legislation attempts to further solidify the two-tiered citizenship system (national vs. naturalized) by limiting the rights of naturalized citizens and making immigration and citizenship more onerous processes for certain populations. For if it is true that "coming to Britain is not a right," there is no sense in which "being born in Britain" is a right, either. It doesn't follow from this that, once in Britain, one should not have certain inalienable rights, indeed the same rights as others, regardless of when or how one got there.

Especially disturbing are the measures to institute a so-called "pre-trial process" for the investigation and prosecution of terrorist activity; this is tantamount to allowing arrest and detention without charges, and in Canada - which implemented "security certificates" to achieve this shortly after 9/11 - it has meant a disastrous contravention of basic human rights. And it doesn't take a genius to see the repressive use to which the anti-terrorism legislation which criminalizes "condoning and glorifying terrorism" will, undoubtedly be put. What counts as "condoning" terrorism? Attempts to explain its causes? It's quite clear that this is a strategy to silence any and all criticism of Britain's foreign policy. From the blacklisting and possible deportation of those who visit or run "extremist bookshops," to the right to shut down places of religious worship, to the eventual implementation of biometric visas, this spells trouble for basic human freedoms in a country that, in the aftermath of the July 7 bombing was heaping praise on itself for its "calm" response, righteous fearlessness and multiculturalist tolerance. If those things are true of the the British people, they're certainly not true of Blair's government.

So the British -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- should be mighty worried. Because, at bottom, the "sentiments" that Blair wants to "turn ... into reality" are nothing more than thinly-veiled chauvenism, racism, and xenophobia. And the new proposed anti-terrorism measures will do less to eliminate terrorism, and more to curtail freedoms of speech, increase racist and anti-immigrant attacks, and ensure that racialized and minoritized people live in fear. This isn't about preventing terrorism; it's about terrorizing communities and criminalizing oppositional movements. It's opportunistic, it's hypocritical, it's appalling, and it must be resisted, both in Britain and around the world.

For more analysis of the proposed anti-terrorism measures, see Lenin's Tomb.

32

2005-08-03T17:32:00.000-04:00

I've added a link to Transdada, a clearinghouse for "poetics, time, body disruption and marginally queer solutions" and its sister-site, In Words, "documents of personal struggles for queer freedom." On the latter, read an interview with gay activists in Iran, publishers of MAHA, a Persian queer e-mag. Here's an excerpt in which they discuss reaction to the July 19 execution of two gay teenagers and, more generally, being queer in Iran:

"MAHA: inside Iran, there is a large number of NGO like children's rights, women's rights, human rights groups etc. but also Ms. Shirin Ebedadi (peace Noble prize winner) protested against the execution. The situation in Iran is so that no one can talk openly about GLBT rights so those who protested, they protested against execution of children (one of the boys was clearly under 18 years old). The other problem is the conflicting messages from authorities, so no one wants to defend someone who raped a young 13 years old boy, as authority claims now.

GayRussia: What is the situation of gays in Iran? How can gays live in the atmosphere of constant fear?

MAHA: The GLBT situation in Iran has changed over the past 26 years. The regime does not systematically persecute gays anymore, there are still some gay websites, there are some parks and cinemas where everyone knows that these places are meeting places for gays, furthermore it is legal in Iran that transsexual applies for sex change and it is fully accepted by the government. There are some medias which sometimes (not often) write about such issues. Having said that, the Islamic law, according to which gays punishment is death is still in force but it is thought not much followed by the regime nowadays."

The interview was conducted by Nikolai Aleksiv of GayRussia.ru.

31

2005-08-03T13:21:00.000-04:00

CNN reports that the frequency of islamophobic hate-crimes in London has increased by 600% since the July 7 bombings:

"Scotland Yard figures showed there were 269 such incidents reported since the bombings, compared to only 40 in the same three-and-a-half week period last year.

In the immediate three-day aftermath of the attacks there were 68 faith hate crimes in the capital. There were none in the same period 12 months ago."

More disturbing still is the fact that British Muslims are facing harassment and assault from both sides of the law. The illegitimate "stop-and-search" of Muslims based on racial profiling has been criticized by Muslim and anti-racist communities since it first started happening, shortly after September 11: In July 2004, the Islamic Affairs Central Network reported that

"Today's Home Office figures revealing a huge 302% increase in the number of Asians who were stopped and searched by the police in 2002/2003 serve to confirm the impression that since 9/11 institutionalised racism in the police force has gradually been morphing into an institutionalised Islamophobia.

The figures also revealed that the police had an arrest rate of only 13% of those stopped and searched. Regrettably though, neither figures were provided for the number of those that went on to be actually charged or convicted of any offence nor did the figures indicate the religious affiliation of those involved. The MCB calls upon the Home Office to urgently make good this unacceptable deficiency in the interest of greater transparency"

In the aftermath of the bombings, and of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Home Office and London police have responded with continued opacity, not greater transparency, of its policing practices. Both administrations continus to officially deny the occurance of racial profiling in "stop-and-search" practices and claim that Muslims are not being targetted in the investigation into the July 7 terrorist attacks. A representative of the Home Office, meeting with the Muslim community, insisted that "counter-terrorism powers are not targeting any community in particular but are targeting terrorists," according to the BBC. Reportedly, "she also opposed racial profiling, saying stop and searches should be based on good intelligence, not just skin colour" (emphasis mine). But in a political context where Muslims are overdetermined as "terrorists," and as racialized people are criminalized, such disclaimers ring hollow.

And so, Muslim leaders are urging Muslim women who wear the hijab to unveil, for their own safety. Dr Zaki Badawi, who heads the Muslim College in London and acts as chair of the Council of Mosques and Imams was quoted by the BBC advising Muslim women to remove this conspicuous sign of Muslim-ness so as to avoid harassment and attack:

"In the present tense situation, with the rise of attacks on Muslims, we advise Muslim women who fear being attacked physically or verbally to remove their hijab so as not to be identified by those hostile to Muslims...A woman wearing the hijab...could suffer aggression from irresponsible elements. Therefore, she ought not to wear it. Dress is meant to protect from harm, not to invite it."

Similar suggestions were made to North American Muslims after September 11. I recall being present at one community meeting during which some Muslim women responded with indignation at this - admittedly pragmatic - advice. In a society that touts itself as multicultural (as both Canadian and British societies now do), assimilation shouldn't be the price one pays for personal safety. And so, feminists on my university campus, at the time, organized a solidarity action with Muslim women being targetted for wearing the hijab, during which all women (including non-Muslims women and Muslim women who did not normally veil) veiled themselves. The point is that the non-Muslim anti-racist community needs to organize against Islamophobic attacks (institutional and individual), instead of allowing the privatization of Muslims' safety.

30

2005-08-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've just started a pledge to end gendered violence (violence against women and non-normatively gendered people) at PledgeBank. This is the pledge:

"I will commit to struggle to eliminate violence against women in my community; formally or informally support women in my life or in my community who are in abusive situations to escape them; and help to create a culture of non-violence and respect for women, starting with the way I interact with acquaintances, colleagues, friends, family, children, and my partner(s). but only if 100 other people from anywhere in this dangerous world will commit to do the same."

Be the first to sign it. Link to it on your blog. Or tell your friends about it. The point is to stimulate public discussion about gendered violence, the ways in which we participate in it or endorse it through inaction, and the ways in which we can commit concretely to eliminate it.

(The "...but only if 100 other people do the same" bit is merely strategic...)

29 Iraqi women protest proposed constitution

2005-08-02T11:46:00.000-04:00

Iraqi women staged a sit-in in downtown Baghdad on July 19 to protest the erosion of women's rights in the new Iraqi constitution, which is currently under construction. This demonstration barely registered in the international press, but the Guardian ran a short article about it:

"Despite the appalling security situation in Iraq (two Sunni members of the committee who are drafting the constitution were gunned down last week), thousands of brave Iraqi women, from different governorates, risked their lives last Tuesday when they congregated in Baghdad's Al-Firdaws Square to protest against their exclusion in the draft constitution. The international press, busy reporting the continuing violence of the insurgency, failed to cover this event and it got little publicity within Iraq."

Many rights guaranteed by the provisional constitution (the Transitional Administrative Law, or "Tal," adopted in March, 2004) are not explicit in this, permanent, version, making Iraqi feminists nervous about what has been described as the "Talibanization" of occupied Iraq. Feminists -- who organized massive demonstrations throughout Iraq -- succeeded in blocking the passage of resolution 137 as part of the "Tal," a set of rules which has been described as " in effect allowing the total subordination of women to men within their families, in the community and in political life" (Guardian). But this success was short-lived: Resolution 137 has reappeared as Article 14 in the current draft of the constitution, and, with pressure from the U.S. administration to ratify the constitution by August 15, will likely pass -- unless Iraqi feminists are able to mobilize mass feminist opposition.

According to a statement made by UNIFEM, "[o]f particular concern to Iraqi women activists and civil society groups was a chapter of the constitution on duties and rights, which now refers to Shari'ah (Islamic law) as the "main source" for legislation in the new constitution" (paraphrased by Reuters). U.S.-based women's rights NGO MADRE claims that the current draft of the constitution "subordinates guarantees of women's human rights and international law to religious Shari'ah law and replaces one of the Middle East's most progressive personal status laws with arbitrary interpretations of religious law." Specifically, MADRE warns that

"if this draft is agreed upon, it could give self-appointed religious clerics the authority to inflict grave human rights violations on Iraqi women, including denial of the rights to freedom of movement and travel, property inheritance, and custody of their children. In the worst instance, forced early marriage, polygamy, compulsory religious dress, wife beating, execution by stoning as punishment for female adultery, and public flogging of women for disobeying religious rules could all be sanctioned if the language in this draft is upheld" ("MADRE Opposes Abolition of Iraqi Women's Human Rights in Draft Constitution," July 20).

MADRE's sister organization in Iraq is the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). Yanar Mohammad of OWFI argues that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is responsible for the rise of religious sectarianism in that country, which has manifested itself in the ways in which the new, reactionary constitution departs from minimal provisions for women's equality in the secular 1959 constitution. Stimulating sectarianism and "balkanization" have served as strategies to entrench the occupation and diffuse the resistance:

"Since the beginning of the occupation, the US administration has recognized Iraqis according to their ethnic/nationalist and religious identities. This predetermined polarization of the society around its most reactionary forces has resulted with a most lethal weapon which is a government of division and inequality - a potential timed bomb for a civil war that has already started. Furthermore, the only mutual agenda for the parties in power is one of oppression, bigotry and misogyny in addition to representing the US occupation interests" ("Condemn a constitution of de-humanizing women")

Azar Majedi, writing in a special English-language issue of the Farsi socialist feminist journal Medusa, affiliated with the Worker's Communist Party of Iran, argues that throughout the Middle East, the rise of contemporary forms of political Islam is directly related to U.S. imperialism in the region:

"[i]n its present form and shape, political Islam, as a powerful force in the mainstream of political conflicts in the Middle East, is a product of the West and in particular the USA. For twenty odd years, the USA and the West created and reared political Islam as a weapon in the Cold War and against the rise of communism and the Left in the region. In 1978 they foisted the Islamic Republic onto the people of Iran in order to head off the "threat" of the Left's victory in the revolution. In the war against the Soviet Union, they let loose first the Mujahedin and then the Taliban on the people of Afghanistan. During this time, against the people's struggle for freedom and secularism, they have defended the religious and Islamic movements in the region, backed the corrupt and dictator Islamic states and supported large and small Sheikhdoms. These creatures are products of the West" ("Sexual Apartheid is a Product of Political Islam: Let's Rise Against It").

If we needed yet another example of how the U.S. is concretely supporting the rise of religious fundamentalism as a way of opposing peoples' struggle for radical self-determination, the institutional and material assault on women's rights in Iraq provides us with one. It's hardly news that U.S. not only supports, but produces fundamentalist politics when and where fundamentalist repression is an expedient means to achieving political and economic control of an invaded or occupied nation. But it stands to be repeated: the dilemma between opposing U.S. imperialism and opposing misogynist Islamic fundamentalism is a false one, quite simply because the latter is an organ of U.S. imperialism. The U.S. administration's dissociation from political Islam is part of its attempt to, on the one hand present the so-called "moderate" provisional government and the new constitution as expressions of democracy indigenous to Iraq, and on the other hand, to present the Iraqi resistance as fundamentalist and therefore anti-democratic. The constitution, and particularly Article 14, gives lie to both of these constructions.

Therefore, the U.S.-backed institutionalization of Shari'a law in the Iraqi constitution, and particularly Article 14, should be seen in the context of this strategy of repression in Iraq. Women comprise about 60% of the Iraqi population, and, as members of civil society and as members of the Iraqi resistance have been the most vocal opponents of the U.S.-occupation of Iraq. A blanket law that dominates and silences all women would obviously generates an atmosphere of insecurity and fear. This is clearly an attempt to expel and marginalize dissident and resistant women from the public sphere, to curtail the growing feminist movement in Iraq, which has been a political priority Bush regime in its "spheres of influence" in other parts of the world and domestically.

MADRE, in solidarity with OWFI is urging Americans to circulate its open letter to the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, which demands that Khalilzad "stand[s] in support of Iraqi women who are calling on the United States to meet its legal obligations under the Hague Convention, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and UN Security Council Resolution 1325 to uphold the internationally recognized rights of Iraqi women under US occupation." The limitations of this approach are obvious; but it is one part of an international mobilization of feminist support for Iraqi women -- long overdue, and profoundly needed.

28 de Menezes: Victim of the Politics of Global Insecurity

2005-07-29T18:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's news: according to the CNN, murdered civilian Jean Charles de Menezes was living in Britain on an expired visa. Now, it is de Menezes who has expired. The triumphant tone of this report suggests that, well, as an illegal resident, and a racialized person to boot, de Menezes was pretty much asking for it. His innocence - given this new information - has come under suspicion: while de Menezes was not a terrorist, he was guilty of the next best thing; he was an illegal resident.

The elision between terrorists and non-status or "illegal" residents is a keystone of the war on terror. Because alongside and subtending the war on terror, there is another war going on in the global north: a war on migrants, immigrants, refugees, and non-status people. The politics of fear have made possible the overt criminalization of some of the world's most vulnerable people. Border security measures and new refugee and immigration rules adopted since the bombings of 9/11 have arguably done less to stop terrorism, and more to block legitimate refugee claims; to prevent the immigration of racialized "undesirables"; and to make possible formerly illegal detentions and deportations of non-status people.

Take, for example, the so-called Safe Third-Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., which dictates that a refugee entering Canada from the U.S. cannot seek refugee status here (and vice-versa). This agreement is part of a broader program of harmonizing Canadian and U.S. refugee and immigration policies, which has as its eventual end the complete merger of refugee, immigration, and border policies of Canada, U.S., and Mexico. In March of this year, a report was written jointly by Canadian, American, and Mexican officials, recommending the establishment of a joint security perimeter as part of the formation of the so-called "North American Economic and Security Community." The report, endorsed by the Canadian, U.S., and Mexican administrations in late March 2005, proposes measures to "build a North American economic and security community by 2010. To enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity for all North Americans, the chairs propose a community defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter." Concerning "security," among the most unsettling concrete recommendations of the report were the following:

"1. Develop a border pass for North Americans. The chairs propose a border pass, with biometric indicators, which would allow expedited passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout North America. "The governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically reducing the need for physical scrutiny of traffic, travel, and trade within North America."

2. Adopt a unified Border Action Plan. The three governments should "strive toward a situation in which a terrorist trying to penetrate our borders will have an equally hard time doing so no matter which country he elects to enter first." First steps should include: harmonized visa and asylum regulations; joint inspection of container traffic entering North American ports; and synchronized screening and tracking of people, goods, and vessels, including integrated "watch" lists. Security cooperation should extend to counterterrorism and law enforcement, and could include the establishment of a trinational threat intelligence center and joint training for law enforcement officials. On the defense front, the most important step is to expand the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command to make it a multi-service Canada-U.S. command with a mandate to protect the maritime as well as air approaches to North America. Canada and the United States should invite Mexico to consider closer military cooperation in the future." (Quoted from Canadian Council of Chief Executives report. In-text quotations in the text are from the trinational report. Emphasis is mine.)

Clearly, if implemented, these recommendations signal the formalization or institutionalization of U.S. hegemony over North America. And they spell trouble for immigrants and refugee claimants. What's interesting is how "community" is being defined here: by the imposition of an economic border, and by the increased militarization of national borders. But really, given the commodification of human beings, these two aspects really amount to the same thing. Whether it's the traffic in goods or the traffic in people, they are subject to much the same criteria of desirability and undesirability. Essentially, "community," on this conception, is about keeping the right, or, rather, the "wrong" people out, especially those from the global south, seeking asylum from political and economic conditions which are overwhelmingly the result of northern imperialism. North American "community" entails a retreat from, a rejection of global community. And while these policies claim to be about the enhancement of "public" security, in fact, they are contributing to global insecurity, for the majority of the world's people, including ordinary civilians in the North American nations, whose bodily integrity is coming under attack with the implementation of biometric identification technologies.

On Tuesday London's Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair revealed that 250 incidents involving innocent civilians, seven of which involved "shoot-to-kill scares," had taken place as part of the investigation into who was responsible for the July 7 bombings. This was Blair's statement justifying the "unfortunate" domestic casualties of Britain's war on terror:

"There are suicide bombers there and we have a job to do. This is a tragedy but it must not divert us from the main issue. We must be able to protect the public" (quoted by CNN)

But what construction of "the public" is operative here? Wasn't de Menezes a member of "the public"? Weren't these 250 unnamed civilians - who will, I have no doubt, turn out to be members of Britain's racialized immigrant communities - members of "the public"? The Metropolitan Police must be held accountable for its use of racial profiling in the investigation of terrorism; it must be held accountable for its use of illegal force during the investigation of de Menezes and others.

I use that word, illegal, advisedly. Take a look at this law professor's analysis of police actions in the hunt for terrorists: he argues that British law contradicts the rhetoric in defense of the police's "shoot-to-kill" response to de Menezes' "flight" from police, given that:

"(1) There is no general legal duty to assist the police or to obey police instructions. Rice v Connolly [1966] 2 QB 414
(2) There are special police powers to arrest and search. But there is no special police licence to injure or kill. If they injure or kill, the police need to rely on the same law as the rest of us."

(Thanks to Lenin for alerting me to John Gardner's webpage.)

As the family of de Menezes are burying his body, the Bush-Blair terror machine is desparately trying to bury the little open secret that the war on terrorism is nothing other than a pretext for state-wielded terror against racialized civilian populations, abroad and at home. The point is that de Menezes' murder was not an accident, but a necessary consequence of the racism inherent in the politics of global insecurity. And that's something for which the Anglo-American war of terror is unlikely to apologize: for nothing fails like success.

27

2005-07-18T12:10:00.000-04:00

To while away the time on my bus-ride to Québec this weekend, I bought the Globe and Mail newspaper, something I rarely do anymore -- which reminds me, where have my long, leisurely Saturday mornings gone, anyway? It certainly gave lie to the popular assessment of the Globe and Mail as Canada's "liberal" alternative to the slop that the ultra-conservative CanWest-Global media machine doles out (in multiple formats). In fact, its coverage of and commentary on everything -- from the anti-Muslim backlash in the aftermath of the London bombings (or, the lack of it, according to the G&M), to the economic situation in Cuba (a feature on the Cuban black market attributes it to the failure of socialism, a "testament to the Cuban government's inability, in the end, to wield absolute power and control over its people") -- shows the G&M to be the conservative, bourgeois rag that it is. Which is why I had avoided reading it, for a long while -- until Saturday. I used to have a subscription to the G&M, which I recall having to cancel in protest (the way most of my subscriptions go, eventually, it seems). And they've never published any of my many breathless letters.

But after this Saturday's edition, it seems that another such letter is in order. I was aghast, in particular, at Margaret Wente's column, titled, in typical Wente fashion, "Europe is a factory for terrorists. Are we?" Those blissfully unfamiliar with Wente should note that she has demonstrated herself in the past to be -- in my estimation -- an Islamophobe. For example, in the fall of 2003 she published a long article arguing that Iraqis weren't "ready," or sufficiently politically "mature" for democracy, proof for which she considers the possibility that they might, if enfranchized, vote for the wrong party, i.e., an Islamist one. In this installment, after giving a potted history of Muslim immigration to Britain and France, she turns to compare that history to patterns of Muslim immigration to Canada. Of course, it's not clear that what is being called "Muslim immigration" has a discernible pattern, given the obvious fact that Muslims are not an ethnic or nationally-identified group, but rather, comprise the largest religious group in the world, and reside on all continents. Not to mention that - horror of horrors! - some Muslims are born white Christians, and convert to Islam, and other people, juridically-identified as Muslims aren't observant. In any case, such inattention to detail is Wente's currency: "[i]n Europe, the whole idea of immigration is relatively new," she writes, whereas "in the U.S. and Canada, immigration is our history." It's our history, only if you conflate immigration with English and French colonialism, an elision that the textbook rendition of Canadian history consistently and neatly performs, summarized in the claim that "ours is a nation of immigrants." Neither is it true that immigration, in a loose sense, is new to Europe -- guest-working, education, and the flight from famine conditions have been among the motivating reasons for intra-European migrations for centuries. As for extra-European immigration, while this phenomenon boomed with decolonization, "Europe" has been much more racially differentiated for much longer, than contemporary xenophobic constructions allow.

But let's get to the crux of Wente's argument. Wente quotes Robert Leiken, whose recent "prescient" article, "Europe's Angry Young Muslims," published before the London bombings, suggests that the rise of Islamic terrorist activity in Europe is due to the fact that "younger Muslims [are] reject[ing] the minority status to which their parents acquiesced" (quoting Leiken). Wente insists that conditions for immigrants -- especially Muslim immigrants -- are particularly prosperous in North America, by which she means the U.S. and Canada (not Mexico), and this, according to Wente, prevents the emergence of Islamic terrorist groups born out of discontentment with social conditions:

"In North America...[Muslim] kids grow up in a society where race and background don't matter very much. Our society isn't completely colour-blind. But it's possible for an Indian boy from the Punjab to come to Canada at 17 and rise to the top of political life. It's possible for the son of immigrant Jamaicans to become the U.S. secretary of State, and for a black woman who grew up in Alabama to succeed him. This kind of meritocracy is uniquely North American. And it's what makes Canada and the U.S. two of the world's most succesful cultures."

Canadians (in particular, bourgeois Anglo-Canadians, who have been in Canada for many generations) are particularly fond of asserting that there is no class system in Canada (maybe Americans do the same, I don't know. In fact, most Americans I know are keenly aware that class is alive and well in the U.S.A.). And they are equally fond of heaping praise on themselves for fostering a multicultural society based on the "mosaic" model (in contradistinction to the "melting pot of cultures" in the United States): for, in other words, being tolerant of (politically benign) expressions of cultural "difference" (e.g., the wearing of culturally or religiously traditional dress -- as long as it's not the hijab). But the most superficial examination of the social landscape reveals an altogether different reality for racialized people, both immigrant and indigenous.

Kanada's indigenous peoples -- especially those living on reserves -- live in third-world conditions, in the midst of an overdeveloped nation. According to Kanadian government figures, only 57% of aboriginal people have adequate housing; aboriginal people are 8 to 10 times more likely than other Canadians to contract tuberculosis, a disease that, today, in the industrialized west, is overwhelmingly associated with poverty, inadequate and overcrowded housing, and poor nutrition. Because the majority of aboriginal people living on reserves do not have access to safe, potable water and proper sewage treatment facilities, they are at high risk of getting enteric and water-born diseases, that the non-aboriginal Canadian population hardly has to worry about, including giardiasis (beaver feaver), hepatitis A, and shigellosis. Life expectancy rates are lowest among aboriginal people, and infant mortality are highest. Suicide rates are highest among aboriginal youth under the age of 35. How does this reflect a meritocratic social system?

The mental/material division of labour is highly racialized, in Canada, a state whose immigration policy encourages immigration from middle-class and upper-class brackets but which does not institutionally recognize immigrants' formal qualifications -- e.g., university degrees, diplomas, or certified skills. In Canada, state-sponsored and informal racism and xenophobia conspire to make white-collar jobs and professions off-limits to immigrants "fresh off the boat." Thus most immigrants to Canada who don't have sufficient capital to start a small business (usually in the service sector), will be forced into minimum-wage jobs requiring little or no education. Wente illustrates her claim that immigrants and racialized people can escape their class location (in some cases, a location which changes radically upon immigration) in Canada or in the U.S. by refering to individuals who have, reportedly done this, among them, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. This is a red herring, an argument typically made by people who want to claim that the system allows for class mobility, and that there are no racialized obstacles to such mobility. But this only gets off the ground, rhetorically, precisely because the system only allows a few racialized, immigrant, minoritized, or working-class individuals to ascent to power -- namely, those who will support the interests of power, as Powell and Rice have shown themselves eminently capable of doing. In fact, that Wente can only name three (or any finite number of hypervisible exceptions) performatively disproves her point. In any case, the obverse isn't true: a bumbling, lying, uncharismatic white Anglo male shipping magnate won't be "rewarded" for his ineptitude under our ostensibly "meritocratic" system; no, he'll become prime-minister, and probably survive one of the biggest political scandals in Canadian history. Those, like Wente, who insist that ours is a meritocracy have to explain how and why it is that the vast majority of people in power are white, male, rich, non-naturalized Canadians. (And any explanation of this phenomenon will quickly reveal its racist true colours.)

Racists and those who benefit from racialized class exploitation have always attempted to insulate themselves and to conceal their racism in the production of the myth of the happy slave, the prosperous immigrant, the grateful refugee, the civilized native. Here's a newsflash, Wente: most recent immigrants, refugees, and non-status people -- especially those who can't pass because of their racialized status -- would not agree that their merit determines their life-conditions, and they would disagree that "race and background don't matter very much" in Canada. Neither would Canada's aboriginal people. On the contrary, their lives are structured, overdetermined, and dominated by the political difference that race and origins make. These communities face a set of specific dangers at the hands of the state that is, supposedly, so tolerant of their "difference": racial profiling, police brutality, the limitation of their rights to due process, and their basic human rights by racist domestic and foreign policy (here I am thinking of security certificates, deportations, being forced to live underground). And they face racism, at the hands of their ostensibly tolerant, merit-loving white Canadian neighbours; a racism with many formal and informal manifestations, which affects them in all aspects of their lives: in the kind of employment they'll get; in the kind of education and life-chances their children will have; in the shape of their social relations, marital and familial relations, friendships; in their "choice" of neighbourhood, housing; in how, what or whether they will eat; in whether their child will lose its life to the criminalizing indiscretions of a racist police officer; in whether their child will die of a preventable disease; or in whether their house be consumed by what would have been, outside the reserve, an extinguishable fire.

All of which tells us two things: 1. That the denial of the existence of racism is, itself, racism. And -- what did I expect? -- 2. That I should go back to not reading the Globe and Mail. It's a no-good way to spend a Saturday.

26 Review of Kiarostami's Ten

2005-07-10T12:46:00.001-04:00

A couple of nights ago I watched Abbas Kiarostami's 2002 film, Ten. I was struck by how claustrophobic a space the interior of a car, the interior of this woman's life, was. But also by the kind of proximity that women can achieve, and can fail to achieve, in the face of alienating conditions. And by the depth of passion this woman exhibited, in the most ordinary and unremarkable of circumstances. Although the film is set in Tehran, Iran, I don't think it is reductive to say that its drama -- centred on this woman's intimate relations -- is transferable to other geopolitical locales, to other patriarchal cultures -- like mine. And this is the effect of Kiarostami's deep humanist intuition: to enable affective and political identifications with individuals who are normally constructed as our "Other"; whose experience, values, and desires are constructed as the very antithesis of our own.

I once had a conversation in passing with an Iranian acquaintance about Iranian film. He was very critical of the politics of importation of Iranian film by the west, claiming that although the Iranian film industry predominantly produces comedies, the west only imports its tragedies. Western audiences therefore only have access to Iranian films that support the prevailing, orientalist western construction of Iranian culture and politics, and especially its gender politics. But, to my mind, Kiarostami's Ten is an exception. For, while it has something of the heaviness that I, as a western cinemaphile, associate with Iranian film, Ten also is infused with the energy and humour and passion of a woman who refuses to be dominated, and who, to a certain extent, succeeds in eschewing normative gender ideology, embodied and transmitted by her young son. Ten acquaints us with a woman who tries to have ethical relations with strangers as well as intimate friends, and whom we often see struggling and failing to do so, with a woman who is trying to learn how to love herself. As a character, she is not unproblematic: but this too is instructive, from her paternalistic interaction with a sex-worker whose contempt for her bourgeois hypocrisy is palpable, to her unreflective stance on domestic labour.

In a non-didactic way, Ten shows us the mundane negotiation of feminist politics on the ground, by an ordinary, politicized woman. It arrests the orientalizing gaze, and controverts the western construction of Iranian women -- and Muslim women more generally -- as entirely divested of agency, and as lacking a sense of self independent of the projects, desires, and needs of others. It depicts an Iranian woman as mobile, both literally and metaphorically agentially engaging the world, encountering obstacles, to be sure, but obstacles much like those women encounter -- and have become accustomed to seeing as apolitical or normal aspects of their lives -- in the west. In fact, by occasioning the identification with its central character, who does regard the limitations society places on her freedom and her desires as political, Ten generates questions about the status of social roles in the western viewer: if the normative pressure to be a paragon of maternal love is political in Iran, is it not also political in Canada? Ultimately, viewed under the right lens, Ten can be seen to motivate the argument that we need a transnational feminist politics, precisely because women simultaneously share and don't share an experience of oppression, and so that women can flourish as subjects everywhere.

25 War on Terror is War of Terror

2005-07-08T12:13:00.000-04:00

Fifty people are reported dead and over 700 injured, with casualties expected to double in number as emergency response teams continue their search through London's underground. Take a look at Lenin's Tomb for analysis of the bombing of London, its political causes, and its political exploitation:

"The interpretation of Labour Against the War, Socialist Worker, Mike Marqusee and George Galloway was that this is the catastrophic blow-back from Blair's foreign policy, that Londoners are paying the price for a policy that they didn't implement and by and large didn't even support"

As London mayor Ken Livingstone declared, the attack on London targeted working people, taking public transit to work that morning. (My friend Victor Serge makes an argument along these lines -- see his blog And your little dog too). Though no group has formally claimed responsibility at this time, already all fingers are pointing toward "Islamic extremists", and claims that the attacks have all the "hallmarks" of an al-Qaeda operation are proliferating in the Anglo-American press. (Al-Qaeda may well prove to be responsible; that is beside my point here.) Even though Londoners are apparently reacting calmly to the tragic events, the potential for retaliation against Muslim and immigrant communities in Britain is high, especially in light of the thinly-veiled, islamophobic statements of leaders of the self-described "civilized world". "I think we all know what they are trying to do", said Blair in an official statement yesterday:

"they are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cower us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not, and they must not, succeed. When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm. We will show, by our spirit and dignity, and by our quiet but true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs. The purpose of terrorism is just that, it is to terrorise people, and we will not be terrorised." (Emphasis mine...but implicitly his)

Thanks for the illuminating tautology, Tony. And thanks, for once again displaying your prediliction for the most eggregious of double-standards. Because "the slaughter of innocent people" was, manifestly, also the modus operandi of the Anglo-American imperialist invasions and occupations of Iraq, of Afghanistan, of the Balkans. And the victims of those brutal wars and occupations are ordinary civilians, "innocent people," in Blair's terms. Britain and the U.S. are nations at war, and these attacks are acts of war, and war always terrorizes ordinary, working-class, powerless people. And what about terror in its other, more mundane forms? What about systemic inequality, inescapable poverty, starvation, poisoned water, unemployement, homelessness, barred access to life-saving medicine, life-long drudgery, indebtedness, indenturement, oppression...? In Afghanistan, ostensibly liberated by the U.S. over three years ago (but where U.S. bombing continues),

“39 percent of the population in urban areas and 69 percent in rural areas have no access to clean water. One child in eight dies because of contaminated water. People living in Kabul and other urban areas have electricity only a few hours a day...Life expectancy is 44 years. One woman dies from pregnancy-related causes every 30 minutes. All this in a country that has been forcibly handed to the institutions that the G8 leaders tell us can make poverty history." (Elaheh Rostami Povey quoted in Socialist Worker)

Global in/security, in its many forms, is terrorism, to which billions of people around the world are subject, and who now are expected to be grateful for the pittance they are handed with much self-aggrandizing moralistic fanfare by the leaders of the so-called civilized world. At the much-anticipated culmination of the summit at Gleneagles, the G8 has pledged a mere 50 billion USD in aid to Africa, and has agreed to the cancellation of the debts of 18 of the world's poorest nations (14 of which are in Africa). Two developments which had been announced before the summit even began. And how does this commitment to "relieve" these nations of their debt measure up, in political economic terms (terms which are deliberately and consistently eschewed for moralistic platitudes)? Well, as the Green Left Weekly reports,

"Britain’s annual contribution to the debt write-off will amount to between $70 million and $96 million, which is much less than the Blair government spends on its occupation of Iraq each year, and just a shade more than the $67.1 million it forks out each year in payments to maintain Queen Betty Windsor and her dysfunctional family. Washington will need only find between $130 million and $175 million a year, which is almost three times less than it spends each year just to run its Baghdad embassy. The total 10-year cost for the US is around what Washington will spend to build a new embassy in the Iraqi capital. Washington alone spends $2 billion a month to wage war in Iraq. If those figures call into question the “historic” scale of the West’s benevolence towards Africa and the Third World, compare them to the US annual “defence” budget, which will be more than $441 billion in 2006 alone. Or to the G8's spending $350 billion year on subsidies to its agribusinesses, which allows the of flooding Third World markets with cheap produce that has devastated local producers. Or compare it to Britain’s income from arms sales to Africa, which topped £1 billion (US$1.8 billion) in 2004. Or to US President George Bush’s cutting taxes for the richest Americans by $200 billion a year. It should be also noted that debts owed to the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank are not included in the deal, nor are the Third World countries’ huge bilateral debt burden (that is, debt owed to individual rich countries)." (Emphasis mine, quotation from "Africa Needs Justice, not Charity," at Green Left Weekly)

Organizations lobbying the G8, most prominently Oxfam and the Make Poverty History Coalition, declared their disappointment at the G8's all-too-minimal, all-too-typical commitments. The question is, why, in the first place, did they invest hope in the leaders of the world's most powerful nations, who have repeatedly and consistently demonstrated themselves to be the most callously indifferent, destructive forces on this sad, struggling little planet? Why go along with the show, when its fraudulence is so transparent? And why reproduce the politics of dependency and implicitly endorse the racist, self-serving rhetoric of the "white man's burden" by appealing to the G8 to "restore" Africa? The eminently concise words of Ghanian socialist Mani Tanoh are worth repeating here:

“We will not beg for aid from the G8. Instead we demand justice.”

What is needed is a unified call for reparations. The G8 must be resisted as the world's plunderers that they are, not aggrandized as the world's leaders, or much less, the world's saviours.

My hope is that Londoners -- and British people, in general -- will make these connections between what is considered around the world as the reign of terror of the Bush-Blair regime and the acts of terror against civilians in the west. That they won't retaliate against Muslim Britons, South Asian, Middle Eastern and African immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, that they won't reproduce their leaders' islamophobia and racist constructions of a "civilized world" subjected to acts of "barbarism", that they'll resist the us/them logic in Anglo-American foreign policy and in their own neighbourhoods; that instead, their calmness will give way to anger, the kind of anger that has the potential to occasion epiphanies on a mass scale, and which they'll harness in order to collectively take Blair down. My hope is that they'll expose his complicity with terror, both at home and abroad, and they'll begin to demand justice, for Africans, for Iraqis, for Afghanis, for Palestinians, for non-status people hunted by immigration authorities and dominated by borders, for Americans -- whose political morale and imagination are likely at their lowest levels ever -- for themselves, and for all of us, taking the same underground train day in, day out, suffering little deaths of spirit, little amputations of our being, which compound, ossify, deaden us, little by little, with routinized regularity, as we wait for something to change. My hope is for a very different kind of explosion, one that has the power to "stop all speeding trains" -- to quote Joe Hill; an explosion of the collective human spirit, against terror in all its forms, against terror waged against all the world's working people.

24

2005-07-06T11:54:00.000-04:00

Iraqi doctor and political activist Dr. Salam Ismael, the general secretary of Doctors for Iraq Society, has been denied a visa to enter Canada. Dr. Ismael had been planning a Canadian speaking tour organized by the Canadian Peace Alliance and the Toronto-Gatineau coalition Together Against the War/Ensemble Contre la Guerre to report on conditions currently facing occupied Iraqis, and to recount his experience of the U.S. siege and massacre of Fallujah (known as "Operation Phantom Fury"), in November of last year (see his article in Socialist Worker: "Fallujah:The Truth at Last" at www.socialistworker.co.uk).

The grounds for the decision to deny Dr. Ismael the visa seem spurious, to put it mildly: Dr. Ismael, who is 28 years old, was told that his application for a visa had been rejected because he had “insufficient employment opportunities in his home country (Iraq)” and therefore posed a risk to stay in Canada. A particularly ironic statement, given the Canadian government's participation in the decimation of Iraqi civil society over the last 15 years, of which widespread unemployment is but one symptom. But clearly, political reasons motivate the Canadian government to refuse Dr. Ismael entry into the country (Dr. Ismael was also denied entry into Britain earlier this year, again on questionable grounds. The U.K.-based Stop the War Coalition is taking legal action against this political censorship). The Canadian and British governments seem to consider Dr. Ismael a threat to national insecurity and to the success of the continuing Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. After all, Dr. Ismael has been witness to the violation of human rights and the commission of war crimes, under the Geneva convention by U.S. forces.

Most recently, he has been speaking out about the actions of U.S. military in Haditha and Al Qa'im, west Iraq, where “an urgent humanitarian crisis is unfolding ... US soldiers have conducted simultaneous military operations in cities across the area. Between May-June 2005 the heaviest of these attacks took place in the cities of Haditha and Al Qa’im. These cities and surrounding villages are home to an estimated 300,000 people. Eyewitness and medical personnel in the area have described how US soldiers prevented food and medication reaching Haditha and Al Qa’im and targeted the cities’ two main hospitals, medical staff, and ambulances. US soldiers violated the Geneva Convention and international law by preventing civilians from accessing healthcare. Eyewitness reported at least one patient being shot dead in his bed on a hospital ward. Doctors were prevented from assisting patients and civilians in need. A number of doctors and medical personnel were killed in the attack and others were arrested by US forces in the hospital. They were later released, along with the hospital manager who was detained for two days. The huge military operation in the area has caused widespread damage and an unknown number of civilians were killed and injured during the attack. Video footage shot by doctors shows a badly damage medical store in the Haditha hospital and damaged surgical theatres. The medical store contained medicine and equipment for all hospitals and medical centers in the west of Iraq. Staff and patients say the damage was carried out by ‘by violent and barbaric US soldiers’." (Doctors for Iraq Society quoted in Iraq Occupation Focus Newsletter at www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk)

Meanwhile, according to CBC radio, after the largest demonstration in Scotland's history was held on July 2 (in which more than 250,000 people participated) Scottish police has "cancelled" the anti-G8 demonstration planned at Gleneagles today, reportedly because of damage to property for which "anarchist" factions in the last rally are being blamed. How easily fundamental civil rights - like the right to association and assembly, the right to free speech, and the right to occupy public space - are trumped by the precious rights of a few broken BMW windows, and all this in one of the west's leading "democracies"! So much for appealing to the good conscience of Tony Blair et al to "make poverty history"; instead, under his watch, the G8 machinery is continuing to make dissent history.

What's also interesting is the convergence between the critique of liberal anti-poverty politics (representatively, those of the Make Poverty History coalition) coming from socialist quarters, on the one hand, and the statements coming from G8 leaders and their aids, on the other, chastising "naive" demonstrators for expecting fundamental change in Africa to come from the G8 meeting - "you can't do it in one summit," says Tony Blair (you certainly can't - especially if you aren't planning to "do it" at all); "if I was to say that I was going to cure all the evils of the world in one Summit, no that would be an exaggeration", concedes Blair, but " I think we are getting there on Africa...I am optimistic we will make progress". But what, precisely, constitutes "progress"? Forget aid and debt relief, the west should be paying reparations for centuries of colonialism; forced deportation; indenturement and slavery; for the decimation of languages and cultural groups; for the role the partition of Africa has played in conflicts since "decolonization"; and for the destructive economic and social effects of the forced liberalization of markets as a condition of IMF loans and international aid. Blair is at his most despicable when he claims that "the world, rightly, looks to the G8 to show leadership on Africa". In fact, what the world wants is an end to Anglo-American neocolonialism in Africa and globally, and an end to imperialist wars and occupations. 250,000 people in Edinburgh declared this (in however inchoate a way) a couple of days ago. 10 million people on five continents declared this on the eve of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. That you can't eliminate all the world's "evils" in one G8 summit is indisputable: especially since eight of the world's evils are the G8, safely ensconced by a wall of steel and wire and riot police, plotting how to secure their Empire, predicated on the domination of the very people whom they claim look to them for "guidance". (To read the full interview with Blair, by John Lloyd of The Financial Times take a look at the official G8 website at http://www.g8.gov.uk -- but it's really just more of the same.)

23

2005-07-03T20:53:00.000-04:00

My friends A.R. and M.M. are in Dawson City, on the last legs of their cross-Kanada McCleave Suitcase Gallery Tour: they curated a travelling cross-country exhibit of art works on the theme of "Trade and Exchange" that fit into the interiors of suitcases. On their Montréal stop, I was lucky to catch the opening show here, featuring the work of local artist Kit Malo (which was about Montreal icon Louis Cyr and the gentrification of a working-class neighbourhood, St-Henri) as well as the other suitcases they'd collected along the way (starting in Halifax, Nova Scotia). They're keeping a blog documenting their travels to various art communities (big and small) and their misadventures (like when their van got broken into in Winnipeg, and all the suitcases were stolen! Luckily, the thief didn't think they had a high resale value and stashed them under a random porch nearby) - definitely worth a look (link on sidebar). And there are apparently plans for a European McCleave Suitcase Gallery Tour when A.R. leaves her home in Toronto to study cultural theory in Amsterdam.

P.S. [02.08.2005] In fact, the second installment will take place here in Canada. To submit bookworks for consideration to the Second McCleave Suitcase Gallery Tour, on the theme of lineage, take a look at the call for submissions.

22 Make Poverty History: the politics of charitable consumption

2005-07-02T15:31:00.000-04:00

In solidarity with the U.K.-based Make Poverty History Campaign (part of the Global Campaign Against Poverty), which is holding a mass rally today in protest of the G8 meeting in Edinburgh, I've added a link to their website (at the foot of the page). In so doing, I don't want to endorse the Campaign without reservation: for while they correctly diagnose the problem of poverty as a political phenomenon, they seem to place inordinate faith in the power of the existing social system (with some fairly minor structural modifications) to eliminate this phenomenon. The campaign consists in raising public awareness and stimulating public discussion about poverty (both good things) and pressuring politicians (especially Tony Blair, and the British government) to "make poverty history" by living up to commitments to cancel third-world debt, to increase international aid, and to regulate trade. All good policy suggestions, to be sure. But will they make poverty history? Doubtful. If poverty - and structural material inequality more generally - is a symptom of private property, only the elimination of private property will translate into the eradication of poverty. And this will require more than a few concerned e-mails to Tony Blair.

Which brings me to the second objection I have: throughout their manifesto and their eponymous publication, Make Poverty History continually emphasize how easy it is for citizens to participate in social transformation. A strategic misrepresentation, I expect, but a problematic one, nonetheless. I'm all for making mass politics accessible to most people, who have little leisure time or psychic energy - and I have a distaste for the activist who defines political practice as an ascetic devotion, such that only the privileged few have time or resources to participate; such martyrdom is really about self-glorification, not social change. But is making poverty history as effortless as Make Poverty History seems to suggest? According to them, it seems that all that's standing between human flourishing and the dismal present are five simple steps. We "buy the book" ("brilliantly simple, but life-saving", the website gloats) and/or the underpants (designed with the young in mind, apparently). We wear the branded bracelet. We advertise the campaign on our website. We write earnest appeals to Tony Blair to help him see how "simple" eliminating poverty really is. We show up to a "spectacular" rally once (today). And we all do it by ourselves, but as we've been told, and at the same time; (buy) now, now, now. Now - is this political participation, or is it consumerism?

P.S. (03-07-05): My friend V.M. told me that she's seen ersatz charity-branded bracelets, in the style of the Make Poverty History bracelet, for sale in Toronto's Chinatown. They say "love" and "peace" but the proceeds don't go to a charity or political coalition - they go to the store-owner. But this is precisely what the commodification of politics leads to: depoliticization. The claim is that Live 8 and Make Poverty History aren't about charity, they are about justice: but the connection between buying a bracelet and fighting for justice is tenuous, at best. Which doesn't mean that people shouldn't wear their politics on their sleeve or enjoy politicized cultural events - but surely the struggle doesn't end there, and it's doubtful that it productively begins there, either.

P.S. 2 (04-07-05): Thanks to Victor Serge, for leaving a comment directing me to Lenin's Tomb for more dirt on Make Poverty History. See also the critique of the MPH/Live 8 "mobilization" against the G8 by the Committee for a Workers' International.

P.S. 3 (08-07-05): The G8 summit is over, and (surprise!) its final proclamations will ensure that poverty remains very much a thing of the present. I'm removing the Make Poverty History banner, not least of all because of its conciliatory response to the G8 aid, trade, and debt relief program:

"Make Poverty History has become an unprecedented movement of passion, energy and solidarity. Never before have so many people in the world come together, fully united in demanding action to end poverty, with a roar for justice that they felt was impossible to ignore. Today the G8 have chosen not to do all that campaigners insist is necessary to free people trapped in the prison of poverty. Important steps have been taken - steps that will bring hope to millions. But more action is urgently needed if they are to play their role in bringing about real change for the world's poorest people and consigning extreme poverty to the history books. To secure a deserved place in history, the G8 must go a lot further and secure real change by working with other world leaders at the UN summit on the Millennium Development Goals and talks around the World Trade Organisation. The people of the world are already on the road to justice. They expect their leaders to be with them. Today's announcement has shown that the G8 need to run much faster to catch up."

The MPH campaign an "unprecedented movement"? Hardly. The G8 bringing "hope to millions"? Cynicism, drudgery, suffering, and hunger, is more likely. And since when are we only interested in "consigning extreme poverty to the history books"? What about "moderate" poverty? Relative poverty? Those are acceptable? The G8 needing to "run much faster to catch up?" Isn't it unbearably clear that the G8 are proceeding in precisely the opposite direction?! I've had it with MPH's lukewarm admonitions, timid proposals and general G8-ass-licking!

21 Klein Notwithstanding

2005-06-29T12:50:00.000-04:00

Now that gay and lesbian marriages have been legalized by the Canadian state (a charter of rights issue, and therefore under federal jurisdiction) Alberta's premier Ralph Klein wants to make it as difficult as he can for gays and lesbians -- and heterosexuals, for that matter -- to act on that right in Alberta. Klein said yesterday that the province might withdraw from sanctioning marriages and just recognize civil unions. This would mean that one could not marry outside of a church in Alberta: ''We simply wouldn't be involved in the solemnization of marriage,'' Klein said.

"There are no legal weapons. There's nothing left in the arsenal," Klein lamented, on hearing the outcome of the parliamentary vote yesterday. And this is precisely the point: now that the religious right's position has been revealed for what it is -- unconstitutional homophobia -- those who espouse this view have no formal recourse to the state apparatus to defend it. So now the right -- where it holds power, as in Alberta -- is trying to change the law so as to render the decision impracticable. Of course, this is something the Liberals, and the queer marriage lobby, should have anticipated (and they probably did) when they wrote the Bill so as to leave religious institutions outside its scope. It is because no religious institution has to abide by the government's comprehensive definition of marriage that this tactic of Klein's could succeed in rendering that charter-based definition merely formal, at least in Alberta. This shows two things: (1) that the Alberta government is, in effect, trying to solidify its theocracy -- through an attempt to undermine the separation of church and state; and (2) that if the purpose of Bill C-38 was to effect social transformation, then its parameters should have included civil society, forcing religious institutions to recognize the legitimacy of queer marriage.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper is suggesting that the vote was illegitimate because the passing of the bill required the endorsement of the separatist Bloq Quebecois. I most certainly will need another cup of coffee before I can begin to deal with that bit of logic.

Until then, take a look at my friend Victor Serge's astute comments on the passing of Bill C-38 -- link to his blog, And your little dog too, on the sidebar.

And for more crap from Klein, see the CBC's story:

www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/29/newsamesex050629.html

20 Canadian queers can marry! Now queer politics can move on

2005-06-29T11:42:00.000-04:00

Bill C-38, which extends marriage rights to gays and lesbians passed today by considerable margin in favour (158 to 133 votes). While I tend to agree with radical critiques of gay and lesbian marriage (I agree with radical critiques of heterosexual marriage), this is a victory for gay and lesbian rights in Canada. Queer critics of gay marriage, like Jean Bobby Noble, caution that the struggle for gay and lesbian marriage actually re-entrenches heteronormative conceptions of "love" and "community" that support capitalism, not to mention domesticating transgressive sexuality:

"This inclusion of same-sex spouses could be construed as a way to attempt to stabilize this socially constructed notion of the family, not just as a supposedly emotional centre but also as one of the success stories of capitalism.” (Noble, quoted by Susan Thomson in "The queer argument against marriage" in rabble news, February 13, 2004).

The push to extend state recognition to queer unions hardly seems a fitting conclusion to the gay liberation movement -- which at its best politicized the transmission of AIDS in the gay community as a function of homophobia; resisted heteronormativity and theorized lesbian existence as a space in which to imagine women's lives as productive and independent of men's; and revealed the contingency of gender relations based on the heterosexual contract. What might queer theory after gay and lesbian marriage look like? What might queer politics after gay and lesbian marriage look like?

Well...oddly, liberated. Liberated from the yoke of what has been the "flagship cause" of most mainstream gay organizations: namely, the struggle for gay and lesbian marriage. Now that this right, considered basic by the state, has been duly extended, queer politics might well (and really should) turn its attention to other issues: like resisting the feminization of poverty, which affects lesbians, especially racialized lesbians; like drawing connections between the homophobia that allowed HIV-AIDS to rage through the gay community (and named this so-called "gay plague" an act of god) and the racism and neocolonial interests that allow the AIDS epidemic to ravage Africa; like mobilizing with the trans community for access to sex-reassignment surgeries, and for improved, safer, technologies of self-transformation, for the de-segregation of gendered public spaces, like bathrooms; and like just generally kicking heteronormative ass (conservative party leader, Stephen Harper's ass is most prominently overdue for a good kicking).

I believe in the universal and full recognition of all human beings as human beings: I just don't think the capitalist state can ever achieve this; it is not in its design. As long as the capitalist state exists, so too will an excluded population exist, within or outside its borders; so too will there persist material inequality and class exploitation; so too will informal and formal relations of "race" and gender oppression continue to structure our lives. That doesn't mean I oppose gay marriage (at least no more than I oppose heterosexual marriage, and actually, far less) -- I'm just happy this battle for state recognition has been won (Liberal prime minister Paul Martin's self-congratulatory smirk notwithstanding) so that queer politics can move on, hopefully in more radical directions. I don't want to spoil the celebrations, but I do want to strike a note of caution: queers should not be lulled into complacency or into a false-sense of security by this show of state "tolerance". We need a materialist queer critique of this victory for queer politics -- but that can wait until after the party.

19 Enough.

2005-06-27T10:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I spent most of the day reading Andrea Dworkin's Letters from a War Zone: Writings 1976-1987. Andrea Dworkin was a Jewish-American radical feminist, who died this past year at the age of 58. For her anti-pornography stance and her uncompromising analysis of the violence of the sex/gender system, Dworkin was perhaps the most maligned feminist thinker of her generation, and - in my view - one of its best rhetoriticians. Letters from a War Zone is a collection of her speeches, articles, interviews, and reflections from that period. It includes "I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape", which is a speech Dworkin gave in 1983 at the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men, in Minnesota, to an audience of about 500 men and a few women. This is how the speech ends:

"I want one day of respite, one day off, one day in which no new bodies are piled up, one day in which no new agony is added to the old, and I am asking you to give it to me. And how could I ask you for less -- it is so little. And how could you offer me less: it is so little. Even in wars, there are days of truce. Go and organize a truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape...And on that day, that day of truce, that day when not one woman is raped, we will begin the real practice of equality, because we can't begin it before that day. Before that day it means nothing, because it is nothing: it is not real; it is not true. But on that day it becomes real. And then, instead of rape we will for the first time in our lives -- both men and women -- begin to experience freedom...If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong. For myself, I want to experience just one day of real freedom before I die. I leave you here to do that for me and for the women whom you say you love."

Dworkin's feminism was premised on an analysis of women's oppression according to which the endemic violence against women perpetrated by men (and its cultural representation, i.e., pornography) is constitutive of gender as such. In "Feminism: An Agenda" (also anthologized in Letters from a War Zone), Dworkin writes that "women's fundamental condition is defined literally by the lack of physical integrity of our bodies...our subordinate place in society begins there." Women are made into women by the institutionally-endorsed, multifarious assaults on their bodies, both actual and potential. One in three American or Canadian women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime, most probably between the ages of 16 and 18. The prevalence of violence against women in this society structures most aspects of women's existence: it truncates women's freedom of movement and self-expression; it affects the nature of their sexual and familial relationships, their relations to other women, their relations to strangers, the street, and public space; it deeply informs their psychosomatic experience and their dreams and constructions of what is "possible"...

But what struck me most reading Dworkin this time around was the fact that her feminism is also premised on a real optimism about the possibility of transformation. Her description of the conditions structuring women's lives is dismal, to be sure, and this -- along with her demand that men change their practices -- is likely what accounts for her vilification in anti-feminist and feminist circles. She's been accused of perpetuating a view of women as victims, a "victim feminism" which divests women of agency. But this criticism, I think, is misled. It's like calling Marxism a "victimology" for having an accurate, empirically adequate analysis of class exploitation. In other words, this criticism conflates the naming of the problem (e.g., oppression, class exploitation) with the cause of the problem (misogyny, or private property) Both by anti-feminists and by feminists, Dworkin is most frequently characterized as a "negative", anti-sex, man-hating biological determinist: but Letters from a War Zone controverts that caricature. Not only is her writing polemically optimistic, but -- and I found this surprising, rereading her -- Dworkin's feminism is ultimately about love; her praxis is about the transformation of oppressive social relations which preclude the possibility of love. Nearly all of Dworkin's speeches -- as I discovered reading Letters from a War Zone -- end with the insistence that the feminist struggle is really about love, about realizing a world in which love is truly possible.

Recently the mother of a friend of mine was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, at whose hands she suffered a great deal. The vast majority of women who are battered, sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured, are thus treated by men who are known and close to them, and these assaults most often occur in their homes. The domestic space is a domesticating space for millions of women (both those who are actually violated between its walls, and those for whom this is a looming threat). This violence has a social function: to keep women down. This is why I was infuriated when, at this murdered woman's funeral, no mention was made of how she died or how she struggled. Not a word was said about the millions of women who lead similar lives, who die similar deaths. And this public silence privatizes the social problem of gendered violence: it isolates women in their inhospitable homes. It forecloses the possibility of survival and it murders the possibility of a world in which love is a possibility.

Turning to Dworkin helps me to understand this woman's death -- and the many deaths of the spirit that surround such literal deaths -- as a political problem, and not as the result of the random actions of an individual. Perhaps one of Dworkin's most challenging insights is that ordinary men commit these violations; that, indeed, violating women is normative for ordinary masculinity. Men who murder women aren't psychopaths, on Dworkin's view: they belong on a continuum of normative masculinity, defined by the eroticized impulse to dominate women. Dworkin's feminism illuminates this woman's death as no mere tragic "accident", but as a symptom of fundamental, and wholly contingent, power relations. And this is useful, because it mobilizes the anger I feel at this woman's death, toward taking collective action. WIthout such analysis, such "accidents" as her death, would be, in a sense, inevitable: because accidents "just happen," there is no transformative struggle possible against them. But this woman's death, I want to repeat, is no accident. And action is not only possible, it is needed, it is necessary, for

"it is not enough to cry 'Enough.' We must use our bodies to say 'Enough' -- we must form a barricade with our bodies , but the barricade must move as the ocean moves and be formidable as the ocean is formidable. We must use our collective strength and passion and endurance to take back this
night and every night so that life will be worth living and so that human dignity will be a reality. What we do here tonight is that simple, that difficult, and that important."

-- In memory of B.K. and Andrea Dworkin.

18 Review of Solondz's Palindromes

2005-06-23T03:40:00.000-04:00

Just saw the new film by Todd Solondz, Palindromes. It reminded me of why I dislike Solondz: for the fact that he trades in the mystification of social conditions, and passes it off as a subversion of bourgeois, suburban American values. We are supposed to find the inversion (the teenager, Aviva, actually wants to get pregnant, while her parents want her to abort the fetus) at the core of the film intriguing, and the multiplicity of actors playing the protagonist an innovative narrative technique, but what motivates these two narrative choices?

In the latter case, it's Solondz' insistence that social location makes no difference: we are all equally, fatally, caught up in the human condition. Because the character of Aviva is overdetermined by her desire to have a baby (indeed, to have as many babies as possible, as she declares at one moment, so that she will always have someone to love), which is a normative desire for all women at all stages of their lifetime, she can be played by any woman, of any "race", of any age. This aspect of the film's narrative structure therefore reproduces the belief that women are interchangeable (a belief certainly communicated by anti-choice rhetoric in the so-called abortion "debate") inasmuch as what ultimately defines them is their reproductive function (indeed, all the women depicted in Solondz' film are mothers - actual or potential, adoptive or biological). But social differences do make a difference to the desires (reproductive and otherwise) that women have, and, more to the point, to their ability to access resources (for example, abortion) that enable them to actualize their desires.

The inversion central to the plot of Palindromes functions to mystify the current drama around limiting (and eventually eliminating) access to abortion in the United States (whether this was Solondz' authorial intention or not). In Solondz' America, abortion is available, accessible, and bourgeois white parents advocate it - even pressure their daughters to have it, causing them to run away (into the arms of fundamentalist Christians cum disability rights advocates, pedophiliac anti-choice assassins, and creepy pubescent boys). This film comes at a political moment when women's reproductive rights (not just the choice to have an abortion, but to take emergency contraceptives, or to take any kind of birth control) come increasingly under attack in Bush's America (and, under the global gag rule, around the world). What precisely is Solondz' "even-handed" satire of the abortion "debate" satirizing?

In all his films, in his depictions of social relations, Solondz seems to want to avoid politics -- he wants to avoid using film as a medium for the articulation of a normative position on questions about the social world, prefering to subvert all political possibilities, leaving a normative vacuum and a taste of nihilism in their stead -- but in this very attempt, to evade the political, he makes a political decision. And in the case of Palindromes, "complicating" the abortion question is code for the subtle delivery of a number of covertly reactionary, politically problematic messages about women, reproductive rights, and the politics of "choice" in contemporary America.

2005-06-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

The photographs below were taken in Berlin, during my brief visit to that lovely city in early June 2005. I used my ageing and almost too broken Olympus OM-G camera and ISO 200 kodak film. Sadly, I don't remember the apertures/shutterspeeds (I was on holiday!) and I must confess that some have been manipulated in photoshop...

17

2005-06-21T10:55:00.000-04:00

la gloria cubana
berlin, june 2005
by a.c.

16

2005-06-21T10:51:00.000-04:00

there is a crack in everything
(that's how the light gets in)
berlin wall, june 2005
2/2 by a.c.

15

2005-06-21T10:49:00.000-04:00

wire
berlin wall, june 2005
1/2 by a.c.

14

2005-06-21T10:39:00.000-04:00

statue
berlin, june 2005
3/3 by a.c.

13

2005-06-21T10:38:00.000-04:00

statue
berlin, june 2005
2/3 by a.c.

12

2005-06-21T10:36:00.000-04:00

statue
berlin, june 2005
1/3 by a.c.

11

2005-06-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

hand of engels
berlin, june 2005
3/3 by a.c.

10

2005-06-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

hand of marx
berlin, june 2005
2/3 by a.c.

9

2005-06-21T10:31:00.000-04:00

marx & engels
berlin, june 2005
1/3 by a.c.

9

2005-06-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

berlin, june 2005

8

2005-06-21T10:25:00.000-04:00

a banana
berlin, june 2005
by a.c.

2005-06-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

below: three from avenue de l' esplanade, montreal, in winter. the little bird is my favourite thing about that street ("please do not live here de bicycle " comes in at a close second).

6

2005-06-21T10:05:00.000-04:00

little bird
winter on esplanade
3/3 by a.c.

5

2005-06-21T09:57:00.000-04:00

rotten apple
winter on esplanade
2/3 by a.c.

4

2005-06-21T09:53:00.000-04:00

please do not live here de bicycle
winter on esplanade
1/3 by a.c.

PS

2005-05-31T11:35:00.000-04:00

To help me think through my recent experiences working in collectives, I read "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" by Jo Freeman, an essay first printed in 1970 in the US and which has since been circulated widely in feminist and anarchist communities. Freeman argues that "unstructured" groups (groups which "have not been deliberately structured in a particular manner" but in which informal, covert structures nevertheless emerge) reproduce broader power relations, resulting in the dis-authorization of women and of racialized people (as well as members of other oppressed groups) in their ranks. Freeman also argues that "unstructured" groups tend to be politically impotent. Instead of perpetuating the myth of structurelessness (and thereby reproducing oppression), Freeman claims that groups should explicitly structure themselves, according to seven principles of "democratic structuring": delegation (of authority or responsibility for tasks); responsibility to other members; wide distribution of power and authority to members (to prevent monopolies of power); rotation of tasks among members; allocation of tasks along rational criteria (e.g., interest, responsibility, skills); diffusion of information among all members as frequently as possible; and equal access to resources (equipment and skills). You can download free pdf copies of Freeman's essay at Struggle (link on sidebar).

3

2005-05-30T02:43:00.000-04:00

It's been a day of collective meetings, trying to negotiate structural and relational issues that invariably seem to pop up when trying to organize or produce anything collectively. It's difficult to do just because we don't have much practice in working collectively in this culture...ideologies of individualism and competition restrict our imaginations. Lately, I've been working with a group of people interested in cartography and in producing alternative mappings of social relations and of built environments. We're starting a project on "danger" - mapping (mis)conceptions of danger in our surroundings, notions of criminality, and sites of insecurity (e.g., sites of police brutality, concentrations of poverty, unemployment, etc.) This group of aspiring (if ersatz) geographers is inspired by an anti-imperialist critique of mapping (maps have participated in a constitutive way in colonial expansion and in the production of knowledge about colonized and dominated peoples), by the desire to make visible certain relations, uses of space, and sedimented histories that normally go unseen or would be productive to visualize.

I've added another link in the sidebar, to "Murmur"/"Murmure" - a really interesting project in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal which tries to engage the pedestrian in the history of the spaces s/he traverses...Take a look, and if you live in one of those cities, you can participate.

And another link: this one to my favourite free-fonts website, MisprintedType.com, belonging to Brazilian designer Eduardo Recife. You can download fonts for free or for cheap as well as admire his art (check out "Invisible", under "Projects"), and navigate his library of links to other design and digital art websites. I've never met Eduardo but I am deeply indebted to him for his beautiful typefaces. I rave about him and his fonts to everyone who cares to listen.

2

2005-05-29T12:59:00.000-04:00

The mirror project is one of my current favourite experiments in narcissism and voyeurism - see yourself and see yourself seen through reflective surfaces...The subject as object, in and through the gaze of the lens. Link on sidebar.
I've also added a link to the website of one of the people who conceived the mirror project - Heather Powazek Champ. Her photographs of mundane reflections in urban spaces delight and surprise. Supersharp.

1

2005-05-29T12:58:00.000-04:00

This is not a particularly inspired moment -- which is why i am avoiding writing by writing about nothing. Introductions are always a little awkward...

Over coffee this afternoon, my friend Victor Serge suggested that I start a blog. Take a look at his, "And your little dog too" (link on sidebar).