I was watching CityTV News last night when they aired a story about three men urinating on a national veterans memorial on Canada Day.

The news reporter said these young men had taken their freedom for granted.

I don’t buy that.

I think these young men actually hate Canadian values and freedom. But why? Why do they hate us?

From the pictures, it seemed these ostensibly Canadian-born, white-skinned men were inspired by international fascist extremist organizations that require their young followers to most heinously urinate on freedom-loving people’s memorials.

Canada has long provided safe haven to these fascist extremists. For instance, Ernst Zündel, the world’s greatest publisher of Nazi fascist freedom-hating propaganda, comfortably resided in Canada, doing his anti-freedom activities for decades, until he was recently deported to Germany to face charges relating to his Nazi fascist freedom-hating propaganda.

While it hasn’t been proven, I don’t doubt for a moment that those young men were inspired by Ernst Zündel-ian international fascist freedom-hating evil men organizations.

I think there is a growing and alarming trend of homegrown fascism, as evidenced by these men. Also, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, is reopening the debate on same-sex marriages.

Do you know who else hated homosexuals? That’s right … Hitler and the Nazi party.

We have to defend Canadian rights and freedoms from these evil fascist freedom-hating Canadian-values-defiling neo-Nazi fascist evil freedom-haters.

Otherwise, we will all have to live in a climate of fear, where white-skinned men will urinate on us because of the colours of our– wait, this sounds familiar.

ANT352Y1
South Asia: Practices, Theories, Representations 52L

This course examines the institution of the royal court in the ancient New World as a nexus for negotiation of power and assertion of cultural identity. Case studies concentrate on the Maya; Aztec and Inca cultures provide important comparative contexts. We also explore the integration of textual and material evidence in investigating ancient cultures.
Prerequisite: ARH305H1
This is a Social Science course.

I think I was 6 or 7 years old when I recognized the difference between South Asia and South America.* Maybe younger. I think it was around the same time when I realized how absurd oxymorons like “ancient New World” can be.

* Someone fucked up. This is the course description for ANT421H1, which, apparently without any sense of irony, is entitled “Royal Courts of the Ancient New World”.

ANT426H1
Orientalism: Western Views of the Other 39L

Language and imagery representing the “oriental” in the West. Emphasis on representations of the “Semites”, the Islamic peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as the Jews from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Prerequisite: ANT323Y1/ANT329Y1/any 300-level course in INI/VIC/NMC/Jewish Studies

Three guesses as to what one of the primary reading materials for this course is. Maybe I should take it and focus on comics, but it’s not offered this year. Besides, in reading over thirty years of Marvel Comics I’ve only ever once come across an Arab superhero. Arabian Knight. He wears a turban, has a scimitar, and flies on a magic carpet. I kid you not:

(That was part of Marvel’s Contest of Champions in 1982. Two years later in 1984 Marvel had a Secret Wars event. Here is one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long time, re: Secret Wars.)

Police and thieves in the streets
(Oh yeah!)
Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition

Sometimes it’s not easy to know who to be scared of — and I guess that’s the point.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

On the one hand, if it’s all true, then we (us, them, the other, those of Muslim extraction) can easily be the victims of terrorism when, say, we ride on the TTC, or go to visit the CN Tower, or do whatever it is we do. Just like you (us, them).

We can also be the victims of misguided zeal in showing the world (Bush?) that terrorists (them, the other) do exist here — when they really don’t. We might be the ones who get arrested and charged as terrorists for walking down beaches, or playing paintball with friends, or discussing Islam. For the glory of the alphabet soup agencies and their projects — Project Thread(bare?) and the like.

And then we (us, them, the other) might also be the ones who blow you up. For no good reason, of course. Because everything we do is entirely irrational and backward. Because evil exists. In this world, in our (your?) country. Hide your (our?) children, lock our (your?) doors, buy everyone a cellphone to keep in touch at all times — the newest, the latest, the greatest: family plan, weekends free and weekdays at a great price, text messaging, mp3s, on your cell phone! — protect our (your?) freedoms by restricting yours (ours?) here and abroad! Thank you for civilizing me, again and again and again.

Blow up, blown up, blown out of proportion.

And I hope to the gods, the god damned and everything in between that it’s the latter, in whole or at least in part.

The Faculty of Arts & Science is searching for a new Registrar because the incumbent, George Altmeyer is retiring.

The Dean struck a search committee. I’m on it. In addition, there are two college principals, two department chairs, a couple of folks from the deanery, and a person from human resources, as well as a part-time student. That’s a total of nine people, including myself.

I’m the only non-white person on the committee. That comes neither as a surprise,
nor as anything novel for me (or, indeed, any person of colour involved in such activities).

The committee has been meeting to interview candidates for the position. Friday, there was one such meeting.

The committee members variously ask questions of the candidate and evaluate their answers. One of the members of the committee was asking the candidate about how the Office of the Registrar could be envisioned ten years from now, or such.

The candidate responded with ideas about the use of technology to make processes more efficient, and also less time-consuming for students. While students should not have to come in for most things, the candidate said, it is important nevertheless to maintain a human face, have personnel in place, for interaction with students.

That’s when the questioner said that he certainly hoped the Office of the Registrar doesn’t become “a call centre in Pakistan.”

Everyone chuckled, except for me.

When it came time for me to ask the question, I implied rather strongly — for “great minds” anyway — that I was irked. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. No one apologized, no one said anything — the person who made the comment simply avoided my gaze for the rest of the time.

I understand the context of the statement — i.e., impersonal services — but it’s still disconcerting. It made me uncomfortable, and was almost offensive. It’s certainly not something I’d expect from a senior university administrator.

How come everyone in these meetings is white? Or mostly male? Rah rah diversity.

I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost.

– Malcolm X

In the fall of 2005, soon after the school year started, a representative from the Commerce Students’ Association came to speak to ASSU about his organization. He talked about how they hadn’t been interacting with ASSU for a considerable amount of time and so were like the black sheep. I said something like, “more like the Chinese sheep.”

That didn’t go over well with him, as well it shouldn’t have. I apologized rather quickly and have kept it in my mind ever since. It wasn’t the right thing to say, especially coming from someone in my position (as an Executive Member of ASSU).

(Context: before I met this person, I had met three different friends of Chinese backgrounds at three different points in the day who were cracking jokes with me about their Chinese-ness. I also have a few friends in Commerce who joke about it being dominated by East Asians. That doesn’t, by any means, excuse my comment.)

On Wednesday, ASSU held its spring social. This time around, the President of UofT, David Naylor, also attended.

Preethy and I were standing there discussing something when Naylor came up to us and started asking us about our majors. At one point his cell phone started ringing and he excused himself for a moment. He then came back to us and spoke to us about how his car was in for repairs, and he complained about his $700 rims.

That’s got to be one of the most insensitive and stupid things a university president can say to two students, after he’s quite vocally called for tuition fee increases. It’s like he’s rubbing it in. Someone get the guy a clue.

I’ve been attending a few of the Betar Tagar‘s “Know Radical Islam Week” events. Overall I think the way Betar is handling this is remarkably stupid. I don’t see anything constructive, at all, coming out of this event — if the aim is to start a dialogue with Muslims. There are very few Muslims at these lectures, indeed most of those attending seem to be Jewish.

Much of the content of the events is actually meaningful — at least, the lectures I’ve attended were — but the medium (“Radical Islaaam”) obscures the message. I’ve told them that a much better title would be “Extremism within Muslim society,” and they acted as if that were a novel idea (and don’t they wish I was in their planning committee) but I find it hard to believe that the issue of alternatively naming it didn’t come up.

How much more meaningful would it be if they had the MSA on board to condemn radicalism in Islam? Probably a lot more. I’ve spoken with several members of the MSA, including the President and the Academic Affairs Coordinator, they both told me that a) they were not calling for a boycott, and b) they were never consulted at any time throughout the organization of this event. Betar e-mailed certain members of the MSA in the days leading up to the events, though, to receive mixed messages that they touted as “cooperation.” From what I’ve heard, members of the Thaqalayn Muslim Association are also unhappy about the way things are being carried out.

The kinds of organizations that are on board? The UofT Objectivist Club, the Toronto Secular Alliance, Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum, etc. That really seems like a group dedicated to fostering meaningful discussion (I’m being sarcastic).

Moreover, how can you even begin to describe radicalism within Islam — a religion of over a billion — as some kind of hegemonic entity? It’s not. Different factors have contributed to the rise of radicalism in Islam in various regions of the world. Taking the historical and sociological context into consideration is tremendously important for any analysis. This is sorely lacking in Betar’s activities.

Anyway, today I attended one of Betar’s lectures given by Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Abu Toameh reports for the right-wing Jerusalem Post.

What he said, though, completely undercut the message that the Betar folks were trying to get across. It seemed to me that they were trying to depict “radical” Islam as somehow censoring the reporting of things in Palestine. Abu Toameh quite unequivocally stated, several times, that it was not Hamas and Islamic Jihad that censored journalists, nor would they, but it was the Palestinian Authority (run by the PLO — Arafat and Abu Mazen’s folks) every single time, and the West supported this.

That made me want to laugh and clap out loud.

He also talked about how Arafat was a big hypocrite, sitting in mosques while stealing billions meant for Palestinians.

Also, in a remarkably stupid move, Jyllands-Posten has apparently offered to publish cartoons that a remarkably stupid Iranian newspaper is aiming to publish that make fun of the Holocaust.

It’s stupid enough of the Iranians to want to do something messed up like this, and stupider still for the Danish to want to reprint those cartoons. How stupid do people get? I imagine we’ll see extremist agenda-driven Muslims torch the Iranian embassies in protest for printing such offensive cartoons? I think any decent and right-thinking human being would find it even more offensive to make fun of the deaths of six million people than to make fun of a prophet. I suggest all Danes engage in a meaningful boycott of Jyllands-Posten and demand that the editor be replaced with someone who is less remarkably stupid (and that’s the theme of my post).

As the worldwide furor over the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons grows, with Muslims boycotting Danish products and even certain people in Syria torching embassies, many in Canada are probably wondering what the controversy is all about.

Danish writer KÃ¥re Bluitgen complained of the difficulty of finding an illustrator willing to draw Muhammad for a book he was writing on the Qur’an and Muhammad. In September of 2005, as part of a “discussion” on the freedom of speech and self-censorship with regards specifically to depicting Muhammad, Jyllands-Posten commissioned twelve artists to draw Muhammad.

Many strains — and certainly the mainstream strains — of Islam forbid depictions of God, Muhammad, and other prophets. This is, in part, to prevent the worship of images. Most Muslim art from days back that has waded into depicting Muhammad usually obscures his face with light. In 1976, Moustapha Akkad produced and directed a film about the beginnings of Islam — “The Message.” The epic film masterfully portrays the early rise of Islam, all without ever once showing Muhammad on screen. Recently, several Muslims protested Time and Newsweek magazines’ depictions of Muhammad. The magazines subsequently apologized.

Muslims typically do not respond to depictions of Moses, Jesus and other prophets — who are prophets of Islam. Many watch the Ten Commandments, many others have seen the Passion of the Christ. There are also several depictions and representations of Muhammad all over the place, spanning several centuries. Many have been done by Muslims. Sometimes such depictions are very visible, but rarely elicit such a response. Why?

Much of the reporting on the cartoons simplifies the matter — the implication being that hordes of uncivilized and ultra-fundamentalist Muslims are reacting wildly to simple portrayals of Muhammad. However, the images published by Jyllands-Posten go far beyond simply depicting Muhammad — and very little reporting has actually described the pictures themselves. Many of them are disgustingly racist and stereotypical. Some of the artists who submitted cartoons decried the provocative nature of the assignment.

Here is a summary of the twelve drawings:

Kurt Westergaard‘s drawing is perhaps the one that has been seen by most people. It depicts Muhammad with bushy, eyebrows and a bushy but close-cropped beard. His angry eyes have dark circles underneath. His turban, with “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger,” inscribed on it in Arabic calligraphy is actually a bomb ready to explode.

Jens Julius Hansen‘s drawing has an Irani mullah-looking Muhammad standing in heaven in front of a presumably endless line of suicide bombers. “Stop, stop,” he implores, “We have run out of virgins!”

Franz Füchsel depicts Muhammad inside an ornate palace, wearing a green robe and looking at a drawing of himself. He is telling two charging angry Muslims with swords and bombs and guns to “Relax guys, it’s just a drawing made by some infidel from nowhere.”

Arne Sørensen shows a nervous cartoonist leaning over his drawing board and looking over his shoulder. He is drawing Muhammad — wearing a keffiyeh and sporting a hooked nose and almost bulging eyes.

Annette Carlsen‘s drawing featuers a line-up of seven people. All wearing turbans that look more Sikh than middle-eastern. It is hard to tell who is who in the line-up, although a a hippie and a woman (the two on the left) are clearly identifiable, as is KÃ¥re Bluitgen on the right. He is holding a sign that says, “KÃ¥re’s public relations, call and get an offer.” A man assessing the line-up says, “Hmm, I can’t recognize him.”

Erik Abild Sørensen shows five symbols that are presumably burqa-clad women, with Stars of David as eyes and Crescents as mouths. A caption says something like, “Prophet you crazy bloke! Keeping women under yoke” or “Prophet! Daft and dumb, keeping women under thumb.”

Rasmus Sand Høyer draws Muhammad with a turban, and a tunic with a shawl draped over one shoulder. He is holding a scimitar and has another one hanging off a belt going from shoulder to hip. He’s got a long frazzled beard with similar eyebrows. His eyes are obscured by a black bar. Flanking him on either side are two women in black abayas that obscure everything but the eyes. Their eyes are wide open, as in an expression of surprise.

Claus Seidel shows Muhammad wearing an orange turban, a white tunic, and white pants extending to the shins, as well as slippers. He is holding a stick in one hand, and with the other hand he leads a donkey loaded with stuff.

Poul Erik Poulsen has Muhammad wearing a turban, a tunic and pants that go down to the ankles, as well as slippers. However, his hands are held together and the tunic’s sleeves obscure both his hands. He has a brown beard. Around his head is a supposed halo. It is a yellow crescent going around and behind his head so that it looks like he has two horns coming out.

Peder Bundgaard draws a stylized Muhammad’s face integrated with a green crescent and star. The crescent cradles Muhammad’s face, and the right eye is a star. He has a turban and quite a hooked nose.

Bob Katzennelson draws KÃ¥re Bluitgen wearing a turban. An orange falls on his head and on the orange it says “PR-stunt.” Bluitgen is holding a stick figure drawing of Muhammad.

Lars Refn draws a young boy named Mohammed using a pointer to highlight a statement written in Farsi on a blackboard. It translates as something like “Jylland-Posten’s journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs.”

I’m not going to bother, right now, with an actual analysis of the images. I’ll leave that up to you.

Most are presenting this as a bipolar issue. On one side are the defenders of the freedom of speech who argue that anything goes. On the other side are Muslims who argue that any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemy.

Water that polarity down a little and you get one one side people who admit that the images may have been offensive, but nevertheless defend the freedom of expression. On the other side are Muslims and progressives who agree that freedom of expression is very important but has its limits when it is likely to stoke such strong passions.

Free criticism of Muhammad and Islam is very important, just as criticism of Jesus and Christianity is important. If a religion is, indeed, the truth then it should be able to stand up to the criticism and if these men are indeed flawless messengers of God then their behaviour should stand to criticism as well. Muslims should be willing to receive and respond to such criticism, rationally and reasonably. This doesn’t always happen. Very often Muslims simply respond with attempts to shut down public discourse.

What’s also true is that recently there has been a hegemonizing and ossification of Islamic opinion. Whereas in the past depictions or at least modified depictions of Muhammad were permitted, recently the flexibility inherent in Islamic tradition has become rigid and has tilted toward absolute prohibition of such depictions. (However, this prohibition is not without basis in Islamic scripture and history. Muhammad is said to have taken out pictures of Jesus from the Ka’bah and to have destroyed them as well as other idols.)

At the same time, it’s not simply a matter of Muslims silencing any criticism of Muhammad. It has to be accepted that Muslims have a deep reverence and respect for Muhammad, above and beyond all other prophets. Popular depictions of Jesus and Moses don’t arouse Muslim passions. No Muslim burned copies of the Da Vinci Code, despite its tremendously blasphemous depiction of Jesus. Many countries have laws that prohibit the use of freedom of expression in such a way that may incite violence or be construed as a hate crime. The blatant and shameful racism and insensitivity shown in many of the above cartoons was simply a provocative action on the part of Jyllands-Posten. Hiding behind freedom of expression is a convenient defense, but it’s hard to believe that this is really what it was about in the first place.

It’s great to see the Muslim grassroots sticking it to Danish and other corporations by boycotting their products. It’s not that great to see them burning embassies and kidnapping foreigners. Somewhere along the line, though, they have to be able to distinguish between a newspaper in Denmark, its government, and its corporations.

There are plenty of problems in the Muslim world, many of these problems are a consequence of Muslim ignorance coupled with foreign interference. The links are clear. Why not channel such efforts toward ameliorating those conditions? Boycott American products, and maybe they’ll stop propping up the dictators. Stop buying SUVs, start buying Japanese hybrids. Why not use this anger to burn government buildings, where corrupt dictators have been picking off billions and billions that should have been going to the people of those countries? Why not protest racism and blatant xenophobia in the Arab world?

As for the Europeans and North Americans, it’s great to pretend to be defenders of rights and freedoms, while actively and covertly denying the majority of the world their rights and freedoms. That’s all that needs to be said on that matter.

Hamas believes that the land of the state of Israel is really just Palestinian territory that eventually needs to be repatriated.
Many Israelis, including Likud and Sharon, believe that the land of the Palestinian territories is really Israeli territory that eventually needs to be repatriated.

Hamas kills civilians, arguing that since all Israelis are required to serve in the armed forces at some point in their lives, they are valid military targets.
The Israeli Defence Forces kill civilians. No justifications, just obscenely massive collateral damage.

Hamas is a lot of things, but at least it’s honest. It uses terrorism and admits it. Israel uses terrorism but doesn’t admit it.

If Hamas only targeted Israeli military targets, and not civilians, would it be welcomed as a “partner for peace”?

What peace is there in the Middle East that is apparently now being put at risk? The unilateral declaration of cease-fire by Hamas?

For the majority of the world, the IDF is no less terroristic (and perhaps moreso) than Hamas. That’s not a justification for anything, it’s simply a fact of public opinion. In Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, the CIA is no less terroristic, and definitely more terroristic, than Hamas.

If Palestinians are expected to negotiate with Israel, then I don’t see why Israel can’t negotiate with Hamas. Maybe something good will come out of it. Hamas is willing to repudiate violence for one, ten, a hundred years if Israel is willing to do the same. Why not?

Give peace a chance.

A footnote, so to speak:

Being an idealist doesn’t mean ignoring pragmatic concerns.

Having ideal goals is important, and it may take two, twenty, two hundred, or even two thousand years to get the pendulum swinging back the other way (by which time it might be too late anyway, but what the hell). Revolution is probably impractical if the masses are not ready for it and it doesn’t matter how enlightened any vanguard party is. If the masses are taught, gradually (because that’s typically the only way it can be done), to reflect upon their condition and take action, then the need for immediate revolutions is largely eradicated. (My problem is that right now, things aren’t even going in that direction — they seem to be moving largely toward apathy and the endless cycle of the rat race.)

I’m an idealist, but I’m also a realist. I have my long-term goals and principles in mind but I also acknowledge the lack of fit or feasibility and am routinely ready, willing and able to work within pragmatic parameters to nevertheless try and reach the end goal — which I do not give up sight of, bhale kitnee bhi der lagay.

I think it would be useful for me to make some clarifications on my post down there.

I don’t think I’m capable of “giving up” — but I am capable of becoming lethargic from disillusionment, taking forever to get things done. That’s already happened as I haven’t taken concrete action on some issues pertaining to ASSU this winter, which (though I didn’t really have much time this winter pursuing other goals, such as comics, and dealing with family issues, like visiting New Jersey) I could have focused on.

Ultimately, I am a romantic — a hopeless romantic. Idealism is sometimes impractical, and to be idealistic is often to wish impossible things.

One of my goals has been to see a significant portion of the student body to move around a significant issue.

But it seems to me that the vast majority of students are either too apathetic or too passive or too disenchanted or too disillusioned to attempt to affect any kind of change.

Perhaps it’s an issue of leadership. I remember at a meeting of the Council of Student Unions (where I typically represent ASSU), voting on endorsing a tuition freeze movement. I wanted to amend the statement to read something like endorsing the tuition freeze as a “positive step toward the eventual elimination of tuition fees.” This didn’t seem to go well with anyone else there (two Vice-Presidents of SAC, the President of VUSAC, and a representative from St. Mike’s whose name I’ve managed to forget, as well as a representative from the Faculty of Music — although Paul, President of SAC, was there and maybe would’ve supported the principle of elimination, he was quite literally checking up on the pizza while this particular discussion came to take place). It really struck me that student leaders were unwilling to pass a resolution endoring the tuition freeze as a positive step toward the eventual elimination of tuition — this being a resolution that no one will give a damn about anyway (not the Varsity, not the university, no one but perhaps overzealous conservatives and right-leaning Liberals trying to discredit leftists as impractical).

Perhaps it’s because of the issues on hand. Most of them are long-term, it takes a while to get things implemented. Something immediate like tuition, while many students do feel strongly about it (but not strongly enough to take action it because they can get by), seems to be unstoppable — hence, any resistance would be stereotypically futile.

There also seems to be a general sense of malaise as far as activism is concerned. We’re at university to get an education, but that’s all it’s about now. Getting the marks and getting the extracurriculars on our resumes, and spending the rest of the time doing inane and random things. The focus has been shifted from getting the government to get things done, to doing things by one’s self. Hence, rather than kicking the government for not moving on social housing, one may join Habitat for Humanity. I’m not criticizing the latter, not in the least, I have a great deal of admiration for folks involved in that, and reference my several posts criticizing myself instead for my lack of action as far as that is concerned. But kicking at the government is an important part of this, and while the leadership of organizations does seem to focus toward this, the rank and file don’t seem to digest it.

Many other students don’t seem to care even about that. It’s more about the iPod and the boots, or something. The focus has been shifted from being a nonconformist for the sake of getting things done to becoming a nonconformist to conform to popular notions of nonconformism, hence really becoming a conformist anyway. Conformity or lack thereof should be a matter of ideas and action, not just clothing and accessories. (The only reason I have a Che t-shirt is because someone gave it to me as a gift, not because I actively seeked one.)

Lobbying has taken precedence over direct activism, and while lobbying may make some difference it should be conceded that our lobby is nowhere near as effective as, say, the auto insurance or oil industries’ because we don’t have money. (One of my gimmicks as I campaigned for SAC to get students to vote in the tution referendum was to tell people that there are only two things politicians listen to: money, and votes — putting up my index and middle finger respectively — and that since we don’t have the money, we should give them the votes — putting down my index finger and leaving my middle finger up.) But we do have numbers, if we choose to mobilize those numbers. Like the students in Quebec did last year.

It was remarkable, I wanted to move to Quebec at that stage. It was inspiring. I wrote an article on it, that was published in the Varsity in a hastily-edited (not by me) format, and rather than responding to the substance of what I wrote, people largely criticized my style (because the opinions editor managed to leave out some integral parts of my article, like the thesis). The mainstream media largely ignored the Quebec student strikes and pretended they didn’t exist or barely mattered, but this was the largest mobilization of students and unions since the sixties.

Many of the students who are involved politically are partisan hacks (including several student leaders). Whether this hackery be for the Liberals (who seem to have the largest hack to member ratio I’ve ever empirically experienced), the NDP or the Conservatives. Being a party ideologue may be fine as long as that party conforms to your ideology, but once it shifts, or manages to deviate remarkably from your vision, means that you should try to change it while voting for someone else. Being a member of a party isn’t the problem, having blind faith in its ultimate righteousness despite its failings is. If the coat doesn’t fit or is falling apart, you have it repaired and wear another coat for a while.

I don’t usually bother with Conservative hacks because, well, they’re on the other side anyway (that doesn’t mean that they have nothing meaningful to contribute to discussions and debates, or even that their motivation is in the wrong place). But Liberal and NDP hacks really get me ticking. The Liberal party has become something that is anything but liberal, and is in fact difficult to distinguish from the Conservative party (except on certain human rights issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion). Nevertheless people refuse to see this.

In looking at all of these things, I’ve also seen my role in not doing much about it. For instance, I don’t call my MPP and MP every week (not that it would make much a difference, living in Markham) to complain about poverty or education, although I’ll join the occasional protest and wear buttons to improve the lot of Sodexho workers. But I really don’t do much beyond that.

I haven’t tried to reach out to others to build the kind of consensus needed to get the ball rolling on a mass movement (I wouldn’t know how to begin). And getting a massive student movement going, even a year from now, is most probably something impossible. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido is simply my mythology. “To wish impossible things,” as the Cure once sang.

More on this later, maybe.