I am thoroughly burnt out and unmotivated. I just don’t feel like doing anything, especially if it’s related to some of the classes I am taking.

I posted this earlier, but the server went down and took this with it. Here it is again. In the meanwhile it has also been reproduced in the newspaper.

This is part of what’s wrong with you: you do too much singing. Today, it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom.
– Malcolm X

I have serious reservations with the entire idea of February 7 being a singular day of action to reduce tuition fees. Before I begin with the wider criticisms, let me explain that I will be participating in many of the events. I believe it is vitally important to express dissatisfaction about tuition. I also appreciate the work being done by everyone involved, including many bona fide activists. It takes a great deal of effort to organize and coordinate events like this. However, there are problems that we need to address.

Let me start off by focusing on a particular aspect of this campaign. That is, the concept of activism promoted by the organizers at the University of Toronto on the web site: http://www.feb7.ca/activis
t.html. It invites students to “be an activist,” and indeed, in this day and age who would not want to be an activist?

But activism is NOT about getting rewards. Changing your facebook display picture is NOT activism. Inviting seven friends to a web site is NOT activism. Call it something else, don’t call it activism. And please, don’t pretend it’s “all out.”

Activism is not a brand name in a certain brand font in certain brand colours, on a toque or a t-shirt. Activism is not about the bombast and shameless self-promotion of the Canadian Federation of Students. Activism is not about mass-produced signs printed with vegetable oil ink on 100% post-consumer recycled paper board.

Activism involves a critical awareness. It requires a specific, critical, reflective consciousness. It requires action and challenging authority — it requires praxis.
It requires rigour, intellectual and practical rigour.

Activism is not buying a product. Activism is not putting money in a box. Activism is certainly not superimposing a web site address on a picture of George Clooney or Paris Hilton to put in your facebook profile.

I say this, not because I consider myself to be an activist. Nor do I believe the label of an activist belongs to select people, who fight for select causes. I say it because activism is too significant a position — for whatever purpose it’s intended — to be reduced to such inanity. And this is what these kinds of statements are, they’re inane.

This is what this campaign is sorely missing — a critical self-reflexiveness and a reflection on the broader social context. I understand that, in trying to appeal to as many students as possible, the organizers of this campaign may be trying to focus specifically on tuition.

But tuition does not exist in a vacuum. Tuition is AN issue, but it is an issue that is related to everything else in this society. From this particularity, one can, and indeed, must create a broader cognitive map of many other societal problems. Tuition is related to healthcare, tuition is related to welfare, tuition is most certainly related to the commoditization of education.

The atrocious price tag on tuition is directly related to what we are taught. Where is the critical reflection on that? What use is a lower tuition fee if all we get is to become white-washed, socially ignorant products of a system that values human beings only in so far as they are able to produce more money?

It’s not that tuiton is not a cause worth focusing on and fighting for. But the entire campaign is utterly devoid of any context, academic or social. Movements in the past have focused on tuition as AN aspect of society, not THE aspect of society. The focus on tuition was part of a broader critique of society. And until the campaign is doing that, it is NOT “all out.” It is the furthest thing from “all out.” It is “all in” a cognitive bubble.

Where is the wider critique now? Where is this critique, as an integral part of the movement? Where is the movement?

All too caught up in shiny flyers and shiny buttons and shiny logos and shiny facebook profile pictures. And no. That’s not activism.

In my thinking, if the students in this country forgot the analysis that has been presented to them, and they went into a huddle and began to research this problem … for themselves, independent of politicians and independent of all the foundations (which are a part of the power structure), and did it themselves, then some of their findings would be shocking, but they would see that they would never be able to bring about a solution … as long as they’re relying on the government to do it.
– Malcolm X

I hate this goddamned university and can’t wait until I’m far, far away from most of the dipshits who run this place. Unfortunately, their dipshittery is also impeding my getting far, far away. Assholes.

The irony is that I’ve never felt more confident about screwing up a multiple choice test.

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.)

Sometimes — most of the times — it’s hard to escape the feeling that at the end of the day I’m one of the smartest dumbasses I know. I’ve been at this University for three years and the most original and convincing work I’ve done is reconciling the place of virtue and passion in Rousseau’s Levite of Ephraim; or analysing the role of stereotypes in Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde. Oh, and my first year epic — Tolkien’s use of Faramir of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings as a representative of his own motivations, ideas, fears, etc. If the expression on your face is somewhere between “what the fuck?” and “what the fuck?” then welcome to my life.

And then, all that shit isn’t all that original anyway. So in the end, what have I accomplished? Nothing. What have I learned about what I want to do? Nothing. All I know is what I don’t want to do, and that’s what I’m probably going to end up doing.

I’ve learned how I’ll probably never know how many genes, exactly, were on or off (or somewhere in between) in shaping my nose, unless (and perhaps even after) I get my genome mapped out. Or at least that part of it — the nose part. If there is a nose part. There are probably nose parts, spread out all over the place. I also know what my kidney looks like, under a microscope. Okay, not mine, but a rat’s. Apparently they’re very similar. I drew real live (dead) human bones once (more than once). I’ve also learned that a dead man’s half-back-torso is heavy, and, when stored in formaldehyde in a fridge, smelly. But I knew that latter part from grade eleven pig dissection.

I’ve come to accept the theory of evolution as conclusive. I no longer believe homosexuality is something to cringe at, and defend it. All that and more, and none of it in the classroom. For all it matters I could’ve been panhandling in the Toronto Reference Library or Robarts these past three years. As long as I had access to a computer and the Internet I would’ve been fine. I also would’ve been spared reading Rousseau’s Levite of Ephraim. Which, admittedly, is a very short read.

In the end, I feel like I’m a little bit of everything, not enough of anything, and far more confused about my future than I have a right to be.

If you’re fucking competent enough to type my fucking name properly in the “TO” line of the fucking e-mail, why the fuck can’t you get my name right in the fucking documentation. What the fuck is wrong with you, fucking pieces of shit, when you type “Naoman Ali (noaman.ali[at]utoronto.ca)” or better yet, “Nouman Ali (noaman.ali[at]utoronto.ca)” — how the fuck does that enter your numbnut mind, fuckheads. It’s right there! I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Nouman Ali wondering why the fuck people are sending him messages for the President of ASSU — only, you never get my fucking e-mail address wrong. Can’t you fucking cross reference, or are you trying to teach me how to spell my fucking name just because you came across some dickwad who spells it differently. You don’t type “Pakka Sinarvo (pekka.sinervo[at]utoronto.ca)” so why can’t you have the fucking decency to take the fucking time out to spell my name right, AT LEAST ONCE, especially since my fucking name is right there in the fucking e-mail address that you had to type out to send me the fucking message in the first place, you fuckwad pieces of shit. It’s bad enough that you can’t pronounce it and try to say it as quickly as you can — at least spell it right, you fucktards. You’re supposed to be the fucking “great minds” that are part of this fucking university, fucking fuckers — get this right. It’s not like you did it once, you keep doing it again and again, fuckers. Fuck.

(Not accepting comments in case some asswipe wants to make a witty comment involving the misspelling of my name.)

Edit: accepting comments now. If you make a joke about my name I’m going to break your fucking legs and ban you, not necessarily in that order.

Taken in the lobby of Sidney Smith, June 13 (Brazil vs. Croatia):

I think it’s fantastic that all these people (often including myself) can gather to watch the matches and cheer and (in my case) relate football to colonialism.

Having said that, according to Wikipedia, a key component of fire safety is:

Not exceeding the maximum occupancy listing for any part of the building (Making sure that an area isn’t so full of people that they can’t all get out quickly in an emergency).

I’m not entirely sure if that area classifies. I mean, it’s really not hard to leave the building from Sidney Smith lobby, unless you’re a total dunce cap and forgot how you entered (knowing some of the purportedly “great” minds on campus, I wouldn’t be surprised). Maybe stampeding — considering how the University treats us like cattle (again, I wouldn’t be surprised).

I asked the Dean and co., one week ago, if they could look into getting football matches streamed into the useless screens in the Sidney Smith wraparound (study space) for the crowd to diffuse a bit — no response as of yet. I think they’ll eventually get back to me — and only if I persist — on July 10.

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.)

POL majors: stay away from POL323, unless you have trouble sleeping. Even when the instructors get involved and enthusiastic, the course content is more sleep-inducing than advanced calculus. It’s boring, uninteresting crap that some dead white guys wrote hundreds of years ago and we study now because — well, apparently these brilliant men had brilliant things to say, and hid it in deeper layers upon layers of meaning, because some despot would otherwise have their head. And now it is our duty to go through this stuff and contort our minds and bodies to come up with esoteric shit that only four people on the planet give a shit about — and if we don’t agree with those four and a half people then we’re clearly wrong in our interpretations (how can you be “wrong” in fucking political philosophy?). I fucking hate this course. Biggest mistake I made this year.