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Transcript of McGill Daily 98_28_22JAN08
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8/14/2019 McGill Daily 98_28_22JAN08
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McGill
DAILY
THE
Volume 98, Issue 28
January 22, 2009
Replicated since 1911
Celebrating theInaugurationNews 3, Commentary 14, Compendium 18, Editors note 19
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e McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009 3News
Calm masses congregate in D.C.
SHINGTON As a record-break-sea of people assembled on the
ional Mall in Washington, D.C.
esday to witness the inauguration
Barack Obama, Americas 44th
sident, a deep serenity washed
r the crowd.
From all over the world, a pilgrim-
of supporters calmly waited in
icipation to witness the historic
ent of the first black U.S. President,
ugh their tranquility was perfo-
ed with intense displays of pride,
ef, and jubilation.
The masses, stretching back
m the Capitol Building where
swearing-in occurred, cheered
propriately with the entrance of
ngressmen, Senators, and other
nitaries which many viewersched from the two dozen jumbo-
n screens erected on the Mall.
A brief display of negativity
urred with the entrance of out-
ng-President George W. Bush.
me booed, though most remained
pectively silent.
Spectators held their breath for
amas address to the nation, which
erly and sincerely called on the
erican people to commit to a new
age of action and responsibility.
Starting today, we must pick
ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and
begin again the work of remaking
America, the new president pro-claimed. For everywhere we look,
there is work to be done.
With the official announcement
of Obamas inauguration, the crowd
once again erupted into cheers, and
furiously waved their freely-distribut-
ed American flags.
A Bermudan man, who had trav-
eled to Washington to witness this
event, captured the spirit of the
crowd well.
Today is a new day, he said.
Now there is hope for change.
A commercialization of the histor-
ic event was found on the sidewalks:
inauguration paraphernalia t-shirts,
oversized buttons, caps, and posters,
all to commemorate the symbolic
day of change.The cheering quickly died down,
though, as many began to automati-
cally drift away.
With many recognizing the
President as a sign of change, and
endowed with their full confidence,
the populous sensed their work was
done: America had elected Obama.
They could go home.
Suddenly Washington was faced
with two-million lost people, who
either could not access transit, or
were impeded by barricades set up
by over 8,000 security personnel on
the northern side of Mall. The smiling
crowds both cold and tired moved
slowly, with little yelling, chanting, or
pushing. No arrests were made at the
inauguration.
Tuesdays event was the final of
three days of the inauguration pro-
gram. On Sunday, burgeoning crowds
inched toward the Lincoln Memorial
for a patriotic concert featuring per-
formances from international artists,
actors, and actresses.
on Withers
e McGill Daily
With applause, standing
ovations, a few salutes,and even tears, McGill
dents packed into a crowded
Gerts bar yesterday morning to
watch as Barack Obama was sworn
in as the 44th President of the
United States.
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
inches from the television screen, thecrowd became silent as the moment
drew near. In Washington, there was
prayer, performance, and anxiety as
President Barack Obama stumbled
through the oath.
Visibly moved, Eby Heller from
Chicago was overwhelmed and
happy.It means there is a little bit of
hope. He knows he has a long, hard
NAIROBI, KenyaNairobis store-
fronts were covered in posters with
Obamas face as the city geared up for
his inauguration on Tuesday.
A Nairobi University professor
explained that students unilaterally
took a day off school, opting instead
to watch Obamas inauguration on
a stage set up by Citizen TV, a local
station. Bands were set to play for a
party afterward.
Students buzzed around with
smiles on their faces, and a few sport-
ed Obama t-shirts.Ive never seen this many people
at the University. Its so busy! said
one student.
Nairobians appeared visibly proud
that Obama whose father is Kenyan
was taking his oath as the President
of the U.S. For many, this election rep-
resents a new hope, a change mental-
ity within the worlds most powerful
nation and globally. Expectations have
never been higher for one man.
Fred, a third-year student in
Geography who hopes to one day be
involved in politics, was inspired by
Tuesdays events.
Im proud to be a Kenyan. Im
happy to be an African. But now
Im proud to be a citizen of human-
ity. I know he will not help me per-sonally in any way, but Im proud of
[Obama], he said.
Ian Martin
News Writer
Crowds in D.C. fell silent during Obamas inauguration speech on Tuesday afternoon.Arjun Kumar for The McGill Daily
Nairobi students
celebrate Obama
mera Jabir
ws Writer
Alice Walker for The McGill Daily
road ahead of him. I hope that he
respects himself as a human being,
his family, and from there he will do
good work.
The feeling of hope in the room
was so infectious that Eva-Queen
Ngayap from Toronto couldnt help
but join Aretha Franklin in a chorus
of Freedom Ring.
I am expecting a breath of
fresh air, a different stance, a new
perspective and attitude, Ngayap
said.
This is history and we all know
it. Everyone is cherishing this
moment.
The Gerts crowd fell silent as
attention turned toward President
Obamas inauguration speech.
Obamas rather solemn words muted
the celebration, as he spoke frankly
to both Americans and the world
about the challenges ahead.
Samantha Perera from Floridacommented, I feel like we are in
really dark times, not only as a nation
but as a world. Listening to Obama
talk gives me hope that we will pre-
vail, and that America will mean
something in the end.
There was, however, some skepti-
cism.
As a European, weve detested
Bush from the start. And as much as
wed like to believe Obama will bring
change, we are a little bit weary. We
will give it a few months before we
believe in Obama like Americans do,
one student who asked to remain
anonymous said.
If they werent already believers,
though, many in the Gerts crowd
walked away wanting to hope thatthe coming presidency will be as sig-
nificant as it is symbolic.
Obama fans cram into Gerts
urtney Graham and Emma Goold packed into their crowded campus bar to watch the inauguration.
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e McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009 5News
Three hundred people gathered
in front of the Roddick Gates
Monday afternoon in solidar-
with Israel three weeks after the
nflict in Gaza intensified.
Noah Kochman, U2 Political
ence and a representative of
Canadian Federation of Jewish
dents, kicked off the event with a
ech.
This is not an American issue,
European issue, or an Israeli
ue, [but] a universal issue, said
chman.
And so, I remain proud that the
nadian government has stood
ong the few who have spoken on
half of victims of terror wherever
y may be, recognizing that thedents of southern Israel deserve
same peace and security as the
dents of Mumbai or Montreal.
As his speech continued, cars
sing by the group on Sherbrooke
nked in support of the ra lly, which
mpted students to cheer.
Kochman called upon his fellow
dents to speak for peace and
ucate for peace, as students broke
into dancing and singing Israeli
gs.
An account of a resident from
erot, the Israeli city that has been
st bombarded by rockets, was
d by Dana Remer, an Honors
ial Science and Law student at
rianopolis College.
In the crowd, one student
marked, This is so nice to see. I
hope we will achieve peace.
But protesting the rally were
resentatives from Independent
wish Voices (IJV), yelling Zionism
acism and Israel is apar theid.
[We dont] celebrate war.... We
nk it is crazy that Israel used any
use it could to bomb innocent
ople, explained IJV representative
Emanuel Lowi.
Lowi claimed there are many
Israelis who opposed the war, despite
the fact that polls show 97 per cent of
Israelis support this operation.
All violent regimes will fall even-
tually, Lowi said.
The Consul General of Israel,
Yoram Elron, defended Israels
actions at the rally.
What would you have done?
We have to quell our threats, Elron
said.
Rabbi Pupko from the Beth Israel
Beth Aaron Congregation of Cote St.
Luc stirred the audience by address-
ing those who have questioned
Israels actions.
Maybe we would have taken you
seriously had you gathered after ter-
ror attacks in London, in Madrid, the
rabbi said.
You didnt gather when
Muslims are killed by Muslims or
by Christians.... You only care about
Muslim life when you can point an
accusatory finger at Israel.
Hillel debated whether or not the
rally was necessary, yet ultimately
concluded that the lack of pro-Isra-
el support on campus was a valid
reason for them to demonstrate
and communicate their viewpoints
safely.
Yael Smiley, the head of Israeli
Affairs at Hillel McGill, said the
rally was happening in the spirit of
education, moderation, and peace.
Unlike the students, though, he
stressed the event was not a protest,
but a way to communicate to other
students that Israel wants peace.
Students held signs with slogans
such as Stop preaching hate! and
Human rights does not equal human
shields, which they explained was
a reference to Hamass practice
of launching rockets from civilian
homes for the past nine years.
Hillel McGill partnered with the
greater Montreal Jewish community
to host the ra lly.
ky Tobianahws Writer
srael supporters want peacellel McGill rally sought to add Pro-Israel voices to the university forum
Julius Grey, civil rights lawyer
and human rights activist and
Israeli-American political activist
d anthropologist Jeff Halper spoke
out the barriers to peace in the
ddle East at McGill last Wednesday.
e event was hosted by Young
ws for Social Justice (YJSJ) and
ependent Jewish Voices (IJ V).
Applause and cheers rang as
per stood to speak.
Halper blamed Israeli tribal
ionalism and a belief in exclusivenership of land as the reasons
y peace remains so elusive, lik-
ening this is our land, but you can
live here too attitude to nationalist
periods seen in Germany, Poland,
Russia.
Think of The Motherland, The
Homeland! People say Israel is a
Western democracy, but it isnt,
Halper said. Zionism comes out
of Eastern Europe, not Western
Europe.
Halper also claimed that this
doctrine of the permanent enemy
guides Israelis to assume that Arabs
want to kill them, and thus that there
is no political solution.
Israel is a military state. It is run
by generals and Israel has set up aset of parameters that make peace
impossible, Halper said.
Halper then used his doctrine
to argue Hamas is the only group
capable of protecting Palestinians
from Israel, concluding that as a
result armed resistance is legitimate
according to international law.
Halper stopped once during his
presentation and allowed a question
to be asked by an upset Israeli, which
was met with a raucous response
from the audience including one
student who tactfully turned around,
shouted, and dramatically mimed
zip-it-up.
Halper concluded his presentation
by claiming that the world was forget-
ting Palestinians and turning theminto surplus humanity by apathy.
He proposed the abandonment
of the two-state concept and a focus
on a single-state solution, an option
on neither partys radar. He noted
Israel has historically come to the
negotiating table expecting to walk
away with everything.
I hope my message wasnt a
down message, but there cannot be
a win/ lose resolution.
Greys discussion preceded
Halper. He felt Canadians have been
far too passive in human r ights activ-
ism, explaining that safe human
rights activists avoid controversy
such as language laws and labour
issues in Canada, and the humanitar-
ian crisis in the Gaza Strip.Human rights are quite useless if not
accompanied by courage,Grey said.
Grey implied Israels recent action
in Gaza has darker Machiavellian
undertones.
Condemning the invasion is in
the interest of Israel, added Grey.
He found any real resolution to be
in the hands of Israels government,
who he said needs to step away from
policies of hate and war. He then out-
lined how Canadian action can speed
up that process.
Representatives from QPIRG
and IJV claimed McGill tried to
censor the event when it demand-
ed an additional $250 for security
on the day of the talk. The audi-
ence was asked for further dona-tions to cover the unexpected
cost.
an Feldmanws Writer
With Israel in conflict, experts urge interventionternational apathy leaves Hamas alone to protect Palestinians: anthropologist
The rally attracted opposition who yelled, Zionism is racism.Roxy Kirshenbaum for the McGill Daily
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Right to write in French
to be on syllabusesThe right of students to submitgraded assessments in French will
be more widely publicized, thanks to
two amended motions passed at yes-
terdays Senate meeting.
The first motion clarified the sort
of assignments students are allowed
to submit in French, and the second
required all course outlines to reiter-
ate that students have this right.
Jane Everett, Dean of Students,
introduced the motions on behalf
of the Senate Committee on Student
Affairs (CSA).
The right has been around since
the eighties, but there is some ques-
tion as to whether or not it exists in
practice, Everett explained.
She stressed how important it is toremind students who are more com-
fortable using French than English
that they will not be at an acad
disadvantage at McGill.
The motion will establish a
playing ground for any student
is more familiar in French tha
English. We are trying to accom
date that.
Adding the article to course
lines was a contentious move
eral professors felt that the syllis not the proper medium thr
which to communicate stu
rights and only passed narr
after three recounts.
With the second motion
hoped to clarify the rule on
mitting assignments in French
proposed changing the descrip
of work that can be submitted
essays, examinations, and these
written work that is to be graded
before, this allowance does not a
to language proficiency courses
The motion passed overwh
ingly.
The two proposals were orig
introduced to Senate in last May
procedural errors made their app
void, postponing their reevaluati
Jennifer Marko
News The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 26
Pro-life speaker Mary Meehan
was met with general applause
and a significant number of
boos at her talk on liberal and femi-
nist support for the pro-life cause dur-
ing an event at McGill on Monday.
The question and answer period,
which lasted over an hour, saw many
heated and a few virulent arguments.
The talk, organized by Choose
Life and entitled Why Liberals and
Feminists Should Defend the Unborn,
drew almost 100 individuals of vary-
ing opinions on the issue of abortion.
The left side of Leacock 232 attracted
the pro-choice supporters, while the
pro-life supporters and event organiz-
ers opted to sit on the far right.Meehan criticized the left sides
current position of worship[ping] at
the shrine of choice.
Some choices really should not
even be considered, because they do
involve harming or taking the lives
of other people, she said. Liberals
indeed are anti-choice on many
issues... the death penalty, most wars,
torture, rape, racial discrimination,
and many more. They should add
abortion to the list.
Speaking at length, Meehan sug-
gested the existence of a eugenics
influence in the pro-choice move-
ment. She alleged that abortion is a
new tool used for population control
in the United States and around the
world.Meehan also cast abortion as a civil
rights issue.
Early in the 20th century, the
eugenicists in the U.S. used compul-
sory sterilization of poor whites and
poor African-Americans to keep their
numbers down, Meehan said. But
eugenicists did not have to use coer-
cion after our Supreme Court legal-
ized abortion in Roe v. Wade.... One
of the ways they do it is by support-
ing public funding of abortion.
Elise Eisenkraft Klein, U2 Jewish
Studies, objected to what she believed
was Meehans conflation of eugenics
and the pro-choice movement.
Choosing to have an abortion is
not the same as forced sterilization,
she said.
Charles Pitman, U2 Economics and
Philosophy, argued that support from
eugenicists does not invalidate the
legitimacy of the pro-choice position.
All sides of the [abortion] issuehave allies that they arent proud of.
Its not like the pro-life side has only
friends that are reputable, he said.
Meehan argued that abortions
performed after neonatal testing
for disabilities were wrong and that
access to abortions increases pater-
nal irresponsibility.
Guys have to talk to guys about
walking out [on women]. We need to
reinstate the old stigma against guys
walking out on their children.
During the question period, Salma
Moolji, U1 International Development
Studies, told her story of becoming
pro-choice while running a school
for abused girls in Nicaragua.
The day that I decided to be
pro-choice was the day that I sawthe child [of a] child die of starva-
tion.... If I put myself one generation
back, I would be in India, where my
grandfather was sold into child slave
labour.... I might have been that girl.
A few students in attendance were
particularly incensed by Meehans
sentiments. One such student,
Elsa Beaulieu, a PhD candidate in
Anthropology, called Meehan arro-
gant and insidious. At the end of
a detailed and emotional criticism
of Meehans points, she pleaded,
What about addressing the real-
ity of womens lives? What about the
consequences of illegal abortions on
womens lives? What about it?
But derogatory comments from
the audience toward Meehan con-
vinced Raphael Dumas, U1 Civil
Engineering, to reconsider his posi-
tion.
Those few rude students actually
pushed me in the direction of [thepro-life stance], Dumas said.
Meehan insisted that her position
is not hostile to women who have
had abortions.
I want to say to [those women
who have had abortions] that Im not
out to make you feel badly or send
you on a guilt trip, but I appeal to
you to take another look at this i ssue,
because there are more lives at stake
every day. I hope that you will help
save some of them.
Choose Life, granted interim club
status by SSMU in October 2008,
will be applying for full club status at
the end of this month. According to
Choose Lifes Community Outreach
coordinator Kathryn Sawyer, the
group tries to offer resources towomen who want an alternative to
abortion on campus.
Ariel Lefkowitz
News Writer
Principal Heather Monroe-Blum
was the highlight of the first
SSMU Council session of the
semester last Thursday evening. In
her opening remarks, Monroe-Blum
expressed a wish to stay in contact
with Council on a more regular
basis, and her intention to respond
to all councillors questions.
When Law Senator Alexandre
Shee asked about tuition increases,
Monroe-Blum tried to explain the
financial logic behind her support
for a form of deregulation of tuitionfees, which she calls re-regulation,
and described as deregulation with
principles.
What you should know is with
our international students...McGill
receives only the Quebec tuition from
your fees. If you pay, say $12,000,
McGill receives $1,750, and the rest
goes into the Quebec system to subsi-
dize students who come in free from
France and from the Francophonie.
I think if you want to look at a fair-
ness issue you should look at that,
Monroe-Blum said.
Monroe-Blum noted that under
her proposed system, the full amount
charged to international students
would get channelled back to the
postsecondary institution they attend,
and would theoretically benefit all
students. She also defended McGills
capital campaign and drive for private
funding.
Theres often a question a
[if we are] overly corporatized..
experience is not that the pr
sector or philanthropists want t
us how to do our business, she
[But the] government tries to tall the time how to do our resea
Government values certain d
plines over others...Humanities
social sciences get short [change
Arts Representative Seb
Ronderos-Morgan asked a
McGills new travel policy, w
restricts students from travellin
countries with formal travel warn
from the Canadian government.
After commenting on the
national nature of McGill, Mon
Blum stressed how dangerous t
to insecure areas can be. She
tioned that Canadian diplomatic
federal support pulls out of the c
tries that the di rective would pre
travel to.
Ive lost three colleagues Afghanistan and Mumbai] in
than six months. These arent c
concerns about safety, she said.
SSMU VP External Devin A
asked why former Quebec H
Minister Philipe Couillard
appointed as a Senior Fellow
McGills Law School. Couillar
under investigation by Que
lobby commissioner for talks
held with a private health care
pany that was not registered
the provincial lobby bank and
hired Couillard two months afte
retired as Health Minister.
Controversy, in itself, does
have us shy away if somethin
good at McGill. We actually inv
lot of people to come work in as a
tinguished speaker or a fellow. I
guys corrupted, I think there
record on that, Munroe-Blum sa
his defence.
Pro-lifer seeks liberal supportEugenics sparks debate on abortion rights
There is no one more helpless than an unborn human being, said Mary Meehan.Shu Jiang / The McGill Daily
Principal defends tuition increas
travel policy at Council
The majority of inter-
national tuition goes to
provincial government
Erin Hale
The McGill Daily
NEWSBRIEF
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The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009Letters 7
curity: at what expense?
Tadamon! is no Paragonmmentary | January 12
Yes, let us not oversimplify. The
ue in Gaza at the moment is not
e that anyone can even begin to
ess in a weekly column or in a
ple letter. It is an issue involv-
a history of charged emotions,
ep-seated biases, and millions of
l- and ill-informed opinions. Do
mistake me, I am not writing
s in to be the archetypal Arab
ocate of Palestinian human rights
m simply writing this to place
emphasis on the ill-informed
ure of the debates and discus-
ns taking place on this is sue.
Hamas is and has been, for
me time now, launching attacks
Israel at the expense of Gazan
lians. And we all know that
mber one on the Israeli govern-
nts to do list is secur ity. I just
te this to prompt the question:
what expense? Lets bring up the
Machiavellian concept, the endifies the means. Really? Is that
at the world has come down to?
Let me get this straight, Ricky.
e only way for Israel to win is
kill Hamas soldiers, but thats
d when they hide behind the
ribly literal skirts of Gazan civil-
s. Right. So Israel is basically
with no alternatives. One of
richest, most powerful nations
he world is simply out of ideas.
ere is no other way to weaken
mas. Lets just aim at Hamas
diers, and hey, if a couple of hun-
d children die in the process,
a price we are willing to pay.
Honestly, no matter who you
or what side youre on, I think
should all agree that that is noce anyone should be willing
pay. Cmon, people. I remain
convinced. There are other ways
handle Hamas and weaken its
elligence and military structures.
Heck yes, let us never allow
ilists to use our own moral-
against us. Let us instead
llenge them, question their
ry move, and place pressure
those who claim to be work-
toward justifiable ends to
me up with new means.
ah Albanna
nternational Developmentdies and Sociology
Education is anything
but a commodityRe: Education isnt a right, its a com-modity | Letters | January 12
Let me begin by saying that what
I have to say it isnt all bad: one part
is an attack, but I will compensate by
applauding Lofranco on one of his
points as well. But first, the cr iticism.
I agree, Mr. Lofranco, educa-
tion is not a right. Simila rly though,
water is not a right, and food is
not a right either. It is access to
these things which is a right. Now,
perhaps we wont find access to
university education amongst the
rights on the UN declarations, but
I do believe that they are in the
spirit of them. I hate to get bogged
down in syntax, but I think that themain issue of your point of view,
and in fact that of others depends
on this linguistic misconception.
I will return to this point, but I
wish to make clear that education is
not, nor should it be, a commodity.
Perhaps, Mr. Lofranco, you mean
by commodity that it is something
which is not essential to survival,
and thus callously use this word
instead of privilege or luxury, but
it has much more ingrained sig-
nificance than that. To say that it
is a commodity is to claim that it
should be reserved for those who
can afford it, in a purely monetary
sense, and that we should acquire
it if we feel like it, as an extra little
feather in our cap, so long as wecan foot the bill. The consequences
of this conception of education
are far from desirable, particularly
for a person of your persuasion.
I would like to end by agree-
ing with what you say at the very
end of your letter, about making
universities places for the academic
elite. After all, isnt that what we
should be striving for? By all means,
raise the fees if it will lead to bet-
ter education, so long as we raise
the standards a s well. I would only
suggest that we also invest in stu-
dent aid to ensure that the best
and the brightest can still afford
to become part of this elite.
Charles Pitman
U2 Economics and Philosophy
Serious or embarrass-
ing take your pickRe: Smashing one piata at a time| Commentary | January 15
Ahoy Comrade Ted,
Thanks so much for the delight-
fully tongue-in-cheek article thisweek. You so effectively caricatured
the absurd conclusions and out-
of-context half-truths that radical
anti-Israel activists are constantly
spouting. The obvious grammatical
errors only heightened the satire.
Thank you for shedding some
humour on such a dark situa-
tion. I only hope nobody will be
silly enough to think youre being
serious here, as that would be
very embarrassing for you.
In solidarity,
Mookie Kideckel
U1 Political Science
Does Hamas really want to talk?Re: Hamas must be talked to| Features | January 15
In his article, Niko Block praises
Hamas for calling Obama to con-
gratulate him on his victory, yet fails
to discuss the aid being sent from
Israel into Gaza, and the extreme
measures that the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) take to prevent the
killing of innocent civilians. He
credits the recent violence to the
fact that Hamas has found nothing
but closed doors in the diplomatic
sphereespecially with Israel.
Merely taking a look at history since
the creation of the State of Israel
forces one to ask the question: at
what point were these doors closed?
In 1937, the Arabs rejected the
Peel Commission, which would
have served as a compromise divid-
ing the land west of the Jordan
River into two independent states.
In 1947, the United Nations pro-
posed the Partition Plan, which
would have made a Jewish state outof merely 15 per cent of the land
originally promised to the Jews in
1917 in the Balfour Declaration.
In a quest for peace, mirror-
ing their decision on the Peel
Commission, the Jews ratified it
and the Arab world rejected it.
In 1979 at Camp David, Prime
Minister Begin aspired to peace
and returned the Sinai Peninsula
to Egypt and its president Anwar
Sadat as a gesture of good faith. In
2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak
went back to Camp David and
offered Palestinians 97 per cent of
the territories, granting the right to
return to many refugees, and mili-
tary control over Eastern Jerusalem
and parts of the Old City. Instead ofsitting down to talk, Yasser Arafat
waged a war of terror. In 2005,
Israel disengaged from Gush Katif,
a settlement in Gaza, only to be
plagued by thousands of rockets.
So what have we learned from
Hamas track record? We have
learned that the Palestinians have
yet to uphold their end of the Land
for Peace negotiations. We have
seen that while Israel has been will-
ing to compromise, the Palestinians
have not, and maybe, just maybe,
Hamas doesnt really want to talk.
First step to peace: end violenceRe: What the World doesnt knowabout Israel | Letters | January 15
Bravo, well done! Eden Sagman
has successfully regurgitated the
popular mantras professed by
mendacious world leaders, ideas
held as common truths drilled into
peoples minds day after day.
Essentially, that the Israeli gov-
ernment has the right to defend
itself, that Hamas is a terrorist
organization contributing to the
destruction of Gaza, and finally, that
the Israel Defense Force is making
great efforts to reduce the amount of
civilian casualties. Your words hold
neither credibility nor truth when
one accepts the undeniable fact that
more than 1,300 Palestinians have
been killed in a massacre orchestrat-
ed by one of the most powerful mili-
tary forces on the face of this planet.
The Palestinians have been
living under occupation for over
60 years a dehumanizing and
degrading situation that you and Iwill never be able to grasp. Sagman
audaciously claims that Israel just
wants peace and quiet. Well
then I suggest it begins by ending
its indiscriminate use of violent
force against innocent civilians.
Amanie Antar
U3 Education
Read before respondingRe: Jews, Muslims, and Arabs should
stand together | Letters | January 15
I typically do not respond to
Letters to the Editor, but in the last
edition Isaac Binkovitz implied that
opinion pieces that I, along with
Ricky Kreitner and Mookie Kideckel,
had written fuelled the supposed
tensions between Jewish, Muslim,
and Arab communities in diaspora.
While I will not deny this claim
about Kreitner and Kideckel whose
opinion pieces were rife with misin-
formation almost directly out of the
mouths of an Israeli military spokes-
person I politely yet vehemently
refute this asser tion about my piece.
In it, I am in no way dehumaniz-
ing, stereotyping, or otherwise deni-grating innocent civilians and their
diasporic counterparts, as Binkovitz
implies. Read my piece carefully;
you will not find one mention of
the words Jew, Muslim, or Arab.
As for Kreitner and Kideckel, I
am quite sure that their extremist
views are negated by the substantial
participation of the Jewish commu-
nity in social justice work through-
out the world. Let us not forget,
the demonstrations in Montreal
over the past few weeks have been
equalled by those in Tel Aviv in
shock over the continuing Israeli
assault on the people of Gaza.
While Im at it, as is the case
with all of my writings, I will gladly
provide references for all of thefacts used in my opinion pieces. My
pieces are always submitted with
references included, which the edi-
tors then remove before printing.
Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir
PhD IV Chemical Engineering
Thank you for shedding some humour on such
a dark situation. I only hope nobody will besilly enough to think youre being serious here,
as that would be very embarrassing for you.Mookie Kideckel Serious or embarrsssing take your pick
Re: Smashing one piata at a time | Commentary | January 15
SashaPlotni
kova/TheMcGillDaily
Leanne Silberberg
U0 Psychology and Linguistics
The Daily received more letters than it could print this issue, they will appear in the nextpossible issue. Send your non-offensive letters to [email protected] 300 words orless, and include your year and program.
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The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2Mind&Body
All hopped upJoseph Watts
Depanneurs are peculiar stages for the drama of life. Ifyouve been in one, youve been in 20, but everyone hasa favourite. There is a cozy familiarity one has with thedep closest to their apartment. Maybe the old man behind thecounter smiles when you come in, but its a shame that beer inMontreal is sold almost exclusively in deps, which are little more
picerie Jos inc.470 Duluth E.
The most like a classic dep dep. You can stop pick up a loaf ofbread or cigarettes on your way home and get lost amid a staggeringbeer selection, or roped into one of their weekly beer, cider, or winetastings. picerie Jos gets brownie points for having the best pricesof the bunch with lots of deals on 12 packs and 6 packs you can make
yourself.
Selection: 350 styles total, about 200 from Quebec brewersManagers Pick: Les Trois Mousquetaires Signature SeriesAll Hopped Ups Pick: Something from the brand new Brasseurs deMontrealReason to come back: Tastings. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, from 5-9p.m.
Les Dlires du Terroir6406 St.-Hubert
This small shop in Rosemount is big on beer, as long as its fromQuebec. Owner Sylfranc Ct orders beers with age in mind so thattwo or three years from now that strong beer will be at its best. Ctis also passionate about pairing beer with food. They have a fine work-ing relationship with sausages from Le Queue de Cochon, the artesianbutcher next door.
Selection: 195 styles, all from QuebecManagers Pick: La Barbarie India Pale AleAll Hopped Ups Pick: lAbri de la Tempte Corne de Brume an agedscotch aleReason to come back: When the Saint Reserve beers from MicrobrasserieCharlevoix arrive, youll have a chance to taste what Ct considers tobe Quebecs best beer.
Super March Rahman151 Laurier O.
The ultimate beer dep, Le Paradis de la Bire has been a purveyorof Quebec microbrews for 18 years. Its massive selection places fortiesof Black Label next to magnums of nobler stuff, but the shining stars arethe five kinds of house beer. Rahman h imself formulated the recipes forthe Paradisiac beers traditional styles brewed with Indian spices, allbottled at local breweries.
Selection: around 500 styles, 250-300 of which are from QuebecManagers Pick: Paradisiac Scotch Ale
All Hopped Ups Pick: Paradisiac Cuivre a strong, hoppy beerReason to come back: Trying a different beer each time you come in willkeep you busy for years.
Fromagerie AtwaterAtwater Market
Okay, its a cheese shop, but theyre serious about their beer. With 20new styles in since Christmas, theyre constantly updating their supply
with the freshest, most current offerings from Quebecs micro brewer-ies. The best part is that you can shop for the best cheese to pair with
your beer in the same store. Just ask any of the knowledgeable staff whowill gladly tell you what complements what.
Selection: 125 styles total, 95 from Quebec brewersManagers Pick: Au Maitre Brasseur Noire de Fromagerie Atwater
All Hopped Ups Pick: Buy a bottle of Maudite from Unibroue and a cheesecalled Le Ftard which spent its formative years being washed in theaforementioned stuffReason to come back: Lots of beer, lots of cheese, lots of tasty combopossibilities.
The wideworld ofdeps
than glorified newsstands peddling cigarettes, forties of Modry, and overpriced groceries despite such minor charms.
Where to buy good beer is the question Im asked the mIt seems that people are interested in drinking quality brewreluctant to shell out $7 a pint at a bar. But never fear! Therdeps that suit your purpose i f youre after something morea Molson Ex. Well, actually, some arent deps in fact theyscoff at the stereotype that beer needs be sold next to bottl
Porte dEnfer. Nevertheless, these four establishments arebest purveyors of local, cra ft-brewed beer in the city. Alonga description, each review has the managers pick, my owna reason to go more tha n once.
Find All Hopped Up in the Mind&Body section every oThursday. Cant wait? Send Joe your top ten encounters
your elderly, smiling dep manager to allhoppedup@gmail
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e McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009 9Mind&Body
Passing the smell testomantic love skews heterosexual females ability to sniff out potential partners, McGill postdocs study finds
n O'Callaghane McGill Daily
L
ove can skew womens scent
recognition when it comes to
male body odour, accordinga recent study published in the
cember 2008 issue ofHormones
d Behavior.
The study, Romantic love modu-
s womens identification of mens
dy odors, which was carried out
McGill postdoc student Johan
ndstrm under the supervision of
fessor Marilyn Jones-Gotman,
es that the more in love hetero-
ual female participants claimed
be with their male partners, the
rse they were at identifying the
dy odour of another potential par t-
, such as a male friend. However,
magnitude of love reported had
effect on the ability to detect the
nt of female friends, because, in
case of this heterosexual female-tred study, they were not viewed
potential romantic partners.
Lundstrm, who is no longer a
Gill student and is now working
Monell Chemical Senses Centre
Philadelphia, wrote in an email
The Daily that the inspiration
hind the study was based upon
ecdotal observations regarding
body odours combined with his aca-
demic interests.
You really like smelling your
partners body odour, and when real-
ly in love, you dont particularly like
the body odour emitted by others,Lundstrm said.
The focus of my research regard-
ing body odours is to determine what
form of social and biological signals
are hiding within [them], and how
are we able to extract and process
these [olfactory] cues, he added.
The studys representative sample
consisted of 20 couples, along with
a male and a female friend of each
female partner.
According to Jones-Gotman, a
professor in McGills Department
of Neurology and Neurosurgery,
and specialist in the neural corre-
lates of smell and taste, who over-
saw Lundstrms study, only female
partners were evaluated because of
their greater sensitivity to scent rec-ognition. She stated that the findings
would not be valid if the results from
male and female partners were com-
pared in the same study.
The ability for scent recogni-
tion is not always the same between
sexes, Jones-Gotman noted, adding
that women are better at detecting
scents in general.
Jones-Gotman also said that she
did not think the results would have
been much different had a larger
sample group been used. However,
she noted the need to address the
question of how the use of same-sex couples would change the out-
come of such a study, adding that a
study using same-sex couples is the
logical next step as a continuation of
Lundstrms work.
Jones-Gotman also suggested
doing a study of couples in more
short-term relationships, lasting six
months or less, or longer ones, last-
ing up to seven years. These results
could then be compared to those of
Lundstrms more recent study, in
which subject couples had been in a
relationship for one to three years.
Lundstrm has his own plans for
future behavioural studies investigat-
ing the ways our brains process part-
ners body odours.
We have already investigatedhow maternal love is manifested in
the brain in [the] lab here at [the
University of Pennsylvania].... This is
a logical extension of [such a] line of
research, he said.
Beyond his initial personal inter-
est in the subject, Lundstrm also
argued that his work is important in
more concrete ways.
This goes to show that even
such complex emotions such
as love [are] but a part of a more
complex network of emotions and
psychobiological processes, and
that our sense of smell is capableof conveying complex informa-
tion, he said.
However, Lundstrm
is not suggesting that his
study may be a new way
to predict true love; the
study merely shows the
connection between
emotion, scent,
and the mys-
terious and
intricate
organ that is
the brain.
EvanNewton/TheMcGillDaily
The nose can be
a powerful tool in
womens search for
compatible partners.
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Features10
I know this because I overheard two mem-
bers of the McGill Outdoors Club (MOC) dis-
cussing just such a situation as I sat in the back
of a station wagon en route to the Adirondacks
for a weekend of winter camping zipperless
winter camping.
Ifirst contacted the MOC in the middle ofNovember. I wanted to write a story on wilder-ness survival and, knowing nothing about the
topic (I hadnt been camp-
ing since grade school), I
figured that an outdoors
club might be a good place
to start.
Sasan Ghinani, a sec-ond year Masters student
and MOC executive, replied
to my email: In a weeks
time hed be leading a trip
to New Yorks Adirondack
Mountains, and he had
saved me a spot. But the
trip, he explained, had a
twist. Apparently, the MOC
has a few longstanding tra-
ditions. One tradition has
members hike up Mount Marcy, the highest
peak in New York State, with a four-piece band
in tow. Another has canoeists paddle through
ice on Lake Saranac, shortly after the winters
first freeze. And one of the more storied MOC
traditions the trip Ghinani wanted me to
come on involves winter camping without the
use of zippers: no tents, no sleeping bags, nojackets, no fancy Mountain Equipment Co-op
backpacks.
Out coldWith only grade-school camping experience under his belt,
Daniel Lametti braves a winters night in the Adirondacks
Daniel Lametti / The McGi
When waking at night with a full blad-
der, a true winter camper will opt to
urinate into a bottle and then hug
the warm vessel of urine against her chest as
she drifts back to sleep. You see, precious body
heat heat that might stop your fingers and
toes from freezing as you sleep will be used
to keep any urine in your bladder at body tem-
perature. Nalgenes, with their large volume and
extra-wide lid, work best in these situations.
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The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 200911
Three days after receiving Ghinanis email,I make my way to a MOC meeting on thed floor of the Shatner building; Im there to
more information on the zipperless trip and
decide whether I actually want to go. Severalzen students have shown up and, to my dis-
y, they all look much more equipped to deal
h the outdoors than I do. In contrast to my
at shoes, everyone seems to be wearing seri-
hiking boots. Nalgenes, cargo pants, and
raordinarily large backpacks also appear
te popular. In fact, most of the students
m ready to jump up and go camping that
ant. And as I take a seat in the crowd, I start
wonder if Im in over my head. Ghinanis
ener does not reassure me.
People have been dropping out like flies,
says, referring to the trip. Everyone laughs
me.
Bring blankets, Ghinani says all the blan-
s you own. And clothes more clothes
n you think you can carry. And boots
nter boots are essential.
I glance down at my boat shoes. Id have torow a pair of boots. The trip costs $40. But
e Daily had agreed to pay. My excuses are
ning out. Plus, camping without zippers,
w bad could it be? I hand Ghinani two twen-
and walk out.
And thus, the following Saturday, having
learned that I may have to spend the night
h a bottle of urine pressed against my chest,
ep out of a Ford Taurus, and am greeted by
00 foot mountains covered in several feet of
w.
reparing to camp without zippers had
proven difficult everything has a fuck-
zipper. Even the six MOC members who
d decided to come on the trip had found it
llenging. And waiting beside our cars for
nani to return from the rangers hut, in
zero weather, jacketless, layered in sweat-
and carrying reusable grocery bags stuffed
h blankets, well, we look like a bunch of
ateurs. The park ranger seems to agree.
Ghinani had planned for us to hike Algonquin
k the second highest peak in New York, at
14 feet. After the hike, we would build a shel-
and a campfire to, presumably, keep us al ive
ing the night. That was the plan, at least,
il he emerges from the rangers hut with a
appointed look on his face.
The ranger, upon observing our ragtag
parel and lack of appropriate hiking gear,
s not going to allow us to climb Algonquin
k. And in another blow, were told that its
inst state law to build a campfire in the park.
e later discover that we had mistakenly driv-
to the wrong campsite. A private facility, five
nutes up the road, allows campfires).By this point, Im starting to wonder if going
the trip was a big mistake. I glance over at
nani, who, surprisingly, doesnt seem too
rried. In fact, hes convinced the ranger to
us climb a smaller, less challenging, peak
unt Phelps, a tame 4,161 feet and hes ada-
nt that we can survive the night without a
mpfire. Im not as sure.
Ghinani, who is built like a tree trunk andsports a pair of overly large and well-omed sideburns, is no stranger to taking
s in the wild. Once, while paddling in white-
ter, he came upon a canoe flipped over,
ned against a tree.
Strainers are trees that fall into the river,
told me, and if your canoe hits one, the
ssure of the water and the river pins you
wn there. Thats how most canoeists die.Assuming the worst, he dove into the freez-
water to search for dead bodies. He didnt
find any, but he decided to stay in the river to
remove both the canoe and the tree. Nobody
wanted to do the dangerous parts, he said, so
I volunteered. He was in the water for more
than an hour and came out with hypothermia.I was delirious, he said, I didnt know my
name.
Ghinani is the definition of an altruist. I
ran into him once at the gym and, in between
sets on the bench press, he mentioned that
he wasnt doing cardio that day because hed
spent the past half hour pushing cars stuck in
the snow up Docteur-Penfield.
So as we depart from the rangers station,
en route to our campsite, Im somewhat reas-
sured by the thought that if anything bad does
happen in the woods, Ghinani will at least be
there to throw me over his shoulder and carry
me to safety.
By the time we reach the campsite and dropoff our gear, the sun has passed the midwaypoint in the sky and we have but a few hours
to ascend Mount Phelps and make it back tocamp before dark. With this in mind, we push
ourselves up the icy trail, stopping only briefly
to take in the magnificent views and to gulp
water.
Mount Phelps, located in the northeast of
New York State, is part of 46 mountains that
are collectively known as the Adirondack High
Peaks. All but four are greater than 4,000 feet.
To date, more than 6,000 people have climbed
all 46 of the Peaks. Those that achieve this feat
are entitled to membership in the Adirondack
46ers and a commemorative badge.
As we approach the top of Mount Phelps,
breathless from a final scramble up a particu-
larly icy slope, the trees give way to a clearing
that provides a panoramic view of the area.
White Face, the site of the alpine events in the
1980 Winter Olympics, is to the North; Mount
Marcy, the highest of the High Peaks, towers
over us to the South; and Algonquin Peak, the
forbidden fruit, the sun setting behind its back,
glares at us from the West.
A picture is never as good as the real thing,
Ghinani offers, staring off into the horizon. We
snap a few photos, pass around a granola bar,
and head down the trail, determined to make it
back to camp before dark.
Having just climbed a mountain, the mood
of the group on the way down is noticeably
upbeat. The MOC members joke about differ-
ent techniques for shitting in the woods (the
friendship lean involves two people and a
great deal of trust), while I skip along beside
the group, gleefully scribbling notes.
Im starting to understand why people do
these things climb mountains, that is. Hiking
a mountain gives one an intense adrenalinerush. In fact, Im so wired that as we approach
our campsite, with the sun slipping behind the
mountains and the temperature rapidly drop-
ping, Ive completely forgotten that the trip is
far from over we still have to spend a night
outdoors, in subzero weather, without tents,
sleeping bags, or a fire.
H ypothermia progresses in six stages.Stages one and two are characterized bya decrease in blood flow to the non-essential
organs, an aching in the fingers and toes, and
uncontrollable contractions in the muscles of
the body, or shivering, in an attempt to gener-
ate heat. In stages three and four blood flow to
the brain is greatly decreased, decision-making
becomes impaired, and fine motor skills are
lost. By stage five, body temperature has typi-
cally dropped by more than seven degrees.At this point most people lose consciousness.
Stage six is death.
Standing by our campsite, shivering, won-
dering when I would enter stage three, I start
to worry that I might not make it through the
night. My feet, which had gotten wet during the
climb, are especially cold. I ask Ghinani if hehas a backup plan in case things get worse.
There are ways of keeping warm, he says.
Body heat will keep you so warm, and if it
comes down to it, and youre cold, fuck, get
down and give me ten pushups. It actuall y helps
a lot. He pauses. If your feet are completely
frozen and you think theyre going to fall off,
you take your feet and you put them I mean,
it sucks for the other person but you put your
feet inside a persons jacket, on their stomach.
Without a fire, Ghinani explains, this is really
the only way to defrost cold feet in the bush.
Unable to imagine myself shoeless, feet
pressed against Ghinanis burly stomach, I opt
to put on three pairs of socks and run laps
around the campsite.
When spending a winters night in the bush,
a quinzhee, or hollowed-out moundof snow, provides the best possible shelter.
Quinzhees are entirely windproof, and with
body heat and a candle the inside can reach
two or three degrees Celcius. The downside
of a quinzhee is
that they take four
or five hours to
construct and are
typically only big
enough for a cou-
ple of people.
Winter camping
with a large group
usually calls for
tents. Or, if youre
moronic enough
to go camping
without zippers,
several tarps and a roll of twine can be used
to construct a tent-like shelter. And, as I watch,
this is exactly what Ghinani and first year stu-
dent Marc Kojima proceed to do.
Kojima places a tarp on the snow to form a
ground sheet while Ghinani runs twine between
two adjacent trees. Over the line they drape a
second tarp, stretching it over the g round sheet
and tacking its end into the snow. It looks like a
wedge of cheese. They call it an A-frame. I hope
it will keep me alive that night.
Several camping stoves are lit and dinner is
prepared. The food brings a feeling of warmth
to the group, and the mood, which had fallen
with the disappearance of the sun, lightens. As
we sit in a circle, cradling cups of hot chocolate,
headlamps shining into each others eyes, the
survival stories start to come out.
Ive done 72 hours with nothing, saysfourth year student Chloe Dumouchel-Fournier.
Youre thrown in the woods and you have to
build a shelter. I was unlucky and had pouring
rain for 24 of the 72 hours.
Did you ever fast on a solo? asks third year
student Anya Bernton. Nobody had. Berton had
been on a three-day solo and, given almost no
provisions, she decided to fast for the duration
of the trip. After you start eating again, she
explains, you barf a lot.
I did a solo, Ghinani chimes in, but
mine was completely different than you guys.
Dropped off on an island, in the middle of
nowhere, free from societys watchful eyes,
Ghinani decided to spend 48 hours in the
nude.
So Im lying naked on my island, he con-
tinues, on a rock, right by the shore, and ran-
domly there was another group of canoeists Idont know, teenage kids. And you could imag-
ine how weird this looks: Youre canoeing in
the wilderness for nine days, and on the ninth
day you see a naked guy on an island. We all
laugh.
Ghinanis story, although not really about
survival, seems to top them all.
For the nights sleep, wed trucked 22 blan-kets into the woods. These included aqueen-sized duvet and a sleeping bag that
Ghinani had ceremoniously cut the zippers off
of the night before. Before retiring for the eve-
ning I cocoon myself in three of the blankets.
Underneath, Im wearing three wool sweaters,
two pairs of fleece pants, three pairs of socks,
two pairs of gloves, and a wool toque. I wrap
another wool sweater around my feet, for go od
measure, and worm my way into the middle of
the A-frame. Im optimistic about my heat situ-
ation: Im wrapped in a fucking sheep. How
could I get cold?
I wake up three hours later freezing. An
icicle of drool has formed at the side of my
mouth, and I cant feel my toes. Stage six imme-
diately comes to mind. I pull my toque over myface, bring my knees up to my chest and curl
into a fetal position. I dont move, or sleep, for
another five hours. Thankfully, I never have to
pee.
The next morning we find out that the tem-
perature in the High Peaks had dropped to
-15C during the night. In fact, before going to
sleep wed come across two campers, just down
the trail from us, who had full zippered gear
and a lean-to to sleep in, but had still broken
the rules and made a fire. Were fucking cold,
one complained. They werent at their campsite
in the morning. It looked like they had bailed
during the night. I was pretty cold, and I hadnt
slept very much, but at least Id stuck it out till
the morning.
Two weeks later, back in Montreal, I meet upwith Ghinani at Thomson House for a beer.We start talking about Chris McCandless, a col-
lege grad who wandered into the wilds of Alaska
in an attempt to escape society. After several
months in the bush, he ended up dying of star-vation. McCandlesss death has since been made
famous by the 1996 Jon Krakauer bookInto the
Wildand the 2008 movie of the same name.
McCandless greatly underestimated
nature, says Ghinani, which you should never
do. The idea is romantic being outside in the
wilderness on your own. I can see eye-to-eye
with him on that for sure. I can see his rea-
soning about wanting to go into the woods to
escape society, he says. But in order to do that
you have to be prepared. You have to know
what youre doing and how to do it.
And what about our trip, I ask, remembering
the high of the mountain climb and the low of
the sleepless, freezing cold night. How did he
think it went?
Flawless, he replies.
Im optimistic about my
heat situation: Im wrapped
in a fucking sheep. How
could I get cold?
For more photos from Dans expe-dition, visit mcgilldaily.com
and click on Features.
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Commentary The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 212
The Banyan tree is known for its
fantastic appearance: a dense
forest of connected branch-
es that prove to be, in fact, a single
tree.
The trees branches spread them-
selves wide, drop perpendicular
branches, and form new roots wher-
ever these branches land, although
where they land is often quite
far from their origin, says Ccile
Rousseau, a transcultural psychiatrist
at McGill. Specializing in child refu-
gees and war trauma, she sees the
Banyan tree as a perfect metaphorfor the migrant child.
Like the Banyan tree, whose
anomalous root structure makes it
more biologically sound, the migrant
child who has successfully grown
new roots is often stronger and
more resilient than a child who has
not faced such hardships. Suffering
can be positive and transformative,
according to Rousseau, if psychologi-
cal supports are in place.
Fittingly, Banyan is also the name
of the group of psychiatrists who
help young refugees deal with the
psychological traumas of war or dis-
placement, using art as an avenue for
expression. Rousseau explains that
the group works with preschoolers,
elementary school students, and ado-
lescents, using the notion that retell-
ing a traumatic event is therapeutic.
The preschool students use sand-
play to tell their story. They are given
a sand tray with colourful figurines
that they use to represent the world:
people, cars, animals, trees, build-
ings, as well as several religious sig-
nifiers, such as Hindu gods, Buddha,
and Islamic and Christian symbols.
The children then use these sym-
bols to give meaning to the world.
The sand game allows them to cre-
ate a world of their own, and to
tell a story in this world, which
they then perform for their peers.
The same technique applies to the
elementary school students; how-ever, the older kids use more tradi-
tional forms of representation such
as drawing and writing.
Final ly, the adolescents concentrate
on experimental political theatre as a
means of expression a concept that
is based on the techniques of Augusto
Boals Theatre of the Oppressed.
According to Boal, interactive theatre
creates dialogue, standing in opposi-
tion to the monologue, which exists
as the origin of oppression.
[The technique] is about col-
lective voices and action, Rousseau
says.
All three programs contain a ver-
bal and a non-verbal component
visual, musical, tactile.
Western psychology has placed a
lot of emphasis on verbal expression,
but no emphasis on bodily or non-
verbal expression. In cases of trauma
not everything can be easily said or
even concretized. Words can be too
difficult, and so it is sometimes more
useful to deal in the abstract, in rep-
resentation.
Rousseau sees many of the worlds
conflicts as stemming in part from
peoples inability to recognize the
possibility of the coexistence of mul-
tiple truths.
The absolute is dangerous. The
fact that a community or a group of
people would say we have the truth
that is dangerous. Artistic expres-
sion, however, in its non-verbal incar-
nation, allows for a multiplicity of
meaning, thus fostering moral com-
plexity.
And thats why its especially
upsetting when, in a single summer,
a government can cut $44.5-million
and over a dozen programs geared
to directly funding and supporting
the arts. Compared to the threat of
war, religious persecution, oppres-
sion based on gender or sexual ori-
entation, fanatic totalitarian leaders,
and an array of natural disasters, the
arts may seem a luxury, as they did to
Stephen Harper not so long ago.
When ordinary working people
come home, turn on the TV, and see
all sorts of people at a rich gala all
subsidized by the taxpayer, claiming
their subsidies arent high enough
when they know they have actually
gone up, Im not sure thats some-
thing that resonates with ordinary
people. Ordinary people unders
we have to live within a bu
Harper rationalizes.
But let us not fall into the
dency that we have, accordin
Rousseau, to consider that our
ety is essentially benevolent. If
tic expression has the transform
psychological power that Rous
and her colleagues have obse
then cutting funding to the arts i
the act of a benevolent leader, n
it even benign. In fact, it could p
serious threat, in and of itself.
Tadamon! clears up opportunism for the misinformed
In an article published in the
January 12 issue of The Daily,Tadamon!, a Montreal-based
social justice group active on, among
other things, the issue of Palestine, is
characterized as opportunistic. The
author of the article, Ricky Kreitner,
passes this judgment despite admit-
tedly having done minimal research
on our group.
The article implies that Tadamon!
is exploiting the recent attack on
occupied Gaza to criticize Israel for
heavily targeting civilians and civilian
infrastructure in Gaza. One thing
that opportunists do, the author
states, is to take undeniably horrible
circumstances and use them to their
own advantage.
Precisely how and why this char-
acterization of opportunism fits thecontent of Tadamon!s online bulle-
tin the main object of the authors
objections is unclear and remains
unexplained in the article. This is
undoubtedly because the fit is any-
thing but evident. However, despite
the gratuitousness of the judgment
on Tadamon!, it may be taken at facevalue by some readers, and given that
it is meant to damage the image of its
target, it must be addressed.
Let us speak fir st about the unde-
niably horrible circumstances in
Gaza. During the three weeks of
attacks on Gaza, Israel murdered
more than 1,300 Palestinians, spe-
cifically targeting educational insti-
tutions including UN schools, the
Islamic University of Gaza, and the
University Teachers Association in
Gaza City.
Israels attack on Palestinian civil-
ians in Gaza is well documented
and morally repulsive. Days into the
recent bombardment on Gaza, five
Palestinian sisters were killed while
sleeping through an Israeli air strikeon the Jabalya refugee camp, buried
in their beds as the walls of the fam-
ily home collapsed after being hit by
an Israeli missile.
The Palestinian sisters Tahrir,
17; Ikram, 15; Samar, 12; Dina, eight;
and Jawaher, four unfortunately
stand as only one horrible exampleof the over 300 Palestinian children
killed in Gaza over the past weeks.
Israels recent military attack on
Gaza takes place in the context of
a two-year siege on occupied Gaza,
which, among other things, denied
Palestinians the freedom to leave
Gaza, as well as access to sufficient
fuel, adequate food, medical care,
and employment.
By this past December, 200
Palestinians had died because they
could not leave Gaza to receive medi-
cal care, 80 per cent of the popula-
tion was dependent on food relief
from the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency, and the World Food
Program, and unemployment was at
45 per cent.Based on such circumstances, it
is clear that Israel is heavily targeting
civilians, whether during the recent
three-week military assault or during
its prolonged and ongoing siege and
blockade of Gaza, which amounts to
collective punishment.
Yet, even if Kreitner would admitto the targeting of civilians, it seems
that this strategy would not be a
problem for him. The article con-
tends that Israeli soldiers must mur-
der Palestinians in order to get at
their real target: Hamas. Murdering
Palestinian civilians is justified, the
author contends, because Hamas
uses them as human shields or, in
his terms, as horribly literal skirts
[behind which Hama s fighters hide].
What is strikingly and alarmingly
literal, however, is the authors blink-
ered backing and parroting of Israels
official spin and rationalizations for
the crimes that the Israeli army and
political leaders committed in occu-
pied Gaza.
Most importantly, the misin-formed author perhaps does not
realize that the majority of the Gaza
Strips population is Palestinian
gees, expelled from their home
Israel in 1948 Palestinians pu
aside to make way for the Is
state. Israels foundational i
tice as a nation built on land which over 750,000 indigenous
Palestinians were expelled, rem
the root of the conflict today.
In the end, if Kreitner truly
likes opportunism and is kee
expose it, he should examine
own writing, positions, and
bases upon which his own m
ity rests. Because what is opp
nistic is to give moral justificatio
mass confinement, to massacre
the destruction of homes, fam
livelihoods, and civilian infras
ture at the expense of thousand
Palestinian children and the ent
of a largely refugee population.
Rosie Aiello
The
conversationalist
The art of falling far from the tree
Dr. Ccile Rousseaus psychiatry group offers support to young refugees through artistic expressionShu Jiang / The McG
HYDE PARK
Tadamon! collective
Rosies column appears every o
Thursday. Send her that funk,
sweet, that artsy, that gushy stuff to
conversationalist@mcgilldailyco
To contact the Tadamon! collecvisit tadamon.ca or write to t
-
8/14/2019 McGill Daily 98_28_22JAN08
13/20
e McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009 13Commentary
HYDE PARK
HYDE PARK
Iemerged from Jeff Halpers
January 14 talk at McGill deeply
disappointed at how acceptable
it has become to distort and misrep-
resent facts when the purpose is to
denigrate Israel. I wasnt expecting to
agree with much of what was said at
the Halper event, but call me crazy
I wasnt expecting to be subjected
to a barrage of unabashed misrepre-
sentations, either. Let me provide a
few examples of what I mean.
Halpers address stuck to one con-
sistent and dismally dishonest theme.
His overall approach consisted of
projecting the political positions ofthe Israeli right-wing fringe onto the
country as a whole. He presented
the notion of the historical Land of
Israel as if there existed an Israeli
consensus in favour of maintaining
control over its entirety. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
Heres a working estimate: of the
120 representatives in the Israeli
Knesset (Parliament), approximate-
ly nine to 20 stand for ideological
attachment to the concept of the
Land of Israel. Some 70 are either
willing or eager to make territorial
concessions, of varying extent. The
remaining number of representa-
tives, perhaps about 35, may or may
not favour territorial concessions,
depending on various contingent
factors. And yet Halper, addressing
an audience who, we must assume,
is less familiar than he with Israeli
politics, depicts the right-wing fringe
as representative of the entire coun-
try. This is the stuff of calumny; it
is simply untrue. The fact as has
been widely covered in the interna-
tional media is that Israeli govern-
ments of the left, the right, and the
centre have been negotiating territo-
rial withdrawal with the Palestinians
since 1991 and thus obviously cannot
have been guided by the ideological
concept of the Land of I srael.
Halper stated that in Israel we
dont talk about Palestinians
only about Arabs. To call them
Palestinians would legitimize them,
he explained. He was referring to the
Arab citizens of Israel, who indeed
are generally, though not exclusively,
conceived of inside and outside of
Israel as Israeli Arabs.
And yet Halper, by leaving his
statement unqualified, blithe-
ly allowed his audience to con-
clude that he was referring to the
Palestinians at large rather than only
to Arab citizens of Israel. The fact is
that just about every part of Israeli
society, even most of the right-wingfringe with which he would like to
identify Israel as a whole, refers to
the Palestinians, be they in the West
Bank, Gaza, or any other place out-
side of Israel, as Palestinians. Yet
Halper chose to imply that Israel is
some sort of strange place, in denial
and disconnection from the world,
where the very term Palestinian
does not exist. Once again, especially
when presented to an audience not
likely to have travelled to Israel, this
is the stuff of calumny.
Halper had the effrontery, as
part of a most unenlightening dis-
cussion as to whether or not Israel
is a Western country, to say that
Israel appears to be superficially
Western because Israelis are kinda
white. Never mind the various loath-
some, illogical, and even nonsensi-
cal aspects of such a statement: it
is about as accurate as saying that
Americans are white. It constitutes
yet another example of the cheesy
attitude evinced by Halper through-
out his talk: he pandered to the low-
est instincts of a hapless audience.
Oliver Moore
Oliver Moore is a Law IV student.
Send your kinda whiteness to oliver.
rle Nicolle
Beyond the
dichotomous
debate
War is a terrible thing. It
comes with tears, deaths,
devastation and raging
s. It comes with aghast civilians
ght in fighting, dying children,
ble, shells, rockets, and fear.
me think there is not enough hor-
there and would like to add smear
d lies. In light of the crisis between
ael and Hamas in the Gaza Strip,ny of us have stakes and many
uld like to simply take a stand.
hould be a stand for dialogue. It
become crucial when writing
out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
decrease not the passion but the
sion.
The utterly restrictive and sadly
espread belief that those express-
support for one side must consid-
he other people as their enemies,
d as such unworthy of their com-
sion, has been propagated on our
n campus by irresponsible medias
d agitated group leaders. This
redibly divisive argument keeps
moderate voices in the dark.
Perhaps especially in the context
the conflict between Israel andestine, words have great mean-
and numbers have little bearing.
There is little meaning to consider-
ations on the exact proportion of
Hamas men to civilians in the 1,300
Palestinian deaths in Gaza, and only
pettiness in thinking the exact num-
bers actually matter. It is plain that
too many innocents have died, in
Israel as in Gaza. Yet, as we awake to a
ceasefire and realize the extent of the
devastation caused in Gaza, let us use
some restraint before indulging in
the all-too-usual branding of Israel as
an evil creation of colonialist power.In a sometimes seemingly sense-
less world, words have power and
sense. It is in no way negating the
suffering of civilians in Gaza to
remark that Israel is far from com-
mitting genocide. Israel is not try-
ing to annihilate the Palestinians, is
not deliberately targeting civilians,
and is not starving an entire people.
Israel is not a fascist state, in fact it
is (arguably with Lebanon) the only
democratic country of this region. It
is in no way denying that Palestinian
civilians have been the primary vic-
tims of this conflict to remind that
some of their suffering has also been
self-inflicted: by the Hamas govern-
ment using its own population as
human shields, rejecting ceasefires,and Egyptian mediations, and by the
terrorists using schools and homes
as rocket launching bases.
If anything, the use of such
words as genocide along with slo-
gans that borderline anti-Semitism
in demonstrations, and with words
negating Israels right to exist iso-
late the voices calling for compro-
mise on both sides of the front lines.
They cloud the debate and alienate,
they divide along Manichean lines
a conflict so old and so long that its
complexity is hard to grasp. Whats
more, they insinuate that the suffer-ing of the population of Gaza is not
great enough, not terrible enough to
be described by words that actually
apply. Have the Gazans really not suf-
fered enough that proper character-
ization would fail to catch the worlds
attention? Or is it just rather that it
failed to arouse enough anger and
calls for revenge?
This ceasefire brings a renewed
opportunity for dialogue. Our cam-
pus leaders would do well to seize it
to appease their own base. An educa-
tional institution is no place for slan-
der and hate, but an ideal environ-
ment for discussion and exchange.
Perle Nicolle is a U4 Mechanical
Engineering student. Get the discus-sion started at perle.nicolle@mail.
mcgill.ca.
Halper should stick to
facts, not calumny
books on tape