Yet the very elected representative who is at the head of the student body that has pledged support to expand and work on issues relating to student space is now attempting to limit student space on campus by bringing about a referendum question that seeks to completely weaken, near-well abolish, the General Assembly (GA) – the only open-democratic forum we have on campus through which the opinions of everyday students can be expressed equally and without marginalization from any colloquial “Man.”

I entered McGill six years ago, in 2005. Heavily interested in the student political scene, I immediately sought out ways to get involved. It was only in the following year, the 2006-2007 academic year, that the first GA took place. We discussed pretty damn controversial issues that year, including the now-infamous, but unfortunately forgotten-by-many, Héma-Quebec Blood Drive issue, an invasively divisive issue easily traceable in The McGill Daily archives. There were always problems of quorum and decorum, idiotic motions, and questionable intentions. Yet despite this, the GA provided a forum in which any student was allowed to come and participate actively, to the extent to which they were interested, in a discourse that affected them directly or perhaps indirectly, or maybe not at all in any capacity. Students were allowed an open space, allowed to create their own boundaries within this space, and control the rules. The GA, in essence, promotes precisely what so many of us learn on a theoretical level in our classes: an actualization of our ideas, knowledge, and ability.

The GA is a student-run space for all students.  There are problems, yes, but many of these can be fixed in the most simplest of measures. There needs to be better advertisement: when undergrads come to McGill, make sure it’s one of the first things mentioned to them during the Orientation tour, by the newly elected SSMU executive;  poster the call for motions and, for god’s sake, advertise the actual GA at least three weeks in advance. And Facebook should not be the only medium for marketing dissemination – campus publications should also get in on that action. Listen, Daily, if you could rally for student space in the form of the Architecture Café, do more for the GA.

And please, no more excuses about the GA not being representative of the student body – SSMU is? What’s the percentage required for quorum at a GA? And what was the percentage of voter turnout for the last election? Apparently issues of representation only become relevant when things get a little too heated for other groups of students, apparently more representative of all students than any other group.

Aside from virtually ridding students of the one open public forum they do have, Newburgh’s motion also takes out SSMU from striking next year alongside other Quebe universities’ student unions against tuition hikes. Thus, not only is the motion limiting student space to engage with campus politics, it is further limiting SSMU’s space in the broader realm of student politics. And why? Because some people can’t handle the words “Occupied Palestinian Territories” or “No Pants Fridays?”

The ever-demonized McGill administration is not the only institution limiting student space on campus; Zach Newburgh’s motion to “reform” the General Assembly ultimately is no different from actions taken by the administration – for whatever reason – to cramp space available for students to call their own. And it is also a form of censorship, an issue too many are afraid to discuss in public, but is acknowledged most voraciously by those well acquainted with the impetus behind the motion. The recent suspension of Midnight Kitchen should alert us to how precious and vulnerable the space that we can actually call our own, as students, actually is.

Save the GA, or else students three years from now are just going to put forward another referendum question to bring about a democratic public forum for student discourse on issues relevant to campus life and operations.

Vicious circles are for bicycles anyway.

—

Sana Saeed is a former Daily columnist, is currently a member of the DPS Board of Directors, and is in her final year of a Masters in Islamic Studies. She can be reached at sana.saeed@mail.mcgill.ca.

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Sana Saeed
M.A. II Islamic Studies
DPS Board of Directors

The post The return of Sana Saeed appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Law 94.

Just last week, the National Assembly passed a law banning the niqab from such critical public spaces as universities, government offices, daycares, and hospitals receiving government funding. The support for the ban has been strong throughout Canada, with an 80% approval rating according to a survey conducted by Angus Reid. Criticisms have been sparse, coming primarily from an unsure Muslim community, various lawyers, scattered academics, and select university papers.

But the general discussion on this matter has just been a mess, with a near complete avoidance in English-speaking Canada of the question of the role of identity. Given the provincial nature of this legislation, however, I will limit my discussion to Quebec.

As mentioned briefly in an article last month by Sheetal Pathak (“Muslim women don’t need saving from themselves,” Commentary, March 18), the Canadian Muslim community is itself divided on this issue. Unlike the hijab, there’s no real consensus on the status of the niqab. A small minority see it as an obligation – or at the very least, the superior form of the modesty principle prescribed by Islam.

While this debate is legitimate, it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand – the discussion on the matter within the Muslim community needs to move beyond the question of necessity. If there are women who believe it is their religious obligation to wear the niqab while living in North America, then that choice must be respected.

That cyclic debate along with broader reductionist debate on “choice,” grossly undermine women’s agency and completely overlook the greater context of Law 94 and the persistence of a discourse ultimately not about gender equality, secularism, integration, or identification, but about identity. And just as identity politics create a limiting framework for political discourse, identity politics can and often do create limiting platforms for legislation and issues regarding minority populations.

Quebec is not France. But like French identity, Quebec identity is built upon a shared linguistic and ethnic heritage as embodied by the historical interactions between church and state, epitomized by the near-total rejection of Catholicism during the Quiet Revolution.

And like France, Quebec has seen a surge in its immigrant population – which challenges a system long sustained by the province’s homogeneity. It is understandable that the majority of Quebeckers – outside Montreal especially – would fear the erosion of an identity with a tumultuous past. Quebeckers are, after all, a minority within Canada so the issue of identity is already fragile.

While this fear is understandable, it is not justified and it certainly should not be the source for any law. With only a few dozen women in the province actually wearing the niqab, how much of a problem does the covering actually cause? France’s proposed ban on the burqa, recently judged unconstitutional by an advisory board, affected only 367 women out of 5 million Muslims. How necessary is a law for an exception – especially at the expense of appearing hostile to a significant and growing minority? What’s more, where exactly is the line drawn? When does “reasonable” accommodation become “unreasonable”? Can any demand be unreasonable if it’s made in the name of identity and ideology? Is it unreasonable if by the minority and reasonable if by the majority?
All of this is not to ignore the obligation upon the Muslim community itself, as with any other ethno-religious group, to sincerely engage with such issues and ask themselves what is a “reasonable accommodation” to ask of the state. But this question and its implications are to be addressed and dealt with by the respective communities themselves as it hinges on their own identity and place in society.

For many, a law that discriminates against an exception may not be really consequential to the “big picture” in a negative or a positive way. It is, however, crucial that we consider the sort of framework this persistent debate and this particular legislation create for future discussions on matters concerning minorities. This discussion is not black and white, nor do I wish to even hint at such a claim. There are, however, some factors which play a stronger role than others and we must pay heed to their influence.

But until we get to future debates, I’ll keep rocking flashy and colourful scarves that my students seem to love for as long as I can.

Sana Saeed will write once more in this space before disappearing. Get in touch: aristotles.lackey@mcgilldaily.com

CORRECTION: Due to an editorial error, the version of this article printed and put online on April 1, 2010 was an earlier draft not ready for print. The text above is the correct version of the article.

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While questionable, the paper highlights a striking characteristic of BDS. The authors claim the campaign draws a “line in the sand” in which “progressives, no matter how critical of Israel, who condemn the BDS movement, prove their pro-Israel bona fides.” The “line in the sand” characterization brings to light an extremely prevalent weakness in the general international Palestinian solidarity movement: the litmus test. The litmus test is a non-verbal, non-written test given to virtually all active members of any solidarity movement that tests an individual’s “actual” commitment to the cause, whatever it may be.

The BDS campaign as a grassroots movement which also seeks a top-down approach (sanctions) is the best route. And we know it works: history is our greatest testament.

There are, of course, problems with the campaign. There is no real leadership; there is a failure to sufficiently provide required materials and clear approaches to understand or explain the movement. BDS is not boycotting Indigo or Victoria’s Secret – it is a holistic strategy that aims to both economically and symbolically undermine the government of Israel by placing upon it the sort of pressure our governments have failed to provide. And then there is the issue of the academic boycott. Even some of the most fervent BDS supporters have problems reconciling themselves to this.

But what hurts BDS the most, just as it hurts the general solidarity movement, is the litmus test. Much like the one-state/two-state divide which has pierced the movement, the BDS campaign has come to either verify or question one’s “commitment” to the “cause.” Disagreement on these two issues should not serve a source of division within the movement. As soon as litmus tests are administered for activists and their commitment to the cause, we begin dismantling the support base. Thus, this division only advantages one group: the Israel apologists.

The litmus test is indicative of an old and now growing problem within activism, where essentialism, dogmatism, and ideology reign supreme. We no longer just feel compelled to act but we feel compelled to achieve. We focus on the “right answer” without ever really questioning the way we arrive at that answer and its implications. A sort of essentialist approach grows; any dissent puts one outside the community.

For instance, the one-state solution is the right and just solution to the 60 years of oppression of the Palestinians. But that is easier believed than done: South Africa, post-apartheid, is still shaking with inequalities and antagonisms. The potential implications of the one-state solution, such as civil war, strife, and political despotism, are not often addressed, usually due to dogmatic and essentialist reasons.

We shouldn’t step down from the “right” answers, but we also shouldn’t avoid any discussion of possible negative and perhaps inevitable implications. It helps us realize that no solution is ever really a solution. To err is, after all, to be human.

Ghassan Kanafani once wrote that “in the final analysis, man is the cause.” We create the momentum required for change, for the “effect,” whatever that “effect” may be. Activism for Palestine is not about one-state/two-state or BDS or the origins of hummus. It is about a commitment to justice. It is about patience. Our control is, ultimately, over ourselves as the cause.

The 15 minutes Nelson Mandela spent leaving the gates of his prison, heralded as a heroic moment, only held their importance because Mandela waited for three decades, with patience, with a commitment to justice – knowing that his freedom had no guarantee. And this is what activism is: it is not about a goal or a solution; it is not about dividing ourselves in the face of disagreements and dissent; it is about a commitment to justice regardless of whether its deliverance is guaranteed.

Sana Saeed writes in this space every other week. But not for long. Don’t question her activist cred: aristotles.lackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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While I have not had the chance to visit the exhibition itself, I have heard some interesting remarks regarding the morbidly alluring smell that fills the exhibit, the predominant representation of a particular ethnic group, and the general awe inspired by the sheer complexity and muscular synchronization of the human body. While the exhibit certainly seems as though it would be worth a portion of my pay cheque, I find myself hesitating.

There is only one reason why the BODIES exhibit is as popular as it is and has received the sort of attention and acclaim that it has: the use of “actual human specimens.” As a friend recently, and heatedly, mentioned, we have the scientific ability to perfectly recreate the human body from within; we have the ability to even create the required tissue – so why use cadavers, formerly referred to as human beings, as educational models on display to teach the non-medical world?
Because sex sells.

BODIES sexes up science. It adds to the growing sexual commodification and morbidity to which we are becoming increasingly desensitized. We are constantly looking for a selling “schtick” for our products. Shock-and-awe – albeit the name of a military strategy – is perhaps the best way to characterize this so-called “century of the self,” in which to garner attention for and to sell a commodity means constantly pushing the bounds of the shocking. The human body itself has become a huge marketing point, used to get people to purchase products and services in varying ways and to various degrees – thereby promoting the sexualization of capitalism, beyond sex itself.

See also: Lady Gaga.

Now, I’m not trying to promote any sort of moral Puritanism, but there is something sincerely and deeply unsettling about the concept behind BODIES. For a few dollars, you can see once-living human beings skinned, preserved, and arranged in positions highlighting our own bodies’ intricacies. Just as I stand outside the looking glass, if I were once the unfortunate inmate of a Chinese prison, I could very easily be standing on the other side – frozen in formaldehyde.

What is ironic is that the very same field – medical science – which claims deep respect, understanding, and love for the human body has completely dehumanized it and made it into something worth consuming without the added bonus of being referred to as an establishment of “pimps.”

What does this exhibit – and displays like it – say about our priorities and values as a society? What does it say about us as a people when we use a military strategy to sell products, especially those that are a source of entertainment, using the human body and its various functions? We’re approaching a threshold that will force us to ask: what else is left to sell for entertainment value? And I’m unsure if I want to be around when the answer to that question is known.

No apologies for any self-righteousness that may have been displayed in this column.

Sana Saeed writes in this space every other week. Does BODIES violate bodily sovereignty? Inquiring minds want to know: aristotles.lackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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Much happened in the aftermath of the invasion of Gaza in late December 2008 by Israeli forces: Gaza’s irrevocable damage; an unabashedly overconfident Israel finding itself at the receiving end of a barrage of international condemnation; the Goldstone Report and the growth of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement. Yet perhaps the most striking aftershock, for us here, was the conversion of the McGill campus into a second front for Operation Cast Lead, with shells of identity politics being cast upon all those who dared to speak out against Israeli aggression.

February 2009: I pushed through the doors of Redpath, my body welcoming the accompanying brief breath of warmth. I headed downstairs to grab a quick coffee and joined two friends, Sarah and Ayesha, in the overcrowded cafeteria. Interested in Ayesha’s perspective as a Sri Lankan Muslim, I brought up the issue of the conflict in Sri Lanka. This conversation was taking place during the days leading up to the now infamous February 5 General Assembly and all three of us had found ourselves frustrated with the whispered segregation taking place between students. We needed something else to discuss.

The response from Ayesha consisted of a smirk and a roll of the eyes.

Ayesha admitted that the Sinhalese Buddhist government did not treat its minority population most preferably, but argued that the Tamils did not appreciate the state’s attempts to bring them onto an equal footing. The government had to do what it had to do to keep the country together and safe from a terrorist organization. With this justification as a foundation, she insinuated that the killing of thousands of Tamils was not tantamount to genocide: they were just, albeit unfortunately, collateral damage. They also seemed to forget that they were being used as human shields by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Genocide, as a claim, was just in vogue.

These words sounded all too familiar – I felt as though I was sitting across from a hijab-clad Zionist.

As I pushed further, she began to struggle with her words. How did she see the slaughter of the Palestinians as genocide but not of the Tamils?
“I just…I just can’t imagine my society doing something like that.”

And just like that an epiphany struck Sarah and me. Ayesha was unable to fathom how her society – consisting of people just like her and her family – could be involved in the slaughter of another people.

All of a sudden the Armenian-genocide-denying Turks, Darfuri-genocide-denying Arabs, and Zionists I had argued with had become humanized in an almost vulnerable sense. For a fleeting moment, I understood, without any anger, why my arguments with such individuals never really went anywhere other than exasperated gasps and frustrated fleeing.

Their denial of such atrocities cannot be forgiven; an injustice is an injustice regardless of circumstance. The support for any injustice is support against all of justice. But, again, for that moment I finally understood how deniers of atrocities could deny what they did. Denial of atrocities, especially when they are linked strongly to a national, religious, or ethnic identity, is a dissociation of the self’s complicity in any sinful doing. To accept the wrong committed is to accept that there is something somewhat deficient, in an indeed peculiar way, with oneself in terms of self-identification and history.

And that admittance is terrifying.

And here we are again, a year later, back to playing on our identity. Last night’s General Assembly ended up being nothing more than a showcase of passionate identity politics. In particular, it reminded us that there is a high level of intolerance on campus regarding the issue of Palestine. The mere mention of the occupation of Palestine, which is illegal and a clear violation of human rights, created uproar and a campaign that claimed that the motion was demonizing Israel.

Last year’s motion, which asked SSMU to condemn Israeli attacks against schools during the Gaza invasion, was a motion that had Israel as its focus. No one denied this. This year’s motion put forward by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), however, was focused on social corporate responsibility, on expanding the Financial Ethics Review Committee’s mandate, using the Occupied Palestinian Territories as the example of a human rights violation, which it is. The fact that the preamble in the motion, which mentioned the Occupied Territories, created the sort of outcry and controversy that it did is most unfortunate and deplorable.

The fact that an SPHR member’s Facebook account was hacked into, and subsequently, that the event supporting the motion was cancelled with false information about the GA spread to over 2,000 people is disgusting. Are we not above this? Or, are we so subordinate to our identities that we lose rationality and any sense of fairness and justice?
It’s time to close the second front of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here on campus. We need to stop militarizing our minds and our words. Student support against Israeli aggression and occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories must continue – Israel is not being singled out for human rights abuses or breach of international law. Supporters of Tibet are not told that they are singling out China. Supporters of Iranian homosexuals are not told they are singling out Iran. A wrong is a wrong is a wrong. This continued attempt to shut down any small public debate on any issue even mentioning Palestine or Israel – which must always be discussed behind closed doors, it seems, between deceivingly congenial club executives – is a form of mental violence being fuelled by the irrationality of identity politics.

Enough is enough.

Sana Saeed writes in this space every week. Write her at aristotles.lackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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The Onion recently published an article entitled “Massive Earthquake Reveals Entire Island Civilization Called ‘Haiti.’” I condescendingly chuckled at an initial glance but knew that I stood among the ignorant sympathizers the article targeted. Prior to the earthquake, Haiti was that country mentioned on flyers plastered across the dance school on Milton that I passed for three years on my walk to and from campus – flyers that decried the Canadian government’s presence in the country.

But things change. The YouTube-uploaded apocalyptic devastation and chaos that wrecked Port-au-Prince offered unshakable images. Like many others, I immediately ran to organize something – anything – to help. Voices of Haiti has been in the works now for over a week; it will be a night of local visual and oral art aimed at raising funds and spreading general awareness about Haiti. Money is not enough to help the broken country. Knowledge, too, must be donated to those digging deep into their pockets.

We initially planned to donate all the funds raised for Voices for Haiti to Médecins sans frontières (MSF), a great organization that has been working for over 20 years in Haiti and has been providing much-needed medical services after this devastation.

After a conversation with a local Haitian activist and artist, however, my co-organizer gave me a frantic phone call asserting that we had to rethink our financial support of MSF. Taken aback, I tried my hardest to reassure her that the concerns raised were perhaps unfounded and, at best, generalized. But as a former political science student, I knew these apprehensions had merits.

During disaster relief, we are quick to throw money at the problem. Our emotions and conscience get the best of us, as we leave reason somewhere else: it becomes inaccessible for a few weeks before apathy returns. In particular, we hastily assume that if an organization is, let’s say, international in nature and approach and also UN-certified or backed, then it must be the best outlet for our money, comprised of the best people to get “the job” done. Whatever that job is.

The truth is that while international organizations ranging from MSF to the International Red Cross do a great deal of good, they are not the answer to situations such as the one currently in Haiti. International organizations (IOs) are not free of political agendas, free of bias, or free of economic and personal interests.

Like any other organization, IOs require that there be both a constant need and a constant desire for their services and products: a market. They compete against one another; survival is a necessity, not an option. Relief organizations thrive on disaster, conflict, and the needs of the afflicted. Thus a population’s dependency on IOs and the unstable situations in troubled countries allow for such organizations to constantly expand: more funding, more credibility.

And while the efforts of relief organizations are extremely important and necessary in any disaster or conflict-ridden region, we must understand that sometimes these groups can do more harm than good.

In the case of Haiti, the population has become dependent on international agencies for many basic services. Rather than promoting sustainable development that looks at transferring dependence from foreign organizations to regional groups, international relief agencies perpetuate constant dependence – sometimes intentionally. There are allegations, for instance, that MSF along with other IOs in Haiti not only quell local activism that attempts long-term development to make Haitians less dependant on foreign services, but also that these groups supported the 2004 coup d’état, backed by the U.S.

We need to get beyond the “immediate relief” mentality. I am not in the least saying that we should forget about these organizations. We should support the work international organizations do, but also empower local groups that seek indigenous solutions to persisting socio-economic and political problems that have been plaguing a country like Haiti for decades.

Within days of the earthquake, representatives from American construction companies were already discussing reconstruction plans and costs. While reconstruction is certainly important, it is more important to consider how Haitians can prepare themselves and future generations for similar or worse disasters. How can youth, among the most marginalized in the country, be empowered to lead their country in a new direction?
It is also important to consider ecological factors that may have contributed to the enormity of the quake, such as the expansive deforestation that has been the result of the intimate relationship between corrupt government and hungry international corporations. Less than two per cent of Haiti remains forested. How can this and other issues be dealt with beyond “immediate relief?”

Immediate relief is just that – a response at the very moment catastrophe strikes. Relief is not a solution. Solutions are possible: they must be local and long-term.

So donate your money, your clothes, and your non-perishable food items. Do not hold back. At the same time, be aware of alternatives and realize that Haiti’s existence and problems exceed the past two weeks.

That being said, what are you doing Friday night?

Sana Saeed writes in this space every other week. Voices for Haiti will be held on Friday, January 29 at 7 p.m. in the Shatner Ballroom. For more info, send Sana an email: sana.saeed@mail.mcgill.ca.

The post Think before you give appeared first on The McGill Daily.

To never succumb.

The realization of the struggle(s) inherent to my womanhood helped me better formulate a worldview that would eventually bring me to peace with several things that had haunted my thoughts for years. Vanity, glass ceilings, career, ambition, opinions, unorthodox language and choices, and unattainable expectations had all carved out comfortable abodes in my head and I was constantly forced to deal with the issues that arose from their sometimes unwanted and sometimes desired presence.

I picked up my first piece of feminist literature at the age of 16. It was your basic introductory work, providing a detailed discussion and analysis of various forms of feminism – as an ideology and as an academic discipline – ranging from radical to ecological. The academic foundation of the activist movement attracted me and eventually led me to take a feminist theory class during my first undergraduate semester. A mixture of an activist fetish, first-year depression, and general intellectual curiosity gently coaxed me into joining a collective of sorts and really exploring the McGill feminist landscape. It was angry, fun, filled with ambiguities. I liked it. It terrified me at times, overwhelmed me, but it was something.

Alas, somewhere along the way, the relationship went sour. The passion left. The tensions had always been there, but were ignored for the sake of solidarity.

Though always aware of my womanhood, I had never been as sensitive to my ethnic and religious identity as much as I was forced to be upon entering university. New ideas regarding power relations, history, politics, gender, and ethnicity were thrust into my adorable 18-year-old face. I embarked on the sort of spiritual and cultural rejuvenation that seems to come with age and paying tuition. I began to re-explore my Islamic identity while also looking into my heritage, beyond the date of my parents’ migration to North America.

And as my awareness of racism and ethnic power dynamics’ pervasive nature increased, the paradox involved in maintaining a capital-F feminist self also increased. I became more and more uncomfortable being associated with Feminism – a feeling fueled largely by how mainstream strands of feminism (including the ever-dominant Radical branch) would treat ethnic identities.

Generally speaking, feminism, as a socio-political and intellectual movement, has been dominated by white women, along with a select few white transgendered individuals and white homosexual men.

Think that’s a gross exaggeration? Send a letter.

There has been very little input in the initial and primary construction of feminist discourse by those outside the aforementioned groups. The “white” history and experience – the meaning and implications of which exceed the scope of this column’s word count – defined, created, and have sustained what we understand feminism to be today, specifically the Liberal and Radical strands.

Now many will respond that several types of feminism today have evolved into more inclusive movements that take into consideration that so-called “women of colour” have different experiences than white women as women.

And that’s precisely where the problem lies: women of colour.

“Women of colour” beautifully illustrates the exact problem I discovered with feminism, as a woman who did not fit the mainstream criteria for being just a Woman. As a “woman of colour,” I am not just a Woman. I am a woman with a little something extra; there is a difference struck between women like me and white women. There is no Woman. There are no Women. There are two groups: women and “women of colour.” This tidily, and unfortunately, translates into the “us” and “them” categorization.

Because this distinction is made and has been proudly appropriated by “women of colour” without much criticism, this presumption that the white woman’s identity is a sort of “foundational” identity for all women is prevalent within feminism. As mentioned earlier, feminism was created and has been sustained on a very white – and North American – experience and history. This experience and this history have created the framework within which decades of feminist theory and thought have been constructed.

This paradigm was most aptly demonstrated when non-white feminists began to critique the very real ethnic power imbalances that existed in the discourse during the sixties and seventies. “Ethnicity,” including also faith and culture, was more or less fitted into the existing framework: the framework that was built on the white woman’s experience with and understanding of patriarchy. There was no real attempt to rethink the intellectual and historical foundations of the movement. Those thinkers, like Angela Y. Davis and bell hooks, who did attempt that reconceptualization, have gone into the shadows of academia, existing as mere footnotes at the end of feminist class syllabuses.

So, is the white woman the palette upon which the “colours” of all other women can be found and mixed, used interchangeably to create a beautiful “inclusive” portrait of something which is, in many respects, ugly? If we are all equal, why are some “of colour” while others have the privilege of a much shorter identity label?
I strongly believe that much of the feminist analysis on sex, sexual identities, capitalism, beauty, and gender deconstruction comprises a powerful tool, building ideas that require our consideration if we want to change our status-quo condition. I am not, however, foolish enough to believe in the universal applicability of these ideas here in North America (forget the rest of the world).

There is a real void within mainstream feminist discourse that has marginalized the very women whom it has allegedly sought to empower and “save.” Feminism is still very much a white woman’s movement and discipline; it has tokenized women it sees as “of colour” in its attempt to be more inclusive and universal. This is not progress: this is not equality. This is a kinder racism: unintentional, and really a part of an institutionalized mentality and epistemic history, but racism nevertheless.

What is required for feminism’s return to relevance is a complete reconsideration and questioning of the foundation it was built upon, one sustained by the white woman’s narrative on patriarchy. This reevaluation can potentially lead toward a more holistic feminism – hopefully rebranded as something for all men, women, and everyone beyond – that is based on an understanding that the experiences of all women with patriarchy vary. All women view and interact with “patriarchy” in different ways and more than lip-service recognition of this fact is required to transform feminism.

There should be no saving involved. There should be no brackets. There should not be two categories of women, if it is women about whom we speak. There should be realization, embracement, and battle. There should be real inclusivity – of cultures and ideas. Nothing fitted neatly into the existing crevices and cracks.

And there should be just Women. Period.

Sana Saeed writes in this space every week. Embrace her at aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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Sana Saeed
Master’s I Islamic Studies
Daily columnist

The post Girl, check yourself appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Catch your breath.

In classical Western political theory, the key to state stability has often, if not always, been seen as the maintenance of a homogeneous society. Foundational divisions of any sort create a threat to both the state and the fabric of society. And how was this homogeneity achieved? Primarily through education, as philosopher Ernest Gellner so wonderfully noted. Industrialized societies require strong bureaucratic states and these states must in turn create educational systems, the goal of which is not learning but rather the creation of a perfect citizenry to serve that state materially and ideologically.

While it was easier to achieve homogeneity during the time period when such monistic, dead-white-man liberal theories were popular, today’s pluralism forces another approach. Theorists and statesmen are trying to come up with ways to deal with the issues pluralism has brought up in the West. Problems of religious values and rights, individual rights, language, secularism, immigration policies, and gender have all been pushed and pulled. While some countries have tried to deal with their minority populations through assimilationist policies, others have opted for seemingly more inclusive models.

Like Canada.

During the mid-to-late 20th century, Canada’s demographic landscape saw some major changes. The population, which at the time of confederation was primarily French and British in origin, had begun to transform into a collage of various ethnic identities. In response to these changes, Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s federal government sought not only to ensure the political and social integration of these populations, but also to allow them some form of cultural continuity in order to contribute to what would soon be called Canada’s mosaic identity.

The development of Canada’s multiculturalist policies saw three major stages intended to homogenize the Canadian citizenry’s thinking about its society’s nature and makeup. The incipient stage (pre-1971) consisted of gradually socially accepting the ethnic and cultural diversity that was becoming more and more apparent. The formative stage (1971-1981) legally recognized this diversity. In 1969, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism recommended an ethno-inclusive integrationist policy, leading to the formal creation of multiculturalism. Equality became the end goal, and removal of racist or unfortunate circumstantial obstacles became the means. In the period of institutionalization (1982 til present), multiculturalism was protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and in 1988 a reform of the policy made the Multiculturalism Act into official Canadian law.

That’s five years of Canadian grade schooling right there.

Here we are, 20 years later. Are we heading toward a society that has successfully been able to balance its heavily heterogeneous populations, which in turn have contributed to the prosperity of our country? That was the point, was it not?
No, not really.

Multiculturalism, as an official policy and not as a demographic reality, was never meant to sustain our diverse Canadian cultures. Instead, it has been a way to create a façade – a fictitious support of diversity that in fact suffocates it.

Let’s take the instance of “illiberal” cultural practices and beliefs, however they are defined and categorized. How does our multiculturalist structure allow us to deal with them? Will Kymlicka, Canadian scholar and Official Defender of Multiculturalism, provides some insight into this question in Multicultural Citizenship. Kymlicka argues that multiculturalism should seek to liberalize facets of various cultures that appear to the government to be ‘illiberal.’ It is ethnocentric to think that cultures are intrinsically “illiberal” and thus incompetent to change. He argues that since there is a link between choice and culture that allows individuals to live and work in their relative cultures, there is a right, a right that is waived once immigrants have left their native countries. Kymlicka concedes that there are limitations to liberal tolerance. A liberal state cannot allow groups to restrict the individual freedom of their members nor can these groups impede on the rights and freedoms of other groups. The question is thus not about whether liberals believe in toleration; it is about what kind of toleration they support.

Awesome, but isn’t the attempt to “liberalize” a culture or group another form of assimilation? Multiculturalism then serves only to create a sort of symbolic identity. People shed any real, substantial ties and practices to their cultures as generations progress, holding onto the very superficial. Additionally, assimilation through liberalization becomes inevitable even without government intervention; individuals become liberalized and distanced from their own cultures and ethnic identities not only through daily interaction with individuals outside their “ethnic” or “cultural” group, but also through the daily barrage of the media. The change is slow, but emphatic: the second generation Indo-Canadian begins to date; the third generation Catholic Italo-Canadian supports gay marriage; and the Syrian-Muslim girl living in Canada since she was six years old begins to drink.

So, do we really believe that we are helping sustain cultures when in actuality all that is being sustained are colourful costumes, delicious cuisine, and fun dances that we can add to further enhance our mosaic?
Most importantly perhaps, what does it mean to receive state-enforced values of equality? If the state is telling us through education and other institutions that we are equal, that we must respect one another, are we really creating any values of substantial worth? Within the past two decades we’ve seen a sharp rise in ethnic tensions in our country. From the wearing of the Islamic hijab during sports to the bearing of the Sikh kirpan to school, any “minority” tradition or practice that seeks to integrate itself into the dominant culture has become a polarizing issue: it has been welcomed not with open arms, but with angry outcries. While one side of the debate argues for integration, the other side, which is becoming louder, argues for assimilation. For Canadians who are espousing assimilationist opinions, it may very well be the fact that they are frustrated not with what is happening but with how it is being dealt with by the government. The government must think of ways not only to ensure the rights of minority groups, but to keep the dominant culture content – a balance which is seemingly becoming harder to achieve.

At the root of this problem is the educational system that has been constructed by multiculturalist policies. What we have is a material educational approach to Canada’s diverse populations. Young Canadian students reading their social studies textbook might see their country as the Canadian mosaic but fail to grasp the profound understanding of the term. Instead, they are made to believe that this mosaic, colourful and cohesive, each piece complementing the other, is what Canadian society is like, leaving them unprepared for the realities that face thousands of so-called hyphenated Canadians everyday. And this needs to change.

The policies of multiculturalism may have worked for Canada and its citizens for the short-term, but are we prepared for the potential long-term affects?
But, then again, I’d rather live here than anywhere else, so I’ll just shut up now.

Sana Saeed’s sayin’ sayonara until next semester. Keep in touch at aristotles.lackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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Exhausted but combusting with energy, I said my goodbyes and acknowledged friends with reassuring nods to indicate that late evening phone dates that would have to follow. I grabbed my belongings and left to look for my father’s silver Ford Taurus, most likely waiting outside the western exit of the school.

I jumped into the car, answering his unspoken questions about my day and rehearsal. He just smiled, nodded and murmured occasionally to show me he wasn’t completely annoyed by the irrelevance of my unending blabber. He seemed more subdued than usual. Must have been a tough day at the bakery, I figured. My father ran a successful business making well-known goods across New York City. Things got tough at times, but after 10 years of an entrepreneurial struggle, he had established a good business.

When I arrived home, I found my mom sitting on the floor of the main bedroom, with all her personal papers loose-leafed across the floor. She was frantically searching, ripping and throwing away things of no importance and collecting whatever seemed valuable. She looked up at me as my father joined her to look through the sea of endless papers. There was a brief silence as my dad, through his eyes, seemed to provoke my mother to speak.

“We’re moving to Canada.”

My initial reaction is not something I’d like on the record, but let’s just say a fit of epic proportions was thrown. Thrown all over the place. I was completely aghast – why on earth had my family decided to move, without any sort of consultation with me, to a frozen tundra with igloos and an ugly head-of-state matriarch?
But my and my young brother’s cries of disgust meant nothing in the face of my parents’ determination. The 11-year-long American citizenship process didn’t really pan out and we had been offered access to Canada on the basis of my mother’s medical qualifications. She hadn’t been able to practice in the United States, given that she committed the grave sin of becoming a doctor at one of the best schools in a developing country. To be offered a position in her field with that sort of pay, and really with no other choice, my parents packed up everything and we were on our way to Canada within two weeks.

And we were not impressed. Not only was life completely different in Vancouver, where we moved after a brief and yawn-inducing stint in Toronto, but none of the promises of the new promised land seemed to hold. My mother was told that she forgot to read the verbal small print on her immigration conditions: not only did she have to take about four years of Canadian medical school classes and residency, she had to take Grade 12 English.

Just to make sure.

The hit was immediate and spread quickly. My parents found themselves completely lost, financially and emotionally weakened. The most basic of things, to my 12-year-old mind, became beyond luxurious. We slept without mattresses for a year, with virtually no furniture in our house, while my parents looked for ways to regain financial security without tapping into their savings. My mother trained to become a midwife while my father worked security. Both of my parents come from upper-middle class strata and both are highly educated with years of unmatchable experience under their respective belts. But pride must be swallowed in order to keep the family fed.

Eventually both made their ways to calling centres, where they found themselves in the company of other medical doctors, former professors, accountants, civil engineers, economists; you name the career and it was there amongst a sea of headsets. They slowly moved up, got better positions, and started becoming more comfortable in our new lives. We all did. My brother and I had our American-ness stripped of us, and we were hesitant to accept a country which had torn us away from what we loved based on what we saw as deceit. The consciousness of our new immigrant identity forced us to wake up. Everything we did, said, wore, felt was spoken, worn, felt in the context of being essentially “legal aliens.”

It was hard for me to see myself as Canadian for many years, even when I took the oath of citizenship in 2004. I had my occasional bouts of patriotism, but they were always superficial and brief. I was angry; I was upset. My father’s business had been destroyed, my mother’s dream slaughtered, and I never got to do the tribute to Broadway: I never got to live my all-American dream. The only solace I ever found was in hockey – and even that was usually depressing, thank you very much, Vancouver Canucks.

But this sort of self-pity is nothing more than self-fulfilling. Pity gets you nothing, whether it’s from yourself or others. And I’m not asking for your pity either, as you read this brief account of my family’s migration story. No immigrant or migrant wants pity. And they don’t need it either. Instead of pitying, as members of a country built on the backs of immigrants we ought to rethink how we as a society engage with our immigrant population. And I don’t mean through the shoddy multiculturalist façade we’ve thrown up in an attempt to simultaneously appease and liberalize. It’s time for serious and practical immigration reform both at the structural and societal levels.

But I’ll save that discussion for another time. I have a hockey game to catch.

Sana Saeed normally writes every other Wednesday. Write her at aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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But that was September 2005. By my fourth and final year, every ounce of idealism and hope had been successfully dismantled by too many fumbles into the dreaded bell curves and the endless nonsense of realism that seemed to punctuate all the classes I took in the department.

Regardless, I was saddened when my political science career ended. This sorrow, however, was not limited to the end of a personal era. The very last paper I wrote for my major was the first paper I had ever written on Africa. My only contact with the place prior to this was in the form of Egypt, in the Middle-Eastern context, and North Africa, discussion of which merely revolved around the recognition of the area’s existence. This final paper thus forced me to question and analyze my personal and academic relationship with the “Dark Continent.”

What I realized, in part thanks to conversations with my token African friend, was that my own perception, as well as the popularly projected view of Africa was almost exclusively this oddly pornographic, stagnant, and singular image of the continent. In other words, we have a grossly generalized and exploitative view of Africa, as bereft of its constituent parts, as a single entity ravaged by famine, poverty, and disease. We rarely think of the parts that make up Africa, and when we do, those pieces of the continent are limited to conflict-ridden countries.

The “real Africa,” as we know it seems to be in between North Africa and the south, the latter of which is associated with being Western and European. And we never go beyond the negative. We never even think to ask about Africa’s thriving arts, literary, and academic cultures. African history is limited to the period of and after colonialism. Rarely are the historical achievements stemming from the African continent, which have helped the world modernize and progress, discussed – let alone acknowledged.

International institutions and NGOs don’t exactly change this, either. While helping the poor and destitute of the world is vital, the campaigns undertaken by groups ranging from UNICEF to Make Poverty History to Save The Children have exploited and exacerbated the view of Africa as a single “country” ravaged by war, lawlessness, illiteracy, disease, and drought. These issues do exist, but in varying degrees in the various countries that share the continent. This attitude also clouds our perception of most of the non-Western and non-European world: this “other” world becomes ours to save. All we see is Kipling’s burden alive and thriving within our minds. In other words, every time you donate to World Vision, you are undermining the ability of Africans to be the agents of change of their own condition. How do you sleep at night?
I recently decided to see if this perspective is in fact correct: do most people see Africa through a pornographic lens? I updated my Facebook status (a most accurate empirical approach) and asked friends to comment, without pretending to be enlightened, with the first word(s) that popped into their heads at the mention of Africa. The results were unsurprising. Out of a total of 25 responses, three said “black”; four friends wrote “disease” (of whom one said AIDS); four said “famine”; and two responded with “Toto.” Other responses included: oppression, tribes, rain, drought, children, safari, cows, Simba, beautiful black women, Apartheid, and The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Intrigued, I updated my status once again, this time applying the same question to Europe. The results were radically different. The 13 word-associations included: wine, sophistication, art, dream destination, empire, culture, gourmand, imperialism, education, croissants, cafés, and cobblestone.

Europe epitomized high culture, savoir-faire, knowledge, art, and personal desire. The Cradle of Civilization, on the other hand, was reduced to a colour, to famine, to children, to Toto. One continent claimed the pinnacle of what a civilization should be while the other encompassed precisely all that creates the antithesis of a great civilization. The power relationship between the two continents, both historic and epistemic, is thus apparent. Surprise, surprise.

The “Dark Continent” remains as dark as ever, but more so because we have allowed for greater darkness to overtake it. By ignoring the contributions of African civilizations, the continent’s particular parts, its non-colonial history, and its thriving cultures, we do a great disservice to our fellow human beings and undermine our own so-called humanitarian efforts. Aid, food, condoms, clean water, and building schools will help. But nothing will help more than acknowledging that Africans are beyond care packages, that they are beyond drums, beyond civil strife, beyond pigment, and beyond our television screens.

Sana Saeed is back! Follow her exploits here every other week. Write Sana at aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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The Daily archives serve to provide a fascinating journey of Piñata’s evolution. Starting with the one of many Obama columns dated September 29, we can see a regression from the attempt to sound progressive. I’m not trying to make a judgment call here, and I am not necessarily saying that to be “progressive” – with the political connotations that we understand to be associated with it – means to have “better” political values. No. Hell no. Rather, I find it interesting how these columns portray the political evolution of Kreitner, a first-year student from the United States. Read together, in chronological order, we can see the shift in the columnist’s thought. Personal and political realizations, frustrations, and ambitions manifested themselves in half-witty writing each week, often evoking outrage from readers – as seen on The Daily’s web site and in its letters section.

Evolution is great. And I’m saying that as a theist. I don’t, however, believe that this particular political evolution has been expressed in the best way – it still shows the prematurity of some of Kreitner’s ideas. Not a bad thing, but concerning if you’re tackling a political column. Nothing personal, but I’m one of those people who tends to like her political commentary well-substantiated. That being said, I’d like to take this opportunity, with my final column, to briefly address the Piñata Diplomacy pieces that have struck me the most in Kreitner’s development as someone with a political opinion.

Throughout the year, Piñata Diplomacy has shifted from being a narrative column that personalized politics to a completely polemic political column. In this writer’s opinion, and with her own bias, the former worked far better for Kreitner, in terms of writing, than the latter. One of the initial columns which comes to mind is the very first in a series of Obama pieces, “Sittin’ and Hopin’ for Change,” which shows a confused Kreitner. In this piece, he very eloquently describes an experience he has at a McGill for Obama meeting. The reader is enamoured by Kreitner’s observational writing, which proves to be witty and successful in its description of the bored mind and the absurdity of Obamania. His ending, however, is a bit weaksauce as Kreitner attempts to make a strong political statement regarding the Obama campaign’s decrease in excitement and the superfluous notion of “change,” without really commenting any further on these crucial points. Had he discussed the mentioned issues of wiretapping and campaign finance further, substantiating his claim of the superficiality of Obama’s “change,” then we would be talking about a solid political opinion piece. That, unfortunately, was not the case, and this reader was left feeling unsatisfied and used.

“Obama, After that Beautifully Singular Night” was another piece about that dude south of the border who became President or something of the United States. There weren’t any real issues here, other than the fact that I realized how very old I am. Kreitner was in the first grade with Mrs. Haig in 1996 while I was chilling in fourth, with Ms. Cohn. All I remember is that me and this other kid, David Feldman, were the only two in our grade who supported Bob Dole. Thanks for bringing back those frightening childhood memories.

“Tadamon! Is no paragon” became the first in a series of Israel-Palestine related spam – I mean, articles – in The Daily in the aftermath of OMGaza. There was just one line I needed to read to judge this column: “After minimal research, I have come to the conclusion…” Good luck in grad school, kid.

“A Declaration of Journalistic Independence” was just an awkward piece, acting as an open letter to family members. Kreitner essentially told them that he was a young man who was now taking charge of his masculinity vis-à-vis a university newspaper column, and that he was not afraid of the repercussions that his expressed opinions would have on his political career. This was also one of the first columns in which we saw Kreitner become more public about his masturbatory habits.

The first column of Piñata Diplomacy I read in its entirety was “What Mumbai Means to Me.” While I appreciated Kreitner’s attempts to assure us that those evil men were just “bastardizing Islam,” I found it concerning that he felt that there was “an alarmingly popular myth out there that the terrorists’ admittedly heinous means are somehow justified by noble ends, or at least can be explained as working toward such desirable ones.” Who are you hanging out with, dude? I can definitely see that opinion as existent, but only with a minority status – especially on our campus. Terrorists being justified in the Mumbai massacre is a popular opinion? Maybe in the Swat. Check your sources, because that colloquial statistic is absurd, sir.

“Barack Obama is Not an Indie Rock Band” was just another Obama spam piece. Around this time, I began feeling that Kreitner was losing his writing mojo – writing a column every week can be rather strenuous. Kudos, however, to Max Halparin, indie kid extraordinaire, for the title of the piece. Ten bucks says there’s already an indie band which has adopted that name.

“The Curious Case of Geert Wilders” was the first, unless you count the “Declaration” piece, of several columns dealing in one form or another with the issue of free speech, a topic with which Kreitner seemed to have a tough time as the months continued. I appreciated the citation of a reading from POLI 231’s syllabus, but I was left slightly confused – was Kreitner defending hate speech? If so, it really did not fall in line with the following column, “Where might a new anti-Semitism take place?” To me, this column seemed to be implicitly promoting a suffocation of debate on campus by equating current forms of anti-Zionism with an up-and-coming form of anti-Semitism. I definitely saw the merit in this argument, but was still disturbed by the equation. Additionally, the column reeked of generalizations, committing itself to the belief that activists for Palestinian self-determination and justice tend to isolate themselves from being active in other causes. Kreitner’s subconscious uncertainty regarding free speech also reared its head in the following piece, “Don’t Sacrifice Campus Free Speech.”

And finally, there was the infamous “Righting Our Wrongs Over Iraq.” It received enough flack and response in The Daily, so I’m going to refrain from adding further masala to the wound. Truth be told, this column had potential; its overall point was legitimate. I may not agree with it, but it is an opinion I know exists, and that has been well-defended. Mind you, the only individuals whom I’ve heard and read defend this stance well have been professors – not “eager to impress” (Kreitner’s words, not mine) undergrads. Instead, I will comment on the fact that someone actually had the audacity to write in and say that their mind had been changed about the war by this particular column. God save us all.

And with this last-minute column, I’d like to say thanks to all 12 people, including Max Halparin and the copy editors, who read my column this year. Not that it matters, anyway. I’m awesome, regardless.

Sana’s outta hurr. Good thing we could get one more artistic representation of her many facial expressions in print (see above).

The post Aristotle’s Lackey: Busting the Piñata: a response appeared first on The McGill Daily.

But the Pakistan I would experience in the ensuing six months would be fundamentally different from the one that I had expected. Although the subcontinent was being torn apart by a war, life was, to my innocent surprise, completely normal. Better than normal. The problems were plentiful, but nothing lived up to the negative image that the hype back home, in the United States, had created in my mind.

Ten years later, however, the situation is radically different. The country is falling apart at the seams, and even some of the most unwaveringly patriotic Pakistanis are beginning to take notice of issues regarding extremism that required their attention years ago. Yet the hype with which we are constantly bombarded is still leading us to false conclusions. As The Observer’s Jason Burke rightly observes, the prediction of Pakistan’s collapse is an old story, one that has been espoused several times in the past 40 years, from after the creation of Bangladesh to after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan will most likely become a failed state, but it will not be the next Somalia. But most importantly, Burke notes that one of the biggest problems facing Pakistan’s future and existence, as well as the security of the international community, is the rise of so-called religious and nationalist extremism, not only among Pakistanis living in Pakistan but also in the diaspora, as seen with several communities in the United Kingdom in recent years.

This isn’t about a black dress or facial hair. This is about the rhetoric and reactionary mentality of a significant minority of Pakistanis, especially among those living in the West. The problem of Pakistan is no longer secluded to its government; it has penetrated through the country’s citizenry, which is reacting against the social and economic realities denigrating culture and life through the use of religion and nationalism. These vulnerabilities allow for the politics of the region to be as they are; corrupt government after corrupt government has filled its stomach on these vulnerabilities. And do not doubt the transcendence of these frustrations. While people with such warped religious essentialism and national zealousness are a minority, with the majority of Pakistanis on the secular side, they do still exist and are not isolated to the subcontinent.

That being said, my fellow Pakistanis need to awaken from their slumber. We have to come to terms with the fact that what we understand as Pakistan exists now only in nostalgia. The road to democracy and stability is never easy. And even then there’s no guarantee. Pakistan arose from another country, through the bloodiest mass migration of our time, breaking away from colonialism, with no institutions to call its own – it had to create a country essentially from scratch. The foundation that Muhammad Ali Jinnah and company created was not strong. Yet the country has continued to attempt to build itself upon that weak foundation. And all of this, of course, is not to deny the involvement of international parties, which has helped exacerbate the downward spiral of Pakistan. But there’s still much that can be done.

Islam has become corrupted as a political tool, violence against women has increased, civil society is constantly repressed, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to rise at a repulsive rate, and justice and accountability remain just mere song topics. As Pakistanis, we need to be able to accept that these issues have surpassed the borders of Pakistan. Many of us need to snap out of our classist bubble and realize that a Pakistan exists outside our massive bungalows. As McGill students, we need to bring further light to religious and nationalist extremism that will prove to hinder any potential progress or stability for the region. We need to bring attention to the fact that the many different situations in South Asia have an effect on our political conduct in North America. The lack of a proper department or even sub-department for South Asian studies – in either political science or Islamic studies – is indicative of the general, and unfortunate, lack of academic interest in the region.

Of course a discourse on Pakistan exists on campus, but it is minimal and primarily involves an audience of South Asian descent. This needs to change. There needs to be a larger, more inclusive discourse regarding Pakistan, and South Asia as a whole, which can be sustained. As another commentator, Faiz Lalani, mentioned in Monday’s edition of The Daily, there is a world of conflict outside the Middle East. Amen, Lalani. Hezbollah has nothing on the Swat Valley.

Sana’s last Daily-syndicated comment will appear in two weeks. Write while you can at aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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There was a time when chasing boys across the school’s green field and chipped asphalt was acceptable. Then we entered middle school, and ignoring them became the new practice. High school hit, and degradation through witty insults was all the rage. In university, intellectual knockouts prove to be the best testosterone agitators. All were great techniques for achieving…um…okay, so here’s my Eastern Front. The Germans had no chance of winning against the Red Army, and I have no chance of figuring out to what 14 years of chasing, ignoring, teasing, and intellectual knockouts have all led.

To be quite honest, I blame suburban public education. Somewhere along the line, the whole philosophy of, “If they tease you it means they like you,” which our first grade teachers shoved down our throats, became perverted in my head and, I am sure, in the heads of millions of other young women. This is why women chase men who treat them like shit, why women believe they can change men, why nice guys finish last and why Rihanna has not dumped Chris Brown’s ass. Since the days of nap time, we’ve been programmed to believe that a male’s lack of attention is indicative of his insecurity with his sexuality and masculinity; he is unable to be upfront about his feelings because that hurts the development of the ideal Man he is being coerced to adopt.

But this seemingly simple explanation has left me a damaged, but refurbished good now at the age of 21. The line between being insulted and having a sincere gesture of affection made has become blurred and convoluted. My understanding of love and relationships is severely distorted. Kind sincerity becomes an offensive joke and pure douche-baggery becomes flirtatious teasing, potentially leading to marriage and two-point-five kids. Guy tells me I’m pretty, and I verbally sack him. Guy calls me a disgusting piece of leftist bulimic vomit, and I swoon. Something’s wrong here, but I find comfort in knowing that I am not alone in feeling this way.

Many women flock toward the men who treat them the worst, with the stereotypical but oh-god-so-painfully-true belief that they can change them. You know, the Obama kind of change – the kind that’s promised, but that deep down inside, you know won’t be delivered. And yet, you continue to lust after it because that is where the sad fulfillment of your efforts and your self-worth lie, and because the alternative is terrifying. Being single is engrained into our minds as a fate worse than death, since even the dead get some love from the maggots.

In my much younger years, like many other young girls, I chased, teased, and ignored with the belief that that’s what the opposite sex found attractive. Et sequitur, we expected the same strategy and result to be employed by the recipients of our cold shoulders. But as I’ve matured into the strikingly attractive and intelligent young woman I am today, I have come to realize what a load of bullshit my first grade teacher taught me. And my second grade teacher. And my third. Fourth. Ad nauseum.

Through these subtly damaging lessons, the public education system makes women into sado-masochistic beings. Our heads are filled with fallacious tales about gender relations, sex, and love. We take this knowledge and conditioning and add it to what we learn at home and through the ever-changing forms of media, and we create our own yet similarly perverted understanding of relationships and how we should conduct ourselves in situations with those to whom we are attracted.

But then again, what do I know? The most intimate relationship I’ve ever had was last semester with Mr. James Ferrier. And even that was unsatisfying.

Sana’s column will be back in two weeks. Until then, send your love to aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.

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