As we watch the United States – our closest neighbour and gargantuan cultural influence – descend into fascism, science has come under unprecedented fire from its federal government. From slashing federal science funding to allowing a political appointee to decide which science needs to be “corrected,” the Trump administration has been abundantly clear: scientists pose a threat to far-right values. In a world where truths – for example, the difference between sex and gender – are constantly subject to ideological debate, science may seem more political than ever before. To the mainstream, this probably feels deeply wrong. “Science should be objective,” you cry, “not political!”

But as historically marginalized people know, science has always been political. And while the right currently sees scientific progress as undermining their anti-truth dogma, science has also been weaponized by right-wing oppressive powers since its inception.

The scientific method we know today is based on inductive reasoning, meaning the extrapolation of general principles from specific observations. Our modern inductive scientific method was pioneered by Francis Bacon, 17th-century lawyer, philosopher and politician. He was also a major proponent of British imperialism and colonialism. At a glance, the development of the scientific method and the expansion of the British empire might seem to be two unrelated branches of Bacon’s career. But Bacon’s scientific method embodies an ethos which can be applied to imperial projects: if we can classify and catalogue the world, we can control it.

When science emerged as the dominant epistemology in Western Europe, colonialism was already in full swing, and the two complemented each other well: colonies provided numerous specimens – human and nonhuman – for scientific research. Indigenous knowledge was also co-opted and re-packaged as scientific findings, as seen in the 19th century “discovery” of the antimalarial compound quinine (which was introduced to Jesuits by the Indigenous population of Peru).

The Baconian catalogue-and-control ethos drove the work of countless future imperialist-cum scientists, including the fathers of scientific racism Carl Linnaeus and Samuel George Morton. Carl Linnaeus, the 17th-century father of taxonomy (the classification of living things into groups), classified human races as taxonomic groups with behavioural and moral differences which he believed were rooted in biology – he refers to Europeans as “wise” and “inventors,” while referring to Africans as “sluggish” and “sly.” Samuel George Morton, meanwhile, wrote extensively in the 19th century on the idea that cranial differences in races were correlated with intelligence levels.

History saw countless examples of oppressive and exploitative science. These ranged from pioneer gynecologist James Marion Sims’s brutal experimentation on enslaved Black women in the 19th century to alleged CIA-funded brainwashing experiments done on McGill campus in the 1950s and 60s, which used Indigenous children as test subjects. Sure, these cases could be dismissed as pseudoscience, rather than treated as evidence that science is inherently oppressive. But within the scientific community at the time, these ideologies and actions were excused as reasonable, necessary even, in the name of progress. And a “progress” which systemically exploits the bottom rungs of fabricated social hierarchies is inarguably political.

Don’t get me wrong: the scientific method, and the technological and epistemological advancements it has allowed, are incredibly important. Far be it from this humble writer to contribute to the spread of anti-science rhetoric. As we saw firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic, and continue to see in vaccine denialism and a host of other anti-science behaviours, mistrust in science and scientists can be disastrous. But we cannot pretend that science is somehow divorced from the hierarchical and oppressive power dynamics of our society. And as we would regard any institution which has repeatedly justified enslavement, racism, and torture with a critical eye, so should we regard the institution of science.

So get your vaccines, folks! And vote for administrations who don’t de-fund research. Science is a pillar of our society. But as many students (myself included) pursue our science degrees, we must remember: our field has oppressive roots, and its nature is perennially political. By thinking critically, recognizing oppressive structures, and denouncing them, we can try to make science a little bit better.

The post Weaponizing Objectivity appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Gaza: the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist

On August 10, 2025, a targeted Israeli airstrike on a media tent outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital killed Al-Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with three of his colleagues. Al-Jazeera called it a “blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.” The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that the strike was the single deadliest attack on media workers since the Israel–Gaza war began in October 2023. Al- Sharif’s final social media post, quoted in The Guardian, read: “If these words reach you … Israel has succeeded in killing me.” The words have since echoed as a plea not to let Gaza disappear from global attention.

Al-Sharif, only 28, had become one of the most familiar faces reporting from Gaza in his commitment to showing the city’s suffering under bombardment. Israel later claimed without offering verifiable proof, that Al-Sharif was “the head of a terrorist cell,” a characterization widely rejected by press freedom organizations as unsubstantiated. Press freedom organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, rejected the accusation without credible evidence, describing it as an unsubstantiated smear likely intended to justify an attack on a journalist. Al-Sharif’s killing prompted a wave of protests and vigils worldwide, from Cape Town and Manila to London, Mexico City, Dublin, Oslo, Berlin, Karachi, and Ramallah. Demonstrators in Houston also gathered outside a local TV station, denouncing media misrepresentation of Gaza and calling for justice for the slain journalists. This has prompted calls from PEN America and from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for an independent investigation into whether the deliberate targeting of journalists may constitute as a war crime.

The number of journalists killed in Gaza has not been verified. According to the United Nations, 242 journalists have been killed since October 2023. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports at least 180, while the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) puts the figure at 192, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists on record. Regardless of the estimation, the reality for journalists in Gaza is grim. With foreign media effectively barred from entering Gaza, local journalists carry the weight of documenting the war. Their deaths create information black holes at a time when knowledge is most needed.

The United States: hostility turned into policy

The United States has long styled itself as a champion of free press, but recent developments tell a more complicated story. On July 29, 2025, Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez formally issued a dissent against the FCC’s approval of the Paramount– Skydance merger. She warned that the government’s approach to media regulation amounts to “a campaign of censorship and control,” expressing her concern for the erosion of media independence.

Congress has also responded to the growing hostility toward the press. In May 2025, the Senate introduced Resolution 205, a measure condemning Donald Trump’s repeated denunciations of the press and restating the U.S. commitment to press freedom as a democratic cornerstone. Though S.Res. 205 has yet to pass, its introduction signals official concern within Congress about the growing normalization of anti-press rhetoric, especially following repeated attacks by then- President Trump on the “fake news” media, a trend widely denounced as a threat to democratic norms. He has, during his presidency, branded journalists as “enemies of the people.” This language, once shocking, has troublingly become part of mainstream political language in the US.

That hostility is not confined to political rhetoric, it has material consequences on the ground, where reporters covering protests and immigration enforcement have been detained or threatened with deportation. In June, DeKalb County police arrested Atlanta journalist Mario Guevara while he was livestreaming a protest, and local authorities handed him over to ICE custody just days after all criminal charges had been dropped. He remains in immigration detention despite being granted bond, a case press-freedom advocates, including the ACLU, CPJ, Free Press, and the Atlanta Press Club, have described as a “grim erosion of both freedom of the press and the rule of law”. A month later, Covington police arrested two CityBeat journalists, reporter Madeline Fening and intern Lucas Griffith, while covering a protest, drawing criticism from press-freedom groups. Both initially faced felony rioting charges, which were later dismissed. They now continue to face several misdemeanor charges, including disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. Advocacy groups, led by the National Press Club, denounced the arrests as “a direct assault on the First Amendment,” asserting that using criminal charges to intimidate journalists is unacceptable.

This trend within the United States has been observed internationally. Reporters Without Borders confirms that in 2025, the United States ranked 57th out of 180 countries, now classified in a “problematic situation”, on the World Press Freedom Index. They have attributed the decline to heightened political hostility, economic instability, and corporate consolidation. CPJ’s own assessment of Trump’s first 100 days back in office concluded that press freedom is “no longer a given.”

Kenya: silencing dissent on live television

Across the globe in Nairobi, the press is also under pressure. On June 25, amid nationwide protests over police brutality and government corruption, the Kenyan government banned live TV coverage, ordered broadcasters off air, and disrupted transmissions. During the protests, NTV journalist Ruth Sarmwei was struck by a rubber bullet while reporting live, and at least one other journalist was also injured.

The High Court of Kenya swiftly intervened. Justice Chacha Mwita ruled that the ban violated constitutional protections for free expression and ordered the Communications Authority to restore broadcasts. In response, the Law Society of Kenya, joined by over 20 civil society groups, condemned the directive as “a dangerous step towards suppressing fundamental freedoms.” They warned that even in a democracy, such tactics signal how quickly media freedom can be revoked when authorities feel their narrative is threatened. Human rights groups say this reflects a deeper erosion: Kenya is often upheld as a regional model for media freedom, yet security forces routinely crack down on journalists during periods of political unrest.

A worldwide pattern of control

These episodes of censorship, intimidation, and violence against journalists are not isolated. In Gaza, the IDF is killing journalists at an unprecedented rate. In the United States, political hostility and regulatory maneuvering are shrinking media independence. In Kenya, broadcast bans and state intimidation curtail citizens’ access to information.

The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by RWB described the global media landscape as “difficult,” warning that even established democracies are slipping. Gaza, in particular, stands out for its unprecedented journalist death toll, but the crisis is not only about violence. Reporters Without Borders emphasizes that economic fragility, manifesting through shrinking newsroom resources, reliance on political advertisers, and corporate consolidation, has become an increasingly insidious threat to press freedom. This has left media outlets more exposed to censorship, disinformation, and undue influence from political and economic elites.

Why this matters

When Al-Jazeera declared after al-Sharif’s death that “targeting journalists is targeting the truth itself,” the statement echoed warnings from press freedom groups that such attacks undermine democracy and the public’s right to know. A free press is often described as democracy’s “fourth estate,” underscoring its role in holding institutions accountable. In Gaza, killing reporters ensures that atrocities remain unseen. In Washington DC, political hostility and regulatory maneuvering are eroding media independence and undermining accountability. In Nairobi, blackouts deprive citizens of real-time information during protests. The National Public Radio recently put it this way: when journalists are harassed or killed, “the public loses its most vital connection to accountability.”

The post Truth Under Fire: How Journalism Is Being Silenced from Gaza to Washington to Nairobi appeared first on The McGill Daily.

David Suzuki, academic and climate activist, made headlines earlier this year with a sobering statement on climate action: “It’s too late.”

The reverberating panic in activist spaces was immediate: “if David Suzuki’s given up, we’re really screwed!”

Admittedly, he hasn’t given up, per se. But rather than calling for large-scale legal, economic or policy changes — as he has for decades — he is now encouraging communities to build resilience in the face of the climate crisis. Suzuki’s new stance might be apt, as we have surpassed six of the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s nine planetary boundaries which define our habitable Earth: climate change, biogeochemical flows, freshwater change, land system change, biosphere integrity, and novel entities— synthetic chemicals emitted by technological developments. Yet investments in fossil fuel capital continue to grow, alongside climate anxiety and ensuing feelings of defeatism.

By the end of the 2010s, climate activism had obtained immense popularity, especially among youth and students. Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future movement was the most visible of its type — inspiring school strikes, protests, and die-ins by young people around the world. Protests calling for the Canadian government to ban fossil fuels had reached a fever pitch, or so it seemed.

Then, the unprecedented chaos of 2020 changed it all. During these years, the world grappled with illness, social isolation, economic uncertainty, police brutality, and countless other injustices. However, in the face of those challenges, we showed an unprecedented capacity for collective action. The New York Times called the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement the largest protest movement in U.S. history, with between 15 and 26 million participants.

Ironically, amidst all this politicization and protest, the climate movement fell flat on its back.

Although the pandemic is over, climate activism has not recovered. The Canadian Press
calls the current Canadian government “noncommittal about meeting 2030 climate goals” and climate issues have been pushed to the back of the Canadian mind. However, they fuel every other issue we face. The climate crisis is not impending, it is current. Places across the world, including Iraq, Somalia, and the Gulf Coast of the United States, are experiencing extreme natural disasters that herald a new era of climate devastation. Meanwhile, the school strikes, marches, and dialogue around climate action are notably absent from the global stage. In a sense, it is “too late” to prevent the catastrophe we predicted decades ago. But is it too late to call for government action, and to limit the scope of destruction?

To answer this question, I interviewed McGill students from a range of fields and backgrounds. I wanted to know whether climate defeatism has taken hold of our student body and whether McGill students see a path forward through this crisis. I wanted to know whether we, as students and as global citizens, can still be mobilized in the name of climate action.

My first conversation was with Cam*, a U2 student double majoring in Physics and Latin
American and Caribbean Studies. Cam has been involved in climate activism since the age of 12. I asked him what he thought about environmental defeatism.

“The idea that we won’t face catastrophic climate change is a fallacy,” he claimed, “but I am not a defeatist in that I don’t believe there is nothing left to be done.”

It is a daunting thought that catastrophe will strike regardless of the action we take now. Cam knows that “the rest of [his] life will be spent in a constant battle to mitigate the
effects of fossil fuel emissions.” And yet, we can still lessen these effects by taking a stand against the fossil fuel industry. “There’s an infinite amount of difference [between] category 5 hurricanes happening twice a year and four times a year…every human life is a massive difference.” says Cam.

For every degree of warming and every extreme weather event, human lives hang in the
balance. Such high stakes have led to ample debate over the best protest practices; namely, whether or not peaceful protest is enough.

“[New fossil fuel investment] is a crime,” Cam told me, “not just against society but against humanity as a whole. So I think that as citizens of Earth, it’s completely justified to take direct action.”

According to the Activist Handbook, direct action can refer to a range of physical tactics, from civil disobedience to property destruction and violence. In his notable book How to Blow up a Pipeline, climate activist and author Andreas Malm asserts that historically, direct action has proven to be highly effective in toppling status-quo systems, and was instrumental in ending oppressive regimes throughout the 20th century, from racial segregation in the United States to Israeli occupation of Lebanon to South African apartheid.

While direct action involves higher physical and legal risk to protesters, and is not always
popular with the masses, many argue that it is sometimes necessary to make a movement heard. Cam pointed out that “resistance is not the same as assault. The destruction of the physical infrastructure of fossil capital is completely justified, [and] it is something we should be doing more of.”

To investigate the feeling underlying student inaction, I talked to Max*, a U2 Biology and
Philosophy major who characterizes himself as a “realist.” Max is skeptical of the
power of protest, especially radical protest which might alienate those unfamiliar with the movement.

“Government structures are set in place […] and they’re very protected,” Max pointed out,
when asked whether he thinks protests are effective in promoting systemic progress.
“The best way to create impactful change is not to try to dismantle social structures from the bottom up. It’s to infiltrate and move top-down.”

Top down initiatives for climate action have been advocated for and attempted ad
nauseam over the last five-plus decades, to very little success: the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, arguably the two most prominent top-down climate efforts, have been largely ineffective. John S. Dryzek and Jonathan Pickering, in their book The Politics of the Anthropocene, name the 1987 Montreal Protocol for protection of the ozone layer the only example of successful top-down climate action in history. This has pushed many frustrated people to campaign from the bottom up, through protests, civil disobedience, and NGOs. Young people like Cam describe a feeling of obligation to fight for climate action, from whichever elevation they can reach — Max is not one of these people, despite believing in the severity of the crisis.

“Everyone feels [obligated to] do the little things that provoke a more sustainable lifestyle,” he told me. “[But] I don’t think […] I have to go the extra mile.” Some further key insights came from Emily,* a U3 Biodiversity and Conservation major in the Bieler School of Environment. As an American studying in Canada, Emily has a valuable outside perspective on Canadian climate politics. Emily tells me that the current government’s stance on climate action reminds her of many previous U.S. administrations, which she says were characterized by a dissonance between words and actions.

“The executive branch is making speeches about the importance of this or that,” she said, “but it often stops at rhetoric and doesn’t continue into reshaping policies.” As an environment student, Emily’s coursework involves a lot of discussion about climate change, and the myriad potential approaches to the crisis. While she recognizes that full societal upheaval will be necessary, Emily also knows that critical change can also happen on a small scale.

“Speak with people about [climate change…] and [get] them to participate in lowering their consumption with you,” she told me, when asked what McGill students can do about the crisis. “Get them to do actions with you.”

In the face of government inaction, it is difficult to remain hopeful. But while Emily characterizes herself as “somewhere in between” climate optimism and defeatism, she definitely errs on the side of hope.

“There’s no capacity to maintain ‘normal life,’” Emily told me. But there is still room for optimism in her eyes. “The place where [it’s relevant to be] defeatist or optimistic is […] what degree of human rights will maintain themselves during the climate crisis,” she said. “I believe we have the capacity to confront the problems we’re facing.”

Let’s hope she’s right.

*All names have been changed for anonymity

The post Is It Too Late? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Adopted on May 30, 2025, Quebec’s Bill 89 amends the Labour Code to “give greater consideration to the needs of the population in the event of a strike or a lock-out,” by ensuring the continuation of “services ensuring the well-being of the population.” The Act empowers the government to designate disputes for review by the Administrative Labour Tribunal, which can order that such services be maintained and, if negotiations fail, impose conditions itself. While strikes and lock-outs may continue, they can be suspended in “exceptional circumstances.” According to Evan Fox-Decent, law professor
and president of the Association of McGill Professors of Law, “this legislation represents a frontal attack on workers’ fundamental rights.” For McGill faculty unions, this bill significantly curtails the effectiveness of strikes by limiting the possible leverage of work stoppages and narrowing the scope of legitimate collective action against the administration. This bill also generates a chilling climate of deterrence, where professors, staff, and students, fearing retaliation, may refrain from publicly endorsing or joining mobilizations. Without explicit backing from faculty unions, student strikes lose a crucial source of momentum and legitimacy, weakening student solidarity actions.

In April, the pro-Palestinian student group Students for Palestinian Honour and Resistance (SPHR) organized a three-day demonstration on campus calling for McGill to cut ties with institutions and companies linked to Israel. The university responded by securing an injunction from the Quebec Superior Court judge. The ruling barred protests within five metres of McGill buildings and prohibited activities that could disrupt classes or exams. While directly aimed at weakening SPHR, the injunction sets a broader precedent as the administration can now swiftly resort to the courts to neutralize any disruptive student mobilizations. This fosters a climate of self-censorship, especially since both protesters and “any person aware of the judgment,” even if they aren’t directly related to SPHR, can risk legal consequences. The spatial restrictions also undercut the visibility and effectiveness of protests, discouraging broader participation.

In the aftermath of the April protests, McGill attempted to terminate its contractual relationship with SSMU. The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) is the formal contract that governs the relationship between McGill University and the Students’ Society of McGill University, outlining the rights, responsibilities, and financial arrangements between the two parties.

It gives SSMU official recognition as the undergraduate student association, allowing it to collect fees, use campus space, and represent students in dealings with the administration. In return, the MoA sets out standards of accountability, compliance with university regulations, and conditions under which the agreement can be reviewed or terminated. McGill can default on the MoA if it determines that SSMU has breached its obligations, such as failing to comply with university policies or legal requirements, since the MoA gives the administration the authority to terminate or suspend the agreement on those grounds.

McGill Interim Deputy Provost Angela Campbell accused the organization’s leadership of not dissociating itself from groups that “endorse or engage in acts of vandalism, intimidation and obstruction as forms of activism.” By moving to terminate this agreement, this threatened to strip SSMU of resources essential for organizing large-scale student movements, including funding, office space, and institutional recognition.

Following a mediation process of several months, McGill and SSMU announced that the MoA will remain in effect, with revisions. The agreement removed certain restrictions on SSMU election eligibility, while also reaffirming limits on protests that involve disruption of academic activities, vandalism, or intimidation. Although this resolution preserved the student union’s legal footing, it underscores how fragile the student unions’ position remains by demonstrating McGill’s willingness to use the threat of institutional withdrawal as leverage. Even with the renewed MoA, the imposed boundaries signal that student mobilization is tolerated only within tightly controlled parameters.

In essence, these developments leave students with fewer institutional resources, greater legal risks, and diminished means of mobilizing, as they have increasingly become
vulnerable to administrative and legal suppression.

Despite these obstacles, history demonstrates that student activism adapts and survives. When direct forms of protest have been suppressed, activists turn to innovative, symbolic ways to continue resisting oppressive systems even when traditional avenues are restricted.

The 2012 Maple Spring was a series of student protests against the proposal to raise university tuition significantly. Throughout this mobilization, protesters faced restrictive legislation, including an emergency law forbidding protests near university grounds and requiring police approval for large public protests (Bill 78), while the municipality of Montreal passed a law prohibiting mask-wearing during any organization or demonstration. In response, the movement devised innovative tactics, such as the “casseroles” actions, nightly balcony protests where citizens banged pots and pans in support of the movement. What began as a creative way to work around restrictions soon spread across the province, illustrating how repressive measures can inadvertently spark innovation.

Furthermore, to ensure no single administrative decision can dissolve student mobilization, a more decentralized and diversified organization strategy is necessary. A constellation of faculty and department-level assemblies, along with alliances beyond campus, can build resilience. When student struggles are tied to a broader community and labour issues, they gain both legitimacy and power. In 2012, opposition to Bill 78 quickly escalated from a tuition protest into a province-wide movement, drawing labor unions, teachers, and even the Quebec Bar Association in protesting for civil rights. Similarly, today, multiple faculty associations at McGill are already challenging Bill 89, citing its violations of constitutional rights by forcing workers to “work against their will, under conditions that are not of their choosing,” as noted by McGill Professor of Sociology Barry Eidlin. By aligning with these efforts, students can position their struggles within a broader fight for democratic liberties and workers’ rights.

History has proven that student mobilization consistently plays a fundamental role in contributing to change. From the fight against South Africa’s apartheid, where McGill notably became the first Canadian university to divest from the National Party’s brutal regime, to more recently, to the Board of Governors’ unanimous decision to divest from fossil fuel companies after a decade of student pressure, students have time and time again demonstrated their ability to push institutions toward greater accountability. These precedents, along with current movements, suggest that while the frameworks for protest may change, mobilization at McGill can continue by embracing decentralization, creativity, and solidarity.

The post The Future of Mobilization at McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I wrote this in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death: a conservative activist known for his Christian identity and his strong defense of the Second Amendment. He was shot and killed at a university event in Utah as part of his “American Comeback” tour. What quickly followed was a chaotic spectacle of polarization online. Some celebrated his death, others mourned him as a man of God. Still, many insisted that his murder was a karmic inevitability as a result of his advocacy. Though the motive for his murder is presently unclear, what we do know is that his death immediately became a battleground for political labelling.

This is one of the many issues I have with political labelling. It pulls us into the binary logics of the colonial gaze: left or right, good or evil, martyr or monster. It causes us to overlook complexity and disables our ability to focus on our reality, the harm Kirk’s politics mobilized and the simultaneous grief that comes with any death. After reading the reactions to his death, I had sat with this question: if we celebrate the killing of someone we despise, are we also mirroring the very violence we condemn elsewhere? That’s not to invalidate the very harms his actions have taken against my own communities. What happens when those who honour his death neglect to also hold him accountable? What happens to those left with the damage of his legacy? In this binary logic, there is little space for the full spectrum of grief.

Political labels by design seek to simplify and contain our humanity into tidy boxes easily
controlled and regulated. But simplification also produces the erasure of lived realities and lived suffering. One of my Elders reminded me recently of the interdependence between all living beings (yes, not just humans) and the choices that ripple out beyond the temporary labels that we carry. The colonial gaze we’ve all been conditioned by imposes categories of race, gender, identity, and nation by flattening complexity and forcing people into boxes to serve systems, not life.

Therein lies the tension I feel with theory because it alone cannot be our saviour from this predicament. As Black feminist and poet Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” If we continue to debate within the confines of identity labels placed upon us – left versus right, liberal versus conservative – we continuously reinforce the systems of categorization in place. The real harms that continue today in prisons, of colonial violence, of alarming housing and food injustices, of inaccessible healthcare, persist unrefuted.

Meanwhile, on the internet, people are fighting over who gets to claim a moral victory over Kirk’s death. But the internet is not the real world. It is one technological aspect of it built in binary code and transformed into a “culture” that profits off of division and rage, while the real world goes on. The orange hue of the sun continues to shine, the trees continue to release oxygen, and communities continue to fight despite ongoing injustices. It’s easy to get lost in the internet delusion and use up all our energy in online reactions, to the effect that we don’t have capacity any longer for the real work of change.

But real mobilization is happening. Here in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), the tenants’ union SLAM-MATU valiantly fought and won against a 19.8% rental hike as a result of collective organizing. In British Columbia, the Supreme Court recognized the Haida Nation as having complete sovereignty over the terrestrial areas of Haida Gwaii. These actions are not about labels, but are about innate human needs for food, housing, support, and collective care. They are about living in respectful and reciprocal relationships with one another.

So, what do we want to build? An internet world where labels rule and transactions thrive, or a living world where relationships are essential and transformational? What are we able to learn when we stop obsessing over who is right or wrong online, and instead ask what the people around us need? What movements can we organize, here and now, where we are?

Charlie Kirk’s death shows us what happens when labels consume us. In this space, nuance disappears, violence becomes a spectacle, and we lose sight of what liberation demands. True liberation does not grow from ideological purity or choosing the right side of the internet war. It comes from rebuilding our relationships, restoring the deficit of trust between strangers, and cultivating communities of care. Start small. Start local. Start with who is in your life. It’s the micro shifts that make the macro change possible.

The post Moving Beyond Labels appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The so-called “McGillian complex” isn’t new. Ask anyone who has spent time at McGill, and they’ll likely tell you about the way students compare themselves — sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously — to those at the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia (UBC), and even our anglophone neighbours at Concordia. A new ranking only gives that culture further validation. A student, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “We already thought we were number one. Now it’s official.”

Rivalries between universities are nothing unusual. Harvard and Yale, Oxford and Cambridge; students have always measured their schools against others. But at McGill, that competitiveness sometimes slips into something sharper. Comments like, “At least we didn’t end up at Concordia” or, “UBC is basically just McGill with better weather” aren’t hard to overhear in downtown Montreal cafés.

Platforms like Spotted: McGill show just how baked-in rivalry is to student culture. The page is essentially an anonymous confessions account on Instagram, with over 21,000 followers and more than 1,200 posts that capture the tone of campus life. Anonymous posts like, “Concordians infiltrating the confessions form yet again…” spark comments that are funny, casual, and full of that playful tension that makes the “McGillian complex” so visible in social media banter.

It isn’t only students who keep this rivalry alive. The university itself profits from it. Walk into the McGill Campus Store and you’ll find items that play up the hierarchy between schools like the McGill Pride Shot Glass, which ranks universities as if they were measurement lines, with Concordia at the bottom and McGill proudly at the top. By selling merchandise that turns competition into a joke, the administration reinforces the very culture of superiority that students are accused of carrying.

The new ranking risks amplifying these attitudes. While some students see the banter as harmless, others point out that these jokes feed into an elitist culture. Concordia, for example, has a long history of excellence in creative fields, arts, and community-based programs — opportunities that McGill doesn’t necessarily have, such as a dedicated Visual Arts program. Reducing the success of a university to a punchline overlooks the complexity of the different factors that make universities thrive.

The real question is how should McGill students respond to this recognition. Pride doesn’t have to equal arrogance. Being proud of our institution’s reputation can coexist with respect for other schools. Yet too often, the McGill identity has leaned on dismissing others rather than building its own community culture.

One student, who wishes to remain anonymous, put it simply: “It’s nice to be at the top, but it feels like nothing on campus will change. We still struggle with the same issues as before.” Another noted that the ranking made them more conscious of how McGill is perceived outside Quebec: “It’s good for the brand, but it shouldn’t make us forget the cracks in the foundation.”

At the same time, it’s worth asking what exactly this number one title really means. Rankings like QS are based on metrics such as academic reputation, faculty-to-student ratios, and international outlook. They make for glossy headlines, but they don’t magically fix the problems students within universities face every day. Tuition isn’t going down — it’s actually more than doubled in Canada since 2006. The shortage of advising appointments isn’t shrinking. The never-ending line at Redpath Café certainly isn’t disappearing.

What the ranking does change is perception, both externally and internally. Internationally, McGill now has another stamp of credibility to attract students and funding. On campus, it shapes how students talk about themselves, their degrees, and their job prospects. But perception alone doesn’t improve the lived experience of being here. That tension, between reputation and reality, is part of what fuels the “McGillian complex.”

So, what should McGill pride actually look like? Being ranked number one doesn’t guarantee that we’ll act like the number one community. It doesn’t erase elitism in student culture or solve inequities in access to education. What it does offer is a chance to ask ourselves: are we living up to the title, or are we just polishing the ego of the “McGillian complex”?

If McGill students are serious about embracing this recognition, it might be worth stepping back from the rivalry game. Instead of measuring our success against the University of Toronto or UBC, we could focus on what actually makes this place worth being proud of. Is it the ranking, the diversity of students, the city we live in, or the communities we build on campus?

McGill’s new title is an opportunity not just to brag, but to rethink how we define excellence and honour. The ranking will eventually fade into next year’s cycle, but the culture we create around it is ours to decide. The “McGillian complex” doesn’t have to mean arrogance. It could mean something else entirely: a culture of confidence without condescension, and of pride without the put-downs. Maybe that’s the kind of number one reputation worth holding onto.

The post The “McGillian Complex”: Pride or a Problem? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The transfer of around 60 per cent of McGill’s physical collection to an automated 4,200 square metre off-site facility was carried out alongside the ambitious Fiat Lux Project, which aimed to “create a new central Library complex dramatically reconfigured to suit modern users.” Announced in 2019 as part of the bicentennial ‘Master Plan’ to wholly revitalize McGill’s campuses, Fiat Lux promised to “more than double available seating” in a newly incorporated McLennan-Redpath Library.

But Fiat Lux — Latin for ‘let there be light’ — was prematurely snuffed out when McGill President and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini announced, in a September 2024 Senate meeting, that the administration had reached the “painful decision” to suspend the $33 million project. Saini attributed recent project cuts, including the termination of Fiat Lux, to the Quebec government’s decision to significantly increase tuition for out-of-province students. This decision has decreased overall enrollment revenue and helped balloon the university’s deficit, from a projected $15 million in the 2025 fiscal year to a staggering projected $45 million in the 2026 fiscal year. In early February of this year, McGill released a statement tersely reflecting on the Quebec government’s actions: “It has taken more than two centuries to build this world-renowned university, but just over a year for these decisions to harm it deeply.”

During the aforementioned Senate meeting, McGill Librarian and Senator David Greene inquired whether or not the Fiat Lux project was “suspended permanently, or if there was an intention to resume it in the future.” The question was met by a resounding shrug, with Senator Fabrice Labeau responding that “the University would continue exploring options for how to best utilize available space to meet the evolving needs of students and other library users, though there was no timeline for these efforts.” With plans on hold indefinitely, when will the 400,000 books planned for return to a renovated McLennan-Redpath complex be sent back? It doesn’t take a keen eye to see that there aren’t 4,000 books in McLennan, let alone 400,000.

What we’re left with are the remnants of an unfinished vision. Walking slowly down corridors of empty white bookcases as the tube lights above me eerily flicker to life, a sense of loss pervades my thoughts. Not only because the fluorescent blinking reminds me of a haunted house, but because technology continues to push the physical medium towards obsolescence. I’ve been asking myself: “What is a library without books?” It’s a community centre or study hall, but no longer a library. Those naked shelves stand as monuments to a dying age. The physical book had a good run of over 4,000 years anyway, right?

But with threats to internet access, the physical book may be more essential now than ever before. I recently finished reading the book Apple in China by Patrick McGee, chronicling the fascinating and alarming story of how China allowed for the rise of Apple and, perhaps more importantly, how Apple played a pivotal role in the rise of China as the world’s manufacturer. While reading the book, I learned about the erection of China’s so-called ‘Great Firewall,’ which limits and surveils their citizen’s internet access, and Apple’s surrender to the whims of that same authoritarian police state: “…when Beijing called for virtual private networks to be removed from the China App Store, Apple complied, and 674 VPN apps were deleted. This was a massive concession, placing all iPhone users in the country in a splintered-off version of the internet” (298). The playbook is clear: limiting information limits resistance. The internet is not as secure as some believe it to be, even from the institutions we trust with our personal data.

You may say this repression of free speech can’t happen here, but take it from an American abroad: it could. The rise of an anti-informational age at home following the re-election of President Donald Trump, along with increasing book-bans across the country, means that free and easy access to university libraries and their physical contents should be enthusiastically protected. I agree that ample space must be made in our libraries for students, but when does principle overtake practicality? In a world on a collision course with AI, reliable information is soon to become an even more valuable commodity than it already is. Though Fiat Lux was not unreasonable for its promise of increased space, the removal of nearly 2.5 million books from the immediate access of McGill students is a distressing overreach that is only underscored by the project’s failure to proceed.

I came to McGill in 2023, and was one of the last to see the Library before its hollowing. I remember my neck hurting from walking up and down the aisles, stunned at the sheer size of McGill’s collection and proud to be a student here. In the free time that a freshman had, which was plenty, I would sit down and flip through whatever interested me. I miss that.

Though a sleek remodeling is worthwhile in theory, the Fiat Lux approach to separating libraries from their books removes from libraries their very souls. Books are as much a symbol of the appreciation of knowledge as they are an instrument to enhance understanding. A library without its books is a car without wheels: you can sit down, but it won’t take you far.

The post Bring Back the Books appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I used to love that word back in the day. Fantasizing about how we would do whatever we wanted without adult supervision, no curfew. How we would meet up with friends whenever, however, and wherever we wanted.

Of course, I still love this word. It helps me romanticize all the new responsibilities that adulthood brings. Even though I love the friendships I made in adulthood, some part of me will always miss how things were before.

So how do I deal with this? The constant change and transformation in life and in friendships. Obviously, not by being pessimistic. I try to analyse the transformation and adapt myself to it. Live in the moment. Once, a good friend told me that we can never cherish the moment if we always commemorate the past and obsess about the future. Let me dig a bit deeper. I’m sitting in class with all my friends, talking about our library crushes, yapping about a previous drunk night out, complaining about exams… You have no idea if this is about college or high school right? See, that’s the thing. This description could be applied to any time that you want. What makes an experience an experience is the way you look at it.

In fact, as an international student, I was met with even more transformation in my life. If nothing, I shifted from speaking my native language everyday to speaking English all the time. Yet, it has been psychologically proven that people tend to not use their native language when talking about difficult situations — so I might say this helped me, after all. By leaving my comfort zone, I met amazing people who I never would’ve met if I stayed in my hometown. Back in the day, I would never have imagined sitting in class, as a girl hailing all the way from Istanbul, and casually conversing with a girl from Sydney about how our professor’s hair makes him look like the guy from When Harry Met Sally.

All of this is great. Meeting new people, being exposed to different cultures, conversing in different languages yet laughing at the same jokes: the glory of college. Well, what happens to those people that you used to go to McDonald’s with after school, where you would get some fries, dip them in McFlurries, and talk for hours with about your day?

Nothing, and yet everything. They are still there. Only a phone call, a snap, or a text message away. You may not drop by their house spontaneously during your week anymore, but now you have an apartment in London with a bestie who you can surprise spontaneously. You may not be able to grab a coffee every day, but now you have someone to FaceTime whenever you go to class. It is always hard to adjust to change. But as psychological research shows, the impact of change is strongly correlated with how one feels about said change.

So, we do actually control how we are affected by changes to our friendships. As long as you keep updating your besties about Situationship #13, calling them when you miss them, acknowledging each other’s presence even if you haven’t managed to pick up the phone during finals season — and most importantly, if you keep on loving them, maintaining adult friendships becomes a gift rather than a burden.

The post Adulting Through Life appeared first on The McGill Daily.

One in ten Canadians reported always or often feeling lonely. Among youth aged 15 to 24, almost one quarter experienced frequent loneliness, while 14 per cent of adults aged 75 and older reported feeling lonely. The lasting impact of COVID-19 on mental health has made loneliness an even more pressing issue. According to Vivek Murthy — former U.S. Surgeon General and co-chair of the Commission on Social Connection for the World Health Organization (WHO) — social isolation and loneliness has an impact on health conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease, to cancer, to Alzheimer’s.

Loneliness also impacts education and the economy. Lonely youth are more likely to drop out of university. Isolated employees tend to report lower job satisfaction and higher absenteeism. Older adults incur greater medical costs. These widespread consequences make loneliness a public health issue.

Luckily, this is preventable. A review of 28 psychological interventions suggested one-on-one support, group programs, and phone applications with psychosocial and behavioral techniques are effective in reducing chronic loneliness. However, most of the current evidence is for individual-level interventions, which are difficult to scale up. Systemic strategies are crucial for managing loneliness on a national level.

The UK has recognized loneliness as a population health concern. In 2018, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) added loneliness to its portfolio. The department launched a green social prescribing program where healthcare professionals refer patients to nature-based activities. These include local walks, community gardening projects, and outdoor arts and cultural activities. From April 2021 to March 2023, over 8,500 referrals were made, with interim evaluations showing improvements in participants’ mental health. In collaboration with the Department for Transport, the DCSM also made transport more accessible for disabled and older people. Policies now allow non-profits to apply for a community bus permit instead of a full operator’s license, helping to expand transport services that support social connection.

The UK Office for National Statistics has developed two measures of loneliness. These metrics are now part of the UK Public Health Outcomes Framework and are included in 11 government surveys to better understand loneliness prevalence.

Japan followed the UK’s lead by creating its own Minister for Loneliness and Isolation, working alongside with their British counterpart to share data on the impact of loneliness, exchange policy ideas, and raise global awareness.

In Canada, there’s no unified framework to define and measure loneliness. Various initiatives attempt to tackle loneliness, including the Keeping Connected Program, the GenWell Project, and Canadian Red Cross’s Friendly Calls Program. But their impact remains fragmented. We need a national strategy to unify efforts.

“Loneliness and isolation doesn’t only affect people who may be considered a senior,” said Bill VanGorder, interim chief policy officer of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, when asked about the possibility of a Canadian Minister of Loneliness. “If that’s what it takes to address the impact of isolation and loneliness on Canadians … A minister would make sure that programs are in place to ease these issues [and] other parts of the government would be accountable to them.”

It’s time for Canada to take this public health problem seriously by adopting a national strategy to unify fragmented efforts, aligning with global leaders like the WHO, the UK, and Japan. Without bold action, we risk falling further behind. We must add loneliness to the government portfolio to ensure it is taken seriously.

Madeleine Wong and Christina Zha are MSc public health students at McGill University. Ben Yeoh is a MSc epidemiology student at McGill University who researches urban green space and youth loneliness.

The post Alone Together appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Acts of civil disobedience are often met with hostility from the public. During the PATCO airline strike in 1981, travellers directed their anger towards the workers fighting for higher pay instead of the Reagan administration, who forced strikers to accept poor wages. White people in South Africa were in support of the government bans on anti-apartheid activists and protestors, in order to protect their own interests. During the Gilets Jaunes protests, Parisians complained not about the rising taxes but about the increased law enforcement responding to the protests.

The response to the past year of pro-Palestine activism at McGill University is no different. Whether it is online or in person, it is likely that you have encountered at least some frustrations with the increased security presence or cancelled classes – actions taken by the university to dismantle encampments and protests this year. Disagreements on the means used to achieve a common goal are nothing new, as they are a way to promote change and improvements. However, completely ostracizing the protesters demanding for McGill to divest from arms manufacturers can prevent productive discussions from taking place.

When discussing the demands of the pro-Palestinian protests, people often argue that large enterprises are not willing to lose economic gains by severing relationships to violent corporations. In response to this, there are different actions citizens will take to pressure enterprises to divest. Some will act on an individual scale by refusing to consume certain goods or services that have ties to unjust regimes. They will do what they can to not be complicit or contribute to these businesses. Sometimes, they may encourage others to do the same, such as when the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement was launched to economically pressure corporations in occupied Palestinian territories. Others may attempt to sever these relationships through negotiation, working with committees and writing reports. Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) initially took this approach to discuss McGill’s divestment from arms manufacturers. Nevertheless, after almost two months, the bureaucratic process was abandoned when McGill called off negotiations with SPHR in June.

Since then, McGill has taken additional measures to restrict SPHR organization. In September, the university demanded that SSMU withdraw SPHR club status. The following month, McGill was granted a temporary injunction banning SPHR demonstrations. Due to these actions, SPHR amplified pressure on McGill to divest. They organized walkouts, blocked classes, and informed new students about the movement.

As a response to these actions, many people may claim that disruptive demonstrations can reduce the university’s willingness to reopen negotiations. Yet, the purpose of civil disobedience is to urge authority figures to meet a group’s demands.

For example, in March 2011, Quebec’s provincial government launched a proposal to incrementally hike student tuition over a five-year period. This proposal led to student advocacy against this raise between 2011 and 2012. Over time, protests grew in size and strength to combat the government’s attempts to end the student movement, such as Bill 78. By requiring students to inform the authorities about upcoming protests, this measure intended to restrict the scale of demonstrations. However, the bill actually resulted in more assertive civil disobedience to exemplify student resistance. Although the protests led to violent escalations with law enforcement, these demonstrations turned out to be some of the largest student protests in Quebec’s history. The unflinching nature of the student movement eventually led to the cancellation of the student tuition increase and the revocation of Bill 78.

The decision to partake in a more forceful method is never made lightly. Protestors understand that by taking on a more confrontational approach, they risk losing the general public’s support and face a crackdown from the authorities. However, despite these two consequences, deviations can open the door for constructive dialogue. A thorough set of demands can enhance the depth and breadth of topics brought up at the negotiation table. Without mass mobilization, the strength of social justice movements will be weakened. Without these positions, we can fall victim to unsatisfactory compromises that fail to address structural violence.

Protests or acts of civil disobedience are meant to disrupt your day. They are meant to take socio-political issues out of the negotiation office and include the public. When directing anger to those with a common goal but a different method of achieving it, one can forget that the core issue is not with the different approaches to achieving justice but the issue of injustice itself. There is so much space for meaningful exchange that can take place on the nature, approach, and goal of student civil disobedience, and we need to ensure that it is being utilized.

It’s okay to be a little upset when a protest disrupts your plans. However, if all acts of resistance were tailored to every individual, nothing would ever get done. Prioritizing comfort and convenience will undermine the primary objectives of a political organization. Therefore, the next time you complain about protesters interfering with your schedule, I ask you to think about how much this disturbance will impact you in the long run. Although you will eventually be able to recover from it and carry on with your daily life, the victims of war, violence, and exploitation that protests are fighting for may not.

The post Redirecting Anger appeared first on The McGill Daily.

But is that really true? I think this is a passive attitude, one that assumes any kind of political action is out of our hands simply because we do not have voting power. Even outside the context of this specific U.S. election, I find it jarring how the onus of political change is often solely on the electoral process. After all, both the U.S. and Canada are home to millions of green-card holders and legal permanent residents who are affected by the same laws as citizens but are still refused the right to vote for their representatives.

Voting has always been considered the cornerstone of democracy in the West. Coming from India, where huge sections of minority populations are outright omitted from electoral rolls at the whims of the current government, I was not raised with this sentiment. I have always known real political change to come from grassroots movements — from people taking to the streets to fight for what they want. And now, watching the state of the U.S. elections, I am more convinced of this than ever.
Over 700,000 Americans agree with me — these are the people voting “uncommitted,” who are similarly disillusioned with both parties and what they stand for. “Uncommitted” is a voting option that allows citizens to express their dissatisfaction with either candidate, often by choosing “none of the above” on a ballot. While many voters feel obligated to choose between “the lesser of two evils,” the fact remains that “lesser evil” is still evil. Democrats and Republicans have both played a bloody hand in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, with the Biden administration making more than 100 military aid transfers to Israel since October 7, 2023. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris likewise refuses to budge on her policies that continue to fund Israel’s genocidal campaign. In her recent Presidential Town Hall, she claimed that voters must accept her policies on Palestine if they want to see any kind of change on “other issues.” Harris has also previously responded to pro-Palestine protesters by saying, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

This dismissive attitude — treating the lives of millions of Palestinians as if they are simply another item on her political checklist — is understandably infuriating to those of us watching these atrocities unfold. Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan have lost faith in the Democratic Party after their continued complicity in Palestinian genocide. As one such voter asserts, “It is their job to earn my vote; it is not my job to fall in line.” And yet, plenty of liberal virtue-signallers continue to fault these citizens for not voting blue. Why should pro-Palestinian voters be blamed for the faults of a system that has failed to represent them? Why should they bear the brunt of scrutiny when the party they are supposed to trust cannot even meet basic demands — to stop funding the slaughter of Palestinians, to stop backing a genocide?

I ask: has a genocide ever been stopped by voting?

Voting is a function of the system, and when the system itself is inherently flawed, trying to “fix” it from within its limits will never work. No matter who wins this election, the United States government will continue sending military aid to Israel and profiting off of Palestinian suffering. It is beyond unfair to force voters to play a part in this genocide through the ballot box.

During this election period, many Americans are instead relying on alternate strategies, such as uncommitted voting or third-party voting, alongside organizing and raising funds for Palestinian aid. For the rest of us, who are not American citizens but understand the importance of stopping U.S.-backed Israeli occupation, we must join the fight on the streets. Montreal-based organizations such as Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and Montreal4Palestine, as well as transnational ones like the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), are important avenues of activism on campus and beyond. I encourage more students to get involved with such organizations, to take part in demonstrations, and to amplify Palestinian voices wherever possible.

The post The Ballot Box Has Failed Us appeared first on The McGill Daily.

For 74 days, the student encampment protesting McGill’s ties to industries profiting from the ongoing genocide in Palestine was in full view from our offices at the School of Population and Global Health. At 5:00 a.m. on its 75th day, a private security firm hired by McGill forcibly removed protesting students and dismantled the encampment. In its place was a bulldozer guarded by police cars and officers. McGill justified these actions by claiming the encampment posed health and safety risks. As  PhD students in epidemiology at the School of Population and Global Health, we strongly believe that this weaponization of public health narratives to justify actions against student encampments must stop. The real public health crisis is the one unfolding in Gaza.

For months, McGill failed to convince police and courts to intervene and dismantle the encampment. At the same time, official emails to the McGill community became increasingly false and alarmist. On May 10, McGill sent an email detailing “the risks that the encampment pose[d] to the safety, security and public health of members of the McGill community.” Based on media reports and first-hand accounts of healthcare professionals who were on-site daily, we disagree. These included physicians, including one of whom stated in an affidavit that there was no threat to public health in the camp. In response to McGill’s email, nearly 150 members of our School signed an open letter denouncing the mischaracterization of the encampment as a public health threat and highlighting the dire public health crisis in Gaza. Even after they acknowledged receipt of our letter, the McGill administration continued to flood our inboxes with the same false claims.

The day that McGill dismantled the encampment, President Deep Saini cited an alleged rat infestation as a motivation for its actions. While we have not seen evidence of such a problem, McGill has been ignoring rat infestations across campus for years. If the administration is concerned about rodent infestations, we suggest they pay a visit to its student residences or the basements of any of its libraries.

Saini also claimed that “there [were] fire risks, including a propane canister and flammable materials next to tents.” Ironically, McGill itself partly created this risk. The administration shut off electricity around the encampment, including to the streetlights on lower campus. This forced students to use propane for cooking, leading to potential fire hazards. In fact, the students proactively practice fire safety, keeping fire extinguishers on site.

In the same email, Saini complained that “Unhoused individuals now make up most of the few people who are sleeping in the camp overnight,” elaborating that “two overdoses occurred at the camp (…) Syringes are visible, and illegal narcotics have been sold there.” These claims were not supported by any evidence, and given Saini’s history of making questionable statements to criticize and undermine the encampment, we have doubts about the reliability of these assertions.  Furthermore, the term “unhoused” rather than “homeless” is now used to reduce stigma by emphasizing people’s lack of housing rather than tying it to their identity. In an incredible show of hypocrisy, McGill used this destigmatizing term to justify dismantling the encampment due to its proximity to unhoused people. Authorities have often weaponized narratives related to public health to justify actions against unhoused people. Students at the encampment created a welcoming community, offering free resources (including food and water) to those in need. Blaming overdoses on the encampment and citing them as reasons for its dismantlement is also low. Overdoses are the tragic consequence of individual- and systemic-level factors, but they are not caused by student protests. The housing and drug crises have not disappeared since the encampment was dismantled—they are just no longer visible on campus.

While the administration spread false claims about public health threats, it failed to engage in any genuine discussion related to divestment from companies profiting from the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Students organized the encampment in solidarity with people in Gaza, who are facing indiscriminate bombing, organized starvation, disease outbreak, and the destruction of their healthcare system. These are actual public health crises. If McGill cared about public health, it would address this reality and stop funding industries profiting from it.

With contributions from Zeinab Cherri, Phoebe Friesen, Rina Lall, R.L., Y. S. Law, Kaya Van Roost.

The post How McGill Weaponized Public Health Against Student Protesters appeared first on The McGill Daily.

While the sexualization of women in the media is nothing new, its true repercussions became evident throughout Britney Spears’s career. Debuting at the age of seventeen, the young girl quickly became a pop sensation, a status which subjected her to the cruel judgment of the public eye. Spears’ image screamed innocence while her songs placed deliberate emphasis on sexual innuendos. Of course, she wasn’t the only one who played off of the “untouchable creature” stereotype, as Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore — to name a few — were also presented through this lens of naivety. In the manufactured entertainment industry of the 90s, it was almost a requirement to appeal to audiences as the virginal girl next door, arguably regressing progress made in women’s sexual independence. In fact, Dr. Jenna Drenten, an associate professor at Loyola University, found that the obsession with untainted female pop stars stemmed from a societal desire to take “control of these women again and get them to literally sign pledges for abstinence” — since “purity and virginity has always been something that’s been intermingled with women in the spotlight.”

Moving forward in time, the widespread popularity of child actors on the Disney channel gave way for another round of mass sexualization in the media, particularly for Selena Gomez. After rising to fame through Wizards of Waverly Place, she turned to a career in music. To thrive in this industry, the innocent young girl narrative was once again used to drive appeal and continued interest in Gomez. Driven by a pressure to succeed, her sexuality was manipulated in album covers, music videos, and public appearances. This multi-layered system of sexualization is dangerously insidious, in that it occurs both on behalf of entertainment companies and the masses who consume their media. Gomez has acknowledged her role in this system as a young girl by saying, “I know they put you through a system and make you feel like this is how you have to do it.” In the late 2000s and early 2010s, however, these structures of sexualization continued to be pushed under the rug. Although feminism was a popular movement during this time, we allowed these young girls to feel helpless at every turn in their career, further perpetuating their sexualization.

Despite growing awareness of the public’s inappropriate perception towards female celebrities, we can’t claim that sexualization is not prevalent in today’s cultural strata. Through the advent of social media, commenting on the bodies of young women has become so easy — drastically unlike how gossip and rumours spread in the 90s. Billie Eilish and Millie Bobby Brown have both spoken out about their struggles and how society has treated them. Brown noticed the shift between the sexualized remarks she received when underaged and those made upon her turning eighteen, which abolished her previous “untouchable” status. One particular moment she noted in an interview with Teen Vogue were the extreme reactions from online users over her wearing a low-cut dress. Such behaviour continues to reflect the stereotypes of pop star virginal identity that was so strongly emphasized nearly 30 years ago: our culture has yet to change.

The roots of our collective ignorance on this issue stem from the proliferation of patriarchal views that are projected onto women and girls in the media and entertainment industries. The “ideal” standards of femininity, such as being docile, naive, and obedient, are pushed onto those in the spotlight, turning these figures into distorted representations of women. It is another effort to control women’s self-expression and individuality by limiting promiscuity and allowing men to believe that these girls hope for their virginity to be taken from them. This toxic coming-of-age narrative is also interwoven into every young-adult plot line — such as Laney Boggs in She’s All That, or Josie Geller in Never Been Kissed — always showcasing the female characters’ desire to engage in sexual or romantic behaviour. Without a critical reassessment of the current social structures where women face perpetual scrutiny for their every opinion and action, misogyny will keep thriving. Dismantling our inherent biases is no easy feat, but it first requires an acknowledgement of the harm being done towards these victims of sexualization.

Although Billie Eilish has been a target of the same sexualization process that most young female celebrities have gone through, her resistance to being seen in such a light has created a slight shift in the overall perception of female musicians. By emphasizing individual choices and freedom — in constantly changing her manner of dress or speaking her mind — she has caused a rift in the image of innocent femininity in the media. Her choice to rebel against roles women have traditionally been forced into opens the door for women to achieve success in ways other than the overt selling of their sexuality. While those gates have not completely widened, this shift can at least provide hope for a future world where women don’t have to face the scathing pain of being sexualized by the male gaze before anything else. For now, the first step entails acknowledging that internalized misogyny within the media has been woven throughout our history like a thread. It exists faintly in our memory: ignored, repressed, and avoided.

The post Not a Figment of Our Memory appeared first on The McGill Daily.

One of the concerns around nuclear power is the handling of radioactive waste. This waste needs to be segregated or diluted in order to render it safe and prevent radionuclides from leaking into the atmosphere. Repositories are one of the current arrangements – a subterranean, excavated facility created, built, and run for the long-term, safe and secure disposal of high-level waste. In Canada, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) plans to “contain and isolate all the country’s used nuclear fuel – including that created by new and emerging technologies – in a deep geological repository, using multiple-barrier systems.” This will translate into the building of 500 meters (1,640 feet) deep area, called geological repository, which will rely on a multiple-bar- rier system where each barrier is part of the system but provides a higher level of security since each next barrier will come into play if some where to deteriorate. Regretfully, there are hazards associated with them. There is a chance that these repositories will experience breaches and spills that could contaminate the environment and pose long-term health problems since the decay rate for radio- active material is very slow, remaining extremely dangerous for thousands of years, accumulating very rapidly. As Gerald S. Frankel stated: “It’s a societal problem that has been handed down to us from our parent’s generation, And we are – more or less – handing it to our children.” Some age-old containers have begun leaking their toxic contents and, with more than a quarter million metric tons of radioactive waste, it is now time to truly investigate a long term solution to store these harmful chemicals before it is too late and before this becomes a bigger problem than it already is.

Another danger of nuclear power is the risk of major accidents and mishaps. The specter of accidents and meltdowns haunt the legacy of nuclear energy with two notable disasters serving as stark reminders of the possible catastrophic results of using nuclear energy. The shadows of the nuclear meltdowns, such as the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, haunt the nuclear power industry. These events not only endangered the lives of the workers at the affected power plants but also released large amounts of radiation into the environment, leading to long-lasting damage to the environment and severe health issues for nearby populations. The prospect of future accidents leading to similar magnitudes of disasters continues to cast a dark shadow over the nuclear industry, demanding unwavering diligence and stringent safety when handling such powers if there continues to be a pursuit of nuclear energy to achieve a “greener” world. The high costs of nuclear power plants that are fully safe are difficult to justify. Nuclear power is more expensive than renewables, around $112-189 per megawatt hour (MWh) compared to $26-56 MWh for onshore wind and $36-44 MWh for solar power, while being exponentially more unsafe. Additionally, the slow development of power plants delays the progress to fight climate change as in the meantime we rely on polluting fossil fuels to generate the needed energy for daily activities. All of these factors, in addition to its dangerous nature, form an unjustifiable case to use this energy form to address the issue of greenhouse gasses.

With nuclear energy being so destructive, it has to be considered that some people or terrorist organizations might want to use it as a catalyst for mass destruction. As Zambia’s speaker stated at the UN thematic debate on nuclear weapons: “Nuclear weapons have no place in the modern world and there is no justification for their proliferation, testing and stock- piling. Their destructive power has fuelled international tensions and created an uncertain, unsafe world. Relying on deterrence for security only perpetuates a cycle of fear, where mutually assured destruction looms over the world community.” Terrorist attacks might target nuclear power facilities and the materials they employ, resulting in potential theft of radioactive materials and seriously jeopardizing national security.

Nuclear power facilities have sturdy engineering facilities built to survive catastrophic natural calamities like hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. But because they aren’t built to resist strikes from missiles and airstrikes, they are the golden target for war crimes. Only a little over a year ago, Russia attacked Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure with a series of airstrikes. Of the forty-three cruise missiles used in the strike, thirty-six were shot down by Ukrainian air defense troops and the remaining missiles struck western and central Ukrainian energy infrastructures. This shows how the use of hybrid warfare tactics, more specifically on energy infra- structures, is a growing concern in the modern world. While the Russian attack on Ukraine was largely contained, it serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities in our energy systems, particularly highlighting the need for diversified energy sources and a strong focus on its security. Nuclear energy, while capable of providing a significant power output, is also susceptible to similar attacks and poses a far greater set of risks. Such large-scale attacks would have resulted in catastrophic consequences if the attacked infrastructures were nuclear, resulting in flying debris and radiation. In the face of such threats, it is crucial to prioritize the development and implementation of alternative and renewable energy sources that are less vulnerable to geopolitical conflicts and sabotage, ensuring a more stable and resilient energy future as we can- not afford for these accidents to happen.

In the next few years, as we search for more sustainable energy sources, we must carefully weigh the trade-offs related to nuclear power. Developing a comprehensive strategy to tackle climate change without sacrificing environmental responsibility, safety, or security requires finding a balance between the benefits and drawbacks that come with it. Amidst all the information and confusion, it is also important to acknowledge that even if nuclear energy isn’t an ideal solution for a perfectly green future, the current widely used methods like fossil fuels, coal, and oil still represent a threat and silently kill millions of people every year worldwide.

The post Is Nuclear Energy Really the Solution for a Greener Future? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On August 20, the Spanish women’s soccer team triumphed 1–0 over England and lifted the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time in its history. This landmark victory is the second time Spain has won a World Cup since the men’s team’s victory in 2010. However, the women’s team’s victory was immediately overshadowed when the head of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, gave player Jenni Hermoso an unconsensual kiss when celebrating the team’s victory. Hermoso is the top goal-scorer in the history of Spain’s women’s team and was a pillar in leading the team to victory.

Following the outrage on social media and from media outlets, the RFEF immediately downplayed the gesture by quoting Hermoso, stating: “It was a completely spontaneous mutual gesture due to the immense joy of winning a World Cup. The president and I have a great relationship; his behavior towards all of us has been exemplary, and it was a natural expression of affection and gratitude.” Meanwhile, Rubiales was seen on video laughing about the gesture, saying that he would take the team to Ibiza to celebrate his wedding to Hermoso. 

The quote attributed to Hermoso by the RFEF is false. She has never stated that she consented to the gesture or that she was comfortable with Rubiales’ actions. Instead, Hermoso bravely published a statement on social media where she wrote that she felt disrespected and violated by Rubiales due to his violent and misogynistic act. Moreover, she declared that she had faced significant pressure from the RFEF to publish a statement condoning Rubiales’ actions. Hermoso also insisted in her statement that this accident is inscribed in a long list of abusive behaviours that players have been reporting for years. 

Hermoso received huge amounts of support from fellow Spanish players, with 81 players going on strike to protest the aggression she faced but also their working conditions. The players declared that they would not return to their teams unless there were significant changes in the leadership. Meanwhile, Rubiales has been suspended – but not dismissed from his functions by FIFA – because he publicly refused to resign while continuing to defend his gesture. Hermoso has lodged a formal complaint against Rubiales for sexual assault and he risks a criminal case.

In the weeks since, Rubiales has received support from the women’s team coach, Jorge Vilda, and the men’s coach, Luis de la Fuente, who were both seen clapping during a speech in which he called his detractors “fake feminists.” The support that Rubiales has garnered from people within the RFEF and the organization itself isn’t surprising, as the organization has historically dismissed the concerns of its women players.

Clearly, the RFEF is an organization that protects men in positions of power when they abuse women. In her statement, Hermoso wrote: “attitudes like these have been daily occurrences in our national team for years.” The women’s team victory hasn’t come without personal cost to the players. They have had to endure sexist and abusive behaviour from coaches supported by the RFEF. 

Abuses of power seem to be commonplace in the Spanish Football Federation. In fact, the recently dismissed head coach, Jorge Vilda, was only appointed after the RFEF shamefully dismissed Ignacio Quereda. Quereda had held the position for more than 27 years but was replaced due to players’ complaints of sexist, homophobic, and abusive behaviour. The players were able to have Quereda replaced, but only after speaking to the press about the abusive behavior they faced. When they complained internally to the RFEF, the federation’s ex-president, Angel Villar, dismissed their concerns and enabled Quereda’s behaviour. 

The RFEF continued to dismiss players’ concerns when fifteen players spoke out against the management and coaching staff of the women’s team in 2022. They described feeling emotionally and physically overwhelmed and stressed that they would not return to the team unless some changes were made. Instead of supporting its players, the RFEF shamed them by making their private statement public and by declaring that the players could not return to the team unless they “asked for forgiveness.” The federation also publicly declared its support for Vilda and condemned the “pressure” they faced from the players. By downplaying grave concerns about the mental and physical health of its players, the RFEF has continued to uphold an abusive and unsafe work environment. 

Over the years, the women’s team’s concerns have consistently been dismissed by the same federation supposed to support and protect them. This situation proves that, once again, institutions would rather protect men who abuse their power than the women who suffer from their abuses. Spain in particular is a country that still has to reckon with its long-standing culture of machismo. Despite advancements in promoting equality and reforms to sexual assault laws, there are still significant cultural remnants of the Franco regime within the country. Women only regained the right to vote and have bank accounts in 1975, after enduring the “permiso marital” that legally made them their husband’s property. 

Rubiales’s refusal to resign and his reprehensible actions have opened a floodgate in Spain, where people are openly protesting against the RFEF. Under the hashtag #SeAcabo, supporters of Hermoso are declaring that they are fed up with the culture of abuse and silence perpetuated by Spanish institutions and are calling for the complete removal of Rubiales from his responsibilities. Hermoso has also received support from multiple members of the government, who have expressed their dissatisfaction with Rubiales’ behaviour and the handling of the situation by the RFEF. 

The outpour of support Hermoso has received from the general public and her teammates has been inspiring because it demonstrates a shift in our culture where women’s voices are finally heard and are not dismissed as being irrational or exaggerated. However, the support that Rubiales has garnered from far-right parties and soccer executives showcases that men will stand together when they see other men being accused of abuse. Indeed, acknowledging that these behaviours are reprehensible implies a reflection on one’s behaviours that many men in positions of power are not ready to have.  

The post #SeAcabo: Sport Institutions Must Stop Protecting Abusers appeared first on The McGill Daily.