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05 07 13 OPINIONS

Students shouldn't have to compete for space with construction

ARTS

Club Ilia goes back in time with photo exhibit

SPORTS

The Peak Mailbag gives rugby a try

News

Gurpreet Kambo, Paige Riding News Editor, News Writer

Gurpreet Kambo / News Editor Jess Dela Cruz and Paige Riding / News Writers

October 7, 2019 news@the-peak.ca

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Kelly Chia Staff Writer

News

Gurpreet Kambo / News Editor Jess Dela Cruz and Paige Riding / News Writers

news@the-peak.ca

Opinions

Nicole Magas / Opinions Editor

October 7, 2019 opinions@the-peak.ca

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Election Trudeau’s racism scandal is Rundown just one of many eroding voter trust In mid-September, Times Magazine broke a story that included a photograph of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in brownface at a school event. In the following days, two more images depicting Trudeau in blackface were released to the media. Soon after the scandal Trudeau issued an apology statement, where he acknowledged the racism embedded in the photos and asked the public to forgive him.

But the idea of asking for forgiveness seems almost hypocritical given that days before the scandal broke, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer faced backlash from Liberals after he said that he would stand by Conservative candidates who had troubling pasts if they apologized. Yet now, the leader of the Liberal party is asking his own party, along with the rest of Canada, to do just that. So, should we?

Jennifer Low Peak Associate

This is not the first major scandal to hit the Liberals as a result of Trudeau’s poor judgement.

Under his leadership, the government bought the Trans-Mountain Pipeline. Trudeau was at the center of the SNC-Lavalin affair, which is still creating waves. We also can’t forget about the India trip which wound up costing the government over a million dollars.

Each of these scandals has attacked some aspect of the image that Trudeau cultivated during the 2015 election. The man who we elected was a feminist who was also proenvironment, pro-mulitculturalism, and looking to promote progressive policies. In the four years that he has been in office, this image has been slowly corroded, one scandal at a time.

The new question is not so much one of forgiveness but one of trust. The brownface scandal speaks to the slipping image of a man who once was, among many things, someone who many voters felt could be trusted to respect all Canadians. Can voters say with the same confidence going into the October election that this same man holds that respect for all Canadians, regardless of race? Can we trust this man to work to fight climate change after his government bought the Trans-Mountain Pipeline? Can we trust him to keep the promises that he will make during the lead up to the election this time around?

The federal election is rapidly approaching. So do we take the gamble that Trudeau will keep these promises because we don’t want to vote Conservative?

This isn’t the only option. The Canadian political system is a multi-party system. This means that, unlike our southern neighbors, voters have more than two options. We have variety and more than one left-leaning party. Maybe this is the time to finally look to the other parties and give them a chance this time.

Written by Kelly Grounds

GSS DIRECTOR ELECTIONS

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE POSITIONS, CANDIDATES & ELECTION PROCESS PLEASE VISIT: WWW.SFUGRADSOCIETY.CA/ELECTIONS OR EMAIL: EC@SFUGRADSOCIETY.CA

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Opinions

Gabrielle McLaren Editor-in-Chief

Nicole Magas / Opinions Editor

opinions@the-peak.ca

Arts

Kelly Chia Staff Writer

Andrea Renney / Arts Editor

October 7, 2019 arts@the-peak.ca

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Arts

Andrea Renney / Arts Editor

arts@the-peak.ca

GUEST SPEAKER

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o discusses the power of language at SFU Woodward’s The renowned writer and activist gave an insightful talk on the intersection of language and political power Isabella Wang SFU Student

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was a keynote speaker for the 2019 Afrocentrism Conference in Vancouver this September.

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Photo: Steve Zylius / University of California, Irvine

On Monday, September 23, a full house gathered at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts for an evening with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, in conversation with Juliane Okot Bitek. The night’s talk was titled “The Political Power of Language and Literature.”

Ngũgĩ is a Kenyan writer and activist, a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, and the recipient of 11 honourary doctorates. Okot Bitek is a Vancouver-based writer, activist, and poet, whose poetry collection 100 Days was shortlisted for several writing prizes, including the 2017 Pat Lowther Award and the 2017 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.

The evening began with a warm introduction by Ayan Ismaili and Jackie Obungah, two SFU students who helped organize the event. As part of a thoughtful and deliberate speech delivered to the applause of the audience, Jackie said, “we wanted to recognize that Black African students are contributing to universities in ways more than diversity statistics.”

The Afrocentrism Conference, which supported this event and took place at SFU Harbour Centre a day earlier, was meant to centre the experiences of Black African students and staff, and it was what brought Ngũgĩ to Vancouver as a guest speaker.

At this event, Ngũgĩ gave a memorable reading of two poems in Gikuyu, his mother tongue. His poems on going to Venice for the first time were accompanied by music and vocals mimicking the sound of wind.

Following the first readings, the poems were then read in translation; first in Italian, then in English. The performance was a demonstration of how bringing musicality, translation, and poetry into one room allowed for the dissemination of a “common language,” one that everyone had access to. On this, Ngũgĩ pointed to the fact that translation is a common language — the language of languages that allows for peoples and cultures to communicate. As he explained, it is only when certain languages are structured into a hierarchy that words become a weapon for propagating colonial causes, war, violence,

and injustice against others within the same shared community.

“Carbon monoxide,” Ngũgĩ began. “You know it’s a very dangerous thing. Monolinguism is the carbon monoxide of cultures.” To this remark, there was laughter in the audience. “Multiculturalism is the oxygen [ . . . ] but when they meet on a hierarchy, that is a parasitic relationship,” Ngũgĩ continued.

On monolingualism, Okot Bitek responded, “What about for those of us living in one language, who never had a mother tongue because it was not taught or taken away from us?”

Ngũgĩ paused for a moment, then went on to tell the story of how historically, English-speaking people could not conquer Ireland while trying to settle the country.

Eventually, an English writer published a book that gave insight into the tactics that would allow the colonizers to conquer Ireland, accomplished “through memory,” as Ngũgĩ explained. The first thing that the English erased was the naming system, through which stories are traditionally told and passed down.

Next came the erasure of language.

For people who have lost their mother tongue, who no longer speak it, or who have had it taken from them, Ngũgĩ showed how a new language could erupt through song, culture, and storytelling; so that in the end, it is not so much loss, but rather, resistance. Ngũgĩ ended his point by saying that knowing multiple languages is powerful, particularly when you are able to build upon your mother tongue — or, first language — in a mutually interlocking way for communication and connection.

The talk, having traversed the grounds of equality and relations, was brought to a close on the topic of the political power of language to unite peoples, languages, and song. To end the night, Okot Bitek asked Ngũgĩ what justice looks like for him. Ngũgĩ responded that we need to realize that “a glass castle for few, at the expense of imprisonment for many” is not justice.

“Splendour for few, and depravity for many,” Ngũgĩ continued, is not justice.

The night was concluded with this sobering thought, giving all of us a new idea to reflect on.

Arts

Andrea Renney Arts Editor

October 7, 2019

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12 Sports

Dylan Webb / Sports Editor

sports@the-peak.ca

Sports

October 7, 2019

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14 Humour

Zach Siddiqui / Humour Editor

humour@the-peak.ca

Humour

October 7, 2019

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16 Diversions

Yuri Zhou / Business Manager

business@the-peak.ca

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