COMMENTS
16
FALL ISSUE 2 2009
Remembering the Day After Harsha Walia Reprinted November 13, 2009 Vancouver Sun Community of Interest When we launched life / on the river of grief / how vital were our arms, how ruby our blood / With a few strokes, it seemed, / we would cross all pain, / we would soon disembark. / That didn’t happen. / In the stillness of each wave we found invisible currents. / The boatmen, too, were unskilled, / their oars untested. / Investigate the matter as you will, / blame whomever, as much as you want, / but the river hasn’t changed, / the raft is still the same. / Now you suggest what’s to be done, / you tell us how to come ashore. - Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Translation by Agha Shahid Ali) This is not about Remembrance Day; this is about the day after, and the days after. A journal of sorts, this is about all the remaining days of the year. This is an invocation to memorialize all those who have suffered and died due to human and corporate greed, military wars and occupations, man-made poverty, and environmental devastation. This is a remembrance of the horrors of the world, if you will, to jar us from our collective amnesia that seems to set in on certain days.
poppies.” ‘Never Again’ seems to have been rebranded into an affirmation of death, rather than life. Ironically, a day where--according to Veterans Affairs itself--we are to remember “our responsibility to work for peace,” we are bombarded with messages of militaristic glory. In the words of US combat veteran and renowned historian Howard Zinn, “Instead of an occasion for denouncing war, it has become an occasion for bringing out the flags, the uniforms, the martial music, the patriotic speeches...Those who name holidays, playing on our genuine feeling for veterans, have turned a day that celebrated the end of a horror into a day to honor militarism.” Indeed, should Remembrance Day stories not emphasize those soldiers who oppose wars, whether as conscientious objectors or war resisters? While many would like to cast them as cowards, refusing to blindly and obediently act on unjust, illegal, or immoral military orders are acts of heroism.
whether she will feel obliged to express her sympathy for dead CaBut again, this is not about Re- nadian soldiers. Joya is a women’s membrance Day. Today, I am rights and anti-war activist--dubbed haunted by the faces of those who the bravest woman in Afghanistan are being slaughtered and mur- by the BBC--who has repeatedly dered by ‘our boys’ in Afghanistan. offered her condolences to mothers The day after Remembrance Day, in NATO countries who have lost after we underscore the seemingly children due to their government’s eight-year occupa...the institutions that most vehemently uphold the sym- tion of her land. How it feel to always bolism of Remembrance Day are the ones that are most must validate the grief of eager to create a steady flow of the dead to remember. an occupying country for its losses, while those responsible find I am reminded of scholars such unique sacrifice of veterans and seas Reinhart Koselleck and Gilbert lectively grieve for them, where is greater fervour--and find applause Achcar, who describe war com- the indignation and sorrow for the amongst many of us--in perpetuatmemorations as sites of politi- daily dead of Afghanistan? Where ing policies of death, violence, and cal and national mobilization that is our recognition--let alone re- destruction? conceptualize past memories of membrance--of the soaring number warfare and the fallen as powerful of deaths in a country where, just I ponder the future, February 2010 political tools directed primarily in the past six months alone, over to be exact, and whether Vancoutoward building support for cur- 2,000 people have been killed? Ac- verites will awaken to the reality rent and future military operations. cording to figures by the UN As- of state-sanctioned repression by These sites reveal that the institu- sistance Mission to Afghanistan, over 16,500 military, police, and tions that most vehemently uphold civilian death in Afghanistan have security personnel in the largest the symbolism of Remembrance soared by 24% during the first half security operation in Canadian hisDay are the ones that are most ea- of 2009 compared with same pe- tory. Vancouver will be occupied by more Canadian Armed Forces ger to create a steady flow of the riod last year. troops than Afghanistan has been; dead to remember. Mark Steel sardonically writes, “Maybe this is I am curious whether former Af- bringing $1 billion of closed cirwhy the Government is so keen on ghani MP Malalai Joya will be cuit TV cameras, electronic fencthe current war--it is convenient to wearing a red poppy during her ing and monitoring, armoured vehave another one in a place full of book launch in Vancouver, and hicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and now LRAD sonic guns, to our
streets. ‘Operation Podium,’ with regular and reserve forces, JTF2 commandos, and NORAD fighter planes, will become the priority mission in 2010. How will we respond to these extraordinarily high levels of surveillance and, unless we are naïve, undoubtedly violence? We only have to look at recent episodes, such as Gustafsen Lake or Oka, where Indigenous people bore the force of the Canadian military and police--including surviving over 77,000 rounds of ammunition in the 1995 standoff in BC’s interior--for defense of their land and people. Have we become so engrossed in our own narcissistic narrative of self-righteous freedom-lovers and democracy-promoters that we take offense to those who wear the white poppy--as if the values of peace and justice are any more politically biased than the glorification of war? To find out whether WWII was indeed a Good War that safeguarded us from fascism, ask a Japanese-Canadian who was declared an enemy alien, stripped of all their property, and forcibly interned. Why do we find it improper when it is pointed out that we are in fact
residing in a state and society that continues to marginalize dissent as unpatriotic, that illegally expropriates Indigenous lands and resources, that subjugates and stigmatizes those who are poor, that prioritizes bailing out and protecting the biggest thieves of public money, that excludes and expels thousands of immigrants and refugees, and that perpetuates its racist civilizing presumptions to advance wars and occupations? Why is it inappropriate to suggest-on any day of the year--that freedom for the world’s majority is still an aspiration, though in reality nothing more than magnetic poetry and the shallow rhetoric of politicians? This, then, is an invocation not just for Remembrance Day, but one to ritualize grief in response to all the violence in and around our daily lives. As Noam Chomsky writes, “silence is often more eloquent than loud clamor, so let us attend to what is unspoken.” In contrast to the tyranny of complicity, desensitization, and historical amnesia, with remembrance comes responsibility, so let us act accordingly.
Dealing Properly with Student Privilege: A Qualitative Look at Fair Trade Beverage Consumption at York Troy Dixon A couple months ago, after entering nearby Treats and seeing a sign stating the availability of Fair Trade coffee, I immediately proceeded to order. Much to my surprise, however, I was told that Fair Trade coffee was temporarily unavailable at this location due to a lack of overall demand. At every edifice of our York University campus, from peripheral colleges, to intermediary buildings, to centralized spaces, there are numerous opportunities to buy fair trade coffee or tea. Yet why, after students have spent countless years diligently advocating for more Fair Trade options on campus, could we find ourselves in a precarious situation whereby an establishment actually had to temporarily stop its availability of Fair Trade goods? That is to say, why do we still find longer line-ups at the all too familiar non-Fair Trade campus outlets, while others, most noticeably a particular establishment that often goes by the name of ‘Timmies’, is continually inundated with eager customers despite the fact that this very same place has made it unequivocally clear that they have no intentions of re-
forming the exploitative productive chains that give rise to their ‘cherished’ coffee beans? Before grappling with these overriding questions, I must admit, when it comes to discussing the politics of Fair Trade coffee consumptionism at York University, it is difficult to determine how much attention or energy this topic should receive from conscientious media and student communities alike. When compared to such pressing themes as violence against women, global warming, corporate crime, and Native rights to name a few, coffee consumption can seem rather peripheral. Even though Fair Trade consumption is partly a response against all of the former issues of concern, a coffee purchase represents but one minute decision and action within an individual’s hectic daily life. Not only that, coffee purchasing is abstracted by multiple levels of farming, transporting, marketing, and selling, all of which is taking place along a multilayered as well as a multidimensional exploitative production chain reaching far across continental plains.
Coffee consumption is also difficult to introduce, since to even take part in an exploitative exchange in the first place, customers have to be in a financial position which allows them to afford daily purchases of the product in question. Not only that, some readers may argue that Fair Trade coffee analyses should acknowledge a second layer of privilege involving those who can afford the additional increments in price which Fair Trade prices often, but not necessarily always, reflect. From my point of view, even though there is an infinite number of class distinctions that can be made when it comes to addressing who can buy which daily products, in the case of Fair Trade coffee, I would argue that one class distinction should suffice. If a person who is currently in a class category that allows them to consistently indulge in non-Fir Trade coffee, cappuccino, wine, beer, liquor, sports drinks, or specialized fruit drinks, which are all options of privilege… then this same class of student citizenry should also be able to make room in their financial priority list for Fair Trade beverages. Moreover, as one last caveat to
ponder before examining why particular demographics of the York body (those who have access to funds beyond providing for one’s basic necessities) do not commit Fair Trade purchasing, it is important to note that this discussion is also difficult because--seeing as I can afford to structure my life in a way that enables for Fair Trade choices--this very article is taking space away from bottom-up voices who cannot afford spontaneous social expenditures. With these considerations in mind, I will now tackle my topic. As perpetually fatigued and seeking revitalization in order to meet impending deadlines, students may find that deciding where to eat and drink can often be a dreaded ordeal, especially within campus boundaries. The last thing that most students want to do is allot more time and mental energy to deciding between the same familiar eateries on campus. As a result, from my experiences at least, most students tend to cling to whichever place is mentioned first by their friends or if alone, a ‘convenient’ setting is chosen so as to negate the likelihood of having to dwell
on the matter beyond one’s initial inclinations. In a similar fashion, at first glance, when taking into account the ramifications of rising tuition fees, higher student debt rates, and longer occupational work hours, with the stresses that come with these brewing realities there is certainly more impetus for students to connect coffee to their veins through the most convenient avenues as possible. Thus as we enter the precipice of winter, with its darker days, colder nights, and lurking end of semester assignments, are we to assume that privileged students will be less likely to walk an extra two minutes or pay a few additional cents to ensure that that their purchases do not further enslave an entire region of the world? Unfortunately, from one perceptive, students may very well be increasingly tempted to consume coffee irrespective of the insidiously neo-colonialist trade and labour relations lurking behind non-Fair Trade coffee’s artificially depreciated price, ever-so smooth taste, and almost ubiquitous availability on campus.