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Opinion

RIGHT MINDED: National insecurity

by Brendan Steven on

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A culture that refuses to allow Canada’s intelligence service to do its job is putting the safety of Canadian citizens at risk.

Canada’s state intelligence agency, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, has come under attack for defending national interests abroad. Our civilian security apparatus has gone from a defender of human rights to its worst threat, at least in the public eye. This rhetoric typically comes from journalists and civilians with little understanding of CSIS’s mandate or policies.

Richard Fadden, the director of CSIS, highlighted this disturbing national trend in a speech to the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies. Fadden noted that “almost any attempt to fight terrorism by the government is portrayed as an overreaction or an assault on liberty.”

Fadden stated that the media have transformed suspected terrorists into “quasi- folk heroes … photographed with their children, given tender-hearted profiles, and more or less taken at their word when they accuse CSIS or other government agencies of abusing them.” The horrible truth is that Fadden is largely correct.

The myth that Canada cannot suffer from terrorism is preposterous. America is the real target, we reason to ourselves, so why should we be concerned? We forget that Canadian citizens lost their lives in the attacks on the Twin Towers; that the Air India bombing of 1985 killed 280 Canadians; and that the infamous “Toronto 18” plot, foiled in 2006, could have led to one of Canada’s worst political crimes. Canada remains a hotbed for terrorist front corporations, according to CSIS.

Yet this is all brushed aside if we portray terror suspects as victims of government gone wrong. Security is a human right, and we lose it by denying that our lives are at risk. We need to treat terrorism like the monstrous crime that it is, and fight it with every legitimate means available to us.

While suspected terrorists must retain the right to presumption of innocence, balanced perspective is often lost in media obsessed with faulting security policy. The Toronto 18 plotters were characterized as misguided youths, even though their plotting would have killed dozens. Security certificates, which allow CSIS to detain non-Canadians deemed serious security threats, are demonized – even as CSIS has enacted civilian oversight of the security certificate system.

Even Parliament seems to have lost respect for CSIS. A parliamentary motion has recently called for uncensored documents relating to the Afghan detainee controversy. While abuse should be revealed and condemned, the detainee controversy is not as black-and-white as the official opposition makes it out to be. The motion demanding the documents could violate the Security of Information Act, which mandates that CSIS employees are “permanently bound to secrecy.” That act prevents CSIS from saying anything – no matter how much Michael Ignatieff or Jack Layton complains about it. As the Conservative government has rightfully noted, releasing these documents uncensored could seriously harm national security and the safety of Canadians.

Despite this legitimate concern, the opposition (led by Liberal Member of Parliament Derek Lee) has pondered passing a motion holding the government in contempt of Parliament. However, the appointment of Justice Frank Iacobucci to review government documents related to Afghan detainees has somewhat quieted outspoken critics.

When did it become out of vogue to cherish national security? Was it when Congress passed the Patriot Act, or after the Guantanamo Bay controversy? The push for national security was a priority of the Bush administration, and perhaps his methods for pursuing it put a foul taste in our mouths. Even so, activists, journalists, and NGOs often seem to forget that CSIS saves lives. It operates in legal gray zones, but it operates with the intention of protecting our country, and always does so with oversight from civilian agencies and the Ministry of Defence.

Stephen Harper and his government continue to increase financing for the Canadian armed forces while consistently lengthening the penalties for crime. It is those actions that make Canada safer, not the politics of national insecurity.

News

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi talks human rights at Concordia

by Emma Quail on

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Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote human rights in Iran, spoke about the Iranian women’s movement at Concordia last Wednesday as part of International Women’s Week.

The Concordia Student Union and the Concordia Women’s Caucus organized the event, which was part of the CSU’s Speaker Series.

Ebadi studied law at the University of Tehran and graduated in 1965. She became a judge five years later, and in 1975, she was appointed the president of the Tehran city court – the first woman ever to hold the position.

After the Iranian Revolution, however, she and many other Iranian women were forced to resign under to the new laws. Ebadi was unable to practice law until 1992. In the meantime, she became a strong advocate for women’s and children’s rights in the country.

In one of the opening speeches, McGill law professor Payam Akhavan, a friend and colleague of Ebadi’s, reflected upon the hope and opportunity for a democratic and free Iran that exists thanks to the sacrifices made by Ebadi and other women like her.

“Mrs. Ebadi is an exponent of the power of women who struggle for justice in the face of seemingly impossible odds and who have prevailed and I’m sure will, in the end, triumph,” he said.

In her talk, Ebadi noted the historically high status of women in Iran.

“We have many women serving as engineers, physicians, lawyers, and holding senior managerial positions,” she said. “Women in Iran gained the right to vote over 50 years ago – in fact, before women in Switzerland had the right to vote – and since then Iranian women have been members of the parliament.”

In her speech, Ebadi described certain laws established by the Islamic republic that claim the value of a woman to be half that of a man, as well as legislation that enables a man to take up to four wives.

“These laws go against the very grains of the Iranian woman, given their high social and cultural status in society,” she said.

Ebadi explained that while women hold high managerial positions and serve as members of parliament, they need their husbands’ permission to leave the house. She discussed how women and men in Iran are opposed to the laws.

“That is precisely why the educated men and enlightened Iranian women are absolutely opposed to the discriminatory laws against them and why the women’s movement in Iran is the strongest in the Middle East today,” Ebadi said.

Ebadi described the structure of the women’s movement – which started alongside the more general movement for freedom, known today at the Green Movement – as a horizontal network.

“The women’s movement does not have a leader, nor a central office,” she said. “Rather, it is the movement that rests in the hearts and minds of every Iranian family that believes in gender equality. It is a movement that has expanded as a horizontal network.”

She stated that both the women’s movement and the Green Movement are not based on an ideology, but instead on pragmatism.

“[Iran’s freedom movement] is based on the need to promote democracy and human rights and this need has brought together people who hold different ideologies,” she said.

Ebadi explained that both men and women support the women’s movement in Iran, which she argued will eventually lead to democracy.

“Men fully understand and appreciate that women’s rights and democracy represent two sides of the same scale and it is through the advancement of women’s rights that Iran will achieve democracy,” Ebadi said.

Many students who attended the presentation were supportive of Ebadi’s arguments.

“She did a very good job outlining some of the problems of the Islamic republic,” said Khalil Jessa, U2 political science and Middle East studies. “She made a good case for human rights and for women’s rights in Iran.”

Montreal, News

Police arrest 100 during March Against Police Brutality

by Matt Chesser on

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The 14th annual March Against Police Brutality was declared unlawful shortly after beginning yesterday evening, as police used mass arrests to quell the demonstration in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood.

The Montreal Police Department (SPVM) arrested 100 protestors. Seventeen were charged with criminal offences, while 83 were apprehended for violating municipal bylaws, detained for three to four hours, given a ticket, and then released at random locations across the city. Police began making mass arrests of protestors and journalists – for participating in an unlawful protest – around an hour after the march began.

“We declared the protest illegal after some protestors started shooting fireworks at police,” said Sergeant Ian Lafrenière, media relations supervisor for the SPVM. “Two times, before any arrests were made, we read a statement in English and in French saying that the protest was illegal and that people had to leave.”

The Montreal police would not confirm the number of officers deployed to manage the march, but there appeared to be well over 100. The SPVM also used at least a dozen undercover police officers who posed as protestors, wearing black scarves, goggles, and large winter jackets to conceal body armour. These officers made a number of individual arrests and were involved in a brief fight about 15 minutes into the march, when they were identified as undercover police officers by a group of demonstrators.

Unlike last year’s march, in which protestors caused over $200,000 in property damage, demonstrators did little harm to the mostly residential area. Aside from tipping over mailboxes, dragging garbage cans into the street, and throwing paint, the only major incident occurred when protestors set a dumpster on fire on St. Germain Street.

“The outcome was generally a positive one,” Lafrenière said. “No one was injured on either side, and the total amount of damage was not nearly as bad as it was last year. I would have preferred a peaceful protest, but that might be dreaming.”

Protest declared unlawful

Approximately 900 people attended the march, which began just after 5:30 p.m. near the Pie-IX metro station at Olympic Stadium. The crowd made their way southeast on Boulevard Pie-IX and into a residential area along Ontario Street, though the marchers changed direction repeatedly, presumably in order to disorient police.

The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality, the Montreal group who planned the event, refused to inform the police of the protest route before the demonstration began. According to the SPVM, there are approximately 1,500 protests in Montreal every year, and the March Against Police Brutality is the only one in which organizers refuse to inform the police of their demonstration route beforehand.

“[Most protest groups] want to make sure that we close streets, and they want to make sure that no one gets injured,” Lafrenière said. “This is the same problem we have every year [with the Collective], though. They don’t want to share the route – they say that legally they don’t have any obligation to do so.”

Police declared the protest an unlawful assembly at 6:05 p.m. after demonstrators clashed with riot police at the corner of Ontario Street and Valois Avenue. Protestors threw paint bombs and food at officers with riot shields and shot fireworks at those on horseback. Riot police responded by shooting offenders with a paintball gun in an attempt to mark them for future arrest.

Moments later a similar confrontation occurred at Raymond-Prefontaine Park as police executed a pincer manoeuvre that split the protest into two groups. Police charged demonstrators from both ends of Hochelaga Street, scattering demonstrators into separate groups and leading many involved to abandon the protest.

Police began making mass arrests moments later, as the larger protest group headed up Prefontaine Street and clashed with officers who had blocked off the road near the Prefontaine metro station. Riot police charged the crowd after protestors hurled objects at them. The police then detained dozens of people on city buses.

Demonstrators invoke Villanueva

The march coincided with the International Day Against Police Brutality as well as a coroner’s inquest into the fatal shooting of Fredy Villanueva by a Montreal police officer in August 2008. Protestors could be heard chanting “Lapointe, murderer” early in the march, in reference to the police officer who killed Villanueva.

“We need to take back our streets,” said Sara, a protestor who declined to provide her last name. “[The police] get away with too much … [we need to] show them that they can’t get away with whatever they want.”

Others had less principled reasons for attending the event.

“I just want to see things get fucked up,” said Renaud, a protestor who also declined to provide his last name. “Fuck the police.”

Protestors began gathering around 4:45 p.m. and were supervised by at least 50 riot police. Many demonstrators carried signs with slogans such as “60 dead since 1987. Disarm the Montreal police.” and “Justice and truth for all the victims.”

According to the Montreal Gazette, police stopped metro service to the Pie-IX station on the city’s green line around 5 p.m. in an attempt to delay the arrival of more protesters. At least four protestors were arrested as the march began when they were discovered to have the ingredients for a Molotov cocktail.

Features

Resettling and rebuilding

by James Gilman on

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One would be hard-pressed to find two places with less in common than southern Bhutan and the town of Saint-Jérôme. In the south of Bhutan, the soaring peaks of the Himalayas descend into subtropical plains and fields of rice. Bhutan is primarily Buddhist and shares many cultural ties with its northern neighbour, Tibet. It was one of the last countries in the world to open itself up to outside influence, remaining isolated until well into the 20th century. TV and the Internet were banned there until 1999.

Saint-Jérôme, too, is at the gateway to a mountain range – albeit the slightly more humble Laurentians. The similarities, however, stop there. Saint-Jérôme is in many ways a typical Quebec town, blending the old – Catholic churches and traditional limestone buildings – with the new – Wal-Mart, fast -food restaurants, and modern housing developments. Both geographically and culturally, it’s about as far as you can get from Bhutan. Yet Saint-Jérôme is exactly where Nandu Bastola, a refugee from southern Bhutan, has found himself. Just over a year ago, he and his family were resettled by the Canadian government after almost 17 years in a refugee camp in Nepal.

The plight of refugees from Bhutan is not well known, but Bastola’s story is all too common: more than 25,000 Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the last few years. As it became clearer that their government didn’t want them back and their chances of returning home almost completely disappeared, Bastola and others like him decided to accept the offer of resettlement and start new lives in a foreign land.

Fleeing Bhutan

When Bastola fled his home in 1991, ethnic tensions and government crackdowns on opposition groups were rampant across the south of the country.

“I was a student at the time – only 15 years old,” Bastola says. “When I left Bhutan I didn’t know much about the political issues, but I understood [some of the situation] from my parents.

“My whole family left for Nepal, and we went to the Jhapa district [in southeastern Nepal],” where they ended up in a refugee camp, Bastola says. “In the beginning we were living on the bank of a river in Jhapa. We had very little food; we didn’t have enough of anything. The situation was bad. Many people got sick with dysentery. But after that the UNHCR [the U.N.’s refugee agency] began to improve the situation in the camp: they provided food rations, education, and health facilities.”

Bastola comes from the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority that makes up the bulk of the population in Bhutan’s southern districts. These Nepali Bhutanese share not only their language, but also their religion – Hinduism, as opposed to Buddhism, the official state religion in Bhutan – and many cultural practices with Nepali speakers in northern India and Nepal itself. They are the descendants of migrant workers brought to Bhutan to work the land hundreds of years ago. For Bastola and the other refugees, though, Bhutan is still their homeland. Despite spending more than half his life in a Nepalese refugee camp, Bastola, like almost all of the refugees, was never given the opportunity to apply for Nepalese citizenship.

The rest of the Bhutanese population is much closer – ethnically, linguistically, and culturally – to their neighbours to the north, the Tibetans. The king and most of the government and civil service are members of this group, and they have, understandably, always been keen to protect their culture from outside influences. This sentiment has guided Bhutanese policy toward their sizable Nepali minority, which by some accounts makes up close to half the population. Many within the ruling elite saw this large minority as a threat, and thus created policies aimed at “Bhutanizing” citizens like Bastola.

Many Nepali speakers, however, saw the government as trying to marginalize them and force them to give up their language and culture. Tensions came to a head in the late 1980s and early 1990s when more and more Nepali Bhutanese protested these policies and the government responded by cracking down. Labelling the protestors as anti-nationals, the government threw thousands in jail, torturing many activists along the way. Some Nepali Bhutanese fled the country, and others were effectively stripped of their citizenship and kicked out of Bhutan regardless of whether they were involved in anti-government activity.

By 1993, over 80,000 people had left Bhutan, with most of them ending up in U.N.-administered refugee camps in eastern Nepal. Bastola was one of these migrants. After he left his home he was brought to the refugee camp, where he spent the next 17 years.

“We had Bhutanese citizenship,” he says. “We had the papers and the tax receipts in Bhutan, but when I came to Nepal we had nothing.”

Bhutan would not allow him to re-enter, and Nepal would not allow him to settle outside of the camp. Bastola was living in the stateless purgatory that characterizes the life of a refugee.

A chance to start over

By the early 2000s, the number of refugees languishing in camps in Nepal had swollen to just under 110,000. Considering the total number of Bhutanese is estimated at fewer than 700,000, these refugees constitute a sizable chunk of the population. In 2006, with neither Bhutan nor Nepal willing to re-integrate them, the United States and a number of other nations stepped forward with a plan to resettle the refugees in third countries. The U.S. offered to resettle 60,000 Bhutanese refugees, while Canada offered to take 5,000.

The plan was controversial within the camps, and many refugees believed it would end their hopes of returning home. Yet many others saw third-country resettlement as an opportunity to build a new life and accepted that they would not be able to return to Bhutan. Bastola was among the latter.

“We arrived in Canada on December 8, 2008, and the resettlement process began in the beginning of 2008. Representatives of the Canadian government interviewed us [at the time] about coming to Canada,” and later worked with them throughout the process, he says.

In 2008, Bastola arrived in Montreal with his wife and their two children. Soon after that they were settled in an apartment in Saint-Jérôme, their new home. The Bastolas were among the first Bhutanese refugees to be resettled in Canada. By the end of 2009, more than 850 had been resettled in towns and cities across the country, from Vancouver to St. John’s.

The adjustment to the country was difficult, admits Bastola. Almost everything about Canada was alien, from the harsh winter weather to the unfamiliar food. Bastola struggled especially with language. Before coming to Quebec he spoke very little English and no French. Now, learning the language of his adopted land is a top priority.

“When we came here we knew no French,” Bastola says. “In the other provinces, English is the [main language], but we understand that here French is very important, almost compulsory. The language is very difficult. In the beginning it was hard even to go shopping … but we’re learning.”

Along with his wife and the other adults among the refugee population in Saint-Jérôme, Bastola attends full-time French language classes. However, communication in anything but his native Nepali is still difficult. The children are enrolled in the local public school, and are working hard to learn French as well.

While the government provides his family with financial help, the long-term goal for Bastola is to move into the workforce and establish a degree of self-sufficiency. Perhaps the most important thing for Bastola is that his children have an opportunity to improve their future, an opportunity they never would have had if they’d continued to grow up in the refugee camp.

“When we had the chance to come to Canada,” he says, “We hoped it would mean a better future for us.”

Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL: Jean (Charest) and Kate plus 8: Quebec funds in-vitro

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Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc announced last week that the Quebec government will fully fund up to three cycles of in-vitro treatment for infertile couples. This announcement, which fulfills a pre-election promise made by Jean Charest in 2008, makes Quebec the first province to adopt such a policy. It is a program, however, that all other provinces should seek to emulate.

This move makes sense on many levels. Infertility is a medical condition that affects many Canadians. However, despite our system of universal health care, in-vitro fertility treatments are privately funded, and cost $10,000 to $20,000 per round of treatment. Because of this high cost, many couples opt to transfer large numbers of embryos in one cycle – drastically increasing the risk of multiple births.

This option makes sense for many couples given the prohibitive costs associated with the procedure. However, in many cases of multiple embryo transfers, instead of one baby, women often find themselves pregnant with multiples.

Any pregnancy that involves more than two foetuses is dangerous. As the number of foetuses increases, so does the risk of premature delivery, cesarean sections, intensive neonatal care, cerebral palsy, and other complications.

By funding in-vitro, the Quebec government will be able to regulate the procedure. The government will limit the number of embryos that can be transferred during any one cycle to three. This regulation should greatly reduce the number of multiple births in the province – something that is important in a country that is on the way to having one of the highest multiple birth rates on the planet.

Even for those who believe medical costs should be borne by private individuals instead of governments, this announcement has some economic benefits. Right now, the medical costs associated with complications resulting from multiple births are paid by the province. By funding in-vitro, the Quebec government anticipates that it will save up to $30 million in health care costs per year. These savings will help to partially offset the estimated $80-million-per-year cost of the in-vitro program.

Provincial governments in Ontario and Alberta have promised in the past few years to explore the possibility of funding in-vitro fertility programs. Hopefully Bolduc’s announcement will provide a further incentive for their governments as well as those of the other provinces.

While government funding for in-vitro will not entirely solve Canada’s low birth rates – as the in-vitro funding lobby would have us believe – Quebec’s move is an important step for the health of individual Canadians.

Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL: Let us do our jobs; Mr. Neilson tear down this bylaw!

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Last week, 10 McGill Tribune editors were forced to take leaves of absence in order to campaign for the creation of a $3 fee to support an independent Tribune. And while we’re ecstatic that students voted “yes” to the fee, the bylaw that required half of our editorial board to resign needs to be changed.

The Students’ Society bylaws require any person campaigning on a referendum question to forgo all editorial duties, including writing articles, during the weeklong campaign period. This undermines campus media during election week – arguably the busiest week of the year.

An additional bylaw (16.3) prohibits campus media from endorsing a “yes” or “no” vote on referenda with which they are directly involved, so the practice of forcing editors to resign is unnecessary. Since media are already prohibited from taking a position on their own referenda, what harm can come from allowing editors to remain in contact with contributors, design the paper, and write stories?

Thanks to a university regulation that requires student fees to be renewed at least once every five years, this bylaw will continue to affect future editorial boards. Give media a fair chance to campaign for our existence and put out a quality newspaper during election period – otherwise we’ll just have to start using pseudonyms.

Art, Arts & Entertainment

Caravaggio vs. Michelangelo

by Steven Hoffer on

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Although art historians and casual tourists probably won’t stop peering up at the brilliance of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the 16th-century Italian Renaissance man may find himself looking up at another art world rival as the top Italian artist in history, according to one renowned art historian.

Phillip Sohm, an art history professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in the Italian Renaissance and the Baroque period, believes that Caravaggio has surpassed Michelangelo in scholarly discourse. Sohm recently presented his findings at the annual College Art Association conference in Chicago.

Sohm’s research tracks the frequency of scholarly publications concentrating on each of the two artists over the last 50 years. The research demonstrates a widening gap around 1996, with Caravaggio garnering over 55 scholarly documents.

Sohm described the phenomenon as “Caravaggiomania.”

“Caravaggiomania appealed to me for its suggestion of obsession and psychological imbalance, thus knitting Caravaggio and his fans together,” Sohm wrote in an email to the Tribune.

Caravaggio is known not only for his artistic ability, but also for his reputation as a recalcitrant rascal.

On May 26, 1606, Caravaggio killed a man named Rannucio Tomassoni over a tennis match and gambling debt. Although historians believe that the murder may have been unintentional, Caravaggio nevertheless fled to Naples. Before he passed away, it was reported in Rome that Carravagio had already died, while in fact he had merely been attacked, leaving him significantly disfigured in the face.

“Would we have Caravaggiomania if Caravaggio had not thrown artichokes at a waiter, swaggered with a sword, trashed his landlady’s place, killed an acquaintance, escaped from prison, and died on a beach?” Sohm asked in his CAA lecture.

Some scholars believe that after Michelangelo’s 500-year reign at the top, art history doctoral candidates are simply struggling to generate original readings of his catalogue. But Sohm does not completely agree with this sentiment.

“Actually, I think that fresh readings of Michelangelo’s work are still possible, but at times areas of study become exhausted, perhaps from the grueling and dispiriting effort required by piles of complicated and incompatible theories,” Sohm said. “This happens in other fields of art history – 19th-century French art studies is now in hiatus after leading the discipline with innovative studies during the 1980s and 1990s.”

So why the extended period of “neglect” and recent emergence?

“Fashions change,” Sohm said. “Those artistic values that Caravaggio challenged, those that took complex compositions with classical references, clarity of expression, and a privileging of the idealized human body as the height of artistic achievement, never disappeared in the 17th century and reasserted themselves as art academies became more dominant.”

Opinion

BLACK & WHITE: Miss manners for Facebook

by Mahak Jain on

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The embarrassing number of hours I’ve spent trolling Facebook profiles have convinced me we need a Facebook etiquette handbook. You know, the sort of pamphlet that would’ve circulated in the 19th century: an almanac of do’s and dont’s for ladies and gentlemen who wish to participate in civil society.

It all started when a Facebook friend updated her status to inform me – and anyone else who had the privilege of seeing her updates – that she had recovered from a urinary tract infection. Her status received a number of comments cheering her recovery. And, indeed, what’s not to celebrate about regaining your ability to pee with pleasure?

But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave behind all vestiges of Victorian propriety. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the type of person who balks when any of my close friends share too much information about their bodily functions. But I know very little about this individual. We once had a meaningful conversation that was lovely enough to justify Facebook friendship. Now, alongside some snippets about her career and ambitions that I had gathered, I have this odd piece of information about her medical history that’s demanding way too much attention and threatening to thrust aside everything else I know about her.

In truth, oversharing likely won’t hurt anyone, despite the awkwardness it can lead to. However, there are other things people do on Facebook that can cause problems. For example, posting sexual innuendos on a friend’s wall, which someone did to a friend of mine. From what I understand, it was done as an attempt to display wit, not cause discomfort. While my friend herself didn’t care, she was concerned about the family members who could see her Facebook wall as well.

I don’t mean to be the Facebook police here, but we need to be careful. This isn’t a chat room where we can swap playful innuendos without risk of being overheard. Facebook is a public forum.

And I’m not that adept at the Facebook do’s and dont’s myself. I learned a hard lesson about presenting your political views on Facebook when I decided to post an article about Roman Polanski, along with my cursory views on the subject in the accompanying status update.

I learned that Facebook is a great forum for sharing news, but it is not an appropriate place to have a thorough discussion about controversial topics. My pithy statement about Polanski’s wrongdoings, presented without an appropriate amount of substantiation, sparked a flame war in my comments section that still makes me cringe. Things ended well, but since then I’ve wondered: what are the rules about posting on controversial subjects on Facebook?

These concerns could be mediated if we limited our Facebook profiles to close friends, not acquaintances. But, in reality, many of us use Facebook as a networking site – I have several “friends” that are actually acquaintances from high school who I don’t talk to anymore. So maybe, in a way, that’s my fault. But, still, I’m not suggesting we need strict guidelines – or to censor certain status updates or whatnot – but I think a guide might help us avoid uncomfortable situations in the future.

Facebook etiquette also means that I probably need to stop creeping on people’s pages like a modern-day peeping Tom. I’ll work on that.

Recipes, Student Life

Tofu vegetable stir-fry at the drop of a hat

by Carolyn Yates on

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Stir-frying random ingredients is a simple way to cook an impressive meal without culinary skill or expertise. I lack all three, but I can still make a passable tofu stir-fry without setting something on fire.

The following recipe takes 10-30 minutes to prepare, depending on how many vegetables you use, and about 10 minutes to actually cook. Remember not to overcook the vegetables: they should be crunchy, not mushy.

Ingredients (choose several of these vegetables):

  • 1 red, green, or yellow bell pepper
  • 1 medium carrot (or a handful of baby carrots)
  • 1 cup of snow peas
  • 6 medium-sized mushrooms
  • 2 celery stalks
  • 1 small zucchini
  • 1 small onion
  • 5 ears of baby corn (canned)
  • 1 broccoli stalk
  • 1 cup of bean sprouts*

And add these:

  • 1/2 pkg. firm or extra-firm tofu
  • 2 tbsp. sesame oil (preferred), vegetable oil, or olive oil
  • 1 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp. orange juice

Directions

  1. Prepare the vegetables by washing them, removing any stems and seeds, and drying them lightly. Cut into approximately 3-centimetre long pieces, leaving the snow peas, baby corn, and bean sprouts whole.
  2. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, orange juice, and 1 tbsp. oil. Pat tofu dry and cut into 2-cm cubes. Add to bowl. Ideally, let it marinate for several hours, but realistically, 30 seconds will do.
  3. Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, remove the tofu from the marinade, and stir-fry for one to five minutes, according to taste. The tofu should feel slightly undercooked. Remove from frying pan and set aside.
  4. Add the onion, bell peppers, broccoli, and carrots. Stir-fry for about two minutes.
  5. Add the celery, mushrooms, and zucchini. Stir-fry for about two minutes.
  6. Add the snow peas, bean sprouts, and baby corn. Stir-fry for about one minute.
  7. Add the leftover soy sauce and orange juice; stir thoroughly.
  8. Add tofu; stir-fry for one minute.
  9. Serve warm.

*Note: Other things I have successfully added to a stir-fry include slivered almonds, pecans, red apples, lemon juice, red cabbage, green cabbage, ginger, and hearts of palm. I don’t suggest trying them all at once, however, and the same goes for these vegetables.

Arts & Entertainment, Books

John le Carré: the spy who loved fiction

by Kyle Carpenter on

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The 2010 International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal kicks off on March 18, featuring 230 films from 23 countries. Shortlisted from this group are a competitive selection of 43 films from 14 countries (including eight entries from Quebec). Buzzed films from the competitive group include Je M’Appelle Denis Gagnon, a documentary about the Quebec fashion designer who made quite an impression at Montreal Fashion Week; The Real World of Peter Gabriel, on the Genesis lead singer; and perhaps most intriguing, King of Spies: John le Carré, a documentary about the life’s work of a spy-turned-fiction writer.

John le Carré is one of the most celebrated spy fiction authors, with a career spanning the past 50 years. Our generation would recognize him as the author of The Constant Gardener, which led to an Academy Award-nominated film in 2005. However, le Carré is best known for his Cold War novels from the 1960s, most notably The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Le Carré is a former agent for MI5 and MI6 (now known as the Secret Intelligence Service), but unfortunately that’s about as much detail as anyone can give you, as le Carré is unwilling to discuss his involvement in the British government. And rightfully so – as he says in the documentary, there are two reasons why he does not reveal his past: he would never allow himself to put anyone he knows in danger, and nobody would believe what he told them anyway. While it’s understandable that we don’t get to learn about le Carré’s experiences as an agent, it’s still disappointing. Instead, the documentary is chiefly about his writing career, which is almost inseparable from the politics of the Cold War. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold marks a trend in le Carré’s work: the jaded, overworked agent who is anything but a James Bond-esque hero. The key difference, as explained by a former KGB agent, is that Ian Fleming’s novels provided readers with a form of escapism, while le Carré’s showed the gritty reality of the Cold War.

The bulk of the documentary is made up of various interviews with le Carré, as well as with former politicians, ex-agents, and academics who discuss both le Carré’s legacy and the politics of the era. Le Carré is an interesting speaker: he is both charming and well-versed in the art of fiction. Some of the film’s most interesting moments are le Carré’s anecdotes about famous figures: when describing his love of subtext in literature, he quotes Alfred Hitchcock, who was once asked how long he could film a kissing scene, to which Hitchcock replied “20 to 25 minutes … but I would put a bomb under the bed first.”

The film incorporates more than just interviews, splicing in footage from films based on le Carré’s novels, and many scenes made up of grainy footage of England with the narrator reading passages from le Carré’s work. These scenes are far too numerous, and it feels as though the directors were trying to lengthen the film rather than strengthen it.

The portrait of le Carré that the documentary paints is a man who has seen it all. The viewer gets the impression that there’s an authenticity to le Carré’s writing, because he seems to have seen the world he represents on paper first-hand. From his youth at a boarding school, where there were “different types of beatings for different imaginary offences,” to his career during the Cold War, the viewer begins to wonder if the hardboiled, cynical secret agents that he creates are really just a reflection of himself.

As the Cold War came to a close, many expected that le Carré’s writing career would end with it. He has gone on to write many subsequent novels, however, after switching his focus from the Cold War to globalization, a concept he is very critical of. However, just because the war has ended does not mean that its effects are not felt today: “When you travel the world a bit, you’ll find that victims have a terribly long memory,” says le Carré, making the viewer once again question just how fictional the king of spies’ fiction really is.

King of Spies: John le Carré is playing as a part of FIFA, which runs from March 18 to 28 at nine theatres: the Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the National Film Board Cinema, the Cinémathèque québécoise, the Goethe-Institut, the Musée d’Art Contemporain, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Place des Arts and Concordia University. Tickets are $12 each and can be purchased on-line at www.artfifa.com or at any of the nine theatres on the day of the screening, one hour before the film begins.

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