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Arts & Entertainment, Pop Rhetoric

Aladdin remake returns to disappointing tropes

by Nicholas Raffoul on

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In the wake of widespread excitement for a live-action version of Lion King, Disney has been teasing the release of Guy Ritchie’s remake of Aladdin throughout the fall. Set to be released in May 2019, the film will bring to life the world of Agrabah, a faraway land of childhood dreams. As a child, the animated version of Aladdin (1992) was my first glimpse at cartoon characters who looked something like me and my family. At the time, I was overwhelmed to see a movie that depicted an Arab story, not yet aware of the movie’s many historical and cultural inaccuracies.

Aladdin constructed images of what my culture should have looked like. I wished more of my life as an Arab was filled with the mysticism of Agrabah and that my mother’s Arabic music on the radio sounded more like “A Whole New World.” I constantly questioned why I looked more like Jafar, the evil sorcerer, than any other character in the movie. I was more enchanted by the orientalized, European conception of Arab culture that a few white producers had crafted.

Today, the excitement for the live-action movie bears a sinister reality: The Arab experience can’t escape the stereotype that the film perpetuates. As of 2014, the animated movie was still the third highest-grossing traditionally-animated feature worldwide. The film is full of ethnic stereotypes of Arabs and their physical features, showing exaggerated hooked noses, thick eyebrows, and outrageous facial hair, predominantly evident among the movie’s villains. In contrast to the movie’s protagonists, Aladdin and Jasmine, both of whom bear the Eurocentric markings of lighter skin, thinner lips, and cute button noses, Jafar’s explicitly Arab features are central to his malevolence.

Over 25 years later, it appears as though the live-action movie will perpetuate the trope of a villainous Arab man battling against the whiter, morally-superior couple. In the upcoming remake, Naomi Scott, a light-skinned British-Indian actress with no connection to the Middle East, is cast as Princess Jasmine. The producers made an intentional decision to veer away from the everyday Arab woman, alienating a new generation of girls. This is made especially dangerous when ‘whiteness’ is the ideal standard of beauty among women in the Arab world: The skin whitening industry brought in almost $18 billion in Asia and the Middle East in 2017. Once again, darker-skinned and hooked-nosed men are cast to play more sinister characters including Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) and Hakim (Numan Acar), perpetuating conceptions of Arab men as menacing and untrustworthy.

Retrospectively, Aladdin is a portal to my culture that was more mystical than real. The movie carefully deconstructed and reconstructed aspects of my culture including dress, history, and language as a form of ethnic dominance, making me doubt my own rich culture and ancestry.

Popular culture uses my home as a trope for barbarism and as an object of fascination, which translates from the movie screen to my everyday interactions: I have been ‘randomly’ checked at airports and have had dates ask me to speak Arabic to them because of how ‘exotic’ it is. As an Arab man, I embody Aladdin’s palatable and exotic oriental flavour, but simultaneously, the ugly threat that the Middle East so often represents. While Aladdin is sure to bring back childhood nostalgia to its older audience, it is imperative that we recognize the falsehood of the image perpetuated by the film and its impending remake.

 

One-tweet
Off the Board, Opinion

One-tweet wonder

by Arshaaq Jiffry on

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The thought of achieving any form of popularity had always seemed light-years away for someone like myself who is accustomed to mediocrity. I had never found the prospect of widespread admiration particularly attractive to begin with. As cliché as it sounds, external validation has always seemed a little shallow to me. However, I would be lying if I said that I had never stargazed at an empty ceiling wondering how sweet internet stardom might taste. Who would have guessed that 41 characters and 125,000 likes later, I would encounter Twitter fame. An immediate surge of electronic ecstasy followed the rapid attention, but the aftermath showed me that social media ‘fame’ only attracts empty connections.

The tweet was not the child of my self-proclaimed quick wit or any spur-of-the-moment genius. Rather, it was a planned endeavour: I sat down and analyzed the most popular topics on Twitter that week and thought about what people my age would relate to. At the time, the kids from the Netflix original series Stranger Things were trending—a cast who, I happened to notice, bore a striking resemblance to that of the 2004 hit series Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide. Millennials like me feel most special when we’re indulging in nostalgia, and my carefully-crafted tweet embodied the perfect mix of relevance and reminiscence.

The likes and retweets brought my phone to life: Strangers were mentioning their friends and relating to shows that aired generations apart. It was a surreal experience at first, but the more my phone danced in my pocket, the faster my initial social media high dissipated into a need to dissociate myself from the tweet entirely. Turning notifications off required a valiant effort, and it still didn’t stop countless high school peers, whom I had been purposefully avoiding for the past two years, from popping into my private messages, commenting on my newfound fame.

They welcomed themselves back into my life as if I were their comedic benefactor, bringing with them memories I had long forgotten, to bask with me in the success of my Coconut Head–Will Byers mashup. I wanted to say, “Please, Sally—I’d rather you go back to tweeting about how your ex-wife left you for a jar of mayonnaise.” Luckily, they all eventually got the message, but it left me dumbfounded as to how these aliens from my past invaded my current world, only to move on after my 15 minutes were up. I had become a one-tweet wonder.

During this tumultuous Twitter experience, I found the tweet seeping into all of my daily conversations. It’s not everyday that you hit the big time with 125,000 likes. The conversations sent a shot of dopamine mixed with unreasonable confidence pulsing through my veins. However, this high was quickly followed by a crash when the faves stopped rolling in, leaving me with nothing more than a bitter aftertaste. I realized when my retweet record became my go-to pick-up line at bars that I had a problem.

It’s been a year or so since my moment of Twitter fame, and I can honestly say I don’t miss the star treatment. Nowadays, I get the odd retweet here and there, and I will periodically explain to my international peers why the gang from Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide was ever relevant on the twittersphere. In fact, right this moment, I could probably feel the rush of thousands of likes and retweets once again by tweeting some nonsense about how, if you haven’t seen the movie Coraline, you need to seriously reevaluate your life. Instead, I’m just excited for the day that I am old and telling my grandchildren about the time their old Grandpapa Shaaq based his self-worth on a tweet.

Commentary, Opinion

Grassroots, lawsuits, and the future of climate activism

by Lucas Bird on

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A group of Quebec youth are stoking a freshly-lit fire in the fight against global climate change. Montreal climate justice organization ENvironment JEUnesse (ENJEU) is pursuing a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for climate negligence on behalf of all Quebec youth under the age of 35. They argue that young people will disproportionately suffer the harsh consequences of climate change over the century to come. While Canada is a signatory to the Paris Agreement and has set reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, ENJEU argues that, not only are these targets not ambitious enough, but that the government is failing to meet even these meagre standards. Their lawsuit takes concerns about the climate that seem too big to tackle, and finds specific and substantive measures to effect meaningful progress toward sustainability. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report in October warning that only 12 years remain to prevent catastrophic climate change. If we fail to make substantial reductions in emissions and consumption, hundreds of millions of people will face dire consequences, including extreme heat, drought, flooding, and poverty. Despite increasingly-urgent scholarly literature on climate change, global superpowers have remained stagnant in their environmental policies. With the exception of the Paris Agreement, many major countries’ legislative repertoires are void of the determined, large-scale efforts necessary for addressing climate change. Their inaction means that the only path to adequate solutions is through grassroots activism as opposed to self-motivating federal policy.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind in Canada, but not in the world: In 2015, the Urgenda foundation won a landmark climate justice case against the Dutch government. Since then, Juliana v. US, a case awaiting a hearing at the Supreme Court, has argued that the U.S. government is depriving children of a climate capable of sustaining human life. Earlier this year, 12 citizens in the UK brought a similar lawsuit to their country’s high court. Several cities in California have sued monolith oil companies like Shell and BP. In January, New York City revealed a plan to do the same, as well as to divest $5 billion from fossil fuels. Even McGill has modelled citizen-driven divestment policy: Earlier this year, the Senate showed support for divestment from fossil fuels. Their endorsement was driven in large part by public pressure and deliberation from Divest McGill, a campus environmentalist group.

Grassroots climate litigation is precisely the sort of activism that can save our planet. In many ways, this ground level advocacy succeeds where federal and local governments fail. Climate change policy is still extremely difficult to introduce, let alone adhere to. It requires that countries divert from global capitalism, which has spent decades entrenching itself on the false promise of unlimited resources. Environmental policy also lacks immediacy, which is problematic for federal governments. Enacting legislation that may hinder a country’s industrial and economic development in the short-term, and whose benefits might not be seen for a generation, is unappealing to even the most progressive administrations. Finally, the private sector, which ravenously profits from fossil fuels, has extensive influence over powerful governments. Renewable energy is predicted to become cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020; however, its long-term investment is not a reality so long as ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others have their say. It is reasonable to wonder why the Canadian government has exhibited the sort of negligence ENJEU is alleging in light of their pledge to sustainability and its economic incentives. Not surprisingly, the government’s persistently-growing interests in the global oil market and the influence of oil-company lobbyists have something to do with it.

With so many obstacles to legislative movement toward sustainability, young people must take climate justice into their own hands. Lawsuits like ENJEU’s should be a prototype for communal efforts at environmental activism. They allow rational individuals who recognize the realities and magnitude of climate change to hold both the public and the private sector accountable. We are facing a massive anthropogenic issue which begs an equally large, cohesive, and consistent solution.

Editorial, Opinion

PGSS executive midterm reviews

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Helena Zakrzewski, Secretary-General

Zakrzewski ran on a platform of improving mental health services for graduate students, increasing support for international students, and re-engaging society members. Over the past semester, she has overseen and supported the initiatives of other PGSS councillors while undertaking an extensive evaluation of PGSS governance bodies. Zakrzewski initiated and secured funding for a comprehensive third-party audit of PGSS governance structures to be conducted in the new year, and worked to overhaul the PGSS Appointments Board and International Student Caucus administrative processes. She has also initiated projects for PGSS member engagement and mental health services. As Secretary-General, Zakrzewski has refocused her efforts into enacting governance reforms that have the potential to leave a lasting positive impact on PGSS.

 

Sibat Anam, Financial Affairs Officer

Anam has navigated PGSS’s financial systems to respond to post-graduate students’ needs for funding and services. Most significantly, he has worked with the Committee on Monetary Affairs to improve the Grants Program, raising the maximum amount of funding available by 50 per cent and providing applicants with more information on the process. Non-unionized post-doctorate students will also benefit; previously, their Student Life Fund student fees were left unused because they were not represented by a Post-Graduate Student Association (PGSA). Anam allocated these funds to the Experimental Medicine Graduate Student Society, which will in turn hold more inclusive events for all post-doctorate students. Moving forwards, Anam intends to propose amendments to the Society Activities Manual later this month, fulfilling his campaign promise to increase funding for student travel. He is also preparing for the upcoming Health and Dental Fee referendum to be held during Winter 2019.

 

Hocine Slimani, External Affairs Officer

In his second term as External Affairs Officer (EAO), Slimani has focused on advocating for graduate students’ interests at the provincial and federal level. Slimani attended Quebec Student Union (QSU) caucuses in June and August 2018 and felt that the Society’s desire to make public data more available for research purposes was fairly represented. However, PGSS’s lack of membership to a provincial student union has posed a significant barrier to completing Slimani’s key campaign promises. At the onset of both of his terms, Slimani pointed to the benefits of considering postdoctoral students as employees but has been unable to make progress in lobbying the provincial government on the issue. Moreover, Slimani has failed to put affiliation to a student union like QSU to referendum this semester as he had promised to do during his campaign. Slimani’s partnership with the Students’ Union of McGill University (SSMU) and the Milton-Parc community to investigate affordable housing options near campus has completed its first phase, however, the project’s progress is slow and inconclusive.

 

Konstantina Chalastara, Internal Affairs Officer

Having previously held the position of PGSS Environment Commissioner, making events more environmentally friendly was a priority for Chalastara. Chalastra has been steadily working toward this goal since the beginning of the semester: PGSS Orientation Week received a gold certification from the McGill Office of Sustainability. In the first month of the semester Chalastra organized an impressive 26 events on top of Orientation Week, all of which were well-attended. In November, Chalastara planned Eco-Week, which ran Nov. 12-25 and featured a variety of panels and workshops. Chalastara has also been working to make social events more accessible by implementing family friendly events and improving social media engagement. For Winter 2019 she hopes to improve the Winter Orientation for students starting at McGill in January.

 

Maria Tippler, Academic Affairs Officer

Tipler organized her platform around the theme of synergistic projects and initiatives that increase involvement with other PGSS executives, commissioners, and stakeholders. She has achieved her goal of improved communication, and, among other accomplishments, has provided students with guidance on working with professors in an Oct. 26 panel, strengthened PGSS transparency by documenting a paper trail for the Library Improvement Fund, and clarified committee application procedures. Currently, Tippler is working on creating a streamlined document to promote funding opportunities for students, updating the PGSS website, and planning for the Ottawa Networking Trip in January. Given Tippler’s commitment to transparency and her history of both fulfilling and exceeding campaign plans, her ability to continue to deliver on ongoing projects is promising.

 

Jeremy Goh, Member Services Officer

Goh has sought to make PGSS more accessible and inclusive by creating programs that can remain in place after his term concludes. He has revamped the Study Sundays program by creating more spots and hiring a core group of paid student babysitters. In collaboration with PGSS’ equity commissioner, Goh passed a motion in support of the #ChangeTheName campaign, uniting an often-detached PGSS with the rest of McGill. He also administered a special referendum regarding the Student Services fee for non-unionized post-doctoral students. Currently, he is building a structural support system for students starting families and is also preparing for the Winter 2019 Health and Dental Fee referendum. Next semester, Goh hopes to work more closely with his constituents and set up a formal feedback platform for PGSS services.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Grimes said “We Appreciate Power,” so now we appreciate power

by Solomon Friedman on

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The rise of artificial Intelligence (AI) has been decried by the likes of many — after all, there are few things more terrifying. Not exactly so: According to Grimes’ newest track, “We Appreciate Power,” this dystopia could actually be pretty cool. The Canadian pop princess declared the AI invasion to be good, therefore, it is gospel.

Grimes is the electro-pop outfit of former McGill student Claire Boucher. On “We Appreciate Power,” the singer-songwriter’s first single in over two years, Grimes and frequent collaborator, HANA, sing from the perspective of a pro-AI Girl Group Propaganda machine. Though bizarre in concept, the song is an effective and danceable robot-bop that, with its crisp and glittering production, refrains from sounding too campy. In 2018, artists like Janelle Monáe and Robyn ditch their cyborg personas for more something more human. Grimes’ new robotic identity feels strangely refreshing. There is something endearing about being told by someone with a voice as sweet as Grimes’ to submit to our A.I. overlords.

The track opens with a scream: A tasteful and subtle way to introduce listeners to Grimes’ latest work. She scatters shrieks and scratches throughout the song, creating a sense of total chaos, juxtaposed with her and HANA’s calm voices. The track ends with the word ‘submit’ repeated over and over as if to brainwash listeners into actually giving into A.I. supremacy. With lyrics about succumbing to computer rulers and an obvious influence from the Nine Inch Nails and K-Pop on the production, “We Appreciate Power,” is the dystopian banger we have all been craving.

Internet-savvy fans will, no doubt, try to draw connections between the song’s lyrics and Grimes’ multi-billionaire boyfriend Elon Musk, founder of Tesla. The song could very well function as propaganda for Musk’s takeover of the planet, which, in all honesty, wouldn’t be awful if the national anthem were as catchy as “We Appreciate Power.” When the couple made their debut at the 2018 Met Gala, Twitter was abound with jokes that their relationship was proof that the simulation we live in is glitching. Lyrics like “simulation, give me something good,” or “simulation: it’s the future” reference public suspicion. Perhaps, this year’s most surprising reveal about Grimes is not that she’s a fake socialist, but rather that she’s self-aware.  

While 2018 has proven successful for Grimes artistically—she was featured on new albums by Janelle Monáe, Jimmy Urine, and Poppy, and composed the theme for the Netflix series Hilda—Grimes has also transitioned from Pitchfork-famous to tabloid fodder. Aside from her bizarre relationship with Musk, Grimes engaged in a feud with Azealia Banks, who accused her tech mogul boyfriend of tweeting on acid and holding her hostage. It’s no wonder that it took the artist nine months to release the track.

Despite a year of turmoil, Grimes’ production has never sounded as clean as it does on “We Appreciate Power.” The nu-metal guitars that pulse throughout build on the harder sounds previously explored on tracks like “Kill V. Maim” from 2015’s Art Angels. Shifting away from the soft sounds of her early work, Grimes is breaking out of the cloying bedroom-pop genre that made her famous. The glittery aspects of her work are still present on this track, and they can be found in the synthy coos of the bridge, paired with new, aggressive tones.

“We Appreciate Power” offers a more polished and confident Grimes. The song proves that, if anything, Grimes has come out of this nightmare of a year with a clearer sense of self and direction.

 

News

McGill Social work student alleges racial profiling by police

by Laura Oprescu on

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As Jean Kagame, U3 Social Work, drove to Toronto with two friends on Nov. 21, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) pulled him over and charged him with stunt driving at over 170 km/hour. Kagame maintains that he did not exceed 120 km/hour and alleges that he was racially profiled by the member of the OPP who pulled him over.

According to Kagame, the officer stopped him and took his license without introducing himself. Only after calling a truck to tow Kagame’s car did the arresting officer explain that Kagame was being charged with stunt driving and that, in line with Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act, his vehicle was being impounded. Upon asking for clarification, Kagame alleges that the officer swore at him and acted aggressively.

“It was disappointing in so many ways,” Kagame said. “I have been driving for a while, [and] I have never had any interaction with any police officers. They don’t get paid to terrorize us. I only had this positive image of what Canada is branded to be [….] I should feel safe, but it’s exactly the opposite.”

Kagame said that the arresting officer’s partner apologized for his coworker’s behaviour, confiding that he would have handled the arrest differently and offering to drive the group to a train station.

“I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for the [other officer],” Kagame said. “He did what I felt was right, and he acted professionally. Me and my friends are really thankful for him.”

In addition to having his rental car impounded for a week, Kagame faces a fine of up to $10,000 and up to six months of jail time if found guilty. McGill’s Black Students’ Network (BSN) and the Social Work Students’ Association (SWSA) have started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover Kagame’s legal and car rental fees, raising over $1,400 since Nov. 30. Further, Kagame’s account of the incident received almost 400 shares on Facebook.

“I want to thank people,” Kagame said. “When such a thing happens, you can feel so alone and so isolated [….] Seeing people’s responses and people sending me messages of support, people telling me their stories […] I think the issue is way bigger than everyone thinks [….] All I can hope is to get justice and to make sure that the officer is held accountable for what he did to me and my friends.”

Following the arrest, Kagame was unable to file a complaint with the OPP.

“I said, ‘could you tell me the full names of the officers, because they didn’t introduce themselves to us,’” Kagame said. “[The officer taking the complaint] said, ‘we introduce ourselves by driving the cars with the lights on top.’”

Disappointed, Kagame is filing a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director.

“I felt so attacked,” Kagame said. “There was some extra motivation behind [the arrest….] I’m going to do anything I can to defend my name. I can only hope that the Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director takes a closer look at this and makes sure that [the officer] is held accountable for treating us the way we were treated.”

Fo Niemi, co-founder and executive director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), argues that Canadian police departments need to acknowledge their own diversity problems to tackle profiling.

“First, [police departments] should admit that [racial profiling] exists,” Niemi said. “Secondly, they have to recognize that they are there to serve and protect the community, and, to do that, they have to reflect the community.”

Niemi believes that attitudes of police departments have hardened since the anti-police brutality protests in 2012.

“Police departments have become more militarized,” Niemi said. “Hardening of attitudes leads to less training, less outreach, less community relations, […and] less internal review of conduct that seems to be explicitly unprofessional, unethical, illegal, and abusive. Police chiefs are no longer concerned with being accountable to the community.”

Niemi is concerned that Kagame’s case will disappear from the public’s attention, leaving him without adequate support.

“This is something we see very often with young people caught up in racial profiling situations,” Niemi said. “The reaction online will be spontaneous, [and] certain groups will come forward stating their support [….But], after Christmas, no one will remember the case [….] They are left alone to bear the burden of the legal consequences and other emotional and psychological effects.”

Christelle Tessono, President of McGill’s BSN, believes that eradicating racial profiling starts with increasing the average citizen’s awareness of its prevalence.

“Open your eyes to the realities of profiling and harassment,” Tessono wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Learn about how people are being racially profiled both on campus and outside of campus. Allyship begins when you understand your environment […and] when you unpack your thoughts and assumptions.”

Kagame
Editorial, Opinion

Standing with Kagame against police brutality

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Social work student and former president of the McGill African Students’ Society (MASS) Jean Kagame is facing charges of stunt driving after the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) stopped him on his way to Toronto on Nov. 21. During the interaction, one of the officers repeatedly yelled and swore at the group, and Kagame’s car began to be towed while he and his friend were still inside it. According to Kagame, another police officer came over to apologize for his colleague’s behaviour. The incident, which has circulated widely on Facebook, illustrates the reality that many McGill students are vulnerable to racialized police harassment. For many people of colour in Montreal and beyond, racial profiling is inevitable, and McGill must stand in solidarity with Kagame and other marginalized students on and off-campus.

The harassment that Kagame faced follows countless reports of racial profiling and police brutality in Montreal. Joel Debellefeuille, a black resident of Longueuil, is a repeated victim of police racial profiling while driving his BMW: He has been pulled over by Montreal police three times since 2009, and Quebec’s Human Rights Commission found each event unjustified. In 2017, after responding to a report that Pierre Coriolan was shouting and breaking things in his apartment, a Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officer shot and killed him. In Aug. 2018, Nicholas Gibbs was shot by police responding to a call about a fight in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood (NDG). Cellphone footage of the situation shows no visible attempts by police to de-escalate the situation. Even Montreal’s annual march against police brutality led to injuries and at least three arrests this year.  

The McGill community has rallied in support of Kagame; his initial Facebook post has almost 400 shares as of press time, and the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Black Students’ Network (BSN), and the McGill Social Work Students Association (SWSA) have all released statements in support of Kagame. Kagame is currently set to appear in court on Dec. 13, and is working with the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) to file a complaint against the officer. These groups are also supporting his legal efforts by running a GoFundMe campaign to help Kagame finance his defence. Most incidents of racial profiling go unnoticed or without institutional support, and it is commendable that the McGill community mobilized so quickly.

Students, associations, and other campus groups should sustain this momentum and support for Kagame. SSMU’s Know Your Rights campaign and other legal information services on campus should consider increasing their focus on educating students of colour about their rights when interacting with police—The McGill Daily published a “What To Do if You’re Arrested” guide in their joint issue on police brutality with Le Délit. Moreover, student organizations should avoid having police presence at their events; if police presence is for whatever reason unavoidable, such as at a protest, organizations have a responsibility to notify potential attendees in advance to make events as accessible as possible to people of colour.

Students, especially white students, have a responsibility to acknowledge their own privilege and use it for positive change. There is immense power in being an active bystander: Students should call out police when they witness violence against a person of colour. Police brutality is a community problem, and allies have a responsibility to create safe spaces for people of colour to speak about their experiences. Working toward a better future for people of colour is a responsibility that all of us share, no matter our identity.

Letter to the Editor: No, there is no “quest for monolingual domination” in Québec
Letters to the Editor, Opinion

Letter to the Editor: The wrong elephant in the room

by Florence Ashley on

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Morality and politics are inextricably tied. In Plato’s Republic, the political arrangement of the city-state serves to elucidate justice and the Good, positioning politics as ontologically prior to morality—a relationship that also seems to hold in Marxist thought. In utilitarian thought—and much of contemporary conceptions of politics— morality comes first and tells us what is politically legitimate.

However we conceive of the relationship between morality and politics, there is something ridiculous to drawing a stark distinction between the two as Erica Stefano sought to do in “The elephant in the room.” The article, in which she decries the judgement conservative students face in the university, draws a narrative link between the growing view that politics are “synonymous with morality and values” and hostility toward conservatives.

“The theoretical gap between moral values and stances on government policies is often neglected. Believing in something universal, such as wanting to help others, means different things for different people in the realm of politics,” the article reads.

It is difficult to disagree that there is a conceptual difference between morality and politics, of course. Utilitarians and Kantian deontologists agree that murder should be outlawed despite operating under wildly different moral frameworks. And two utilitarians who don’t have the same knowledge of the facts may support different political positions for that reason.

But the existence of a conceptual difference doesn’t mean that one idea does not significantly shape the other. Being against same-sex marriage is a political stance, but it tells us a whole lot about people’s morality. Being in favour of administrative detention—detention without trial or due process, often of indefinite length—also says a whole lot about people. It tells me that they, as Stefano’s article puts it, “ultimately want the best for themselves and those they love”—but apparently for no one else.

Because we hash out our collective treatment of others in the political arena, it is an arena where justice either obtains or fails because of the very policies we propose. Advocating for policies which treat others as “less than” not because of and proportionate to any moral fault, but because of who they are is plainly unjust. Injustice is a mark of immorality.

If we must withhold judgement of others for their political position, then we cannot  judge those whose immorality operates at arm’s length through the apparatus of the state. Although we can all agree that murder is evil, it is not murderers who cause the most harm in this world, but political actors. Political actors, not isolated individuals, legitimated genocide and, just south of the Canadian border, concentration camps for migrant children.

This, perhaps, is the elephant in the room. Politically abhorrent positions knowingly held are constitutive of immorality. If you are finding yourself rejected by others because of the positions you adopt, perhaps the problem isn’t intolerance to differing opinions. Perhaps it is instead that your politics are an indelible stain on your moral character.

 

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