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News

Canadians join the Women’s March on Washington

by Laura Oprescu on

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On Jan. 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, over 200,000 people are expected to take to the streets of Washington D.C. to make their voices heard for human rights.

The movement started with Hawaiian grandmother Teresa Shook, who posted on Facebook in the early hours of Nov. 9 stating that she wanted to protest against a Trump presidency. The idea rapidly grew as thousands expressed their desire to join her, eventually becoming the Women’s March on Washington. Today, six hundred and sixteen sister marches have been organized around the world—anyone can organize a march by contacting the organization. From Montreal to Myanmar, an estimated 1.3 million people are expected to protest, some of whom will be McGill students. Several buses to transport protesters from major Canadian cities to Washington sold out, including every Montreal bus.

The Women’s March on Washington isn’t just for women; hundreds of minority groups have partnered with the March, including Planned Parenthood and the Muslim Women’s Alliance. Nor is the March specifically anti-Trump; it began out of a concern that women’s rights would be at risk under a Trump presidency, but has since grown into a movement calling for governments to respect the rights and freedoms of all genders, sexualities and religious groups, and those with disabilities. As its website states, “We work peacefully while recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all.”

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The Montreal sister march—Manif des Femmes Montreal—will take place from 11:00 a.m. on Jan. 21 at Place-des-Arts. Follow the Tribune on Twitter for live updates from the March on Washington.

McGill, News

Uncover McGill hosts dialogue on justice and forgiveness

by William Pang on

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Uncover McGill, a series of talks across six days aimed at sparking conversations about spirituality-related topics among members of the McGill community began on Jan. 16. The first day’s panel, “A Dialogue on God”, hosted in the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) ballroom, discussed the meaning of forgiveness and justice among the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions—Islam, Judaism, and Christianity—featured Shaykh Hamdi Ben Aissa, Rabbi Mark Fishman, and Christian scholar Abdu Murray. The talks are organized and hosted by Hillel McGill, the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA), Newman Catholic Students’ Society, Power to Change, ICON, McGill Christian Fellowship, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, in addition to a collaboration with Queer McGill.

 

Islam

“What is forgiveness?” asked Shaykh Hamdi Ben Aissa from the Sanad Collective, an Ottawa-based group of Islamic chaplains, teachers, and elders. “Forgiveness is the way to heal the pain we have caused others, caused by ourselves, and being caused by others.”

Speaking to students and faculty members, Shaykh Hamdi emphasized that forgiveness is a critical aspect in Islam by referring to the story of the Garden of Eden. Unlike Christianity, Islam does not believe in the concept of original sin, which is the idea that all human beings share Adam’s sin and must be redeemed by God.

“We don’t see prophet Adam as having caused us to leave the Garden,” Shaykh Hamdi said. “For Muslims, Adam’s story is not one about blame and guilt, but it is about the glory of forgiveness, and the beauty of being able to seek it and receive it.”

 

Judaism

Rabbi Mark Fishman, from Congregation Beth Tikvah in the West Island of Montreal, began his talk by pointing out that Judaism shares a very different view of forgiveness.

“There is a famous statement made in Judaism,” Rabbi Fishman said. “Before a person can gain forgiveness from God, they first have to be able to gain forgiveness from their fellow human being. If indeed you haven’t received that type of forgiveness from your fellow, it’s not going to help much because heaven isn’t going to help you either.”

Rabbi Fishman cited a story from The Sunflower, a book written by Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal. In the book, Wiesenthal recalls his experience in a concentration camp with a terminally ill Nazi soldier. The soldier, who knows he is going to die soon, asks Wiesenthal for forgiveness; the Nazi soldier passes away before Wiesenthal responds.

Wiesenthal asked leading scholars around the world, including Jewish, Islamic, and Christian intellectuals, whether they would have forgiven the Nazi. 

“And, fascinatingly, the overwhelming majority of Christians who wrote their responses was, ‘Yes, we could forgive.’ And almost every single Jewish response that was given was, ‘No, we don’t forgive,’” Rabbi Fishman said.

Rabbi Fishman added that he didn’t believe the Jewish response was an overwhelming ‘no’ because of Wiesenthal’s ethnicity, but instead underlines the differences in beliefs on the idea of forgiveness.

 

Christianity

Abdu Murray, the North American Director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, highlighted the seemingly paradoxical nature of justice and forgiveness: Justice is getting what one deserves, while forgiveness is receiving something one does not deserve.

From a Christian theological standpoint, however, God must be both just and forgiving. 

“If God is a maximally great being, […] then his justice is a powerful, great-making virtue [that] can never be compromised,” Murray said. “And his forgiveness, which is a powerful, great-making virtue, can never be compromised.”

Murray points to Jesus’ resurrection as a prime example of how God can be just and forgiving: Jesus Christ was nailed on the cross to pay for the sins of mankind, and the resurrection of Jesus proved God’s power to forgive.

“There is a consequence that if you accept the gift God has given you, there is a condition […] before you accept, Jesus says, ‘I get to change you,’” Murray said.

Features

Being Queer: Unpacking the term and its many meanings

by April Barrett on

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Jean-Felix Caron is a U3 East Asian Studies Major from Quebec City. He enjoys playing role-playing video games.

“I am currently in this phase of my life where I’m re-questioning the labels I’ve had in the last few years,” he said. “I’m definitely now in the moment where I identify as gender non-binary [or] genderqueer. Sexuality is something I still can’t really put a label on at the moment so I would go with queer because it seems like the best word to label it with.”

Josika Gupta is a U4 Psychology Major from Mumbai, India. She loves comics, Netflix, and big dogs.

“I personally [describe myself as] queer,” she said, “But I’m primarily attracted to women.”

Muhan Zhang is a U2 East Asian Studies and Art History Major from Vancouver. She is currently learning how to play piano.

“I identify as bi,” she said. “Sometimes I put the sexual on there, but sometimes it’s a bit much.But most of the time I’m just a human being. I think now I say queer more than anything else. If I’m going to throw something out there randomly I’ll say queer.”

Hannah Beach-Byrnes is a U3 Cultural Studies Major from the Greater Toronto Area. She is an experienced fencer.

McGill, News

McGill Faculty of Law introduces intensive course on indigenous law

by Cherry Wu on

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After its holiday break, the Faculty of Law launched a week-long intensive course on indigenous law as part of its mandatory first-year Integration Workshop. The first of its kind at McGill, the course sets out to introduce first-year law students to indigenous legal tradition.

The 2015 Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) called for Canadian law schools to educate students on the legacy of indigenous culture. Co-Chair of the McGill Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education Angela Campbell weighed in on how McGill is responding to the call of the TRC.

“[The Task Force] is making important progress toward its mandate of heeding the TRC’s Calls to Action and exploring initiatives that seek to embed indigeneity into diverse activities at McGill,” Campbell said. “[This includes] student recruitment and support, teaching and learning, research, community-engagement, and capacity building.”

Coordinator of the First People’s House and Co-Chair of the Task Force Paige Isaac expressed her optimism for the course.

“It’s our hope that the Task Force recommendations help build a foundation which will empower the McGill community to […] enhance relationships between Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal peoples at the university and beyond,” Isaac said.

McGill Professor Hoi Kong co-taught the course with Professors Hadley Friedland from the University of Alberta and Val Napoleon from the University of Victoria.

“The focus was on learning how to learn,” Friedland said. “My objective […] was to provide all first-year law students with some common theoretical and practical tools for approaching indigenous laws, and about resources and methods for engaging with indigenous laws today.”

The week-long course is designed to alternate between larger classes and smaller group meetings, in which students have the chance to discuss and apply the concepts they learned through a series of exercises. To respect the sensitivity that often surrounds the treatment of Aboriginal people’s cultures, the faculty took an open approach to generate discussions.

“I think that the only way for us to teach indigenous law well is to face that history square on, and to think about its impact on indigenous societies and their laws,” Kong said. “This is a historic moment and the Faculty of Law at McGill is committed to this project of reconciliation.”

Instead of teaching the students indigenous law, which is written by the Canadian government to govern relations with Aboriginal peoples, the intensive course focuses on Indigenous law, which includes laws made by Indigenous peoples for Indigenous communities.

The novelty of the course brought uncertainties. First-year law student Jan Nato explained a common concern among some of his colleagues.

“Some people feared we were viewing it through a Western lens,” Nato said. “But my analogy is that, when you first begin to learn a language, you have to translate every single word of the language in your brain. Once you truly get to know the language, you can start to think in the language.”

After the course comes to an end,  students will continue to explore indigenous culture in an obligatory Criminal Justice course. In their second year, they will also be introduced to Indigenous Property Law.

Nato recounted that his overall experience was liberating. He noted that although the course might not be perfectly done, it is an important first step in understanding indigenous law.

“Oftentimes, we are stuck as observers of indigenous law in some sort of paralysis between fear of imposing ourselves and respect,” Nato said. “[The course] gave me hope that we can bridge divides. It gave me hope and tools to continue the good work.”

Science & Technology

What happened before the Big Bang?

by Gustina Giordano on

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McGill Physics Professor Robert Brandenberger spoke at the Cutting Edge lecture series on Jan. 12 hosted by the Redpath Museum.

In the lecture, Brandenberger shed light on the question, “What was before the Big Bang and how might we be able to tell?”

“Who thinks that there was a Big Bang?” Brandenburger asked the crowd, which was almost full of raised hands. “Who knows what the Big Bang was?”

Many of the crowd’s hands were lowered in response to his second question.

“There are a number of you who think there was a Big Bang, but you don’t know what the Big Bang was. This is a slight problem,” Brandenburger said. “I want you […] to walk out of this room this evening knowing what physicists mean when they say there was a Big Bang, […] but also you should walk out from this room knowing that the title of this topic makes sense.”

According to Brandenberger, the paradigms of universe cosmology have shifted over time. The standard Big Bang cosmology, created around 1960, was eventually replaced with the current inflationary universe scenario theorized in the 1980s.

Standard Big Bang cosmology was based on Einstein’s equations for classical matter, in which he assumed that the Universe was finite, although his equations suggested that the universe was expanding.

“Einstein made a small mistake because he did not know about the expansion of space,” Brandenberger explained. “He realized that [his equations] gave rise to this idea that space expands, but he stuck in a fudge term, such that space would not expand.”

Edwin Hubble, and other famous astronomers and astrophysicists, saw that there was a need for a new theory to explain expanding space, thus, the inflationary universe scenario was created. The inflationary universe scenario accommodates for the expansion of the universe and uses scalar terms. It utilizes scalar terms to account for the fact that the laws that govern classical matter break down at extremely high temperatures.

Brandenberger explained that standard Big Bang cosmology also includes the very hot, homogeneous fireball typically associated with the Big Bang. But, because classical physics breaks down at extreme temperatures, a new cosmological theory was developed to accommodate these conditions. The inflationary model of cosmology solves this problem because quantum mechanics and particle physics offer suitable descriptions of matter at these extremely hot temperatures.

Both the standard Big Bang theory and the inflationary universe theory assume that time began with the Big Bang, but new research suggests this might not be the case. According to Brandenberger, the old and current paradigm both provide valuable information on the Big Bang, but both make predictions, which lead to more questions.

“In both Paradigms one and two there was a ‘Big Bang’ singularity,” Brandenberger said.

A Big Bang singularity is the concept the Big Bang was the beginning of time, but it is hard to provide proof that this event triggered the start of time.

“We need a new paradigm and this new paradigm could come from string gas cosmology,” Brandenberger said.

Brandenberger suggested that string gas cosmology could be a possible third paradigm that answers the question of what came before the Big Bang. String gas cosmology is based on superstring theory, which is a quantum theory that tries to unify all forces of nature. In other words, the laws that govern the forces of nature would be simplified into basic equations.

“If by Big Bang you mean a hot fireball of finite size at some early time, string gas cosmology has this hot fireball,” Brandenberger said. “But, […] there is no singularity, there is no beginning of time. So, in this sense, it makes sense to say there was something before the Big Bang.”

While string theory is still in development, it offers a new paradigm to answer questions on a cosmological scale. Though extremely complex, Brandenberger succeeded in his initial goal as the audience walked out of the room with the knowledge that there could be something before the Big Bang.

Off the Board, Opinion

Student community is more than McGill once, McGill twice

by Daniel Freed on

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As the add/drop period comes to an end, McLennan gets a little more crowded. School work picks up and routine begins to set in. Yet our McGill spirit remains at a high. At this time last semester, Open Air Pub (OAP) was an overcrowded mess of people, sharing drinks and laughs in the late summer sun. Now, in the winter semester, we instead have a spectacle of onesie-donning Carnival participants, parading through campus bonding in friendly competition. All the while, the lines for student-run bars, like Bar des Arts (BdA) and Blues Pub, extend through McGill’s buildings—the sounds of stress-free conversations echo through their halls.

What’s made most apparent during this period is the real camaraderie that exists on campus. Once the stress of McGill’s competitive and demanding academic environment sets in, it may seem that this feeling of connectedness with our peers can only erode. However, while the visible togetherness of these early days withers, the underlying sense of community at McGill does not.

In these early weeks, as we come together in the calm before the semester’s storm, the mood is unmistakably worry-free. On Facebook, we take to groups like “McGill easy classes for electives” to provide words of caution or encouragement for other McGillians about their classes and course schedules. Here, strangers congregate in the thousands, aiming to provide the best advice they can for their peers.

Sharing a one-dollar beer with a new friend at BdA might seem wildly different from keeping an eye on someone’s laptop at the library, but the sentiment behind both is the same.

But when student bars empty out and our community Facebook groups grow deserted, the atmosphere and spirit so dear to us will sour. Suddenly, you find yourself arguing with someone over a seat at the library, when you’d been offering that same person semester survival tips on Facebook only a few weeks earlier.

This is partially the fault of our post-secondary education system, one that reinforces a sense of competition between students and their classmates. With grade quotas—the limit to the number of high marks professors think they can give—it grows more difficult to maintain a sense of camaraderie within the classroom. Grading structures, like the bell curve implemented in some departments, put students at odds with their classmates, as they know that the fewer classmates who succeed, the greater are their own chances. Even the format of conferences, with marks given for participation, becomes a matter of putting your hand up before your classmates and displaying a greater understanding of the material than anyone else.

Admittedly, there is little to do about such a structure. Some aspects of the academic journey are solitary, and sometimes you can’t help but feel as though you’re in competition with those around you. As a result, during harsher times it can be easy feel isolated and lonely. Yet, it is important to remember the days like today, and that the solidarity behind them persists throughout the year.

Simply, this camaraderie takes different shapes as time goes on. It lives on as McGillians share notes with classmates under the weather or create Facebook groups to band together in last-minute exam prep during finals. While we may not congregate together for raucous football games like other schools so famously do, it only means that our school spirit manifests itself in a different way. For McGill has—and likely always will have—a sense of shared experience at its core.

Yes, our system at times breeds tension and animosity between its students. Its demanding and competitive nature can isolate you from your friends at the moments when you might need them most. However, under these circumstances, while our fellowship may be reconfigured, it is not dismantled. Sharing a one-dollar beer with a new friend at BdA might seem wildly different from keeping an eye on someone’s laptop at the library, but the sentiment behind both is the same. Let these early weeks—the ones where our sense of closeness is most felt—serve as an ongoing and prominent reminder that we are not just McGill students, but a McGill community.

 

Daniel Freed is U2 student in Cultural Studies and Communications, and a Design Editor at the McGill Tribune.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

 

 
Soccer, Sports

China’s love for beautiful game is official

by Samuel Cordano on

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While soccer players leaving Europe to play for more lucrative contracts in China is certainly not a new phenomenon, rarely are these players of the ilk and fame of Oscar and at such an early stage of their careers. At 25 years old, the Brazilian star’s prime years are ahead of him and he was a key player for Chelsea, currently atop the English Premier League. His transfer to the Chinese Super League team Shanghai SIPG marks a significant step forward for both the popularity of soccer in China and the strength of the league.

Shanghai SIPG’s attraction can largely be explained by the significant sums of money the team offered: Oscar’s salary almost quintupled to more than US$25.5 Million (C$33 Million) per year, more than superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi earn playing in La Liga. This sounds extravagant but it pales in comparison to the US$40.4 Million (C$53 Million) that 31-year-old Carlos Tevez will now receive annually after signing with Shanghai Greenland Shenhua F.C. on Dec. 29. More recently, Super League team Tianjin Quanjian has expressed interest in Oscar’s former Chelsea teammate Diego Costa leading to speculation regarding his future in the Premier League.

The growth of soccer in China can mostly be attributed to significant financial and political commitments from the Chinese government aimed at spreading participation in the sport and raising the performance and profile of the national team. Soccer became a compulsory part of the national school curriculum in November 2014 and in March 2015 China released a 50-point reform plan on sports that emphasized increasing the popularity of soccer. In the plan, the government officially separated the country’s soccer association from the government-run sports ministry in order for leagues to be more independent and efficient. Additionally, around 60,000 new soccer fields are to be built across the country, a significant increase from the 11,000 that exist today. With more fields and mandatory soccer for children, the Chinese government aims to have 50 million people playing by 2020.

At the head of these plans is Chinese President Xi Jinping. His personal interest in the sport and his desire to see China succeed on an international level have led to these reforms; his goal is for the national team to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup. As of Jan. 12, China a country of over 1.3 billion people ranks 81st on the FIFA world rankings, behind St. Kitts and Nevis, a country with little more than 50,000 people.

Despite the rapid pace of recent reforms, some analysts doubt that China will come to dominate world soccer. According to the LA Times, many Chinese parents view the sport as an injury risk and a distraction from academics, strong cultural barriers continue to separate China from its objective. China’s plan is also likely to be damaged by the very nature of its top-down strategy: Tracking progress in soccer is fairly difficult, so the government might choose to measure it through quantitative factors, such as the number of soccer fields, stadiums, or players. Local actors will then be incentivised to upgrade their soccer infrastructure more than their playing level. This mismatch could potentially destroy China’s ambitions as money is not spent on the most efficient investments.

In the long-term, China concentrating its attention on soccer will redefine the landscape of soccer at the club level. As Chinese soccer clubs start to outbid European teams over salaries and transfer fees, players might start to snub European leagues for the Chinese Super League. This growing trend was already evident in 2015, with players Sebastian Giovinco leaving Turin for Toronto and Xavi moving from Barcelona to Al-Sadd, Qatar, in addition to 2016’s even higher profile moves out of Europe to China. Many wonder how the European leagues will react and adapt. In the short-term, however, soccer fans should make the most of the current concentration of talent: Seeing players on par with Messi and Ronaldo in the same league is a sight we may encounter less often in the near future.

Baseball, Sports

Alleged steroid players exiting hall of fame purgatory

by Weiyu Dang on

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Four years after the 1994 MLB lockout hinted at baseball’s impending financial death, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa resuscitated the game with an electrifying race past Roger Maris’ single season homerun record. The 1998 season marked a rebirth for baseball, but a revival underscored by rampant, unsupervised, and unpunished steroid use.

While Sosa and McGwire, along with pitcher Roger Clemens and the ‘Home Run King’ Barry Bonds, sit at the peaks of baseball’s all-time statistical tables, the smear of their steroid scandals has detained them in Hall of Fame voter purgatory over the course of their eligibility. Yet, steroid users’ transgressions are not singular and their guilt is not unilateral. The Hall of Fame is moving towards inducting steroid users due to a deepened understanding of baseball’s inbuilt contradictions.

Each year, members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) vote on a list of eligible retired players for inclusion in the Hall of Fame. This year, after four stagnant years, Bonds and Clemens have seen a significant rise in votes. Though neither is close to approaching the required two-thirds of the vote necessary for enshrinement, the shift in voter mindset suggests that the public punishment for alleged steroid users inches towards a conclusion.

Characterized in the popular imagination as drug-addled monsters, Bonds and Clemens were nonetheless transcendent talents who arguably already had Hall of Fame-calibre careers prior to their alleged steroid use. While no conclusive evidence has been found that Bonds ever used steroids, his implication in the 2006 BALCO scandal and subsequent perjury and obstruction of justice trials have forever tarnished his name. Similarly, Clemens resolutely denied his steroid use to Congress in 2008, leading to six charges of perjury of which he was later acquitted. However, the popular discourse against their induction argues that their alleged cheating–though fostered by and financially beneficial to the league–irreparably disgraced baseball’s public esteem.

The coming absolution of these legends could be that BBWAA requires a 10-year membership for voter eligibility. This means that a younger crop of writers who covered the peak steroid years at the turn of the century are finally receiving ballots. Yet a more compelling reason could be that the recent induction of former commissioner Bud Selig has opened the door for steroid era legends to also enter the Hall of Fame.

Selig—considered by some to be the greatest commissioner ever due to the league’s unprecedented economic success under his leadership—entered the Hall of Fame last month despite acting as a blind-eye overseer during the steroids era, all but abetting steroid use when it fuelled league prosperity. Selig insistently deferred blame solely onto the players by feigning ignorance. His more recent ‘hard on drugs’ stance only arrived a decade after the 1998 home run race with his contracted drug report from former U.S. senator George Mitchell in late 2007. Even then, Selig only did so after negotiating a lucrative contract extension in 2008 that paid him more than any player. Selig’s inclusion should be no less controversial and has perhaps less merit than the rest of the steroid era greats.

Simply put, if steroids can prevent players from getting in, the structural powers who ignored doping for financial success should face a similar punishment instead of enshrinement with open arms. Yet, Selig’s induction and changing perceptions of retired legends might signal the end of steroid users’ status in baseball history limbo. As the discussion on steroids becomes more nuanced, perhaps voters will continue to dispel the Hall of Fame’s illusions of morality and self-importance.

Campus Spotlight, Private, Student Life

Long-distance tutoring connects McGill students to Syrian refugees with the Syrian Kids Foundation

by Emma Carr on

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Over the Internet, McGill students are preparing Syrian refugees in Turkey to take English language proficiency exams. The tutoring is facilitated by the Syrian Kids Foundation (SKF), an organization founded in 2012 to support Syrian refugees in Turkey. Through its flagship project, the Al Salam School, the SKF provides over 1,800 Syrian refugee children living in Turkey with an education. 

The SKF was created in response to the Syrian refugee crisis—the mass displacement of Syrians following the outbreak of civil war in 2011. Faisal Alazem, co-founder and executive director of the SKF, felt moved to create the program after visiting Turkey in person and witnessing the suffering of Syrian refugee children. 

“During a visit to Turkey with friends, we realized that there were so many kids that were of school age that were in the streets trying to make a living, sometimes working, sometimes trying to beg for money, for bread,” Alazem said. “And you realize that there is something very aggressive happening to Syrian children.” 

While working with the children, the foundation identified other areas for their intervention. They extended their services to include free transportation to school and psychological counselling.

“It's really by interacting with the kids that we realized the need to expand social programs,” Alazem said. “[We needed] to have a psychologist speak with them because some of the things that they have seen, no human beings should ever be exposed to this, and particularly kids. Seeing a brother lose an arm, lose a leg, seeing your father deceased and returned home in a box with signs of torture, this is the everyday routine.”

At the Al Salam School, the students learn math, physics, chemistry, biology, and Turkish. The foundation also enlists the help of volunteers from McGill and other Montreal universities, including Concordia University, to teach Syrian students English via Skype.  The goal is to help refugees prepare for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS). These examinations are necessary to attend university in Canada, should the students wish to do so.

SyrianKidsFoundation_stuliving_online2

Ati Shohoudi Mojdehi, a fourth-year PhD student in Educational Psychology, describes her work preparing Syrian refugee students for English language exams as a fulfilling experience. 

“I have been teaching IELTS over eight years because it is sort of my passion,” Shohoudi Mojdehi said. “So this foundation has two things that are my passion: One [is] helping people, the other [is teaching the] IELTS.” 

Likewise, McGill tutor Brandon Payliss, a Masters student in  chemistry, has had a positive experience volunteering for the SKF. More than any other benefit of tutoring, Payliss is inspired by his students’ resilience. 

“It is amazing to see the progress they make despite the challenges they face,” Payliss said. “One of my students reached out to me and told me personally the things that he had experienced and some of the challenges he has faced, like losing family. It makes you quite speechless.”

Recently, the tutoring program has begun to see the fruit of their labours. In December 2016, two graduates of the Al Salam School began studying at Concordia University on a scholarship founded by the SKF. The organizers at the SKF are gratified by the perseverance and commitment to education that the students have demonstrated. 

“I think they realize that education is their passport,” Alazem said. “More and more they realize that if [they] graduate with good grades and [are] able to [attend] a good university, that is going to be [their] passport. Those are going to be [their]  credentials in the world. This is [their] hope. This is what can give [them the] closest to a normal life as possible.” 

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

“Jackie” delivers a haunting biopic of an enigmatic icon

by Dylan Adamson on

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Pablo Larrain’s Jackie is first and foremost concerned with history. This is not to say that the film’s objective is a mere chronological depiction of historical events. Rather, contrary to more conventional biopics, Jackie is concerned with the conscious role of individuals in creating history—which in the case of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is a highly personal and ambitious enterprise.

Following Onassis after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, Jackie offers an uncompromisingly intimate glimpse into an American tragedy and an icon left alone in the national spotlight. At times hard to follow, Larrain’s film weaves together a tapestry of memories from Jackie’s shattered psyche. It leaps chronologically from the former First Lady’s famous “Camelot” interview with Life Magazine in 1963 to her pacing feverishly through the White House in her bloodstained pink Chanel suit, to watching tearfully as Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in aboard Air Force One after departing Texas. Although the flashbacks often feel haphazard, the eclectic chronology is guided by phenomenal direction and performances—chiefly that of Natalie Portman in the titular role. 

Portman’s Jackie Kennedy straddles a fine line between calculating and frantic throughout. With the First Lady’s Atlantic prep school purr mastered, she lives up to all the Oscar buzz her performance has earned. While her character does feel conspicuously practiced, as the film progresses we come to understand the careful attention to detail the First Lady invested in her public image: Jackie Kennedy’s character is inherently performative. As Portman navigates through Jackie’s grief, shock, fear, and pride, we watch her nervously struggle to keep her trademark poise intact. The narrative experience can be dizzying, but the film’s bold structuring is reflective of Jackie’s volatile grief, attempting to preserve the legacy of her White House’s “Camelot” myth, while coming to grips with the reality of her new situation.

Fittingly teeming with contradictions, Jackie’s story is framed by the aforementioned interview after the assassination of her husband. The conversation is tense, as journalist Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) struggles to muster the necessary composure to move past the former First Lady’s guarded exterior. Her responses are sporadically candid and occasionally graphic as she describes her husband’s wounds. Watching Portman’s Jackie grapple with the way her story is told illustrates the film’s major themes of preserving one’s legacy and public image. However, the interview framing device often muddles her story’s progression, unnecessarily confusing the narrative. The late addition of a second, ambiguously dated post-assassination conversation with a priest (John Hurt) only adds to the chronological chaos. 

The film’s frantic approach to its subject matter is tied together by Mica Levi’s (Under the Skin) mournful score, one of the year’s best. The discordant strings complement the film’s disorienting effect. It renders scenes—such as the one in which Jackie removes her iconic Chanel suit—all the more haunting. 

Jackie possesses a near nightmarish quality that lingers upon exiting the theatre. Like no biopic before it, and likely none to come after it—barring Larrain’s imminent Neruda, that will explore the life of exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda—the film probes the dark underbelly of what it means to be a public icon. Larrain’s vision is singular; however, while the film strives for new ground, it often eschews clarity in the process.  

Still, the ensuing chaos is beautifully ambivalent, befitting the enigmatic icon at its centre.

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