I have an old stand-by joke for partisan political events that I happen upon or at which I end up.  How can you tell an NDP event?

The cries of “Shame! Shame!”

There are a few tropes we can pile together about political rallies.  Conservative ones seem to have hired goons at the door and only admitted the evangelical supporters, forceably ejecting (sometimes by means of the RCMP) anyone who doesn’t agree.  Liberal ones have people in suits, well-dressed, career type people, out for a day of cheering for whoever will get them a job in the Natural Governing Party.  And yet the NDP is the one that sometimes feels like a ‘born-again’ church ceremony, with the mutually expected choruses of “Shame!”

(I went to the NDP’s platform launch in Toronto: Jack Layton, energetic and Lenin-Lookalike as always, even taught us to yell it en Français: “Honteuse!” Also, I suppose: “Honteux!”)

Alex has recently written about the superhero narrative in popular fiction.  In her piece, she talks about the feelings of worthlessness that this narrative can instil, at how disempowering that it can be — unless you happen to be the superhero.  She instead suggests we need a different narrative, one of collective hope, collective action… perhaps a more democratic narrative.

So why is it that the NDP sticks to this “Shame!” trope?

There’s a specific narrative at use.  The other guys did something SHAMEFUL. (“Shame! Shame! Honteux!“) And the NDP won’t be as SHAMEFUL. (“Yay!”)

It’s an oddly patriarchal narrative, and the discourse dynamics of what does on is, in my mind, nerve-grinding.  The party sets up the scenario.  The party identifies the shameful situation. The party expects the faithful to yell “Shame! Shame!” and maybe “Honteux!”

It’s basically a 3 step process: 1. Shameful situation is exposed. 2. “Shame! Honteux!” 3. The NDP will do the opposite.

One, the use of the word “shame!” really strikes me as outdated. It’s not what we’d say today.  Admittedly, they can’t yell out what I’d be thinking (“That’s fucked!” maybe “C’est fucké!“), but “shame!” strikes my as what my lovely grandmother would yell at the TV.  Actually, no, she’d be slightly more forceful.  The groupthink feeling is slightly creepy – when you’re at the event, you’re expected to cheer along.

And the discourse is disempowering.  The role of the public is to chant “shame!” when the politicians present the proper incentive.  Not much else.  Actually, I think it’s similar to Alex’s superhero narrative – here, the NDP is the superhero, the evil-doing has been presented, and the NDP will be off to fix the problem!

Other rallies – by all parties – have the same problem.  A political issue is presented that must be changed.  Who’s going to change it? The party and the politicians!  I was at an NDP rally about the HST in Vancouver, and the speakers said something along the lines of “You tell us what you think needs to be done, and we’re gonna do it for you!” Of course, there was ample amounts of “Shame!” built in.  The same thing just happened at the BC NDP convention when Adrian Dix won the leadership of the BC NDP – the BC Liberals are full of “Shame!” and the NDP are not.

There isn’t much discussion of why the NDP aren’t as shameful – just that the BC Liberals/Conservatives/Evil Reptilian Kitten Eaters from Another Planet are full of shame!

But what can be done?

We need to think of a different way of organizing ourselves politically.  Parties  - and the stupid political system (FPTP) that we’re currently stuck with, because of parties – are constructs that are designed to win mass and vague support from large amounts of people.  They’re supposed to channel political action through the parties, limiting the role of people – like you and me – to simply assigning our support to the party that is the least offensive, in the hopes of avoiding the most offensive from taking total control.

We need to work on this. A better world is needed. And I don’t think simply yelling “Shame! Honteux!” at the people whom we hope won’t be as bad is the best way we can do it.  We need a more democratic narrative, where we’re not reduced to yelling “shame!” at things we don’t like but actively working towards the things that we do like.  Like Alex says, we need a political reality and discourse where “[w]e can define our own lives and tell our own stories, because we don’t need no superheros.”

Or to simply shout “Shame!”

That we must, for now, is…

…a shame.

So far, 2011 has been an interesting year, one full of history, democracy, and change – and hope.  We’ve seen uprisings throughout northern Africa and the Middle East, with people demanding democracy instead of oppressive governments and dictatorships.

Today, something historic happened in Canada as well – though nothing on the level of what’s happening throughout the rest of the world.  Indeed, today was quite likely a low point of Canadian ‘democratic’ history: the government of the day was found, by the House of Commons, to be in contempt of Parliament — that is, willfully ignoring and acting against the privileges, rights, and duties of the Parliament of Canada.

This is huge.  But it speaks to a huge problem afflicting that which is ‘democracy’ in Canada.  So today, while it was an historic moment in Canada, a day in which, for the first time in history a government was found in contempt of Parliament, it wasn’t an historic day in the same way that 2011 has been historic for large parts of the world.

Today was not a day of hope, democracy, and change – today was a day of contempt for democracy that speaks to a desperate need for change.  Here’s why.

Democracy is not a nuisance, it is not ‘unnecessary,’ and it is not ‘reckless.’

Today’s speeches and grandstanding have shown very well how the Conservative Party sees democracy in Canada.  Quite clearly, they see it as “unnecessary” and “reckless.”  They’ve gone so far in this respect that Stephen Harper has pointed to the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan as reasons why elections are reckless.  Conservative party loudmouths John Baird and others have yelled this at us continuously – according to them, we don’t need elections.

Aside from the apocryphal outcome of this statement – Emperor Harper – it’s absurd and insulting.  If we accept that wars have been fought for democracy, then why are elections unnecessary? If the concept of a Parliament is that the government must hold the confidence of the members of the House of Commons – the only representatives that we have in national politics – then why is an election unnecessary when a majority of those representatives have no confidence in the government?

Democracy is not unnecessary. It is not reckless. It is not a nuisance.

While I strongly feel that representative democracy in Canada – that sees us as voters choose the least offensive candidate in our ridings in the hopes of avoiding the most offensive of governments – is flawed and must be revised, the truth of the matter is that it is the system that we currently have to govern ourselves and our country.  We elect, occasionally, representatives who then govern the country, on our behalf.  The person elected who can command the support of a majority of those representatives – generally articulated through a political party and party support – becomes the prime minister.

If, through corruption, contempt of parliament, and ethical scandal upon ethical scandal, that prime minister loses the confidence and support of the House – as what happened today – then, by definition, an election is necessary.  To suggest otherwise is to insult Canadians. Democracy is something that people have fought wars over.  It is most decidedly not a nuisance.

Contempt of Parliament – and democracy

But insulting us is something that Harper’s Conservative Party is extremely good at doing.

In a Parliamentary system, it is constitutional law and constitutional fact that Parliament is supreme. This means that it passes laws and can edit them. And to do this, it must have the proper information and answers – and respect – that it needs in order to function.  Today’s vote of no confidence was built on the fact that the Harper regime has outright refused to provide information to the Parliament, when it has formally demanded it, on any number of things.  Costs of superprisons and putting pretty much everyone in jail.  Costs of jet fighters that are sole-sourced that we don’t really need.  They refused to disclose the documents on possible war crimes and Afghan detainees.  Ministers apparently misled the Parliament – and Canadians.

All of this adds up to a government that quite obviously holds Parliament – and Canadian democracy – in contempt.  I wrote on this earlier, but here’s the brief: Harper and his party find Canadian democracy a nuisance.  They’d much rather prefer it if Canadians just didn’t care about politics so they could go about their merry little neoliberal plans without protest.  So they act in a way so as to disgust Canadians with politics, alienate us from our processes of governance, and build up dislike of the entire concept of the political.

The vote today is only one example of this, as is Harper’s insulting characterization of democracy as reckless, unnecessary, and a nuisance.

We need change – and not just a change of colour

So, we’re having an election.  That might bring some change.  Plus, it’s democracy in action.  Isn’t that enough?

No.

The next thirty-five or so days, up to the big day where we march into the gym of a local school, or a church, and mark an ‘X’ next to the name of the least offensive candidate in our ridings, is a length of time where we will be bombarded with ads from political parties.  The red signs will tell us to vote red to avoid the blue.  The blue signs will tell us that if we don’t vote for them, separatists and socialists will eat our kittens. And the orange signs will tell us to vote for them so that you don’t have to pay $1.25 at the ATM.  (Et, d’accord, si vous êtes au Québec, les placards violets vont dire “votez pour nous, et nous devenions maîtres chez nous.”)

If the system is flawed, then this part of the system is flawed too.  Political parties have developed as little organizations that exist solely to grab power and exercise it.  Some of them – like the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, once upon a time – may have been grassroots, dedicated to real social change, but they aren’t any longer.  People no longer feel represented by political parties, they feel alienated from them, and it’s these parties that are about to contest this election.

The way that parties operates gives rise to party operatives and apparatchiks who don’t really care about democracy. To them – and to many of the government MPs who were just found in contempt of democracy – parties are vehicles to get power.  Not to represent Canadians, work for common causes, but to seize and wield power.

A perfect example of this is my former MP, James Moore.  Until the Parliament is dissolved, he is the Minister of Canadian Heritage.  One might think that if serving Canadians, working for Canada’s best interests, and doing thing that Canadians care about was why he was in politics, then he might take that seriously.

Instead, he put the following up on Twitter just before the confidence vote, as a Liberal MP came to talk to him about funding for the arts and immigration cases:

In this Twitter post, Moore “laughs” at a Liberal MP who happened to ask about arts files – his Ministerial responsibility.  Yes, the Liberal MP was about to vote no confidence, which is what happens when a government is in contempt of parliament and democracy, but it’s still Moore’s job.  And is, in fact, until the next Minister is named.

This is how the Conservative party sees things.  The point of democracy, to them, is not collective governance, or making sure the government works properly.  It’s to make sure that the Conservative party is in power, at the expense of everyone else.  You can be sure that had a Conservative MP came to ask him for help on arts files, Moore wouldn’t have been laughing and then gloating about it.

I told Moore that I wasn’t impressed about this, and that I didn’t find the fact that he was laughing at another MP doing his job – actually representing constituents – was all that funny.  He sent me a private message, saying:

Not only is James Moore incapable of seeing his own contempt for the concept of representative democracy, he takes the opportunity to speak down to me – a Canadian.  Who has contempt in this situation?

Political parties, at least how they work now, are not ways to actually represent Canadians and ensure democratic functioning of government.  Their entire goal is to seize power and wield it. To do so, they’ll engage in anything – in the case of the Conservative party, offensive and disgusting attack ads, and election alleged election law violations – to win power.  Add to that, ‘attacking Canadians who might actually care.’

It’s for reasons like this, like James Moore’s contempt, and his government’s contempt, that I think we need more than just cosmetic change, swapping the blue government for the red, or the slightly orange-tinged one.  We need to change the system.

Democracy is about all of us, who live together, work together, and exist together, deciding how we will do all of that.  It’s about collective self-governance.  It’s about our common projects, our common rights, our common responsibilities.

It’s not about one group taking power over all of us, and gloating as they do so.

So yes, an election is coming up.  And in about thirty five or so days we’ll mark an ‘X’ next to the name of the least offensive candidate in the hopes of avoiding the most offensive government.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.

So let’s start a discussion on what we can do different.  How we can empower Canadians – all of us – to take part in democracy and governance.  How we can rescue that which so many people around the world are still, today, fighting for – democracy.

– Also posted at PoliticsRespun.org –

I’m a graduate student in political science at York University.

And there are times – increasingly more times – that I can’t believe that I study politics.

And I’d like to suggest that this is precisely what Stephen Harper wants.

Personally, I think that it’s kind of telling that someone like me – a student who has, thus far, dedicated six years and more than thirty thousand dollars to actuallystudying politics – might be getting tired of what I used to find so interesting, and what I might have, at one time, been passionate about.

After all, if someone like me, who was so dedicated to studying politics, might tire of it, then what of everyone else in the country? Everyone out there who hasn’t spent countless hours and dollars studying politics, understanding the vagaries of political systems, wondering what votes might mean?

But, again, I’d like to suggest that this is what Stephen Harper wants.  He wants everyone to tire of politics.  And he’s well on his way to doing this.

Using a description written by Javier Auyero, when he was studying oligarchic and undemocratic practices in South America, Stephen Harper probably wants us to think of “politics [as] an activity alien to” the people.  Harper probably wants us to exist in a scenario where politics “is defined as an action that is foreign to everyday life.”

And in such a situation, Harper wants the Conservative Party to appear beyond politics. He wants you to think of the Conservative Party as an apolitical, beneficient organization, that does good in the world.  And that politics is alien, apart, separate from this.

Why would Harper, a politician of all things, want this?

Because politics has become something alien to all of us.  And engaging in politics is then something foreign to us.  So we won’t engage in politics.  But thankfully, the Conservative Party will be there for us, if we need anything… because that’s not political.

In short, Harper is trying to construe politics – the very processes by which we, as a democratic society, ought to have broad discussions on our priorities and how we might live together – as something that we shouldn’t ever want to get involved in, so that he and his Conservative Party have all the control, all the power, and can do whatever they want.

And when I see this happening, I can’t believe that I actually study politics.

Over the past week and a bit, a number of ridiculous political events have taken place that serve to undermine the concept of the political in Canadian discourses.

(continued after the break!)

First, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the Minister for International Cooperation,Bev Oda, and whether or not she after-the-fact modified a document, inserting the word “not” into a document that ostensibly approved funding to KAIROS, a faith-based NGO that works in the developing world.

In my opinion, Oda misled the House of Commons twice – first, by implying that it was CIDA that didn’t want the funding. Then, by claiming that she had no idea who had inserted the not.  Actually, that last excuse might well have been the truth – I can see Harper ordering the funding not go ahead, and then Oda and her staff scrambling to cover up the fact that they were retroactively withdrawing the funding.

Next, Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney screwed up intensely when his office accidentally sent NDP MP Linda Duncan - instead of Conservative MP John Duncan - a package of information detailing the Conservative’s “ethnic paid media strategy.”

There are any number of problems with this:

1. It’s highly unethical – and I believe illegal - to use House of Commons, Ministry, or Government resources for partisan purposes.  Yet here we have some poor staffer being “instructed” to send out information packages on “very ethnic ridings” soliciting $200,000 from riding associations for a Conservative Party ad campaign. Said poor staffer got thrown under the bus as Jason Kenney took full responsibility and fired the staff member.
2. It’s offensive to see the Conservative Party — or any other party — explicitly targeting “very ethnic” ridings.
3. Where did the Conservative Party get the data on the ridings? They have some detailed stuff – I’m willing to wager it came from the long-form census — which the Conservative Party also cut. How entertaining.  Did they pay the HUGE costs associated with getting the data from StatsCan?

Sigh.

Then, last week, various Conservative Party executives, including Senator Doug Finley, were charged with breaking the Elections Act regarding the “in and out” scheme that the Conservatives engaged in in the 2006 election.

For those of you whose eyes glaze over at the mention of this – here’s how it works: the Conservative Party hit their spending limit in the election, a limit which they are not allowed to exceed. To get around it, Elections Canada is alleging that the Conservative Party nationally bought advertising, and faked invoices to local riding associations, so that they could then send the extra money they had to these ridings and cover the costs, making the expense appear local when it was actually national.  To make things better, the local ridings got reimbursed for expenses that they didn’t actually incur.  This strikes me as theft.

To make things better, after admitting that mixing government and partisan work isn’t actually a good thing, it turns out that Jason Kenney has been handing out nifty little Ministerial Awards that feature the Conservative Party logo on them. This is flagrantly stupid, in my opinion.

So… what’s this all about?

Harper and the Conservative Party are trying to do two things at the same time: poison the idea of the political in the minds of Canadians so much that our stomaches turn at the very idea of being involved in anything to do with politics, and position the Conservative Party as the natural place you’d go to when you want something done – without having to get all political about it.

The Conservative Party is in power – they control the government, they can put huge amounts of money into their ridings, vis-a-vis the gazebos in Tony Clement’sriding, the fake lake in Toronto, the Economic Action! Plan money being spend heavily in Conservative ridings… and so on.

They’ve effectively become a cartel party.  Political parties are theoretically groups of people with similar ideas and passions that exist to try and get those ideas and passions put into place.  They are theoretically coordinating bodies, to bring activists together in a common cause.  They’re supposed to be the link between civil society and the state — and that “link” is supposed to be politics.

Instead, here we have the Conservative Party colonizing the state.  They are the state.  This is why the name change, from the Government of Canada to the Harper Government is so telling.  To Stephen Harper, the French King’s pronouncement is so very true: “l’etat, c’est moi.”

After they’ve colonized the state, the Conservative Party is working hard to destroy the distinction between them as a party and them as a government.  It’s something the Liberals succeeded in doing – it’s why we called them the Natural Governing Party.  It’s something the NDP would revel in doing.  But it’s not something I think any party ought to do.

And that “linking” role that was so important, once upon a time, that parties played – articulating their members and public demands into government practice and policy - is politics.  And that’s quickly becoming something foreign and alien – and dirty.

So at the end of the day, politics is something that no one in their right mind wants to do. It’s dirty work. It’s alien to everyday life.

So we’ll just leave the politicians to it.  And when we need something, we’ll look no further than the Conservative Party.

And when a student in political science, of all people, is getting tired of politics, it shows that it’s working.

So what do we do?

We need to take back politics and the political.  We need to rethink how we collectively work together.  The concept of a party as being a vehicle to seize state power so that we have… well, power… is something that has brought us here.

We need to find a different way of collectively determining social priorities and projects.

We can look around the world at other examples, that are exciting. That are interesting.  Hell, Tunisia – which two months ago didn’t have a democracy – is now “freer than the United States.” Perhaps we can look there.

And we can reclaim politics from the politicians. From the parties.

And make it ours again.

Some commentators have suggested that the recent uprisings across the Middle East are the ‘proof’ of Fukuyama’s argument that has been, for so long, elusive. This is a suggestion that the popular, people’s movements for democracy show that liberal democracy is still the ultimate stage in human political development, with its focus on the individual and its attendant trappings of capitalism.

With that in mind, I find it absolutely fascinating to read and to hear “market concerns,” or “business worries,” reflected in stock market trading and commodity prices, that these popular uprisings might spread across the region. The markets are afraid that this democratic uprising might spread.

If Fukuyama was right, and if liberal democracy and capitalism is the ultimate stage in human development, that elusive ‘end of history,’ then shouldnt the markets be embracing these uprisings and revolutions?

They’re not, though. For a good reason. The popular uprisings in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya, and nascent ones in China and Yemen and in so many other places are taking s different form. These uprisings are based on communities of action, they are leaderless, they feature collective action and mutual aid as ways that they operate. They’re not calling for democracy and the right to freely trade their stock options and derivatives, they’re calling for democracy and human rights.

These popular uprisings show that Fukuyama’s thesis is far from being confirmed – indeed, it’s again being shown to be just as preposterous as it always has been. Liberalism isn’t the end of history. Any number of these regimes that have fallen or will soon fit perfectly well into the liberal mode. The people are demanding something else – something beyond Fukuyama’s “end of history.”

They are demanding – actually, they are going beyond the demand and they are actively creating – their capacity to collectively decide their own futures. Something that liberal democracy and capitalism deny them.

And the markets and the stock traders and the businessmen know this. Which is why they are afraid of these uprisings spreading. Which is why Fukuyama is still wrong. And why the people in Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and Yemen and China and Wisconsin are right.

Hi! Greetings from Tropical Toronto. Long time no talk. As many of you are likely aware, my name is Kevin Harding and I am an alumnus of Simon Fraser University (BA Hons. Political Science and Labour Studies ’10), and someone who looks back very warmly on my time as an active member of the Simon Fraser Student Society, and even warmly-er on my time working for and with the organisation as both an active member of student unions at the university and as a staff person at the SFSS.

I’m writing to you today about the recent Goldcorp donation to the university, and the coalition that I’ve heard (and observed, long distance) is in formation in opposition to this particular ‘gift’ of ten million dollars. In particular, I’m writing to you to take a stand in this matter – while it is an absolute shame that SFU is so cash-strapped that it needs to seek out private funding in this way, it’s an absolute outrage that the university takes funds (and names buildings!) from a corporation that is allegedly* engaging in practices that destroy environments and violate workers’ and human rights.

In particular, I’d like you, as members of the Board, to consider one thing that particularly bothers me: students in the SFU contemporary arts program have absolutely no choice as to where they engage in their learning, it’s at the Goldcorp Center for the Arts. Goldcorp donated ten million dollars to the university to name that building and ‘support’ its programming. While it’s impossible to say, dollar-for-dollar, where that money came from, there’s a very good chance that some or all of it came from the mining operations in Guatemala — in effect, the money that Goldcorp donated to the university may well have come into the hands of SFU could easily be the result of horrendous and exploitative practices in Guatemala and other locations. Because that money is paying for the name and operations of the fine arts centre downtown, the students who take fine arts courses — and by extension ALL SFU students, SFSS members, and members of the university community — are indirectly and involuntarily benefitting from the exploitation and horrendous practices that Goldcorp is (allegedly*) engaged in.

When the situation isn’t gold but diamonds, we call the product blood diamonds and ban them. It seems that there isn’t a recognized equivalent of blood gold or blood donations, but perhaps there should be.

Now, while any number of fine arts and general SFU students may well be rather strongly opposed to the practices of Goldcorp, because the university accepted the funding and renamed the building, everything’s tainted. It sounds polemical, but it’s kind of the case — consider it a giant ethical picket line that students MUST cross, each and every day that they enter the Goldcorp Center for the Arts to do some contemporary dance, choreography, filmwork, or any of the other amazing things that they do down there.

I spoke to Andrew Petter when he was in Toronto, meeting alumni. Presidents of universities, as they eye alumni wallets, like to say that alumni have a responsibility to help the university develop and grow. I told him that this wasn’t the way to do this. He asked me if SFU should then just stop accepting donations, and told me that it wasn’t possible to start sorting out the ‘bad’ corporations from the ‘good.’ While I like Andrew, and was on the committee that hired him, I don’t think this is an acceptable answer and I told him so.

But I’m just one alumnus. And the Simon Fraser Student Society represents over twenty thousand current students of SFU. Your voice is louder than mine. And you’re in Burnaby.

I would encourage the Simon Fraser Student Society to join the coalition of students and other concerned community groups that is opposing the Goldcorp donation.

There’s any number of reasons why. The transformation of culture into capital that can then be capitalized upon. The privatization of the university piece by piece. Expanded reproduction, accumulation by dispossession. The ‘cleansing’ of Goldcorp’s dirty reputation by funding the arts — and the consequent ‘tarring’ of the arts at Simon Fraser. The, in my mind, unconscionable consequences of indirectly and involuntarily benefitting from Goldcorp’s (allegedly*) exploitative and harmful practices as a student of Simon Fraser University.

The university will ask you what you think they should do. Should they just give the money back? Should they just stop accepting donations? To respond to the first question, I think that they should certainly think about it, or perhaps SFU could be generous and fund some projects in Guatemala, perhaps to the tune of $10 million. To answer the second, well, the university quite likely can’t just stop taking donations — we’d likely do as well if we decided to stop breathing.

However – and this is a big however – the university MUST develop a policy that will outline the ethical commitments of the university community when it comes to donations, publish this policy, and then evaluate every offered donation against these ethical commitments. Combine this policy with the proposed ethical procurement policy. If SFU is committed to changing is purchasing towards buying only ethically produced and fairly traded supplies and products, then why can’t it stick to the same ethics when it comes to accepting corporate cash?

There are any number of ethical investment funds in the world — Vancity has some, and other credit unions do to. Find out their policies and how they determine whether or not a company is ‘ethical’ and apply the same, or better, guidelines to donations to the university.

SFU, as a university that is forever thinking of the world (but perhaps not doing anything about it) needs to step up to the plate and do something about that world of which it is thinking.

And the SFSS and the SFU administration need to work together to make the provincial government fund the university in a sustainable way in order to ensure that the university doesn’t have to limp along, seeking out and accepting corporate cash.

I will suggest to you that a majority of students at SFU would not support the practices that Goldcorp (allegedly*) engages in. And meekly sitting by and not pointing out the contradictions between SFU’s claims that it thinks of the world and its actions makes the students indirectly and involuntarily complicit.

I would strongly suggest that the SFSS take a stand and support the coalition opposed to the Goldcorp donation. It’s the ethical — and right — thing to do.

I am happy to help in whatever way I may be able to from Toronto, with advise or so forth.

Thank you for your time,

kevin harding
ma candidate • political science
york university • toronto, canada
SFSS Member 2005 – 2010
SFSS Forum Member 2006-7
Chairperson of the Labour Studies Student Union 2007-8
SFSS Student Employee 2006-2009
SFSS General Office Coordinator 2009-2010

* – allegedly is the term you use when the allegations haven’t been proven in a court of law, to cover your ass.

The G20 protests, bail, and rights restrictions: a ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ society?

According to internet reports, after having been threatened with solitary confinement in the Toronto East Detention Centre’s “hole” (likely not a euphemism) without being permitted any communication and after having been refused contact with legal counsel, G20 arrestee Alex Hundert has been ‘released’ on bail.  Alex’s bail restrictions are nothing short of incredibly restrictive: amongst other conditions, he is not to directly or indirectly post anything on the internet, he is not to associate or communicate with any number of fellow community organizers and activists, he is not to attend or plan any public meeting or demonstration, and perhaps most tellingly, he is not to express views on political issues.

Bail conditions and restrictions are supposed to be a way for someone charged with an offence to be released with a restrictions to prevent further alleged crimes from being committed.  The restrictions in Alex’s case beg the question: what are the Crown prosecutors and courts concerned about?

Restricting Alex’s freedom of expression – taking away his human freedom, his human right, to have an opinion and share it – shows that the threat that he poses to the Canadian “public order” is not any action that Alex could take, out on the street with a sign, but his very thoughts and opinions.

Here’s what happens in an allegedly “free” and “democratic” society when your opinions and your thoughts and your political stances threaten the dominant order.  You get your rights restricted.  Speak truth about power? Now you’re not allowed to speak.

‘Constitutionally’ guaranteed rights?

Alex is not the only activist facing charges or restrictions of their civil liberties, but his bail conditions seem to be the most restrictive.  Importantly, his bail conditions significantly infringe on his theoretically guaranteed rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – part of Canada’s constitutional law – notably those found under section 2, labelled as our “fundamental freedoms.”  Alex’s bail conditions expressly and clearly violate his freedoms of opinion, expression, and assembly.

At first blush, readers would be forgiven for wondering just how the courts could impose such restrictive conditions, especially restrictions that so clearly and flagrantly violate fundamental freedoms.  Especially those that are supposedly guaranteed under the constitution of our country, which takes great pride in publicly trumpeting its fairness and its democracy to the rest of the world.

Well, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms opens with an important clause: all of the rights contained within are subject to “such reasonable limits, prescribed by law, as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”  So, folks, your rights contain a very important expiry clause in the fine print.

According to the Toronto Star, York University Osgoode Hall Law School professor Alan Young says

[T]he court has gone too far.

“It’s basically putting a gag order on a citizen of Canada, when it’s not clear that the gag order is at all necessary to protect public order,” he said, of Hundert’s restriction from speaking to the media.

“People have to be able to air grievances, and the media is a primary tool in which people can air grievances effectively.”

Young called the strict bail conditions “astonishing” — something unheard of in modern-day Canada.

This means that the government and the courts can – and do, regularly – infringe on your rights.  In order to do this, they just have to plan to meet what’s called the “Oakes test,” judicial jargon for an analytical test applied to the situation to see if the restrictions are permitted under the constitution.

The Oakes test is generally stated as follows: any restrictions to Charter Rights must be prescribed in law in order to realize a “pressing and substantial objective,” the restriction must have a “rational connection” to that objective, there must be a “minimal impairment” of rights in order to accomplish the objective, and there must be “proportionality” between the effects of the restriction and the objective that the restriction is intending to achieve.

Working through this not in a straight line, it is obvious that Alex’s (and others) rights are being infringed.  He’s not allowed to attend public meetings or express views on political issues.  There’s the infringement right there, plain as day.

The infringement is indeed prescribed in law – the Criminal Code of Canada allows for “interim release” before trial (bail) to be granted, with effectively any restrictions imposed by a justice on the recommendation of a Crown prosecutor, provided that they are ‘reasonable.’

However, in order to think about whether or not the restrictions in Alex’s case have a rational connection to an objective, a minimal impairment of rights, and whether or not there is any proportionality, we need to first tease out the objective.  What is it that the Crown and government are trying to do, in order to impose these restrictions?

The answer is effectively provided by the law – bail restrictions and conditions can be imposed in order to maintain public order and prevent crimes from being committed.  Seems simple.  But it’s not.

How is Alex speaking or expressing political views committing a crime? This isn’t a crime.  In fact, it’s a protected activity under the Charter.  So it’s an infringement.  And it’s not a pressing or substantial objective, unless Alex was inciting violence with his public opinions, which he wasn’t (and he’d be charged with something other than conspiracy if he was).  And since there isn’t really a pressing or substantial objective to be achieved, invoking this part of the legislation to restrict Alex’s freedoms through bail would fail the Oakes test.  No need to think about proportionality or the other bits.

However, the Crown could argue that ‘public order’ was threatened, and the Criminal Code allows the justice impose conditions if s/he finds them “desirable” in this case.  So let’s walk through the test again: is the infringement prescribed by law? Yes, the Criminal Code.  Is there an objective? Yes: protect ‘public order’ by preventing Alex from expressing opinions or attending public meetings.  Rational connection to the objective? If the objective is to maintain public order by preventing Alex from speaking, yes, this is a rational connection.  Minimal impairment of rights and proportionality? These are connected to the objective: if Alex’s opinions threaten public order, then his expressing those opinions must be prevented, and arguably, this is as minimal an impairment as one can get.  Proportionality? Arguable.  But it seems to have been argued and accepted.

What’s really terrifying here is the concept that the Crown could – and seems to have – argue that allowing Alex Hundert to express his political opinion threatens the public order or safety.

When opinions are so dangerous they threaten public order [read: 'hegemony']

Now, I come to this conclusion through some entirely untrained legal analysis.  Any second-year law student might be able to poke holes in my analysis above.

But here’s the deal: there is really only one way – with two sides – that the restrictions being imposed on Alex and others can be justified under the Canadian constitution and legal framework.  And it’s this: Alex Hundert, and his opinions and actions, threaten the “public order.”  The two sides are at odds: either this threat exists because Alex is out inciting violence daily and would do so again if released, or that Alex’s opinions, which are shared by so many, are so dangerous to “public order” that they can’t be shared.

The Crown prosecutors have argued the first side, that Alex and other activists are thugs that are just out for ‘smashy smashy’ and destroying everything in sight.  But that’s not the case – and the prosecutors know it.  What’s more dangerous to the public order – and by this I mean capitalism, neoliberalism, colonialism, and so forth – is the opinions and views that Alex and so many others hold.

These opinions and views are dangerous to the hegemony in which we find ourselves.  These opinions and views threaten the happy complacency of capitalism.  This is why Alex isn’t allowed to publicly, or even loudly, have political views.

The danger, of course, is that if they were widely spread, that if people heard what we – Alex and so many others – know and feel and see every day, then maybe we’d change something.

And that’s a threat to public order.

And that’s why Alex was pre-emptively arrested in a pre-dawn raid before the protests happened.  Before any streets were closed.  Before any windows were broken.

And that’s why the government wants to silence him.

And so many others.

And you.

Rights aren’t things ‘granted’ by ‘governments’

An important thing to remember here is that rights aren’t things that government deign to grant to us.  The rights that are enumerated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms aren’t things that Trudeau and Levesque and other politicians thought up and put on paper and had ol’ Liz II sign off on in Ottawa on Parliament Hill.

Our ‘right’ to have an opinion, to associate with the people we choose and love, is a condition, a facet, of our humanity.  Deny our ability to think, and you deny our humanity.  Deny our ability to dream of a better world, and you deny our ability to dream.

Rights aren’t things handed down from our political masters on high.  They’re truths and realities that we have to fight for.  They’re truths and realities that Alex fought for, and dared to share – and now he’s not allowed to share these views. These opinions.

These truths and realities.

It’s not any actions that Alex and others could take that threaten the “public order.”

It’s our thoughts.  And our views.  And our opinions.

A better world is needed.  We need to dream of it, we need to build it, we need to work for it.

And we can’t let them silence us.

Support the G20 arrestees, support freedom, support each other

By now, many of the readers of this website will have read about the ongoing legal battles faced by any number of activists involved in the G20 protests in Toronto.  Community organizers who had planned marches and protests in Toronto to resist the ongoing neoliberal agenda pushed by the G20, along with the governmental calls for ‘austerity’ measures, were preemptively arrested and charged with conspiracy charges.  Arrests, which often involve plainclothes Toronto Police Service officers grabbing people off of the streets and throwing them into unmarked vans, reminiscent of the ‘disappearances’ in military dictatorship era Argentina and Chile, are ongoing.

Legal restrictions on organising or even communicating are one facet of a broader campaign to quell dissent, chill organising, and silence people who think outside of the bounds proscribed for them by capitalism, neoliberalism, and the dominant order.

If you’re concerned about this, like I am, I encourage you to support the G20 arrestees  – financially, if you can, because defending against ridiculous and eventually-to-be-proven-as-illegal charges is incredibly expensive – or in person. On the street. However you can.

Visit the Community Solidarity Network’s website to learn how to donate online. And speak up.

Sitting here in Burnaby, it’s interesting observing the protests in Toronto on television or through social media.  Were I in Toronto, I would have been on the streets.  It would have been terrifying.  But it would have been liberating.

Yes, the protests and actions smashed some windows and burned some police cars.  Yes, the black bloc tactic was employed.  Yes, there were thousands in the streets.  But there’s a reason for this.  The people who are meeting in the downtown core of Toronto as part of the G8 and G20 are our “leaders,” our “politicians,” and they are the people who, according to the popular mythology, we have elected to do the peoples’ work.

But they’re not doing that work.  And the people are rightfully unhappy.  And they want to protest this lack of work.  And they do.  And the police put on their riot gear and pick up their batons and pepper spray and beat back the people in the streets.  Why? They’re “protecting” the people in the meeting from the people in the streets.

The protestors in the streets of Toronto, of Vancouver, of Genoa, of Buenos Aires, of Santiago, of Johannesburg, and of so many other cities and towns and places around the world are demanding a different world.  And they’re demanding a different world, a better world, in the only way that might be left.

Emma Goldman famously said, “if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”  So many of the people in the streets of Toronto today were there because they voted for a difference.  And no matter who was in power, promising that difference, it has yet to come.

The media argue that the protestors in the streets have resorted to “violence.”  Smashing a window is not violence.  It is destruction of property, certainly, but not violence.  And the property being destroyed when someone smashes a window of a bank or a transnational corporation is but one manifestation of an inherently violent system, capitalism, which requires subjugation and exploited labour and alienation.  The window of a bank is one manifestation of a system with forcibly enclosed public spaces, which removed people from lands and removes the product of peoples’ work from their own control merely because they must work to survive.

The smashing of a window is an act of freedom, as it smashes the manifestation of the violent system and strikes at its heart.

And our “leaders,” the politicians, know the violence of the system and its inherent contradictions.  The capitalistic desire to profit more created the commercial ‘products’ and predatory lending and so forth that caused the economic crises that that hurt so many.  The crises that the G8/G20 meetings are struggling to address, in order to restabilize capitalism.

And the people don’t want this.  They want their education system to be free and of high quality.  They want public health care.  They want equality and freedom.  This is the peoples’ work, and it is what so many of us vote for, when we are permitted to vote.

But our “leaders” aren’t doing this work.  And so the people are in the streets, protesting.

And the fences go up, and the police march in, and the boots come down, to protect the people who have been elected to do the peoples’ work from the people who elected them.  Who want them to do their work.

Friends, we have a choice.  We can continue to hope that the people that we vote for will actually do the work that we want them to do.  Or we can do it ourselves.

I’ll see you in the streets.

Many people have asked me to share the text of my remarks to convocation today. You’ll find them below.

But first – I really, truly, and strongly believe that all of our experiences from our adventures at university have been influenced by the people that we’ve been lucky to go through them with. All of you — from my closest friends to those of us who really just wave ‘hi’ in the hallway — have been a part of my experiences at SFU, and you all have contributed in some way.

When I started writing these remarks, I wanted to think of some way that we could all be a part of the event. In the end, much of what I wrote and said has a connection to many of you – my friends – because I have been influenced by you, because you are all amazing people, and because we’ve managed to somehow spend some part of the past five years together. There are a number of references in the speech that I meant to be associated with specific people.

So many of you are not letting the world ‘just be’. You are not passively ‘thinking of the world.’ You are all, truly amazing.

Thank you for sharing yourselves with me during our adventures so far, and I’m looking forward to the ones to come.

with love and solidarity and all the best wishes,

kevin

—–

Mr. President, Mr. Chancellor, faculty, staff, guests, and friends and family,

Thank you all for coming together, here at this [rarely sunny / often dreary] concrete campus, to celebrate the graduation of this class of Simon Fraser students.

While it is next to impossible to speak for such a diverse body of students, I would like, on their behalf, to offer a very sincere and very heartfelt thank you to the staff of the university who make sure it works, to the faculty who help us learn, and to our friends and family who have supported us in many ways. And, of course, my most heartfelt congratulations to all of us who are graduating today.

Today is a day of celebration. We are graduating with BAs, MAs, or PhDs, in subjects that vary from Anthropology to Women’s Studies. Our graduation marks our successful completion of programs of study in what many term to be an institution of enlightenment – the university. Our experiences here, despite the all too common fog, rain, stairs, and concrete, have brought light into our lives. That the university is an institution of enlightenment is uncontroversial.

But today is also a day of reflection. And on reflection, I want to suggest something that is perhaps a bit controversial. The parchment that each of us is receiving today may not be worth anything at all.

To understand this, we need look no further than the university’s corporate slogan, emblazoned on every business card, letterhead, and program in this space.

What does it say? “Thinking of the world.” This is what we proclaim we do here. It is a slogan that seems worthy of greeting cards. It is not enough.

When we are just thinking of the world, we may say we understand exploitation, but we may not do anything to change the fact that there are more slaves today than at any time in human history.

When we are just thinking of the world, we may say we think of the value of the university as a place where conventional knowledge can be challenged, but we might tolerate actions that chill debate and dissent in the academy, turning it into a place that reinforces the dominant ways that harm so many.

When we are just thinking of the world, we may say we see the value of a public education, but we may not challenge the creeping corporatization that sees publicly funded research as something to be privately sold for private profit, that sees the workers at the university as costs to be managed and minimized, and students as products to be produced as quickly and plentifully as possible.

To twist a philosopher’s words, we have hitherto merely thought of the world. The point, however, is to change it.

Paulo Freire has said that “true reflection leads to action.” We must do the same. We, as SFU graduates, have thought a lot about the world. We must now start to change it.

It seems absurd to stand here and extol the virtues of education and of the university; this supposed institution of enlightenment. The light that is education and the university, as a way to see past the way things are now to see how things ought to beis powerful and empowering. It is passion and compassion. It is so much more. With it, we can transcend thinking of the world and go from here and change it. But a terrifying darkness is encroaching.

A good friend of mine stood in this place and told a different graduating class the story of how his family witnessed the destruction of the Old City Library in Sarajevo, as they were forced to leave. He told his graduating class that his family wept, because as they watched the library burn, they knew that their and other lives were about to slip into a blinding darkness without freedom, beauty, justice, or the prospect of things to come. This is the darkness.

War is with us. For now. Oppression is with us. For now. Exploitation is with us. For now. The creeping corporatization of the university is with us. For now. Surely we have thought so much about the world that this is obvious. The darkness is encroaching. For now.

This does not have to be the case. We have been thinking of the world, now it is time to change it.

It seems both impossible and terrifying to challenge you to change the world. How can we do this? How can we change the world? Live this question, live the change. Ignore the supposed impossibility of changing the world and do it – and then, after we have done it, we can check back to see if it was so impossible.

Some of us are already doing this. Students from SFU are building schools in Ghana and around the world. They are working for non-profit organisations in Canada, working to erase poverty, bring education and equality to disadvantaged populations, to save the environment from destruction. Some of us are researching cures to diseases, on more just ways of organizing society, and some are fighting for public education. Whether it be fundraising or researching or standing up for what they believe in, they are working to change the world.

We have a variety of skills that we have learned in our various classes. We can change the world. Some of us are already actively working at this. The rest of us can start today. To repeat Paul Hawken: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.

We who are graduating today have a particular challenge. We are receiving congratulations, but we also receive a responsibility. We have been given a gift, a gift of light. We must now protect it, we must guard it, we must cherish it, and we must share it.

Without this light, in the darkness, the parchments that we have are worthless.

Therefore, I have a simple message; one that I ask you, that I beg you, that I plead with you, to take to heart. Do not just, simply, passively, only think of the world. Change it too. Guard and share the light. Think of the world. Reflect on it. Change it.

It is our responsibility. We can change the world. Nous sommes prêts. We are ready. Let’s change the world.

Thank you and congratulations.

As is common with me, the conversation drifted during the interview, from what the president’s legacy might be to what it should be and why education in general was so important. Standard discussion material.

We somehow turned to the university’s wordmark: “thinking of the world.”. It appears on the website, on business cards, and everywhrere. It’s supposed to imply that we are a worldly university, that we are engaged in the world, that the world is not something abstracted from us.

But it’s an unfinished thought.

To drag a haunting spectre out of the shadows, Karl Marx wrote, “hitherto, philosophers have merely interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.”

SFU certainly hasn’t taken the idea to heart. We’re merely “thinking of the world” while the point is to change it. The motto of the university lacks action. It is passive.

There are a number of links between the passive motto and the reality of the university–I’m not going to say cause and effect, or even correlation, but the university seems to have been passive lately. Passive in our reaction to creeping corporatization, passive to insidious underfunding, passive to a lot of evil.

Why? Well, our letterhead proclaims the answer.

We’re merely “thinking of the world.”

The point, however, is to change it.