Amir Khadir defends of the right to boycott Israeli products at UQAM

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: the right to say no to the Israeli occupation:
Amir Khadir gave a speech in defense of CJPME's (Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle-East) campaign to boycott Israeli products at UQAM. And I became a member of Quebec Solidaire.

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Patric Moore gives a speech for the Fraser Institute

Patric Moore giving his speech.

Today Patrick Moore gave a speech at the Omni Hotel for the Fraser Institute. Patric Moore was one of the founder of Greenpeace, but ever since he left the environmental activist group in 1986 he has been crusading against them, and what he calls 'pop-environmentalism'.

Moore discussed a few points from his new book Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist:

Signing books.

• "go for hydro-electric as much as possible": here it's already more problematic. Moore says: "there is nothing wrong with lakes, and there are plenty of valleys on this planet. We like them because they are beautiful." He claims that artificially made lake that result from flooding entire valleys are new ecosystems where life strives. But what the flooded vegetation that rot, thus creating toxic chemicals that prevent any life to exist for years?
• Go for nuclear energy. "Japanese crisis is a crisis, not a catastrophe". Really??? I heard today in the news that Tokyo's water was contaminated, and that's not a catastrophe?
• "It's stupid to try to stop fossil fuel at the source as long as there demand." True, maybe, but it doesn't mean that we have to stop the fight against the oil production cartel since it's them who lobby against the development of renewable energy.
• "There is nothing bad about GMO seeds!" What??? What about all the reports from Monsento that actually show that internal organs get severed because of modified corn, which is why it is forbidden in the European Union? Patrick Moore keeps praising "Golden Rice", and hope that soon, thanks to pollination all the rice in the world will be genetically modified "which is a good thing, for Golden Rice is more nutritious." But what about uncertainty, and long term repercussions that we have no idea about?
• "There is no need to panic about climate change because even if it is true, there is still no need to panic". Well, I thought it had been widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions are causing a rise of temperature and ocean acidification. And if that wasn't enough, what about all the respiratory problem that result form car exhaust?
• Finally, his last point was that "no whale or dolphin should be killed anywhere around the world"...

In other words, just someone else who likes to hear himself talking. While Patrick was signing some books, a mining industrial came to him to congratulate on his courage, and told him that "the world needs more people like you." "It's very rewarding" answered dear Patrick. 

But that's what it was: a room full of industrialists who congratulate themselves on how much they pollute while resisting environmentalist movements. I had never been in contact of such people. It was a blast...

Pictures available on Demotix as usual.

Protest against police brutality turns violent in Montreal

Police arresting a protester

Today a few hundreds of protester gathered at Place des Arts in Montreal to demonstrate against police brutality, following the tradition of the 15th of March. As they were gathering, the organizers asked for people to remain calm and avoid clashes that traditionally accompany anti-police brutality protest. They also asked for Jean-Loup Lapointe to be put under court for killing Fredy Villanueva.

Police charging...

As soon as they started to walk, though, some kids pulled up black scarfs to cover their faces and started chanting "Fuck the Police", and "Let's break everything". Soon enough indeed clashes broke out, and riot police answered with force making no difference between thugs, people passing by, or photographers for that sake. A few of us received some blows by the police. I saw an old lady being pushed on the ground.

The whole purpose of the demonstration went for nothing as clashes and arrest went on. Yet the worse is that thugs were doing all they could to start the fighting with police, who were doing what they could to prevent actual fighting. Once it had started, though, there was nothing stopping them, until all protesters had to disperse.

Pictures are available for sale on Demotix as usual.

Tuition Hike, where are the Concordia students?

Union leaders

On Saturday thousands of students and teachers marched together to denounce Jean Charest's government's plan to reduce public spending by cutting funds allocated to education and health sector. The hike is expected to be of 500$ or more per year, which is a lot considering that it has already risen by 500$ since I started my degree 4 years ago.

Crowd gathered on McGill College St.

What's maybe more troubling is that almost no students from Concordia were to be seen, which just adds itself nicely to the apathetic week that started with the International Women's Day. The day before I noticed that the Political Science Student Association of Concordia had absolutely no mention of the march whatsoever. Who's gonna care about it if the Poli-sci students don't?

SPVM cops ready to play with guns

Finally, it is worth remembering that 10 protesters in their 20s were arrested on charge of 'conspiracy'. This could be a good joke if it wasn't a real government arresting real people. Conspiracy? What the fuck! What's next? Is Jean Charest going to close facebook like Mubarak, Hu Jintao, Ahmadinejab, or even Qaddafi?

So what's left between apathetic Concordia students and angry government? I hope UQAM and other francophone students keep going for those who are too lazy to raise a finger.

The pictures are available on my Demotix page.

What's left of Women's Day? Rape Culture.

Snapshot from AlterNet

So much for International Women's Day. I wrote yesterday about my disappointment after Montrealers' failure to celebrate the 2011 IWD, and I realized that some people might think that here, in our cozy 'Western' world we are pretty 'civilized'. So the problems that women are having in Mexico, Congo, Egypt, must come mostly from the lack of development.

So today I wandered on AlterNet and ended up on this article "11-year-old girl hirrifically gang-raped; New York Times article blames the victim". Follow the link to read this interesting article, taken from this blog.

To summarize, a kid has been raped, and the New York Times journalist talks more about the rapers than the victim, mentioning their background, trying to understand what could have led them to act this way. The writer then quotes witnessess saying that the girl was wearing make-up; so then it's her fault.

I was used to hear this kind of argument in Egypt, where the societal norm is that if a woman is harassed it's because she is dressing provocatively (although stats are that veiled women get as much harassment as non-veiled women). Well we see that the same old justification is being used in North America as well, confirming the fact that we all live in the same patriarchal society. Who is to be feared? Islamists or Americans?

What's left of Women's Day?

We are today the 9th of March 2011. Yesterday was the 8th of March 2011, or International Women's day. It has now been over a century of International Women's days; over a century of activism marked by that symbolic day, the 8th of March. Women have of course always fought for their rights, but we like to say that feminism is something of the twentieth century. 

     We also like to say that women's conditions have dramatically improved in that same century, that women are now equal to men, and that men are even abused in Canada or in some Scandinavian countries (stories of myk mann = a man who goes against the traditional male role). 

     The reason for me to write this post is that I was yesterday supposed to go shoot a march in support of Palestinian Women and in relation with the international women's day. I arrived there, and left immediately, for there was almost no one. It's international women's day and no one cares in Montreal. Tonight I came back from work, checked the Al Jazeera English website, and ended up on this story: "In Juarez, women just disappear". The issue is that in Juarez, a border city plagued by drug gangs, women often disappear because they are used by gangs to 'train' new recruits. They kidnap a young girl (like Alejandra Garcia Andrade), rape her, and after days of agony leave the dead body in a gutter.

Kifeya

Then I browsed a bit more on Al Jazeera, and found this other article: "The New Egypt: Leaving women behind". The story is about Egyptian women who feel left beside after the revolution that saw Egypt get rid of Mubarak. Kifeya! (enough!)

But the problem is that these two examples are only two examples. There are thousands of other examples, untold stories. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hundreds of women are raped every months by rebel groups, by government troops, and even by UN troops sometimes; all of this resulting from centuries of colonization and destruction.

In Japan, dozens of women are raped every years by US troops in Okinawa. Dozens of female US troops are raped  every years by their own colleagues male US troops.

In other words there are countless examples of gendercides that keep occuring all around the world; sometimes much closer to home than most would think. Yet, on International Women Day, in Montreal, no one cared.

Squares of Autumn

Squares of Autumn
Originally uploaded by L'Arlesien

And now Fall is kickin'in. School, work, rainy days, yellow leaves, orange leaves, red leaves, falling leaves, and leaves-less trees.

Seasons keep coming and going, and I still hear comments such as "well in 50 years or something maybe people will react more strongly to global warming because it may become more real..." This was from the mouth of a soon graduating political science student. Amazing.

Mexico!

O Mexico! My love for the Caribe has just reached new heights. In every aspects the contrast with winter frozen Montreal is obvious, enormous and tremendous. The 19th of February I finally got out of this country and flew to Cancun, the spring break paradise for American teenagers. After few rhetoric problems with Veronica Holmes, the Continental Airways customer service witch, Kristina, Sabrina and me finally managed to get to the promised land with [only] one day late. We then had to find a car to rent, which took us some more hours, and off we went to meet Thomas in Merida!

Merida was astonishingly beautiful. The small streets, the single storey houses with their pastel colors, the backyards, the Volkswagen Beattles, the Carnaval, the warm weather, the smily faces; it was the perfect accumulation of goodness! Life is just good there. And for us it was the perfect vacation we wanted. Our hostel -La Casa del Tio Dach- was gorgeous, the owner really kind and helpful. The vacation was starting fairly well, let aside Sabrina's magic eye and the Continental Airways situation.

We then moved to Tulum and Punta Allen to find a beach with white sand, turquoise Caribbean water, Cabanas and coconuts. To fit with the "couple's vacation" typical image we tried to catch the sunrise [almost] every morning and stroll on the beach in the daybreak's soft light. It was the perfect vacation like grown up usually picture it.

And then we entered the second stage of this vacation when we met my step familly in Playa del Carmen. With them we went to Chichen Itza in an enormous Chevrolet Suburban, FBI like car in which we eight people all easily fitted. To finalyze our perfect spring break we got a touch of luxury as we stayed at the hotel next to the ruins. And then after a last day at the beach snorkelling and swimming with turtles, baracudas and sting rays we finally made our way back home, and the 1st of March we were all sadly back to Montreal, its snow and its grey weather.
Why am I not living in Mexico?

New Year's Eve song...

Stuck in Fall

Yes I moved again, fully conscious of the spronklishmint that could follow. But it is nice. There is picture of the view from the living room, with the Mont Royal in the background, and the night stretching its dirty arms toward us all. And my camera is in reparation so I am deprived of one of my favorite sport: taking pictures. So I stole Sabrina's new D80 to picturyks the sky when I came back from class (boring by the way). And fall goes on, as winter gets closer by the day, and that's it, because voilà.
But at least Obama won.

Fall is Falling into the wise wisdom of darkness...

Last week end my girlfriend and I went on a bicycle stroll qround Montréal, trying to fight a bit the depression of mid-terms and nasty autumn. So we followed the bike paths of Le Plateau, equiped with our respective camera, ready to take pictures of everything pretending to be photographs. But I saw quite a lot of people doing the same so at least we are not the only one. Then I realized that every films is kind of blurred, and the pictures have a strange grain on them... sad, terrible, and agnostic.

Indeed, we biked! Beyond dead leaves and crooked sidewalks, we biked. What an amazing experience! The way pedals go round and round will always fascinate me. Yet for the conservative mind who may soon loose an election, things don't go that round! Ha.

So, appart my metaphoric experiences, I also took useless pictures. Above is the Boulangerie Mr Pinchot, where the masses gather on dirty evenings of afternoons. The kind suddenness of things rencently over-spured me in such a fashion that I nearly lost my senses, but in fact no. The Bell of the Lilliput is ringing, and we all know what it means.

ciao.



The Laurier/St Laurent firemen station !!!

Welcome to Fall

So it is now Fall. I am done with travelling for a while... at least untill chrismass. Semester all started from the starting blocks, and there is a lot to do. But after 4 months being here and there, it's good to be back home. Last night Sabrina and me went to a school funded party with free beer at the key. Pretty nice. I never got drunk for that cheap.

Also since Sabrina bought herself a new digital SLR, big and expenseive, I decided to use my own camera and finish the film that was on since Beijing... So I went out with my bike and pretended to be a photograph for a while. I felt good.

What else? Today I went to get my pictures and so I saw some pictures of Beijing... Makes me want to go back! I thus feel good about taking a 6 credits course of Chinese right now, even if I'm already late. I definitely want to go back as soon as possible and travel again in this Empire now that I can speak some Chinese... It's such a different experience! And there is so much to learn from these people, since they are so different! Anyways, our little dinner at Chinatown yesterday was nice enough.

Maisonneuve street, looking toward downtown.


Loyola's main building, were we had our pizza lunch without pizza...


Some mad statue, sun bathing tranquillo..

Travelling Diary... Day One.

The shadow of communism is still strong in the country side...

The itinerary is doomed! Yesterday, when I finally arrived at the bus station with my bicycle, it took me half an hour to understand that I couldn't bring the damn bike to Shacheng... So I went to Datong instead, which is in the north of Shanxi province. Then, a couple of meters after getting down of the bus and on the bike, I broke the damn chain (so an average of 90 minutes using the bike after taking it from the store...). So I had to walk the the hotel on the other side of the damn city. At lrast this morning I got the stuff repaired for 1 yuan... Chinese know the trick. And then I biked.

First I had to make my way between trucks and factories, and a couple of coal power plants. Slightly dusty. Then, 3 hours and 45km later, I realized my hands were shaking. Of course, I had forgotten to eat since the day before, before taking the damn bus. So I ate. Eggs and tomato tasting fish. Nice. At that point I was exhausted as a bat, dusty like a desert rat, and already sunburn like a toad. Damn. Then I thought: what the f#$k am I doing here? Bike trips are hell. But after a long break, I got back on the bike (the chain is still in one piece) and continued. But I had not seen that there was a mini pass to go throught... So I started to climb, and after 500 meters I was already on the point of giving up. Tada! Then, unespectedly as a unicorn having a shower in downtown Montreal, a truck tried to pass me, but couldn't, because it was going at maybe 10 or 15km/h... So I let it pass and grabbed the back... and I climbed the whole damn pass thanks to this truck! My arm was starting to shake long before the top but I managed, and it was so cool to not have to paddle! And then it when down, for some km, and it was fantastic.

But then I saw that there was still 50km left, at least, before reaching Yinxian, where one of the oldest wooden building on earth stands: a 68m high damn pagoda. Impressive hein? Bon.

And I got totally exhausted (second time in one day), so I managed to get a lift for some km in the back of a truck machine, with the damn bike. So I still did close to 100km in a day, and that's way beyond my capacity, as I just realised. My arse hurts more that a wooden pagoda, and my legs... So now I go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll try to reach Wutai Shan.

ciao.

Something quite funny: facebook has been closed down by the Chinese government, but I now have access to my blog! And people are blowing up fireworks in the middle of the street right in front of the internet cafe.

Being in the mini truck with my bike...