Between The Lines

Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Turn-of-the-century Canadian Leftists built the foundations for later thought and organizing, but their stories have largely gone untold. In his efforts to change that, Ian McKay writes not a great book, but a necessary and useful one in Reasoning Otherwise. Given that he describes his methods as reconnaissance, "several steps down the ladder of comprehensiveness from a polished final synthesis," he would likely see the compliment in that evaluation.

After an introduction in which McKay describes his method's theoretical grounding in such detail that most non-specialists will want to skim through it, the book proceeds through another eight chapters. Each forms a foray that begins with the retelling of an important incident in Canadian leftist history. McKay then uses a variety of discourses—historical, philosophical, sociological, and literary—to weave that anecdote into a consideration of broader issues and trends.

The first two incursions of Reasoning Otherwise should have been folded into one. "Socialism: The Revolutionary Science of Social Evolution" examines the use early Canadian socialists made of social evolution and the writings of Herbert Spencer. McKay's nuanced consideration creates the intellectual basis on which later chapters rely. "The Emergence of the First Formation in Canada, 1890-1902" provides a more practical base, beginning with a meeting in 1901 which "mark[ed] the first time in Canada that homegrown radical and socialist organizations got together to merge simple local clubs and units into a more complex interprovincial body." It then tells the stories of important Leftist figures who attended this meeting, followed by a consideration of the challenges attendees faced in and posed to the established liberal order. Divided from the first chapter's ideas, however, this part of the book lacks focus.

Each of the following four chapters revolves around a single issue. That "The Class Question" comes first reflects the notion (extant then and now) that socialism should center on socioeconomic issues. Here, McKay shrewdly uses conceptualizations of class as a golden thread to explore the complicated history of Leftist parties and organizations during the period.

"The Religion Question" focuses on Christianity though other spiritualities, such as Theosophy and Buddhism, make brief appearances. McKay considers divisions between Christian denominations and compares different versions of the social gospel. In so doing, he shows an appropriate level of respect for Christian socialists without ignoring criticisms made by their contemporaries.

The most problematic chapter, "The Woman Question," comes fifth. The title itself, while using the terminology of the day, marks it as different: woman is not equivalent to class or religion. It fails to describe the contents of the incursion accurately, as McKay includes both Leftist homophobia and the construction of socialist masculinity within the chapter. Discussing the former under the heading "The Woman Question" rather than "The Sex Question" inaccurately implies that socialist feminists bore the greatest responsibility for such discrimination.McKay more successfully addresses "The Race Question." He considers not only how white-dominated socialist movements made alliances with other racial groups, but also how fragile those alliances were. He does not ignore the role of racism and the construction of Whiteness within the Left.

After the questions, "War, Revolution, and General Strike" describes how Leftist takes on these issues, along with socialist parties and individuals, transformed during the era of World War I. A description of how The Great War led simultaneously to repression and a second flowering of the Canadian Left concludes with the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. This leads directly into the show trials which, in the final chapter, McKay uses to bring the book to a conclusion that does not pretend to be the last word on the subject. While not a perfect examination of Canada's turn-of-the-century Leftists, _Reasoning Otherwise _does achieve its author's end. McKay begins the process of filling a gap in the historical scholarship with careful thought and a style that is, for the most part, accessible to non-academic readers.

Cross-posted with Gender Across Borders

Written by: Elizabeth Kate Switaj, August 17th 2009

The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:40:00 +0000

By Ursula M. Franklin, Michelle Swenarchuk

Between The Lines

Within the world of Ursula Franklin’s essays, idealism is not naïve, but an appropriate manifestation of consistent ethics. While deeply optimistic about the possibilities for social change, the writings of this Canadian scholar-scientist point out the dangers of settling for less than a total transformation of our social structures. She calls us not only to stand by our beliefs, but also to get more creative in how we live our beliefs.

In 1949, Franklin immigrated to Canada from Germany, where she had received her Ph.D. in experimental physics. From the beginning of her career, she was committed to the use of science for peace, and as the first female professor of science at the University of Toronto, she acutely felt the need for gender equity.

Pacifism comprises the solid foundation of Franklin’s thinking. Her commitment to pacifism is rooted both in her religious beliefs—she is a Quaker—and the sure knowledge that the means used will shape the outcome. The book includes a thorough description of the religious basis for pacifism among members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which will be helpful to readers. The imperatives of pacifism do not apply only to the religious, but for all citizens concerned with true justice.

The essays in this volume, written over more than twenty-five years, outline pacifism as a stance that requires actively working to transform the causes of war. This entails not only refusing to take up arms, but also—and more profoundly—transforming the view of the world that allows some to be called “enemies.” The result is a call for creative, prophetic rethinking of social structures and policies. Prescriptive solutions are not offered, perhaps due to Franklin’s strong belief in local solutions that grow out of genuine community and solidarity.

In her writing, Franklin stresses the importance of examining the means used to achieve social change—or any objective. Hierarchical, imperial approaches will not result in equality, nor can violence lead to nonviolent societies. Her focus on process becomes countercultural when addressing the “us versus them” mentality that dominates not only our governments, but also our cultures, where the global marketplace overwhelms local economies.

Franklin defines peace as the presence of justice and the absence of fear. Significantly, the absence of fear is not limited to fear of attack by an external “enemy,” but includes the fear of economic insecurity that comes from lack of access to food, shelter, and dignified work. She highlights the “interdependence of security”—in other words, there cannot be security for one nation without security for all, and there cannot be peace for one nation without peace for all. As she writes, “Life is not a football match; problems are not resolved by winning.”

As a scholar, Franklin has written extensively on the social challenges of technology. Part of her deep concern for technology lies in the cultural shift away from positive technologies (such as the ways of artisans) and toward mechanistic technologies that take power away from ordinary people. Like philosopher Jacques Ellul and activist Vandana Shiva, she asks that we consider how a given technology affects the common good and the pursuit of justice.

This challenging and inspiring collection of essays offers an invitation to be creative participants in our local and global communities, working for the common good while insisting that our governments do likewise.

Written by: Lisa Rand, August 14th 2009

Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Edited by Sherene Razack

Between The Lines

Institutional racism: we all know it exists, yet many deny it does. In this book, Sherene Razack, author of Looking White People in the Eye, edits a set of deeply disturbing accounts of racially-motivated public policies and resultant public consciousness in North America. Beginning with the premise “Race is Space,” _Race, Space, and the Law_ unearths half-forgotten history of racial injustice and challenges the romanticisation of European settlement which is so deeply embedded in Canadian and American folklore. In other words, it seeks to unpack and debunk the notion of the peaceful collaboration between settlers and the aboriginal community, and the idea that the Native peoples have “always accepted, and to some degree, were willing to agree that being the possessors of a land need not necessarily be the only source of legitimacy of its use.”

Razack's book brings together disparate laws and fragments of history—laws on drinking establishments, the ban on "unparliamentarian" language, midwifery, mosque-building, a murder of a sex worker, and inner city slum dwellings—to subvert the "universal" values of justice upheld by the law. There are far too many examples in Race, Space, and the Law that illustrate these modes of subversion and resistance in brilliant, infuriating colour to fit into this review, so I will only be able to share a few.

In "Keeping the Ivory Tower White," Carol Schick sets the predominantly White University of Saskatchewan as a stage for the maintenance of White privilege by exploring the responses of White students to multicultural education. The course, which focused heavily on Aboriginal culture and history, brought out feelings of discomfort. As members of a respectable and intellectual domain of the university, students founded their discomfort and racial insecurity on rationality to side step racist or non-PC misgivings about the content of the course. Schick argues that by making disclaimers and claiming credentials as a feminist sympathizer, students can project themselves as utterly reasonable people—especially as ones who understand the necessity of civility and self-control as they secure White privilege and entitlement.

Renisa Mawani's "In Between and Out of Place" describes the situation of biracial individuals who symbolised the destabilisation of colonial power through the blurring the racial boundaries in mid nineteenth-century British Columbia. Racial categories, often a product of British colonialism, were crucial to maintaining the “racial order of things,” that determined who had certain rights to land and citizenship. Biracial men and women were perceived to be troublemakers and untrustworthy, and hence there were strict laws on alcohol purchase and distribution for this group. The logic behind this was motivated by the fear of interracial mixing because it might result in, quite simplistically, more biracial people.

Perhaps the most recent challenge to Whiteness is the growing presence of Islam in the West, particularly after the September 11 attacks. In Engin Isin and Myer Siemiatycki's essay "Making Space for Mosques," xenophobia and Islamophobia emerged from behind the cloak of neighbourly respectability when the building of new mosques in Toronto was met with resistance. The level of restrictions placed on the Muslim places of worship, particularly on those built on sites of formerly Christian worship, was unprecedented. Suddenly, the “change” a mosque would bring to the look of the neighbourhood became a prime concern for the surrounding residents that resulted in the physical curtailment of the mosque's development, including the reduction of the minaret's height and in some ways, its potent symbolism.

These essays reiterate the fundamental premise that space, particularly a public one, produces identities of privilege and degeneracy. I highly recommend this book to people interested in marginalised history and its place in institutionalised racism today. Perhaps a dose of history will give naysayers of institutional racism some food for thought, too.

Written by: Alicia Izharuddin, July 29th 2009

Gold Dust on His Shirt: The True Story of an Immigrant Mining Family

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:32:00 +0000

By Irene Howard

Between The Lines

When you think about migrant memoirs of North America, stories of moving north from Latin America often come to mind more than those detailing moves east and west. Flipping around that common assumption, Gold Dust on His Shirt tells the story of Irene Howard’s Swedish-Norwegian immigrant family’s tumultuous life in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century.

After the death of her first husband in Norway, Howard’s mother Ingeborg immigrated to Canada. She left her young daughter Inga behind with the child’s grandparents, promising to send for Inga as soon as she was settled. Instead, once she arrived in Prince Rupert (in current day British Colombia), she met and married a Swede, Nils Alfred in 1913. Only seven years after Norway had gained its independence from Sweden, the couple felt—and was—thousands of miles from the political controversies of their homeland. Six months later, Ingeborg gave birth to their first son, Swedish-Norwegian-Canadian Arthur Ingemar. Over the years, Ingeborg and Alfred had several more children—Verner Erik, Nels Edwin, Irene—and were uprooted from their home several times. Alfred’s job working on the railroad demanded that the family relocate as work became available. As Alfred became involved with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and began mobilizing other immigrant workers, his job prospects were often limited due to his radical organizing.

Reading about language barriers, death by tuberculosis or mine collapse, police raids, and workers’ struggles against mining companies is a sobering experience. Living a reverse tale of sorts—an American in Denmark, mostly unable to speak Danish—I have a lot of empathy for the characters in this story. I also suspect that my own Norwegian background and my adopted Danish family made this a more interesting tale for me. I didn’t mind reading about characters named Sigurd Ullstreng, Olav Trygvasson, and Elling Erikssen Aarvig. For me, it was a bit comforting and homey—or “hygge,” as we say in Danish.

Howard’s history is fascinating, though her presentation is a bit dry. At times, the book reads like a genealogy scrapbook instead of a memoir, listing people and events in a factual if uninspiring way. For history buffs, this is no doubt enjoyable. I will admit to struggling at times to wade through the details of a time and place with which I have no real familiarity. Yet Howard’s story is valuable and often untold, and her objective storytelling—in which she often removes herself entirely from the narrative, even though she lived through the same events—is a refreshing departure from the self-centered account most memoirs provide. I suspect I will revisit this book for years to come, perhaps as my roots deepen and spread among the Nordic states and North America.

Howard was born in 1922 amidst her father’s career change from mining to fishing. That she has survived the last eighty-seven years—three less than my own still-living Norwegian grandmother—with her story intact, now fully documented and published, is no small feat. In Norwegian, we say, “gratulerer”—congratulations.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 11th 2009