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Shaping the war in Afghanistan

Homes lining Koh-e Asamai mountain, commonly referred to as "TV Mountain", Kabul, Afghanistan. KATHLEEN GANNON/THE CONCORDIAN

How does the Canadian perspective of Afghanistan relate to reality?

Afghanistan was at the forefront of media coverage in August and September as the Taliban seized Kabul. Yet only three months later — with the country on the verge of collapse — we see few headlines devoted to the humanitarian crisis exacerbated by decades of foreign invasion.

In September 2020, I had the opportunity to visit Afghanistan. While I could not ignore the risks associated with an active war zone, I wanted to see the country for myself, beyond the death and destruction central to Canadian media coverage. When I arrived in Kabul, my western perspective was immediately challenged. As someone who grew up in Canada, I relied on the news to relay information from overseas. So, I asked myself, why was I so surprised to see bustling markets and colourful homes rather than buildings reduced to rubble? It made me think — what do we Canadians really know about Afghanistan?

Canadian media coverage of Afghanistan is focused almost entirely on politics and military developments, rarely depicting civilian life. In part, this kind of reporting is fuelled by the sources used by journalists and the stories that come out of them. In a meta analysis of news articles published during the intervention in the country, nearly half the stories cited military and government officials as primary sources, and over 40 per cent did not include a secondary source.

Overlooking Kabul, September 2020. KATHLEEN GANNON/THE CONCORDIAN

The Canadian military has a vested interest in selling its success to the Canadian people. The easiest way to do so is by framing the information given to the media in a way that justifies the military’s operations in Afghanistan. While journalists do fact-check and challenge officials, this preferred narrative remains key to coverage of the conflict.

One way to get close is through embeds — journalists attached to military units. The process is far from impartial, as any reports from within an embed must be signed off by commanding officers.

Naturally, no incriminating information would be allowed to leak. Graeme Smith, once a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan for The Globe and Mail, recounted how the military soon became concerned with spin, sending out supervisors to accompany the journalists. Given this element of censorship, embedded journalists seem to serve solely as a military mouthpiece.

The majority of stories reported from Afghanistan favoured a top-down outlook. The problem is that there needed to be a variety of information that went beyond the military and political elite, in order to challenge the propaganda that promoted Canada’s presence in Afghanistan.

With the declared “War on Terror,” perceptions of the Islamic world began to shift. Afghans were vilified and the country was referred to as a failed state. In 2001, the National Post published an article by Mark Steyn titled “What the Afghans need is colonizing.” Alienating Afghanistan served to bolster Canadians’ support for the war and the atrocities that awaited. Inciting fear among Canadians — perpetuated by the media — permitted the government to disregard Afghans’ safety in the name of our own security.

Canadian reporting about Afghanistan is often episodic. It recounts a specific incident, usually involving death tolls and insurgency attacks. Canadian media lacked the context necessary to provide readers with an in-depth understanding of a conflict dating back to the ‘80s.

At the peak of the conflict in the late 2000s, with millions of dollars being poured into the country, why was only one Canadian journalist stationed there full-time? Smith was the only permanent reporter through 2006 to 2009, spending most of his time in the southern Taliban stronghold Kandahar. There is a revolving door of journalists covering the war in Afghanistan, yet few have the longevity to truly understand its implications.

Politicians portray themselves to be the only sources of correct information, leaving Canadians with a misrepresented understanding of Afghanistan. Readers are forced to assume the responsibility of piecing together fragments of a much bigger story.

Despite best interests to accurately portray the conflict, the country has long been ostracized by both politicians and the media. An overwhelming majority of stories reported in the 2000s were rooted in negativity, focused on the volatility and chaos of Afghanistan. A small portion was considered neutral, the positive stories nearly negligible.

News coverage has to do with proximity. When compassion only extends so far, journalists must seek out ways to connect readers to Afghanistan. Any human interest pieces coming out of the country must connect back to Canada in some way — refugees landing in Toronto, a translator to the Canadian Forces — and, usually, mentions the military.

In the end, people are drawn to disaster. Suicide bombings and military advancements are far more likely to captivate readers than a feature on an Afghan school for young girls. But playing into shock value inevitably slants coverage. While focusing on violent incidents may increase engagement with Afghanistan, it reinforces the narrative that the country is no more than a dangerous terrorist den.

When media coverage strips away humanity, it further alienates Afghanistan and its people from the international community. The stories told from Afghanistan favoured the Canadian perspective, failing to paint the bigger picture — 13 years of war and bloodshed. The Taliban’s road to reclaiming Afghanistan was paved by foreign intervention and its failures. Now, Afghans are left to fend for themselves and Canada has already turned the page.

 

Photos by Kathleen Gannon

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Take a nap, we’ll deal with this tomorrow

As a collective society, we are not used to moving slowly. Productivity is often linked to our self worth, and why wouldn’t it be? After all, economic gain and capitalist success relies on constant production and consumption.

This being said, it should be no surprise that when an obnoxiously large stop sign has halted the world, it causes stress and panic. Many think, I can’t go to work? My dentist appointment is cancelled? Well, I better start training for a marathon. I won’t let this quarantine be the thing to slow me down.

Between workout videos, working from home and non-essentials being closed, lies a lot of uneasiness. The solution to this feeling is not necessarily to start a new project, publish that research paper you never had time to finish, or get to your push-up max.

Let me assure you that taking time to feel your angst is not wasted time. We are so scared to sit with our feelings, because we have never taken the time to do it before.

That’s why tools like meditation and mindfulness have found themselves to be so useful in the westernized world in 2020. They bring about clarity if we let them, which is not easy. In the podcast Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris, Meditation teacher, Dt. Jay Michaelson says that medication, “can help you be free-er from panic, more able to protect yourself, and more in touch with your own inner wisdom and resilience.”

Now, I can sit here in front of my laptop, and tell you that I haven’t felt guilty skipping my run today, shortening an online yoga class and eating a chocolate bar. I can tell you that I am fully embracing my own stresses and have learned to feel my feelings in my body, but I’d be lying.

We are all operating at least a ten percent higher stress level than normal. There is a constant strain on our energy that wasn’t there before. We have to understand that this makes our bodies tired, and we can’t expect to be 100 per cent ourselves.

Psychologist Dr. Luana Marques also adds on the podcast, “Anxiety has an inverse relationship with performance. Up to a point, the more anxious you get, the more performance you have. There is a point, a tilting point, though, that too much anxiety affects anything that we’re doing. So we can’t think critically. We get stuck. We start to get more anxious.”

We need to work together and find a balance between distracting ourselves from the upsetting world events, and feeling the stress. The space between panic and numbness might be a big part of the solution.

This is a process. We have to rewire our capitalistic brains to understand that it’s okay to be still and it’s also okay to not be productive.

Now excuse me while I finish my art project, wash my dishes, over-water my plants and lay on the floor, I’m very busy. 

 

Graphic by Sasha Axenova

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Climate change in the context of mental health

As an avid consumer of media, the knot in my stomach continues to tighten every time I see “climate change” in a headline.

There seems to be one heartbreaking news story after another, whether it is the fires in the Amazon or the floods in Sudan. This makes me think: I’m not the only millennial with a metal straw, reusable grocery bag, and a deep fear at the back of my mind regarding the doom of our planet, right?

I wish I could say that every news headline made me pick up a picket sign, donate to the World Wildlife Fund, and compel me to eat a vegan diet – but often it just makes me feel like a sack of potatoes. So if I care ‘so deeply’ about the environment, why is my anxiety not motivating me to do anything about it?

In hopes of validating my own anxious thoughts, I started doing some research and I found that I’m not alone in my woes. In fact, this is not a new development by any sort. According to LiveScience.com, feeling desperate and helpless when it comes to environmental issues is a common psychological disorder called “eco-anxiety.” The American Psychological Association explains that this anxiety focuses on the feeling of doom and a chronic fear regarding environmental problems.

Thomas Doherty, a clinical psychologist in Portland Oregon, explained to LiveScience.com that people are not taught how to talk about the climate issue.

“Up to a certain point, arousal — how alert or worried you feel — leads people to take action and perform better, “ said Doherty. “But overly high levels of anxiety can become paralyzing.”

As Doherty said, anxiety can cause avoidance. For me personally, I often shut down the conversation about climate change because on a global scale it feels like there is nothing I can do to help.

Susan Clayton, one of the lead authors of a climate-change guide by the American Psychological Association, told CNN that our human tendencies towards avoiding conflict and to feel fear, helplessness, and resignation in response to climate change is growing. She continued by explaining that this is limiting citizens from developing “psychological resiliency,” meaning they are not able to handle and conceptualize the reality of climate change.

I am slowly learning that the more dialogue we create regarding our own panic and uneasiness, the less alone we will feel in the world of climate anxiety.

“Treating climate anxiety in children is very similar to treating general anxiety,” said Rhonda Matters, a Child Psychologist in PEI, to CBC – she stated that acknowledging the anxiety goes a long way.

In an interview with CNN, Wendy Petersen Boring, a professor from Yale University, has said she has expanded her climate anxiety curriculum from one week of lessons, to two full courses. She now addresses the emotional and psychological toll of activism in 2019 with greater depth, as we continue to uncover the urgency of the situation.

I also think it is irresponsible to talk about climate change without talking about privilege. Although I’m aware this issue affects us all, I have to acknowledge my avoidant anxiety as not only an issue I have to actively work on, but also as a privilege. My socio-economic environment has protected me from many repercussions that other countries, cities and neighbourhoods are dealing with on a direct and daily basis. I am also privileged to live in a country with news outlets sharing truths about the state of our environment.

Well, as cliche as it sounds, “knowledge is power,” but learning how to cope with our own discomfort is also power. I must continue to voice my anxieties in the hopes they will lead to fruitful discussions with others, but most importantly I must stay aware and informed. As a society, we are blocked by the immensity of the situation. We need to continue to learn how to approach this issue in a productive and sustainable way. Perhaps Susan Clayton said it best, “We can’t just curl up in a ball and wait for the end of the world.”

 

Graphic by Victoria Blair

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Don’t just stand there, do something!

Understanding the bystander effect and the impact on our society

I like to think in a situation of urgency I won’t just stand around and watch, but rather, get involved and try to help. I hope everyone has the same mentality, so that if, god forbid, I’m in trouble and out in public, someone will have the decency to help me.

Unfortunately, this is often not the case. According to a report by CBC News, a homeless man staggered into an oncoming train and lay bleeding on the edge of the station platform tracks for 16 minutes before help arrived. It occurred at Langelier metro station in Montreal. The article references the bystander effect as the reason why no one called for help sooner.

According to the article, the “bystander effect” refers to when a crowd of people don’t react or don’t get involved in a situation where someone’s life is in jeopardy—there is this notion that we think someone else will act instead. As a result, no one acts at all because everyone thinks someone else will.

A lot of people might be familiar with the famous murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. She was a young woman who, on her way home in the early hours of the morning, was attacked by a man in an alley. As she was being stabbed repeatedly by her assailant, she screamed and cried for help.

The investigation reported that, out of the 38 neighbours who heard her screams and who basically bore witness to the situation, no one called the police. According to Psychology Today, their excuses were all the same—they figured someone else would do it.

Which brings me to my story. Last week, I was heading to my afternoon class at the Loyola campus and, just as I was about to get off the bus, I heard shouting from the back of the crowded bus. Although my earphones were blasting music, I was able to hear the sound of someone yelling for help.

Distinctly, one of the voices shouted, “Someone call 9-1-1.” This prompted me to remove my ear buds, run to the back of the bus. Ten years of lifeguard experience have given me the instinct to engage and the training to deal with an emergency situation.

As I was on the phone with a 9-1-1 operator, I looked around and saw at least a dozen people just standing around watching. The bus was absolutely full of people but they were all just standing around, trying to see what the commotion was about and get a peek at the action.

In an age when virtually everyone has a cell phone, I was astounded that no one closer to the situation chose to respond and call emergency services. I was about to step out of the bus, yet I managed to run to the back of the bus and act before anyone else did.

After speaking with emergency services, I stood in front of two women who were kneeled beside the young man lying on his back on the floor. They were the ones who had been yelling for help. Although the man’s eyes were open, they were unfocused and he wasn’t moving. One of the women, who announced that she was a student nurse, was taking his vitals. She told me he had been seizing and was now coming down from his seizures.

I was patched through to the paramedic on route to our location. He asked me a few questions about the young man’s condition, so I told him about the seizure. The ambulance driver asked me to follow the man’s breathing patterns. Every time I saw him take a breath in, I was to say “yes” so that the ambulance driver would know what condition he was in and whether he was breathing okay.

By this time, the bus had emptied, so myself, the student nurse, the man and the bus driver were the only ones left.

As we waited for the ambulance to arrive, I sat with the student nurse beside the young man to reassure him and calm him down as he regained full consciousness. At this point, the student nurse told me I could go. I asked a few times if she was sure and, after she reassured me it was fine, I left.

I wasn’t scared during the whole ordeal. I remember feeling very calm. After I left the scene, my heart was racing as I knew I was on some sort of adrenaline high.

I definitely felt frustrated at the very beginning, simply because I was the furthest from the situation, yet, I was the one who rushed back to help. Even though there were plenty of people closer who could have called 9-1-1, no one bothered. I was impressed with myself because I know I could have easily been another bystander who did nothing.

This brings me back to the bystander effect. We all seem to have this mentality of “someone else will do it.” We think, since there are plenty of other people around, someone else is bound to react first. But that won’t always be the case. Frankly, it’s scary to see how delayed of a reaction people have, or the blatant hesitation that results in a person doing nothing.

The young man is fine. I even saw him again the other day on the bus. However, this doesn’t excuse those who just stood around and watched the situation unfold. We all need to be more aware of what’s going on and be willing to help.

Getting engaged in a potentially urgent situation can be scary and it takes courage to do so. However, we’ve all got it in us and just think, wouldn’t you want someone to come to your aid if you needed it? The fact that there are incidents where more people stand around watching rather than helping is frightening.

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Why discontinuing male birth control wasn’t sexist

Examining the prospect of a male contraceptive in a female-dominated market

When it was revealed the male participants complained about side effects similar to those of female birth control methods and menstruation in general, many started assuming the medical community had devious sexist motives behind canceling the study.

The new method of birth control involved injecting a concoction of hormones near a man’s genitalia. The concoction, if successful, would reduce the man’s spermatozoa to one million per milliliter.

Looking into the incidence rate of side effects helps dispel rumours of sexism. Participants reported over 900 cases of side effects related to the contraceptive. Nearly half (45.9 per cent) of men experienced acne, 38.1 per cent experienced increased libido and 16.3 per cent experienced emotional disorders.

According to a report by Vox, Dr. Jen Gunther said the side effects in this study occurred at a much higher rate than in comparative studies for women. The Mirena IUD—a device inserted into the uterus and serves as a form of contraceptive—only saw 6.8 per cent of participants report acne.

Other reported side effects in the male birth control study included eight men being rendered infertile for over a year, including one man who is still infertile today.

Women have a plethora of birth control options, including the oral pill, the NuvaRing, IUDs, the shot and more, which offer benefits apart from pregnancy prevention. More regulated periods, less painful periods and acne reduction are just a few of the benefits women experience when using hormonal birth control.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which specializes in sexual and reproductive health, saw 58 per cent of all contraceptive pill users—the most common birth control method for women—use it for noncontraceptive reasons. In fact, 14 per cent use it for exclusively non-contraceptive reasons.

On the flipside, men are limited to two methods: condoms or vasectomy. Neither method provide them with extra benefits, nor does the newly proposed injection method.

Many articles have painted men as weak due to the discontinuation of this study. However, the data collected revealed that, at their final visit, 82.3 per cent of men were willing to continue using this method. Women, on the other hand, were less keen, with only 76 per cent willing to continue. Male weakness is therefore not the issue.

The study suggests the method was 96 per cent effective. However, this success rate was calculated using data only from “continuing users,” meaning couples who completed the study, and only assessed the method’s success within 24 weeks.

A closer look at the study shows only 274 of the 320 men who received at least one dose of the contraceptive method had their sperm counts lowered to the acceptable level. That is an 85.6 per cent success rate—far lower than other contraceptive methods on the market. So low, in fact, I would not trust it as my sole method of birth control.

Medical standards have improved throughout history. According to an article by the FDA, the first contraceptive pill was approved prior to the FDA’s knowledge of the dangers of thalidomide or the passage of the 1962 Drug Amendments. This, they claim, would have made the pill much harder to approve.

In the 1950s, according to the FDA, pregnancy and childbirth were much more dangerous, and so more risks were worth it to prevent pregnancy. Furthermore, one of the riskiest side effects of the pill—blood clots—was not linked to the pill until more than a decade after it was approved.

Women do indeed take on a disproportionate amount of risks and responsibilities when it comes to birth control, and I strongly hope one day we can find better options for both men and women. But we shouldn’t lower our current medical standards to 1950s-levels in the name of equality and fairness. That will only harm more people.

Sources:

The study: http://press.endocrine.org/doi/pdf/10.1210/jc.2016-2141

Guttmacher: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states

Vox article: http://www.vox.com/2016/11/2/13494126/male-birth-control-study?0p19G=c

FDA article: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/History/ProductRegulation/SelectionsFromFDLIUpdateSeriesonFDAHistory/ucm092009.htm

Graphic by Florence Yee

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Support Social Justice, Resist Racism and Sexism, Vote Yes to QPIRG Concordia

For the past two weeks, I’ve had the honor to be the Chairperson of the “Vote Yes to QPIRG Concordia” referendum committee, and it’s been a privilege to meet with so many Concordia students during the campaign, and to realize how many people on campus care so deeply about a better world and building a more caring community.

I would like to take this opportunity, before campaigning ends and voting begins, to share some key messages of our campaign, and to urge students to turn out in large numbers and Vote Yes next week.

QPIRG Concordia, has been an important progressive presence on campus for four decades. QPIRG’s core mission is anti-oppression, and actively organizing to support mobilizing and popular education efforts. In an era with a troubling rise in racism, sexism and homophobia, enabled by far-right politicians like Donald Trump, unapologetic social justice organizations like QPIRG are needed more than ever.

Importantly, QPIRG Concordia provides a welcome and nurturing place for students, and community members, to get acquainted with issues, in a non-judgmental setting. It’s a place for growth, mentorship, and support. QPIRG Concordia has an amazing array of projects, initiatives and publications — School Schmool alternative agenda, Convergence undergraduate research journal, Study In Action undergraduate research conference, the Alternative Library, DisOrientation, more than 30 Working Groups — that in diverse ways support and sustain students who want to be engaged members of their community. All of these benefits are available for students for free, as a result of a fee levy.

It’s been almost a decade since QPIRG has had a fee levy increase, a reasonable time to again ask students for a modest 8 cents per credit increase to allow QPIRG Concordia to be an effective part of the progressive social and environmental justice community at Concordia and Montreal.

Next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, November 15-17, have your student card on hand, visit one of the polling booths on either campus, and be sure to VOTE YES to QPIRG Concordia, your campus-community link for progressive social change.

-Sima Youssef

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Exploring controversial meme art

Photo by by Michael Esposito.

How comedic memes can spur controversy in our society 

Memes have been largely confined to the Internet. Recently, however, memes and Internet culture have been bleeding out into the real world. Mainstream media has been reporting on them and our culture has been affected by them.

It’s no secret that many people enjoy memes. They’re funny, they’re creative and yes, they can be political.

They’ve become so pervasive and influential that, back in August, a Texan poll revealed individuals had registered to run under the names Harambe and Deez Nuts to run for President.

The poll revealed Harambe was tied with Green party candidate Jill Stein, at two per cent of the vote, according to New York Daily News. Deez Nuts was beating both, at three per cent, according to the same report.  

However, the newfound relevance of memes in the political and social sphere has put them under attack. In September, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a picture where the faces of his father, other prominent conservatives and Pepe the Frog had been photoshopped onto the bodies of the actors on The Expendables 3 movie poster.

Soon after, a Clinton campaign staffer released a blog post on Clinton’s website explaining how Pepe, the cartoon frog in the picture, was a symbol of white supremacy. Hillary’s  campaign website cited a now-defunct Twitter account, @JaredTWift, as proof that Pepe is, in fact, racist. Clinton even held a rally slamming Pepe.

Those entrenched in meme culture might find this overreaction to memes funny, but it’s actually frightening. The notion that a politician can use their authority to come out and declare any symbol—especially a meme hate symbol—controls people’s ability to express a wider range of thought.

Pepe is a reaction image. Some Pepes are happy, some are angry, most are sad. The problem with classifying memes as hate speech is their very nature: they are pictures that can be manipulated to mass-produce a wide variety of jokes.

Sure, there are racist Pepes. There are racist uses of any meme. But calling Pepe, in general, a hate symbol, is like calling a blank canvas a hate symbol because someone can potentially paint a swastika on it. That is not a good way to prevent a few instances of hateful behaviour.

You might be thinking, “Okay, but Clinton hasn’t outright banned Pepe”—and you’d be right. But politicians are not the only figures of authority attacking memes. Many universities have started banning memes, especially Harambe.

Clemson University in South Carolina sent out an email to one of its dorms stating that Harambe memes could not publicly be displayed because they were “racist” and promoted “rape culture,” according to The Independent.

The university never provided a reason for why they considered the Harambe meme to be racist or to be promoting rape culture, which ironically, makes those imposing the ban seem bigoted. While Clemson officials later overturned the decision, according to the same report, people who use the meme have continued to be shamed.

The McGill Daily printed an editorial about a Harambe vigil being held in Montreal, accusing those celebrating Harambe of racism because they were making a bigger deal of Harambe’s death than black deaths. This prompted a lot of outrage. Many comments on the article pointed out that the Harambe meme is often used to mock those who advocate against shooting him rather than to protect the child who fell in his enclosure.

If such malleable things as memes are classified as hate speech, many who have used the non-racist depictions innocently will be labeled racist, sexist or bigoted.

It may be hard to take memes seriously. But how we treat any expression of creativity or culture reflects on us as a society. We need to be more careful about what we label as “hateful,” and right now, we are not being careful enough.

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