in black holes it’s easy to pretend that she is just a hoax
that you are just human
but fantasy deliquesces
and the truth can be so easily unleashed

[you created me]
she coats her cracked lips with copper
(you wanted to be unearthed)
you taste the metal

she is forged venom
and you know so little about the antidote
but more often you know her wiring slipping between your ribcage
you are galvanized and malleable
and her toxins are excellent sophistry

she wears ordinary clothes but she wears them differently
velvet soft razors, silky buttered knives
and you relish the vitriolic cuts
but when she unwraps, her bronze flesh sets you on edge
(your thigh
her knife
her tongue)

sometime you wonder what beast she is
and then you know
serpent, ophidian
skin shimmering, gaze matte, eyes devouring
alluring yet deadly

[i think sometimes that you misunderstand me]
legs cross and lace falls
[or that you understand me too well]
you stare at the scar on her shoulder

her lesions make a filigree on your skin
as she places you in a crucible
and marinates in your company
[indulge me]
(consume me)
you churn and growl

the silent alleys are ageing
but still nails clash
but still skin mingles like an alloy
with blood dripping through the spaces of your teeth
you are gilded and raw

when she welds crevices into you with tempered phrases
her words are verdigris
and all you can ever breathe is her

–Maddie Gnam

Gros Morne

If I could write this ruddy mountain
As thinly as I see it

I would loll my arm into
The intimacies of people weaved

Ghost threads, cobwebs stretched
Frail across this sea

I would name each
Ligonberry and pretty meek boulder

With all the blunt spread
Of a colonial, or a tourist

My irreverence dulling the bloody
Colours of sugar my lips can’t define

But now the skies are swollen
With myself, I’m piercing

This land, my words
Clumsy raindrops.

–Keah Hansen

Salty moon

girl meets Girl
girl trips over the moon for Girl, but
Girl leaps through stars for another and, they somehow don’t collide
but girl imagines their universe
when she trips
and spins
back down
sees their own world of soft yellow
light, even as she sinks in damp earth
and salt
down down further down
where
girl tastes the sick sweet white light
of Girl on honeymoon with another
and their universe drifts
without sparks
somewhere far
far, so, so, very very
far.

–Anonymous

Madari

I ask my grandmother where she comes from
she says I stem from suitcases

I ask her who she comes from
she says I come from nomads

I take her hands into my own
And ask what the journey was like

She says the road is toughest when you’re on borrowed time

I ask her if she wants to rest
She says she’s never had the time

I wake up at dawn and sit next to her while she prays
She says God hears you better when the rest of the world is sleeping

So I ask, where does God come from
she says, God comes from women who spill their bodies to make room for us

I ask her of these women
She says soon I’ll be one of them

She rests her hand on the side of my cheek and says
Your mother was your first home

And now you pray to the East
Every time you bow your head
Heaven grows under her feet

I ask her if she enjoys poetry
she says I am her favourite poem

I ask if it’s because she helped write me into existence
she says I am the light in her eyes

I ask who she got her eyes from
She says she stole them from the boy next door

I ask her about her first love
She says she left it where she found it

so I trace her footsteps and follow her back to the village where she was conceived
and i marvel at her conception

She was made of her father’s hopes and her mother’s worries

They dreamed of a boy and she harboured that insecurity
she laced it with shortcomings and tied a perfect a bow on what could’ve been her

But she taught what it means to keeping moving on

Her life was not effortless and neither was her love

So

I ask her if she loves me
And she says, enough to step out onto the road again

–Khatira Mahdavi

Baba

I am three years old and my skyline is a soft blue

with your head a halo against the sun

I shut one eye and gaze at you through the other

a cloud of hair on top of a man

Who tethers his love to balloons

You bent down to lift me

And I thought to myself how foolish is the sky to leave you all to me

–Khatira Mahdavi

Lying to your mother is something
you knew instinctively
at 13, and remembered with hell in your head
at 21.

The moon pale as a rib. Houseful of adults and their languages.
Where were they when you pondered bleach at 14?

At the counselor’s you smiled hard
with half of your face. Tea leaves swirl
then settle. One time when you were eight

your mother picked you up from school.
In the car your tears hot enough
to brew tea with. If you behave this way again, I will –

You felt your shoulders turn in, and in, and in.
Cute. Compact. You are the girl-child
your mother never wanted.

–Coco Zhou

Dusk, a lake: where Girl was last seen.
A Girl with brains of beryl, lung of wool.

How did she get here. Whose.
It was the year children learned to swim.
A litter of them, by the lake. Find her

at the edge of slumber. Brains & lung.
Washed out & stretched. Every fish
that swims by throws away its voice.

–Coco Zhou

My belly
Is swollen
with the pain I hold for you
It sits, bloated, between the wet raw flesh of my organs
And it
expands between my ribs
with every
breath

that I take.
I cater to it deftly
Careful not to burst its taut skin
With the soft strokes of
My straying thoughts.

On days where the pain
Sits neatly
Amongst my other organs,
I hold my breath
Careful not to move too quickly.
At home in the body

Of a soul rubbed raw
The pain has started to feel
Like my natural landscape.

On other days it begins to bloat
Seeping out into the dark,
Damp folds of my flesh
And as the storm begins to rage,
My skin
Serves only as a boundary
That contains the violent thoughts
That seek to contort
My muscles
And
Rip through the flesh
That used to sustain me.
That flesh is now a part
Of the pain
What once was my body
Is left, deserted, on my bedroom floor.

– Anonymous

The post Girl appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Muslim woman is a spectacle. She is a worldwide phenomenon, misunderstood not only by men and non-Muslims, but by women and Muslims too. Her existence is fetishized and politicized. She is viewed as something to be conquered, a wrong to be corrected, as someone who needs saving.

This year was one that drew significant attention to Muslim women. Our feats were grand and momentous, breaking glass ceilings for our communities. Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first American athlete to compete with a hijab in the Rio Olympics and her achievements brought visibility to Black Muslim women in sports. Around the same time, however, several coastal towns in France set a ban against burkinis worn on beaches. Burkinis, for those who haven’t been following the furor, are full body swimsuits that expose only the face, hands, and feet. They were created to allow covered Muslim women to feel comfortable on beaches, which are often unwelcoming of their dress styles. French officials claim the new ban to be an attempt at ‘liberating’ Muslim women from the “oppression” of the burka – its effect, in fact, is quite the opposite. Many leaders in France have stayed consistent with their anti-Islamic rhetoric despite the state court ruling that the burkini ban is “a serious and manifestly illegal attack on fundamental freedoms.” This ban, which local leaders have refused to change despite the court’s statements, is only a further infringement of Muslim women’s right to bodily autonomy.

These narratives of policing Muslim women’s bodies and behaviours are constantly played out in different contexts. However, according to popular rhetoric, this occurs in one of two polar-opposite settings: the West (Europe and North America) and the East (western, central, and southern Asia). In eastern countries, the scrutiny that is directed towards Muslim women is rooted in the patriarchy. In western countries, patriarchy joins with cultural imperialism to result in the hostile treatment of Muslim women. The intersections of Muslim-hood and womanhood make it excruciatingly difficult for Muslim women to navigate societies that are both patriarchal and function on values of Islamic extremism or secular extremism. Islamic extremism is not a concept that we’re unfamiliar with, as it has become synonymous with governing Muslim bodies. Secular extremism, however, is a new concept that attempts to capture rigid anti-religious sentiments that may be used in a similar manner to strip religious women of their agency and dignity. Undoubtedly the most central element of any discussion about religious binary is the hijab: the cultural-religious head covering that carries with it the burden of scrutiny by the external world, forcing Muslim women to continuously fight off extremist sentiments and patriarchal judgement from both sides.

In Muslim societies, the struggle over the compulsory/optional status of the hijab stems from male insecurity with regards to the control they have over women. Conversations regarding the status of the hijab in religious contexts, such as the Quran and the hadith, are privileged to male scholars, resulting in women often having no say in what regulations are being made in regards to their bodies. The state interferes with women’s personal choices, which is why the compulsory hijab is viewed as oppressive: not because a woman’s liberation depends on the modesty of her clothing but because women are not able to make these decisions on their own behalf.

The practice of barring women from making decisions about laws and regulations that directly affect them is one that we are not unfamiliar with in the west – although it is one we like to distance ourselves from. The idea that extremism is inherently related to religion and religious governments is false and incredibly misleading. The burkini ban is an extremist act because the state is still dictating what women can and cannot wear, which essentially is no different than the compulsory hijab.

The hijab, however, is no longer just a representation of modesty, but has entered the realm of politics. It is now worn with different motivations, some religious and some political; one of them is to uphold a symbol of national identity and opposition to the imperial West during independence and nationalist movements. The veil is being used to maintain a sense of cultural identity in a world that aggressively enforces Western norms. But choosing to wear the hijab as a political (rather than cultural) statement becomes incredibly difficult in countries such as France, where the hijab is banned in social and professional spaces. This form of social restriction stands in complete contrast to religious extremism, and can be referred to as secular extremism.

Secular governing systems can only be deemed democratic as long as they abide by the policy that the separation between the church and the state is purely political, and not cultural. This form of secularism is moderate and lenient and it only loses its credibility when it escapes the political sphere and begins to look like cultural policing, interfering in the personal lives of members of the society. France’s burkini ban has made it clear that their secularism is not moderate, but extreme; it tries to impose neutrality in cultural values through the force of the state.

However, the hijab as a representation of modesty is not only politicized in Western societies but used by women as a tool of protection against deeply patriarchal, misogynistic Muslim men. For example, the burqa in Afghanistan allows women to enter the public realm while maintaining their modesty in male dominated spaces. Afghan women within Pashtun and non-Pashtun groups living in remote regions where religious beliefs can often remain extreme and stagnant would have found it impossible to present themselves in public without the burqa. The burqa is making public, male dominated spaces accessible to Afghan women in the same way that the burkini is making public beaches accessible to Muslim women.

Muslim women, in different ways across the world, use the hijab to combat state violence and regulations. To see the right to expression and freedom be stolen away from them by French authorities begs the question, how can one form of extremism ever consider itself to be more liberating than another?

The post First a spectacle, second a person appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Photojournalists, often white male ones, capture and circulate these images under a framework of advocacy meant to highlight and bring attention to these victims of violence. However, this advocacy fails when, within the chaos of image distribution, these photos lose their context and the people in them – lifeless or not – are dehumanized. They become nameless symbols of violence that must be stopped, of people who must be saved, all without acknowledgement of the systems causing the violence in the first place. This is how neocolonialism is justified. If the Western masses can be convinced that these bodies represent an uncivilized, helpless, and homogenous people, Western nations can continue to validate their intrusions into these countries.

Throughout the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis, photography has been crucial in reporting the hostile conditions endured by refugees. However, it has also created fertile ground for the exploitation of their bodies. Alan Kurdi, the young Syrian boy whose lifeless body was found off the coast of Turkey, became victim to this phenomenon as his image went viral online and on social media. His body became politicized and used in support of various political agendas without a trace of his humanity spared for those who knew and loved him. He was sketched as caricatures and associated with a multiplicity of political and personal narratives, all by people who seemed to think that this was an appropriate way of generating awareness of the plight of Syrian refugees.

This pattern is not unique to the refugee crisis. In February, when Boko Haram bombed and burned down an internally displaced person (IDP) camp in northeastern Nigeria, images of desecrated homes and burned Black bodies went viral. Such nonchalant consumption of these images serves to objectify and normalize the death and suffering of Black people.

In stark contrast, white bodies are rarely publicized as a tool of awareness. The masses are expected to acknowledge the gravity of violence against white people without visual proof. The most recent example of this is of the attacks on Paris; graphic images of the victims were not spread, uncensored, in mainstream media. Why then, are we convinced that it is impossible to acknowledge and discuss the treatment of refugees or the horrors of mass violence without disrespecting lifeless brown bodies?

It is not just photography being a visual medium that makes it so prone to this type of reductive representation. Photography was developed as an extension of the white male gaze: the fact that photojournalism as a discipline was founded and largely controlled by white men heavily influences the way it has come to be practiced throughout the world. While photographers of colour are also guilty of exploiting people’s bodies, this is still largely because the dominant conception of this art form is grounded in the white gaze. The effect of this dynamic is particularly harmful for women of colour captured in exploitative photos, where the intersection of race and gender leave them vulnerable not only to the white gaze, but to the male gaze and the fetishizing objectification that comes with it.

It is alarming how comfortably people in the West consume these images without considering the humanitiy of the subjects. Brown and Black people are omitted from conversations about the violence that is enacted against them; instead of seeking and sharing stories from people of colour, images of bodies detached of their individuality are spread, made ready for consumption, public critique, and entertainment. As these images circulate, people attach their own personal narratives to them. In doing so, the notion of “advocacy” is perverted. Instead, they consume and use these images for their own gratification and agendas.

Through the co-opting of these images, photography is ultimately an expression of the white political agenda and how it would like to see the “other” presented. Although photojournalism explores inhumane conditions and violence and introduces them to a wider audience, it can also be violent itself by exploiting the images of victims of violence. This leads to the silencing of whichever narratives do not reconcile with that of white, Western media. It is no coincidence that, when the media normalizes and devalues the lifeless body of a Brown child, it is also lowering the standards of living conditions expected and accepted for living Brown children.

Sharing images of the dead and adding to the media frenzy seems to satisfy the general public’s moral need to “do something” – but it shouldn’t. We must collectively be more vigilant in the ways we attempt advocacy, and ensure that the methods we choose are not destructive.

Khatira Mahdavi is a U1 Cultural Studies student. To contact her, email khatira.mahdavi@mail.mcgill.ca.

The post The exploitative lens appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Based in Toronto, Kaur released her first book of poetry and prose, milk and honey, in 2014. Since then, she has been touring within Canada and internationally to share her art with a broader audience. SSMU Equity invited Kaur to host a night of poetry, but she did much more, engaging the crowd in the themes of violence, abuse, feminism, love, and identity. During the show, she performed three spoken word pieces: “broken english,” “the art of growing,” and “liberation” – all of which can be found on her YouTube channel – as well as by readings of several poems from milk and honey. I sat in the crowd and my heart swelled as I witnessed this artist take the stage with brilliance.

Kaur explained the title of her book by referring to the collective struggle and healing of the Punjabi women she identifies with. milk and honey is used as an analogy for the heart-soothing method of brewing milk and honey to soothe ailments, which the artist noted to be a common Indian cultural practice. Kaur’s poetry is infused with themes of intersectional womanhood and celebrating Brown identities, all of which resonated deeply with me as an audience member.

“I began to think more about who is burdened with always having to talk about race, identity, femininity, and migration, and wondered why I expected this [discussion] from her. Just because she is a fellow woman of colour? Just because she is a fellow migrant?”

The artist’s poem “woman of colour,” which she performed at the event, draws on this theme: “our backs / tell stories / no books have / the spine to / carry.” In this work, Kaur expresses solidarity with other women of colour who carry the burdens of racism and sexism on their backs while moving through their lives with grace and success. This type of acknowledgement of burdens and struggles is more commonly geared toward white women, which is why the poem’s sentiment was especially striking to me, It felt refreshing to not only see a female poet commemorate women of colour and encourage them to celebrate their identities, but to see the poem receive a warm reception among the crowd.

Nadine Tahan, a Lebanese woman and a U3 Political Science student told The Daily at the event, “I appreciated how the audience was mostly women of colour. It felt good to be surrounded by others who share similar experiences as you.”

It is important to note that Kaur purposefully does not use capitalization in her poetry. She says it is a way of paying homage to the written version of her mother tongue, Gurmukho, which does not use capitalization. Developing these themes of homecoming and cultural struggle, she performed the spoken word piece “broken english.” The room growing quiet, and music, which accompanied all of her spoken word pieces, filled the empty spaces between audience members. The sound of bells cascaded through the crowd as Kaur spoke about the language and cultural barriers that first-generation immigrant mothers struggle with: “so how dare you mock your mother / when she opens her mouth and broken english spills out / her accent is thick like honey / hold it with your life / it’s the only thing she has left from home.”

Experiencing Kaur’s performance was cathartic for me because so often feminine expressions are silenced and women of colour are often robbed of opportunities to amplify their voices, and yet here was a young Punjabi woman with jet-black hair slicked into a braid reading promiscuous poetry to a crowd of 400.

Kaur demonstrated the role of poetry in engaging with the issues of female resilience and social transgression, and how crucial it is for these ideas to come from the mouth of a woman of colour.

Ayesha Talreja, a South Asian woman and U3 International Development Studies student, was impressed with Kaur’s performance, but had criticism to spare. “[Kaur’s art] made me think […] how [struggles of] people of colour […] within and outside our communities are often glossed over and subconsciously or consciously made to fit for wider mainstream acceptance. I began to think more about who is burdened with always having to talk about race, identity, femininity, and migration, and wondered why I expected this [discussion] from her. Just because she is a fellow woman of colour? Just because she is a fellow migrant?”

With her poetry and spoken word, Kaur advocates strongly for an open concept of femininity, reminding women to acknowledge the strength in themselves and each other, as she says in her book: “we all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are.” Kaur’s poetry night was all about encouraging women of colour to recognize their beauty against homogenized and whitewashed standards. Kaur demonstrated the role of poetry in engaging with the issues of female resilience and social transgression, and how crucial it is for these ideas to come from the mouth of a woman of colour. Her work is not a metaphorical representation of identity and struggle, but stems from her lived experiences. Kaur’s poetry and spoken word is proof of her survival.

The post Resilience, womanhood, and survival appeared first on The McGill Daily.