Translating this idea of “home” in French without losing the broader dimension of a warm, comforting place and not simply a “house” turned out to be more complicated than expected. “Home” has multiple meanings and qualities that are unique to each individual, making it a rich theme to explore for this special issue.

“Home,” far from just a physical place, can also be a community you join, a group of people with shared values, or even a hobby that makes you feel good. No matter what you consider “home” to be – tangible or not – it is a space of safety and comfort, where you can be yourself. At a broader scale, the society in which we live, no matter how flawed, is, in a way, our “home.”

In French, we made the decision to use the pronoun “nous” instead of “soi.” By rejecting this idea of individuality, we believe that a “home,” no matter how personal, is something that is shared. Throughout these 24 pages, we will question the significance of the word “home” and explore what it means to different people.

While everyone deserves a safe place to call home, we acknowledge that this is far from being the case. Around the world, 120 million people are forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict, violence, genocide, and climate disasters, among many other reasons. At the same time, anti-immigration sentiment is growing across North America. With the recent election of Donald Trump, many people who have called the US home for years now face a heightened threat of being deported to somewhere that may be completely unfamiliar. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently announced a cut to the number of immigrants entering the country. Quebec has also suspended two major pathways to permanent residence. These measures will prevent countless people from finding a home and pursuing a better life in Canada.

It is crucial to acknowledge that Canada, where many of us have found a home, is built on the genocide and displacement of Indigenous people by European colonizers and the Canadian state. McGill University is also complicit. Just last week, a group of Kanien’kehà:ka women gathered to plant a white pine, a symbol of peace for the Haudenosaunee peoples, on McGill’s lower field, which is located on unceded Kanien’kehà:ka land. The organizers wanted to share Kanien’kehà:ka teachings on peace with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples living on this land. The wooden plaque next to the sapling stated that “this tree of peace is a symbol of the solidarity of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples with the students of McGill and Concordia who established a peaceful encampment here in 2024 in the name of justice for Palestine and all the peoples of Mother Earth.” The next morning, McGill confirmed to the Daily that the university removed the sapling.

From Little Portugal, to Chinatown, to the Village, Montreal is a hub for diverse communities, diasporas, and subcultures. In these times, community is more important than ever. As students, getting involved in our community allows us to play a role in shaping our home into the world we want to live in. At the same time, we must show solidarity with people worldwide who are being denied their rights and fight for a better future for our fellow human beings and our planet. This is our “Chez nous,” our “Home,” and we won’t have another one.

The post What Home Means To Us appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Anti-Coloniale Student Convergence (CEAC) and Association générale des étudiantes et étudiants du Collège Lionel-Groulx (AGEECLG) planned a counter-summit protest at Place Emilie-Gamelin that Friday at 4:30 p.m., which would later merge with the larger demonstration at 5:30 p.m. on Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Urbain. These students took to the streets to oppose what they call NATO’s “destructive logic” and to reject its role in spreading “imperialism, militarism, and colonialism.”
“I want people to know that it’s not a war, it’s really genocide, and NATO are supporting this genocide,” a student from Collège Lionel-Groulx said.

NATO has long been referred to as “the West’s great military alliance.” Originally assembled in 1949, NATO formed to create a collective opposition to the USSR during the Cold War, leading to their assertion of military power in the pursuit of Soviet containment across the world. After the disassembly of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded its legions, inducting multiple post-Soviet states and European countries into the confederation. Today, NATO presents itself as a “defensive alliance,” as US President Biden stated in an address, that protects the interests of US hegemonic imperialism.

Despite its long-standing collective defence mission, NATO has faced increased scrutiny from public opinion in recent years. In the days approaching the conference, activists have demanded that Canada withdraw from the organization.

The Daily spoke with students from Collège Lionel-Groulx about their perspectives on NATO. Many believe that the organization is a military alliance funded by Western capitalists willing to do anything to expand the Western imperial agenda. Their perspectives echo some of the prominent public criticisms of NATO’s past operations, which have sparked significant debate over the alliance’s true motivations and its commitment to international law.

NATO’s previous foreign interventions have been referenced as examples to back the public’s opinions that the organization serves a Western imperialist agenda.

For example, NATO’s Operation Allied Force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 raised concerns over international humanitarian law: NATO conducted a bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, prompted by Yugoslavia’s bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in the Kosovo regions. To this day, there exists complex political tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.

In 2011, NATO established a No-Fly Zone over Libya, heeding the United Nations’ international call to protect the Libyan people from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Over the span of eight months, deploying 7,000 bombing sorties against Gaddafi’s forces, NATO’s military intervention in Libya concluded after the assassination of Gaddafi. However, the country spiralled into chaos and came under threat from violent extremists in the aftermath of the Muammar Gaddafi
regime’s ostracization.

Barack Obama has said that his “worst mistake” during his presidency was “failing to plan for the day after […] intervening in Libya.” Obama further conceded that NATO’s intervention “didn’t work.” White House spokesman at the time, Josh Earnest, said that Obama’s regrets extended to what “the United States and the rest of the members of our coalition didn’t do.”

The Libya intervention exemplifies NATO’s poorly conceived global security agenda. Framed as a mission to dismantle Gaddafi’s repressive regime, NATO failed to consider the critical need for a stable central government in a nation already grappling with chaos. The aftermath left Libya in deeper turmoil, prompting widespread skepticism about NATO’s true motivations, questioning the organization’s imperialist tendencies and Western-centric political agenda.

Most recently, under Joe Biden’s leadership this past July, NATO promised an additional 40 billion euros of military and financial support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian army, two years after Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, the year-long war in Gaza has been largely ignored by most NATO members.

Friday’s anti-NATO protest was conjoined with a pro-Palestine protest led by the Divest for Palestine Collective. The organization announced their message to “NATO and to governments complicit in the oppression of people around the world” in a press release on November 24 stating that “peace cannot be built through arms and repression. It is built through solidarity between peoples and resistance to oppression in all its forms.”

Student activists from Le Collège Lionel-Groulx, who wished to remain anonymous, voiced their opinions, calling out NATO’s failure to act in not supporting the people of Gaza. “It’s hypocrisy. Why would you say that you support human rights, but then when it’s also about other cultures, like from Arabic countries, why are you not showing up?” one of the students said.

“Right now, they’re meeting in Montreal because of global security and all, but they don’t care about the 43,000 people that are dead in Gaza.* I think it’s not logical that Israel is part of it and does things against the principles that they support,” another student told the Daily.

This past July, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez emphasized the need for NATO to adopt a consistent political stance, urging the alliance to avoid double standards in addressing global conflicts like those in Gaza and Ukraine. Speaking at the NATO Public Forum in Washington, D.C., Sanchez argued, “If we are telling our people that we are supporting Ukraine because we are defending international law, this is the same [as] what we have to do towards Gaza.”

The Daily also spoke with several students from the University of Montreal who echoed this sentiment, expressing their concerns over NATO’s inaction. “They’re walking on eggshells. They don’t want to go deep into the problem, and they only stay on the surface. Unfortunately, it’s not enough,” they said.
The Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) closely monitored the protest, deploying bicycles, mounted officers on horses, patrol cars, and vans to encircle the crowd completely.

“This is a significant step toward building a collective force for change and advancing decolonial education,” a speaker announced during the protest. “It’s thanks to all of you who voted ‘yes’ to the strike and to those who are here in the streets with us today. Together, as a community, we can work toward freeing Palestine. Remember, this is both a continuation of the struggles that came before us and the beginning of those yet to come.” With these words, the protesters began to move to the location of the general demonstration.

Later that evening, the protest escalated as the SPVM used chemical irritants and physical force, leading to at least four people being injured and sent to the hospital. One protester was clubbed over the head by an officer, and the SPVM assaulted first-aiders on the scene. Three protesters were arrested by the SPVM for “impeding police work.” Since these events, politicians across the country, including Defence Minister Bill Blair and Quebec Premier François Legault, have claimed that the protest was explicitly antisemitic, unlawful, and violent. The Divest for Palestine Collective refuted their statements, saying that “these are false accusations aimed at delegitimizing the solidarity movement for the liberation of Palestine and undermining the fight against anti-Semitism.”

* The death toll in Gaza is over 44,000 today.

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Almost everyone has experienced what it is like to miss the place from which we came. To miss the feeling of a sibling’s embrace, the smell of your mother’s freshly baked cookies, or the sound of your dog pawing up the stairs. The warmth and familiarities of our childhood home, the people in it, and the place in which it resides serves as a guidepost from which we base so many memories of growth, childhood, and friendship off. Thus, it comes as no surprise that students living abroad will feel the ache of missing family and friends, and the so-called ‘simpler times’ – especially as the days get shorter and the work piles up.

Coping with homesickness is troublesome enough. Recently, however, it has grown in tandem with our reliance on technology. Through this entanglement with the digital world, we experience the paradoxical nature of being more connected than ever, yet at times, still feel disconnection and loneliness.

With the presence of cellphones in our daily lives, you can call home, FaceTime a friend, scroll through social media to see what people you knew in high school are up to – all within a Metro ride home from campus. Connection is immediate. At the touch of our fingertips, we can be transported. However, this instantaneous quality of technology also leads us to spend a disproportionate amount of time indulging in images on a screen, reminiscing about the past, and places we cannot physically return to at the moment. Tethering to the past restricts our ability to live in the present and furthers the loop of nostalgia that so often ensnares those who experience homesickness. But is this use of technology all bad? To what extent does it help or hinder the feeling of missing home?

Through one lens, the ability to use technology as a vessel to stay connected to home is a gift. I can’t count the number of times a random call to my sister made my day. A steady reassurance comes from the fact that no matter how far away in distance you might be, home is just one phone call away. We are also able to sustain memories and revisit moments through our camera rolls, or even indirectly check in on old friends from high school through their social media. Sometimes, that’s enough to feel close again, to feel home again, even if it’s for a fleeting moment.

However, like many things, this convenient comfort has its downsides. There is a dark side to this digital connection due to its ability to induce FOMO and create stagnation in our lives. While getting glimpses of home and reaching out to loved ones online is lovely, we might start to find ourselves becoming overconsumed by our need to feel connected. This overconsumption can prevent us from engaging in relationships and experiences the world around us has to offer. We may avoid new face-to-face interactions in favour of old ones, restrain from deepening our friendships, trying out new experiences, so much so that we miss the many opportunities in front of us. All of which further get us stuck in a loop where our coping strategy of dealing with one form of loneliness has created another. In short, the more we look back, the more we get lost.

Ultimately, in spite of the adverse implications, technology serves as a useful tool to navigate feelings of homesickness if used in a balanced and healthy manner. Rather than using homesickness as an excuse to withdraw and focus on the past, it can be used as motivation to accept and take on our future. The void we feel when we miss home can be the fuel that drives us to make new friends, establish new routines, and create new memories. These actions are not about replacing the old life with a new one; they are about growing to create your own sense of belonging and security wherever you go. Reframing our perspective to view the grief of letting go as an inherent part of growth can further aid us in this journey. The experience of homesickness, after all, is rooted in love. When we let go of things we love, grief inevitably follows. This is a simple truth: love and grief are two sides of the same coin. To be able to know the warmth of your grandmother’s hug, you must know the absence of her arms. To be able to know the sanctuary of your childhood bedroom, you must experience what it is like to be miles from it. Instead of letting ourselves sit in this longing, we can consider it a privilege; a privilege to have such fond memories, relationships, and places to cherish.

No matter the physical distance that may separate you from your home, the people and places you love will always be with you in some form. Experiencing homesickness is not a sign to cling to the past but to move forward with the understanding that your memories are always yours to hold. You can move through your world with the motivation to create new people and places to love whilst treasuring the old ones, knowing that nothing is ever really gone.

The post Reframing Homesickness appeared first on The McGill Daily.

At my ripe age of twenty, I still do not know where home truly is. I share my cultural baggage between a French mother and an English father. If you see my history, however, the data will start in the United States of America, lead you to Hungary, give you a brief few months in Paris, and finally eight years in Belgium. As a result, I am a French person who is not French and an English person who is not English. I am somebody who lived in Belgium but is not Belgian.

To the francophones, I am an anglophone. To the anglophones, I am a francophone. To my French family, I am English. To my English family, I am French. To some, I am even Belgian—though to the Belgians, I am a foreigner. On top of everything, I have more of an American accent than an English one. To me, I am lost. I am an impure product of my nations, the holy bastard of the Hundred Years’ War.

Yet, in Montreal I make sense. Despite not being Québécoise, I am a logical cog in this city’s intercultural machine. Montreal sits between the U.S. and anglophone Canada, while also having strong historical and linguistic roots to France. This results in an incredible blend of French and English actively fusing together to create Québécois French. The Montrealers switch from English to French with the same ease as putting one foot in front of the other. They dazzle you with the Bonjour, Hi greeting and own whatever English words they use as a natural extension of their French. For instance: “Es-tu down pour chiller?” meaning “Are you down to chill?”, or “Ça fait la job” meaning “It does the job.”

I indulge in this linguistic cocktail myself, having grown up in a dual-language household of French and English. My French teachers back in Belgium or my family back in France would penalize this expression as “des anglicismes” or “du franglais.” I have seen those words marked in red and underlined three times on my written papers countless times. However, this so-called “improper” French is very proper in Montreal.

I find myself right at home naturally switching from one language to the other. Starting a sentence in English and finishing my thought in French. Throwing in a random word from the other language, because I feel it is more fitting. All the while being understood and, instead of being looked down upon, being responded to in the same fashion. Over the summer, my childhood best friend, after witnessing this linguistic ballet, declared Montreal to be the most perfect city for me. She could not have been more right.

Montreal’s heterogeneous landscape does not stop there. When looking at the city through a magnifying glass, the influence of immigrant communities in building the foundation of Montreal is striking; Little Italy, Little Portugal, Little Maghreb, Little Latin America, Mile End Chavurah. These neighborhoods alone place Montreal within a dialogue of diverse cultural experiences, identities, religions, and languages. My own experience living for a year in Little Portugal has only highlighted this further. The Portuguese population was present not only through local businesses, such as bakeries and rotisseries, but also in church-centered festivities.

My old apartment was right by the Portuguese Mission Santa Cruz Catholic Church on rue Rachel. Throughout the summer, this church hosted a myriad of very popular festivals—as I would walk by, I would hear Portuguese everywhere in the air. Portuguese spoken between families and friends. Portuguese sung on stage by performers or projected through speakers. There was also a day when a Portuguese Catholic procession walked down rue Saint-Urbain. All these events showed me how such a public expression of Portuguese religious-cultural identity is not just confined to a church parking lot, but quite literally runs through the streets. A neighborhood bonus is that even the local Desjardins is called Caixa Portuguesa, with all the employees speaking Portuguese. Indeed, I was able to see how the Portuguese identity and language is entrenched in Montreal, proving how well immigrant communities have made themselves at home in this city.

My sister’s husband is Colombian, and the rest of his family continue to live in Montreal. Connecting with them has allowed me to gain insights into the well-established Latino community of Montreal, which I mainly have access to through food. I am amazed by how accessible Colombian food is for my family, despite living miles away from their homeland. For instance, they can buy frozen packages of pre-chopped and assembled ingredients for traditional Colombian soups, such as the Sancocho soup and the Ajiaco soup. They can also find fresh Colombian tamales, buñuelos, and pan de yuca. South American grocery stories, such as the Sabor Latino, Marché Andes, and Marché des Amériques, are central hubs for this preservation and expression of Latino tradition in Montreal. They allow immigrant families to stay connected with their culture and community through food, instead of losing touch and diluting into a homogeneous Montreal identity.

Montreal is a city that has so much to offer to third culture kids like me. It is built on a constant dialogue between different languages and cultures sharing the same space. This gives me the feeling that in Montreal’s great puzzle of identities, there is a place for everyone to fit in. It is a city where you are bound to find people who share your background or your journey, people who may come from the same places, share the same language, or have the same third culture experience. You may not be from Montreal, but Montreal is made for you.

The post Montreal Is Made For You appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On November 8, McGill’s Palestinian Cultural Club (PCC) hosted their very first Palestinian Film Festival, If I Must Die, at the Leacock building. Hanging proudly and boldly, the radiant colours of Palestinian flags could be spotted from a mile away, as well as the attendees donning their kufiyahs.
“We gather to honour the resilience and resistance expressed through art, film, and culture,” said a member of the PCC during the festival’s inaugural speech. “We deeply believe that cinema and storytelling are forms of resistance. In these films, you will see glimpses of lives shaped by displacement, resistance, longing, resilience, and hope.”

On the first floor, the delicious aroma of msakhan rolls, zaatar manakish, and popcorn would give you a warm welcome as you made your way into the lobby. There were two tables with big trays of food being served. Smiling volunteers would greet you, offering to make you a plate of msakhan and stuffed vine leaves. They would point you to the popcorn station if you wished for a quick snack, or the table if you cared more for a sweet treat.

Walking around the area, you would come across vendors selling colorful kufiyahs, Palestinian-inspired apparel, and traditional Palestinian clothing, from thobes to kombaz (embroidered robes). The renowned auntie everyone calls Um Falasteen was also selling a variety of trinkets, from key chains to embroidered pouches, greeting everyone with her radiant smile.

“Give me your number,” Um Falasteen said, “and I will invite you over for dinner. In the mahjar (place of emigration), we must all stick together.”

Taking the stairs to the second floor, you would come across an art exposition titled “Gaza Remains the Story,” curated by the Palestinian Museum in Ramallah, hosted by the PCC. The exposition was one of the many ways the festival shed light on Palestinian culture, from detailing important events of Palestine’s history, to graphic photographs of their struggles, to beautiful art pieces by and of Palestinian people.

“We are proud to partner with the Palestinian Museum in Ramallah and the university of Pierre Zayed,” said a PCC representative. “This exposition brought us closer to Palestine and to the people of Palestine, especially the people of Gaza. It is our way to make them feel better to know that we are here, to make their voices heard.”

The Montreal Palestinian Film Festival was a long time coming, and so was the Palestinian Cultural Club. “Prior to last year, Palestinian students did not have a cultural club that was representing them on campus,” a VP from the PCC noted. “This, unfortunately, precluded our team from hosting events due to a lack of resources. However, following the tragic genocide that Palestine has been enduring for over a year now, we felt prompted, more than ever before, to showcase Palestine and make our voices heard. This drove us to ensure that the film festival was arranged with utmost intricacy and determination in the hope of delivering worthwhile messages.”

At around 7:00 p.m., everyone gathered to enter Leacock’s Great Hall, where the films would be screened. Almost every single seat in the auditorium was occupied.

“We were thrilled to have an incredible turnout of over 200 attendees, including students, families, members of Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec (CPFQ) sponsors, and small business owners.”

From the podium hung two Palestinian flags and one Lebanese flag. Attendees all rose for the Palestinian and Lebanese national anthems. “We will also rise for the Lebanese national anthem to honour our fallen Lebanese brothers and sisters,” said one of the presenters. “Our cause is one, our people are one, our enemy is the same.”

The anthems were followed by a land acknowledgement, and a speech given in Arabic, English, and French.

“This festival is the very least that we can do here in Montreal,” said the PCC representative. “Through these films, we pay tribute to the people of Gaza who have been sacrificing their lives for freedom and justice. ”

A series of short films were shown: three shorts directed by Omar Rammal; the animated Checkpoint (2021), directed by Jana Kattan; and Palestine 4K (2023), directed by Muhamad Abu Chakra.
Checkpoint showcased the struggle a Palestinian girl, Layla, faces every day when trying to go to school. Kattan’s inspiration came from her own trip to the West Bank in 2019, which made her realize how much we take freedom of movement for granted. She put great emphasis on the Jaffa orange as a symbol of resilience and steadfastness.

A musical rendition of Refaat Alareer’s poem, “If I Must Die,” was performed by a Palestinian singer and songwriter. A short intermission preceded the longest film of the night, a documentary titled Where Olive Trees Weep (2024), directed by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo.

“The response for the first edition of our festival was truly overwhelming and exceeded our and others’ expectations,” said PCC’s VP Academics. “We were able to gather funds for Palestine while also educating and harbouring a Palestinian environment for our attendees. Everyone seemed to be touched by the sequential display of short films, and one long film. The feedback we received was equally inspiring, as many expressed their appreciation for the carefully selected films that seemed to spark meaningful conversations and bonding.”

On November 17, the PCC hosted a Q&A with Ashira Darwish, a producer on Where Olive Trees Weep. The Q&A session was an intimate and engaging space where attendees asked questions not only about her work on the film, but also about her personal journey, motivations, and informative perspectives.

“One of the most memorable highlights of the evening was when the team had the opportunity to meet and speak with Ashira Darwish before the Q&A session began, creating a personal and meaningful connection,” said PCC’s VP Academic. “Additionally, Ashira’s powerful closing remarks left a lasting impression on everyone in attendance. She emphasized the importance of self-reliance, urging Palestinians to focus on developing their own skills and preparing future generations to build a stronger, independent foundation, rather than relying on external assistance. This message resonated deeply and gave attendees a profound takeaway to reflect on.”

Starting this year, the Palestinian Cultural Club will be hosting an annual film festival. The cultural club will also be offering Dabke dance classes in collaboration with SSMU, and will be partnering with Concordia’s Palestinian Cultural Club to establish a Palestinian library with books written by Palestinian authors or relating to stories of Palestine.

To get more involved or to keep up with upcoming events, visit the PCC’s Instagram and Linktree at @pcc_mcgill and www.linktr.ee/PCCMcGill.

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In an attempt to regulate immigration, the provincial government is restricting the number of Quebec Selection Certificates (CSQs) awarded to immigrants, an essential document for achieving permanent resident status. This will effectively freeze immigration pathways through the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) graduate stream and the Regular Skilled Workers Program (RSWP), targeting foreign students and workers attempting to attain permanent residency in Canada.

Since the program’s introduction in 2010, the PEQ has been indispensable in facilitating the path to permanent residency for international students in Quebec. Established to make it easier for employers to hire qualified graduates already familiar with the province, the program primarily serves graduate students who have studied in Quebec for at least two years. But in recent reforms, international students — specifically anglophones — are finding it increasingly difficult to find a permanent home in Quebec. New requirements include advanced French proficiency

for primary applicants and application caps from specific countries, making the program much more selective. With this suspension in place, the number of students obtaining permanent residency in Quebec is projected to drop from 19,000 to 15,000 in 2025.

The RSWP, set to transition to the Skilled Worker Selection Program at the end of the month, has allowed immigrants to reside permanently in Quebec, given a declaration of interest in immigrating to the province for work. Foreign workers and students have been targeted with harsh rhetoric and animosity in the face of Canada’s housing crisis and are now faced with the possibility of losing both their jobs and their homes.

Immigration Minister Jean- Francois Roberge claims that pausing both programs will allow Quebec to gain more control over immigration and further limit the number of admissions of immigrants under permanent programs. This comes after years of claims that immigrants settling in the province has been detrimental to Quebec’s language and culture. The projected rate of immigration for 2025 is actually much higher than the projections of previous years – but now with the goal of admitting upwards of 80% francophone immigrants.

The province claims to be committed to a “balanced, diverse immigration strategy,” but many believe the suspension of the PEQ and the RSWP is in stark contrast to this. The new immigration plan has caused uproar from opposing parties; the Legault government has been slammed by leaders of the Parti Quebecois and the Quebec Liberal Party, both of whom have criticized the policy as an inadequate solution to the province’s immigration issues.

Migrants already living and working or studying in Quebec have been protesting across the province, saying that the new policies are detrimental. For many, their short-term status is precarious, and this suspension threatens their safety. Workers or students seeking asylum in Montreal have banded together with support from the Immigrant Workers Centre and Migrante Quebec, among other organizations, to protest the suspension and advocate for respect and acceptance from the community. International students have rallied across the city, pressuring the Ministry of Immigration to re-evaluate the suspension. Foreign workers continue to make their voices known by calling for recognition by the government and planning strikes to prove their indispensable roles within the economy and the community.

Canada continues to limit immigration pathways for those seeking asylum in permanent status. The Quebec government’s immigration policy will further complicate the lives of international students and foreign workers throughout the province who want Quebec to become their forever home.

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Directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli after the success of Miyazaki’s 1984 sophomore film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Several salient stylistic choices and themes employed throughout the studio’s future works were introduced in Nausicaä. Core ideas include independent female protagonists, a fantastical aesthetic, and humanity’s relationship with nature. The clash between humanity’s technological progression and nature’s primordial influence, has been one of Miyazaki’s favourite ways to examine the idea of home. This conflict is explored heavily in both Nausicaä and Miyazaki’s 1997 environmentalist fantasy epic, Princess Mononoke, where humans must reconcile the natural home they have with the tech-forward home they want to build. In both films, industrial progression results in a resource-hungry conquest at the natural world’s expense. It could be said that the environment is the home we are provided, and industry is the ideal home we seek to construct.

Ghibli often frames humanity’s clash with the environment through its portrayals of war. Princess Mononoke, Nausicaä, and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) are all defined by war’s inescapable nature. An unfortunate side effect of war is the destruction of homes — an idea encapsulated best by Isao Takahata’s tragic Grave of the Fireflies (1988). In this film, the young siblings Seita and Setsuko see war eviscerate their home in every imaginable capacity. Their house, hometown, and family are burned asunder by the wrath of America’s WWII firebombing campaign. The older brother Seita must build a new home for himself and his younger sister. Faced with hostility and misfortune at every turn, he tries to scrape together enough to provide for her. But war is merciless, and the young family of two can barely find enough food to survive. Seita’s home, once broad and multifaceted, has been concentrated into a burning desire to preserve his sister’s life. Grave of the Fireflies scrutinizes how we as a society doom the innocent through war, which in its essence, is nothing more than the brutal destruction of countless homes.

Grave of the Fireflies premiered alongside Miyazaki’s whimsical My Neighbour Totoro (1988) in an infamously conflicting double feature. Like Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro explores how definitions of home can quickly change. This film follows young sisters Satsuki and Mei after they move to a country house near the hospital where their mother is undergoing treatment. Their mother’s removal from the household, combined with a complete change of scenery, forces the girls to redefine their concept of home. This process is portrayed through a fantastical exploration of nature and imagination. The rustling of trees in the wind, a verdant tunnel through the bushes, and magical soot sprites in the attic help the girls transform their environment into a new home. This culminates in the introduction of the eponymous Totoro, a jolly spirit of the forest who shows the girls mysterious, supernatural wonders in the nature surrounding them. Whether a real or imaginary friend, Totoro’s presence represents a childlike wonder that can turn any foreign place into a home.

Explorations of home are omnipresent in Ghibli’s oeuvre, from Chihiro’s odyssey to the real world in Spirited Away (2001) to young witch Kiki’s search for meaning in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). But this examination would be incomplete without Miyazaki’s latest (and possibly final) work, released just last year: The Boy and the Heron (2023). This film is perhaps Miyazaki and Ghibli’s most ambitious project yet, prodding at life’s purpose, from birth to death to whatever lies beyond. In fact, the original Japanese title How Do You Live? may be a more apt signifier of what lies at the core of this film. This psychedelic jumble of fantastical whimsy and human pain encompasses every theme discussed so far. The Boy and the Heron knows war. It knows grief. It knows wonder, family, love, and deep within its core, it knows home.

Buried within its boundless oceans, its blazes of war, and its effervescent spirits is a boy who wants to know what “home” is for himself. After losing his mother in a fire, Mahito moves with his father to the country and follows a heron to an alternate world. There he meets an old wizard, the world’s proprietor and eternal denizen, who has built this world as a home for himself. He tasks Mahito with continuing its maintenance, as his lifetime will soon end. It is ultimately up to Mahito to decide if this world can be his home. I see this as Ghibli’s way of answering a question with another question, appropriately idiosyncratic for Miyazaki’s potential swan song. How does an artist appeal to an audience’s infinitely variable sense of home? According to the mind of Miyazaki, simply ask them to figure it out for themselves.

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Under the administration of Francois Legault and the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), the provincial parliament passed Bill 96 in June 2022. The bill is meant to solidify Francophone and French language rights province-wide. It has received heavy criticism following its release due to its treatment of business regulation in French, the freeze on English CEGEP students, and the six month window for immigrants to learn the French language.

Although this bill has been in effect for an extended period, this is one of the PLQ’s first clear proposals to combat it. They seek to implement a Quebec constitution that protects English language rights across the province and fights back against certain Bill 96 restrictions. This was seen as progress for the many families and lives affected by this change in the language laws. Following Bill 96’s enactment, anglophone citizens across Quebec have been concerned about how they might fit into a province that does not want them to speak their first language.

Many English-speaking immigrants find the transition between beginner’s French and French fluency difficult, especially within six months. Between 2022 and 2023, the province saw an increase of 52,800 immigrants, all of whom would be required to obtain an intermediate level of French, potentially coming with no experience in the language. Furthermore, the freeze on English CEGEP programs puts Anglophone middle and high schoolers in situations where they cannot begin their education with the CEGEP program due to their lack of fluency in French.

Many businesses have also been concerned about closure since they cannot keep up with the French advertising and sign laws. Places such as music stores across Quebec have struggled to find French branding for their instruments, which could result in heavy fines for businesses.

Many members of the PLQ were unhappy with the bill’s passing. Deepak Awasti, who is currently running to be the head of the PLQ in the upcoming election, criticized Bill 96, stating, “We seem to be going back to the old founding nations thesis. In this document, we are talking about the aspirations of the French nation vis-à-vis Canada. We are not talking about the aspirations of all Quebecers. […] I don’t want Quebec to be ethnicized. I don’t want Quebec to become the petit-Québec.”

People across the province are concerned about the passing of this bill, and the PLQ have had to hastily construct a response to it. Current PLQ members, including André Pratt and William Tetley, proposed and passed a motion to create a clearly outlined Quebec constitution. This proposed constitution would strengthen Anglophone rights by restoring certain restrictions put in place by Bill 96, such as access to healthcare in English or the previously mentioned English student CEGEP freeze across the province.

Amidst all this action, the PLQ is in the process of electing its new leader while discussing how to combat these laws and strengthen Francophone and Anglophone relations. The province is not due for another election until October 2026, and it is unlikely that the current CAQ will call for one. In light of the upcoming federal election in October 2025, we are seeing an increased effort by the PLQ to distance themselves from the currently unfavoured federal Liberal Party, which across Canada has not been viewed well due to their handling of the housing crisis and large country deficit – a price deficit that is also present in Quebec at currently around $11 billion. Pablo Rodriguez, a former Federal Liberal member of parliament who stepped down to run for the leader of the PLQ, gained strides in support during the debate in Lévis, with people chanting his name as he arrived outside. Rodriguez has also faced criticism from other party members, who say they do not want any Federal Liberals to have significant power in the PLQ due to Canada’s current national debt.

Many people across Quebec feel uncertain about how Anglophone rights will change with Bill 96. The Daily had the chance to interview an international student at McGill, who said that “the amount of French language laws and regulations was previously a deterrent on coming to Quebec for me. If, further down the line, even more language requirements came into effect, it would’ve affected my decision to even come here at all.” To many people, Quebec is their home and one they want to keep for the future. If this constitution is passed, it could make strides for Anglophone rights across the province, uniting people who both want to see the French language stay alive and those who want to come here not knowing but wanting to learn the language and make Quebec their home. The basis of this constitution is not to diminish Francophone rights across the province but instead to find harmony between the English and French languages and determine their use in everyday situations. A province does not have to exist in the context of one language or another, and this constitution would fight to make it so that both Anglophones and Francophones feel at home
in Quebec.

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Three weeks ago, I was on a call with my cousin in the metro, imagining all the places we would travel to as a reward after graduating. While we are both Cantonese, only she had ever traveled to Hong Kong, reacting to my desire to visit as a “return to the motherland.” I entertained her joke, agreeing with the notion that it was my duty to visit the motherland once and for all. After arriving home, and considering what the term entailed, a knotted feeling soon bubbled from within. I pictured the bustling streets of Hong Kong, but not myself in them. It was more than a disconnect, but an inherently alien feeling of non-belonging.

At the age of 19, my father traveled to Hong Kong for the first time since moving to Canada when he was five. Throughout his trip, he immersed himself in the culture of his true motherland, something I fear I will never be able to do. My identity is not rooted among the Cantonese people. While I weakly participate in cultural engagements of Chinese New Year or Sunday dim sum brunches, the only semblance I have of these ethnic origins is in my appearance. When I watch Wong Kar Wai’s films, or others that capture the sentiment of Hong Kong at the turn of the millennium, I wish for something that I have never had: a true motherland, or a nation I can refer to as my home.

Identity, though, is construed in a web of entanglements. It exists externally and internally to us. While I spent much of my childhood and adolescence with my grandmother in Türkiye, despite speaking the language and engaging in the culture, my identity was always assumed; I was foreign — something they approached gingerly. However, they, of course, respected my effort of trying to assimilate. What I believed to be my motherland refused to welcome me. I wanted to identify with the Turkish people, but instead of being offered their warm embrace, I was shunned and forced to face a cold shoulder. Individuals spend their whole lives fighting for their belonging to a nation, but there I was floating in the abyss.

If our identities emerge at different levels, I would say the first is a belief that we exist in the world we live in. Our second-order identity would be belonging to a group, whether that is to one’s family, among a class, or linked to culture. After several failed attempts of trying to find that stereotypical “place I belong to,” I resorted to the belief that our identities are not chained to a nation, but are rather determined by the people you spend your time with.

Yet, the status of our identities is never that simple.

I look at the state of the world right now, and ask what am I missing? Palestinians are punished for wanting to retain the autonomy of their people and the land that has been violently taken away from them. Ukrainians seek to fend off Russian forces who want to seize the territory for themselves. Stateless ethnic groups, like the Kurdish, are repressed by regional governments amid their efforts for nationhood. There is constant opposition in framing one’s homeland against another, as a result of greed and power. For this, I believe, the homeland, or motherland, is critical to our existence in society.
Where has my motherland gone? Has it slipped through my fingers, or am I unconsciously averse to such containment? Growing up in the United States has further deteriorated my ethnic identity. No matter how white-washed I get, I will never be accepted by the masses. I have learned to bite my tongue and keep such apprehensions at bay. But as I watched Wong Kar Wai’s film reel echo in my living room with my father beside me, intently staring at the scenes of empty Hong Kong streets, a strange serenity entered my subconscious.

Perhaps our motherlands exist in a particular time and space. As we grow up, we are preprogrammed to reminisce on the memories we still remember of our quickly fading youths. But the world around us is constantly changing against our bitter wills. We almost beg for time to remain frozen. Rather than claiming my motherland is in Hong Kong itself, I have become attached to the media produced in the short period of Hong Kong’s handover to China. Wong Kar Wai and his contemporaries were able to portray the sentiment from that decade: a celebration of Cantonese culture and community, filled with unsettling dread from a population painfully aware of its imminent erasure.

Everyone has a motherland. Whether that exists in the land itself, or through a reproduction of that land in a particular era, these spaces are sanctuaries for our most primal sensations of belonging. We move through the world and operate under the assumption that the most fundamental aspects of our beings are contained to that land. Contemporary battles for the retention of this “motherland” are evident of its enduring power.

At long last, I have found my motherland. Maybe that motherland has found me, too.

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Protecting the Earth from asteroids? Modelling how light behaves around a black hole? From November 15 to 17, the ninth edition of the McGill Physics Hackathon saw hundreds of young STEM enthusiasts congregate at McGill’s downtown campus, from high schoolers to graduate students. Their common goal? “Hacking” their personal projects in physics and adjacent subjects and sharing them with their peers in the STEM student community.

Over a period of 24 hours spaced across three days, teams of two to five students worked tirelessly to bring their visions to fruition. Luca and Jeremy counted as two of four CEGEP participants from John Abbott College working on coding a soccer shooting game. Their team’s goal was an intriguing twist on a classic game: kicking a soccer ball into a net, given that the ball’s flight is realistically influenced by drag.

“We’re trying to incorporate air resistance and other physical parameters into our project,” Luca explained to the Daily. “We’re using vectors to model the movement of objects through air.”

Roadblocks for their project were numerous, noted Jeremy, although he observed that overcoming such obstacles is what makes coding so satisfying. “There’s been quite a few moments where we’ve thought to ourselves: ‘I hate coding,’ only for everything to work out in the end.”

An open mind is one of the qualities that Dr. Kim Metera, one of the Hackathon organizers and undergraduate advisor for physics students at McGill, hopes to instill in participants. “People will have created something and taught themselves something, regardless of whether they’ve finished their project or not,” she observed. “The Hackathon is a chance to create something new, to hang out and collaborate with friends.”

Jointly organized by the McGill Department of Physics and the Trottier Space Institute (TSI), the McGill Physics Hackathon began in the mid-2010s and happens annually in November. For most of its history, the event only spanned a single day, and participant numbers figured below the 100 mark. This year’s Hackathon was special in two ways. First, a drastic increase in sponsorships allowed Hackathon organizers to host participants for a full weekend. Second, this year’s participant numbers broke a new in-person record at over 170 total participants.

To see this year’s Hackathon kick off on such a spectacular high note was a highlight for Catherine Boisvert, lead organizer and PhD candidate in the Department of Physics.

“During the opening ceremony, when we were onstage in the [Trottier] auditorium looking at all the participants and the sponsors,” she described, “I was listening to all the speakers and thought to myself: ‘Wow, this is happening. It all came together.’”

Hacking and Learning

For Luca, the Hackathon’s 24-hour deadline was a necessary creative constraint to push participants out of their comfort zones and experiment more. “It’s a really great learning environment to develop programming skills,” he said, “having that sort of stimulus to learn and grow and start coding. [The time limit] gives you an incentive.”

During the Hackathon, students could consult mentors whenever they encountered roadblocks in their code. Consisting of graduate students and other specialist volunteers, mentors played a central role in the problem-solving process. Their presence ensured that despite the time limit of 24 hours, participants would receive the necessary support to complete their projects. Hannah Fronenberg, PhD candidate and mentor, described the mentoring process as highly “dynamic.”

“You mostly just get here, start going around and meet teams — you either help them get started with their projects or help them overcome hurdles. These might be physics conceptual challenges or computational problems.” She noted that one might be “helping out with a relativity problem” before transitioning in quick succession to “debugging,” then “helping in fleshing out an algorithm.”

Sometimes, it is less a matter of teaching new knowledge and more of guiding someone toward understanding they already possess the sufficient know-how. “A lot of people have knowledge they aren’t aware they have,” recounted Dr. Stephan O’Brien, organizer and TSI Computing Fellow. “There was a group who was working on Javascript and Python who suddenly realized how to put their problem together. It’s the “eureka” moment, when it all clicks — that’s the really satisfying part.”

Hackathons provide an educational setting that fills in the many gaps that are frequently overlooked in traditional classroom settings. A 2024 literature review found that hackathons are effective at “enhancing collaboration and teamwork, providing hands-on learning experiences for workplace skills, facilitating skill transferability across sectors, and promoting student motivation and engagement.” Flexibility, awareness of one’s strengths and shortcomings, and an ability to collaborate on hands-on projects are skills that are useful in any career path, regardless of one’s field of study.

Understanding one’s intellectual shortcomings is also an integral part of the scientific process, Dr. Metera pointed out. “Research is about making mistakes. You try something, you make a mistake, you stumble and try something new, then you’ll make a new mistake! Everyone — even the most seasoned researchers — makes mistakes. You should collaborate; don’t do it by yourself.” She recalled an anecdote to illustrate her point: “There was a professor in a university in Germany who once said that “we’re here to learn, not to know.” Because no one truly knows what they’re doing!”

Forging Communities In Physics

Beyond the tinkering and the problem-solving, the Hackathon allowed participants to mingle with fellow STEM enthusiasts. Such events are crucial to fostering community among youth interested in physics and other areas of STEM and connecting them with the wider academic and industrial world.

The Hackathon aimed to prove that physics is not just a science. It is also a way of connecting and uniting people with shared passions. For Dr. O’Brien, physics was a method of self-expression in his youth. “I’m dyslexic, so I struggled a lot with languages,” he recalled. “In primary school, I gravitated toward math since math was a language that I could understand well. My disability makes math and the natural sciences more intuitive for me, and it’s what drew me toward those fields.” 

Boisvert commented that she was “a bit of a late bloomer — I’m not the stereotypical kid who looked at the stars when they were ten.” She mentioned that her interest in science outreach began in her teenage years: “My high school was very much into STEM but didn’t necessarily highlight pursuing physics as a career, so I wanted people to get interested in physics.”

One of Boisvert’s driving goals is to bridge the gender gap in physics. “We have a lower percentage of women in physics, and in particular in condensed matter, which is the field I work in. So it’s important for me to promote physics, especially to women and minorities who are interested in studying the subject.”

Community, in particular the connection between older and younger generations, is a core element of the Hackathon. PhD student Regan Ross noted that “we also have a good department in terms of volunteers,” adding that one of his most “rewarding experiences is seeing people who come back.” Many past participants have returned to serve as either volunteers or mentors and help future generations of students experience the magic of the Hackathon.

Boisvert also took the time to extend her gratitude to the Hackathon’s volunteers: “We had an amazing team of volunteers and mentors and judges — sponsors, students, who have gone to the Hackathon before and who are working in their free time to make this happen. Volunteers who set up the venue, mentors who help with the physics and the coding. If there’s one thing to highlight, it’s that we couldn’t do anything on this scale without our volunteers.”

Inspiration Runs Both Ways

For Ross, seeing the passion of participants toiling away at a problem was the most inspiring aspect of the Hackathon. “If you walk into any of those rooms now,” he remarked while pointing at a series of doors, “you’ll see people working hard. It’s some otherworldly kind of dedication to come here during the weekend.”

When asked what he would say to youth who want to get into physics or other areas of STEM but aren’t sure they’re up to the challenge, Ross advised that “it’s hard to be good at anything. There are some basic skills needed in STEM,” he continued, “but it isn’t necessarily more challenging than other fields like the arts. For instance, I can write, but I’m not the best writer. If you’re interested in tinkering — taking things apart, putting them back together — then you’re already halfway there.”

Boisvert corroborated Ross’s sentiment, emphasizing the importance of contacting people in the fields you want to pursue. “If you’re interested, ask your teachers [or] your friends if they know someone in that area. People in science love to talk about their work. Don’t be afraid to reach out!”

Working at one’s own pace, rather than trying to emulate others, was an element which both Fronenberg and Dr. O’Brien underlined. Neither could have seen themselves doing a Hackathon during their high school or undergraduate years. Fronenberg, who now works on computational problems in cosmology, noted that she struggled in math during her childhood. “I only really got interested in science in high school,” she said, “once I built more confidence and did a lot of bridging [in mathematics] to get caught up. Which is one of the problems a lot of people face: if you’re bad at math, you’re drawn away from a lot of STEM fields like physics and engineering.” She went on to remark, “I really only started serious coding in grad school. I couldn’t imagine myself doing any of this in high school.”

Sergei Shilin, Hackathon mentor and co-founder of Blymp, highlighted passion as the primary key to success: “Follow your passions, the interests that will elevate you to the heights that it won’t bring anyone else. If there are two people in the same field … the person who has more passion will be the one who’s ahead in ten years’ time.”

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Inuktitut is Inuk artist, Elisapie Isaac’s Juno Award winning fourth studio album. A cover album featuring 10 songs, Inuktitut is composed of classics like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” and even “The Unforgiven” by Metallica. Unlike some cover albums which hardly differ from the original, Elisapie adapts the structure of the songs to the language in which she sings them: Inuktitut. She slows down the tempo and simplifies the instrumentals, blending traditional Inuit techniques, such as throat singing and rhythmic drumming, with Western instruments, such as guitars, pianos, and synths. All these elements come together with her soft, crooning voice to stir up a sense of vastness, comfort, and hope. This album depicts the Arctic landscape Elisapie grew up in, purified to its essence and put into song. 

These songs – classic rock for the most part – evoke a sense of nostalgia for the 60s, 70s, and 80s. For Inuit communities, this was a time of radical political and cultural shifts. The songs included on Inuktitut are largely representative of the mainstream pop culture of this era, particularly in urban spaces. But, up in the little village of Salluit, Nunavik, they were played and enjoyed with just as much frequency and appetite as down south. Elisapie recalled in an interview with CultMTL, that her uncle, George Kakayuk, founder of the popular 80s Inuit rock band Sugluk, would often sing covers of pop music at home.“‘I grew up listening to music like “Four Strong Winds” and Charlie Adams doing “Blowing in the Wind,” thinking they were Inuktitut songs,’” she explained. To Elisapie, translated covers of pop songs were not something new, but were instead a natural progression of experiencing and sharing music. 

Inuktitut arose from Elisapie’s need for release – a release for emotions bottled up since childhood. An age defined by personal tragedy and the intergenerational effects of colonial trauma, but also by pure and boundless joy. The emotions and tears she associated with hearing these songs were what guided Elisapie as she chose the songs she wanted to cover. Pearl Jam and Counting Crows were counted out. Elisapie “could not just do a song because it was cool…it had to be emotional.” As she later explained to CultMTL, she had to be able to cry to the songs. 

Originally, the plan was to make acoustic demos just for herself, for healing. Yet, as more and more artists allowed the team to cover their songs, it turned into something bigger. A particularly pivotal moment was when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, notorious for seldom granting licensing agreements, granted her the rights to their song “Going to California.” 

Besides the songs previously mentioned, notable tracks from the album include “Taimangalimaaq” (“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper), perfect for those who like steady beats to dance to in the kitchen. On the other hand, if you like songs that highlight drums and drum solos, check out “Qimatsilunga” (“I Want to Break Free” by Queen). 

For those who need visuals to go with the music, do not fret. The majority of the album has music videos comprised of archival and contemporary footage of Inuit life in the Arctic: gatherings in the community center, trekking across the snow, a father and daughter biking down a gravel road. It’s a glimpse into a life and environment so different from the urban setting of Montreal, but still familiar in its themes of love and home. 

Elisapie has been in the global music scene since 2002, when she and Abitibi-born Alain Auger debuted at the Coup de cœr festival in Montreal as the band Taima (a common Inuktitut expression meaning “it’s over” or “move on”). Their self-titled album won Best Folk Album and Album Cover of the Year at Toronto’s Aboriginal Music Awards in 2004, and the Juno Award for Indigenous Album of the Year in 2005. Their 11-track album is a mix of French, English, and Inuktitut, honouring the languages spoken in most of Nunavik. The album, like the history of the languages it is sung in, explores the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, humans and nature, and the love and violence surrounding Inuit and Indigenous women. These themes have been present in most of Elisapie’s subsequent work. 

Her third album, The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, was also nominated for the Indigenous Album of the Year Award – this time in 2019. On this album, she compiled her own songs in addition to covers of other powerful Inuit and Indigenous singers. A notable track is her take on Algonquin singer, Willy Mitchell’s song, “Call of the Moose.” On the track she sings, “I listen to the man of the law, I listen to his way / I listen to the crack of the gun and the one that had to pay.” Five years later in 2024, two brothers were shot in her hometown of Salluit by police. It is their voices, and so many others with similar stories, that echo throughout this song. 

Though her new album holds a much more cheerful and hopeful note, it is important to remember the reason it came to fruition in the first place. Engaging with Indigenous voices and Indigenous songs helps to spread their stories beyond sharing culture and language. It is a method of raising awareness about history and the present, and a way to create community to shape the future. 

If you haven’t yet already, go listen to Inuktitut. There’s nothing like the feeling of listening to a good song for the first time, especially those great rock classics. With Inuktitut, you get to experience that feeling for a second time. So, what are you waiting for? 

Happy listening. 

If you’d like to experience Inuktitut live, Elisapie will be performing here in Montreal at MTELUS on December 11. For more information on upcoming performances, visit www.elisapie.com.

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Sarah Oirdighi has just turned 30, and has already crossed out 15 major life goals. She has lived in four countries, given a TedxTalk, shot a short film and won an HEC Cinema Prize. Her most recent achievement? Launching a podcast.

Yallah Habibti was created to give Arab and Middle Eastern women a platform to present themselves and discuss taboo subjects that their cultures, and even the West, refuse to tackle.

It is no secret that pop culture, in particular Hollywood movies, falls short when it comes to Arab and Middle Eastern representation. When films include Arab or Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) characters, they often tend to represent these characters as terrorists. Whenever MENA culture is actually included, it is often commodified, with films having no Arab actors present in the cast — such as in Dune (2021).

Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, with the movie adaptation starring Timothee Chalamet released in in 2021. Herbert was inspired by many cultures while writing his novel, showing a great interest in messianic religions and Arab culture. The book is an obvious allegory for Western imperialism and environmentalism in the Middle East, drawing up heavy inspiration for the fictional Fremen of Arrakis from Middle Eastern culture.

And yet, Hollywood did not see it appropriate to cast a single MENA person in the franchise, going so far as representing a mangled version of the Arabic language and casting a white man as the lead. Unfortunately, this did not come as a surprise to any Arab or Middle Eastern person.

Yallah Habibti tackles this alienation. “Growing up, Arab and Middle Eastern women never had a chance to be represented to get some guidance,” Oirdighi says in her podcast introduction. “Our communities are either marginalized, sexualized, or not represented at all.”

Oiridighi was born and in Tangier, Morocco, and lived in three other countries prior to moving to Montreal in 2016.

When she was 20 years old, Oirdighi was completing a master’s degree in digital marketing from KEDGE Business School in Marseille, France. Creative and adventurous by nature, she was attracted by the opportunity her university offered to complete two semesters abroad.

Her first country of choice was Sweden. There, she encountered two Montrealers who encouraged her to complete her second semester in Montreal.

“There are so many cultures [in Montreal],” she says. “I felt represented and accepted for the first time in a long time. I immigrated to three different countries, and [Canada] was the first country where I felt like I belonged, even if it isn’t my home country.”

Once her student visa expired, Oirdighi had to go back to France, but she wouldn’t stay for long. At 22 years old, she packed up her bags, kissed her mother and aunties goodbye, and embarked on a journey to one of North America’s coldest cities to hone her creativity and pursue her dreams.

“There is a big sense of freedom in Montreal,” Oirdighi says. “A freedom of what to wear, where to go, of being safe on the streets, and a feeling of whatever you put your mind to it you can do. The city really helps with the motivation. People aren’t judgemental here, they’re very welcoming. It didn’t feel like that in France.”

She explained that Montreal’s authenticity and freedom allowed for her creativity to flourish, and ultimately inspired her to create her own content. To see artists everywhere in the streets led her to tap into her own artistry and focus on what she truly loved to do.

Once settled, Oirdighi threw herself into many content creator jobs, climbing the corporate ladder and achieving goal after goal – eventually burning out, handing in her resignation, and focusing on healing.

“I was so disgusted with anything that had to do with work. I needed to take a break, to feel like myself again,” she says. “I didn’t have any creativity in me anymore and that’s when I knew I wasn’t myself.”
As she attempted to navigate her loss of creativity while also managing her finances, Oirdighi took on another job working at Cirque du Soleil, a position that helped her get back on her feet.
“[Cirque du Soleil] was an amazing experience, and I learned a lot,” she says. “I mean it’s Cirque du Soleil, you know, it’s the literal circus. I got to see people hanging from the ceiling, and performing, and it was great! But when I took that job, I already knew I wasn’t going to stay, because I had made a promise to myself: to never let anyone else be responsible for the happiness I feel from my work.”
That’s when she started drafting a business plan to go out on her own, eventually launching her own business, Le Pouce Bleu (The Blue Thumb).

Le Pouce Bleu is a social networking platform that helps up-and-coming entrepreneurs shine on social media, grab as many opportunities as they can, and help them become the best versions of themselves.

“I wanted to help anyone find their voice, and be able to use it,” Oirdighi says. “To shine on social media, and grab as many opportunities as they can. Because to me, ultimately, that’s what we’re here for: to be the best version of ourselves.”

A strong desire to uplift people is a gift Oirdighi inherited from her late father, who passed away six years ago.

“My dad spent his entire life working to give [my siblings and me] this ability to have a future,” Oirdighi says. “He grew up super poor, and had to take care of his whole family, and didn’t get any opportunity to enjoy the life he built. But he always encouraged me to believe in myself, and to share that belief with people.”

Le Pouce Bleu is a way for Oirdighi to share her ambition and creativity, and inspire the online community she built to take the same leap of faith she took.

Yalla Habibti is a way for her to give back to the community she grew up with.

When Oirdighi worked as a communication manager in one of her corporate jobs, she was disappointed in the lack of representation and the absence of platforms given to Arab and Middle Eastern women. So, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“If I work for someone who doesn’t even want to give people a chance to be represented when they claim to the world that they are doing the work, when in fact they aren’t,” she says. “Then let me do the work. Let me help somehow, let me give a voice to these women who are dying for representation and represent them.”

Yallah Habibti has, in a way, allowed Oirdighi to find the inspiration and role models she desperately sought when she was younger.

“As an interviewer, I don’t speak much and I love that,” she laughs. “I’m here to point some direction but I’m also here for the woman to speak. And I see a mirror. She’s talking about her traumas — the positive, the negative — and I needed that so much when I was a kid. It helps me grow and it helps me heal because I feel like [Arab and Middle Eastern women] have so much in common that we never talk about. I really like the way [the podcast] helps me create links between different women, cultures and generations.”

Sarah Oirdighi’s story with Montreal is not unlike that of many immigrants. To be surrounded by so many cultures allowed her to appreciate the one she grew up with, and to heal past wounds she didn’t realize she had.

“I started working on that podcast when I was still in Montreal,” she says. “And then when I went back to Morocco to visit my family, the experience was so different, but the same at the same time. Because when I see the women around me and the people I’m talking to about this project, I see how everything is connected. And that’s why I love the internet so much. Because it’s like this online space where everything can happen and everyone can share their thoughts. I feel like this project helped me connect the dots between my life here and my life there, and I hope I get to create more projects in the future to try to reconnect my cultural heritage with this new life that I’m creating here.”

To know more about Sarah Oirdighi’s story and keep up with any future projects, follow her on Instagram (@sarahoirdighi) and LinkedIn.

The post Yallah Habibti: From Morocco to Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Acts of civil disobedience are often met with hostility from the public. During the PATCO airline strike in 1981, travellers directed their anger towards the workers fighting for higher pay instead of the Reagan administration, who forced strikers to accept poor wages. White people in South Africa were in support of the government bans on anti-apartheid activists and protestors, in order to protect their own interests. During the Gilets Jaunes protests, Parisians complained not about the rising taxes but about the increased law enforcement responding to the protests.

The response to the past year of pro-Palestine activism at McGill University is no different. Whether it is online or in person, it is likely that you have encountered at least some frustrations with the increased security presence or cancelled classes – actions taken by the university to dismantle encampments and protests this year. Disagreements on the means used to achieve a common goal are nothing new, as they are a way to promote change and improvements. However, completely ostracizing the protesters demanding for McGill to divest from arms manufacturers can prevent productive discussions from taking place.

When discussing the demands of the pro-Palestinian protests, people often argue that large enterprises are not willing to lose economic gains by severing relationships to violent corporations. In response to this, there are different actions citizens will take to pressure enterprises to divest. Some will act on an individual scale by refusing to consume certain goods or services that have ties to unjust regimes. They will do what they can to not be complicit or contribute to these businesses. Sometimes, they may encourage others to do the same, such as when the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement was launched to economically pressure corporations in occupied Palestinian territories. Others may attempt to sever these relationships through negotiation, working with committees and writing reports. Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) initially took this approach to discuss McGill’s divestment from arms manufacturers. Nevertheless, after almost two months, the bureaucratic process was abandoned when McGill called off negotiations with SPHR in June.

Since then, McGill has taken additional measures to restrict SPHR organization. In September, the university demanded that SSMU withdraw SPHR club status. The following month, McGill was granted a temporary injunction banning SPHR demonstrations. Due to these actions, SPHR amplified pressure on McGill to divest. They organized walkouts, blocked classes, and informed new students about the movement.

As a response to these actions, many people may claim that disruptive demonstrations can reduce the university’s willingness to reopen negotiations. Yet, the purpose of civil disobedience is to urge authority figures to meet a group’s demands.

For example, in March 2011, Quebec’s provincial government launched a proposal to incrementally hike student tuition over a five-year period. This proposal led to student advocacy against this raise between 2011 and 2012. Over time, protests grew in size and strength to combat the government’s attempts to end the student movement, such as Bill 78. By requiring students to inform the authorities about upcoming protests, this measure intended to restrict the scale of demonstrations. However, the bill actually resulted in more assertive civil disobedience to exemplify student resistance. Although the protests led to violent escalations with law enforcement, these demonstrations turned out to be some of the largest student protests in Quebec’s history. The unflinching nature of the student movement eventually led to the cancellation of the student tuition increase and the revocation of Bill 78.

The decision to partake in a more forceful method is never made lightly. Protestors understand that by taking on a more confrontational approach, they risk losing the general public’s support and face a crackdown from the authorities. However, despite these two consequences, deviations can open the door for constructive dialogue. A thorough set of demands can enhance the depth and breadth of topics brought up at the negotiation table. Without mass mobilization, the strength of social justice movements will be weakened. Without these positions, we can fall victim to unsatisfactory compromises that fail to address structural violence.

Protests or acts of civil disobedience are meant to disrupt your day. They are meant to take socio-political issues out of the negotiation office and include the public. When directing anger to those with a common goal but a different method of achieving it, one can forget that the core issue is not with the different approaches to achieving justice but the issue of injustice itself. There is so much space for meaningful exchange that can take place on the nature, approach, and goal of student civil disobedience, and we need to ensure that it is being utilized.

It’s okay to be a little upset when a protest disrupts your plans. However, if all acts of resistance were tailored to every individual, nothing would ever get done. Prioritizing comfort and convenience will undermine the primary objectives of a political organization. Therefore, the next time you complain about protesters interfering with your schedule, I ask you to think about how much this disturbance will impact you in the long run. Although you will eventually be able to recover from it and carry on with your daily life, the victims of war, violence, and exploitation that protests are fighting for may not.

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“In the last few weeks, our students have been arrested, detained, and even physically brutalized, all while conducting non-violent political demonstrations,” said Danna Ballantyne, the CSU’s External Affairs and Mobilization Coordinator. “We deserve to come to campus to learn and to have open dialogue without fearing for our safety.”

In the past semester, Concordia students protesting their university’s involvement in Israel’s genocide in Gaza have faced repression from both the police and the Concordia administration. The CSU reported that the university has charged at least 25 students with academic tribunals and suspensions for Palestine solidarity actions. On September 25, three students were violently arrested and detained in the Guy-Concordia metro station following a protest on campus. On October 31, students held a demonstration to protest the aforementioned arrests and disciplinary measures. Concordia responded by arresting two more students.

In addition to brutality by the Montreal police (SPVM), speakers at the press conference denounced the response of Concordia Security and Prevention Services (CSPS) to student protests. They specifically demanded that CSPS abolish five practices: following students off-campus, conducting citizens’ arrests, physical apprehension and detainment, preemptively coordinating responses to demonstrations with police, and facilitating police brutality and arrest instead of de-escalation.

Concordia spokesperson Vannina Maestracci told the Daily that “SPVM officers are only called by Campus Safety and Prevention Services agents and other community members when necessary and in accordance with Concordia’s policies. CSPS agents are trained in de-escalation, and that is always the primary objective of their response.”

She described the events of October 31 as “a sad example of circumstances deemed to warrant SPVM intervention as an agent was assaulted and others were blocked as they attempted to assist their colleague.”

In a follow-up email, Ballantyne described the CSPS’s actions on October 31 as “extremely escalatory. […] Student testimonies from October 31 allege that certain CSPS agents were seen restraining one of their fellow colleagues from accosting student protestors,” she wrote. “While I can’t speak directly to any claims of assault against these agents, footage of the events that took place on that day only show violence directed towards students.”

Vanessa Massot, Academic and Advocacy Coordinator at the CSU, argued that CSPS’s practices are particularly harmful to racialized students. They referenced the 1969 occupation of the computer labs, where the SPVM brutalized Black students protesting anti-Black racism, leading to the death of a student. President Graham Carr only apologized on Concordia’s behalf for their actions in 1969 in 2022. Massot called on Carr to honour that apology by preventing future police brutality on campus.
Massot’s comments were corroborated by Adam, a Black student and former student association executive, who “experienced firsthand the racial profiling and targeted surveillance that persists at [Concordia].” He described being followed, questioned, and threatened by CSPS for participating in peaceful gatherings.

“The administration continues to champion its commitment to diversity and so-called inclusion,” he said. “But how can those words hold any meaning when students face the same regulatory practices that were echoed all the way back in 1969?”

Abe Berglas, SSMU Vice President University Affairs, told the Daily that criminalizing student protests against the genocide in Palestine “is a really dangerous precedent.” They expressed concern about SPVM presence on Concordia’s campus, given that the Quebec Superior Court recently found racial profiling to be a “systemic problem” within the force. While security guards are different from cops, Berglas also argued that “they often end up perpetuating the same systems of oppression that cops do.”

When asked about the situation at McGill, Berglas confirmed that students have also faced disciplinary charges and physical aggression from security when protesting the genocide in Palestine. Over the summer, McGill frequently collaborated with the SPVM to respond to student protests, including the dismantlement of the Palestine solidarity encampment in July. Most recently, McGill security and the SPVM used tear gas to shut down a pro-Palestine protest on October 7.

However, Berglas believes that McGill students may have some advantages over their counterparts at Concordia.

“I feel as though McGill gets a lot of public attention because it’s seen as a prestigious school, and that also means that protestors get more sympathy,” they explained. “We are more protected knowing that if we go to the press, they’re more likely to take on our story.”

Concordia students are also looking to the press to share their outrage and demand change from their administration.

“This press conference is a plea to the Concordia administration to take seriously the issue of police brutality on their campus and to instill an accountability mechanism for the administration who has been abusing their institutional power instead of acting responsibly and in the interest of their own students’ safety,” said Massot.

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The models emerged one by one from a cavern of white walls with  floor lights, illuminating them from underneath. The designs floated down the runway as the models waltzed into a crowd of friends, families, and fellow fashion-loving students. 

Circle of Fashion is a club at McGill that centres around all things fashion, focusing on encouraging students’ fashion interests and creating a community around those interested in self expression through clothing. COF’s guiding mission is to be a space “where students can express their fashion creativity.” The club was founded in 2022 by Manon Ashida and has seen exponential growth in the last two years. COF now has an expansive executive team, a podcast, and events every semester including clothing swaps and pop-up markets. Additionally, COF publishes a print magazine, Pamplemousse, every semester, along with regular additions to their online blog. 

COF also puts on a biannual fashion show. No two are alike, with each show featuring different locations and designers. Last year’s fall fashion show took place at Montreal’s  Olympic swimming pool, while the Winter 2024 show was presented in a gorgeous, gothic church, Chapelle Notre Dame de Bon Secours, located in Old Montreal. The show on November 1 had an air of professionalism and shared vision that permeated the evening. Their dedication to the production value and to creating an all-encompassing, intentional experience made it all the more enjoyable to watch. There is something special about a group of students not only conceptualizing, but actualizing an evening where designers, students, and fashion enthusiasts alike can come together and celebrate storytelling through fashion.  

The materials and silhouettes were the stars of the show. Crocheted knits, buttons, silks, and flowing chiffon jumped off the runway. Viewers couldn’t help but appreciate the intricate skills and craftsmanship these students and artists poured into their creations. Floral motifs and micro-mini styles dominated the evening. Each collection had its own unique flavour, reflecting the personal style of the designers. Whether it was through colour palettes, styling, or the persona they wanted their models to embody, each artist conveyed their distinct and powerful visions. 

The thread connecting all the showcased collections is the showrunners’ obvious passion for creating and designing. The show concluded with a collection that directly reflected the ambiance of the sophisticated setting. Francis Hoang’s collection was filled with three stunning all-white looks that seemed to glide down the runway. In an Instagram post about his vision, Hoang said that he wanted his designs to have a certain “flowiness,” emulating “air, leaves falling, water […] something that moves elegantly.” 

This evening wasn’t just about the clothing, it was also about the storytelling, theatricality, and performance that comes with putting on a runway show. Some models didn’t just walk through the space – they played a character. Their approach called to mind models like Leon Dame who walk with a certain persona in mind. 

On behalf of The McGill Daily, we spoke with model Max Freedman and designer Olivia Dunkley to get a full picture of what the COF show was like from behind the scenes. 

Freedman, first-time model but long-time lover of fashion, was one of the first models to walk. “It was a little nerve-wracking as I have never done anything like that before,” Freedman noted. Despite these nerves, when asked to summarize the experience in three words, Freedman described it as “exciting, collaborative, and new.” Amidst a post-midterm frenzy, the show was a welcome creative outlet for Freedman. 

Dunkley, a returning designer, shared her experience being backstage during the show saying, “The environment is really fun and [it] allows people who are interested in fashion and clothing to come together.” 

Overall, Circle of Fashion’s Fall 2024 show was a celebration of student craftsmanship, uplifting artistic interests that fall outside the scope of school and coursework. The experience was one of collaboration and symbiosis: the designers were able to showcase their creations while attendees had the joy of getting dressed up for an evening out. The COF team created an unforgettable evening that is sure to have a lasting impact.

If you want to keep up with Circle of Fashion, you can follow them on Instagram @circleoffashionmcgill.

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