Active History

Lies, Damned Lies, and Peterborough

March 19, 2016 No Comments

Active History is proud to present a video each week from New Directions in Active History. The conference took place at Huron University College on October 2-4, 2015 and brought together scholars, students, professionals and community members to discuss a wide range of topics pertaining to active history.

This week’s video is a part of the Storytelling through Film, Graphic Art & Performance panel. Matthew Hayes, a PhD candidate at Trent University, explains two art projects that he undertook in the summer of 2014 in Peterborough, Ontario. Through these projects he sought to explore the persistence of the myth of objectivity. Along with another artist, Hayes displayed a series of 8 posters around Peterborough during an arts festival. The posters, drawn in black sharpie, were based on historical fact, but not entirely true. Hayes explains how his project met with some resistance by critics who felt that it was dishonest or misleading.

Although many of the posters were either taken down or destroyed by the elements, others remained and citizens posted photos of the installations on social media sites. Hayes explains that while he set out to explore the effects of the project, due to the ephemeral nature of the art, it was difficult to draw conclusions. However, he was able to speak with some members of the public. Through these conversations, he discovered that some knew the information was not entirely true, whereas others took the information as literal truth and even passed on the stories. This left Hayes asking the question of what made the posters believable and how their belief relates to the larger question of the myth of objectivity.

Chronic Hunger, Chronic Terror: Agrarian Modernization and the Struggle for Sustainability in Guatemala, 1944-1980

March 18, 2016 No Comments

Editor’s Note: This was published on the NiCHE website earlier this week and is a part of a monthly series showing the work of the Sustainable Farm Systems project

By Patrick Chassé

Blessed with plentiful sunshine and rich soils, Guatemala exports large quantities of coffee, bananas, sugar and more to the United States, Canada, and Europe. Our grocery stores are stocked with fresh tropical produce, but few consumers are aware of the social and environmental costs of the food we consume. The immense productivity of Guatemala’s export sector is underwritten by deforestation, the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the exploitation of workers. Guatemala also has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the Americas: many rural Indigenous families subsist on a simple diet of corn and beans that lacks adequate protein and key vitamins. Though children often do not feel hungry their young bodies are maimed by inequality: they suffer from stunting and high rates of infant mortality. Yet Guatemalan peasants are astute farmers who, though often lacking education and financial means, are able to coax remarkable yields out of the meagre quantities of land at their disposal. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 1.86 percent of Guatemala’s population owns over 56 percent of the country’s arable land. Why do so many people go hungry in a land blessed with fertile soils, an extraordinary diversity of micro-climates and abundant rainfall? Continue reading →

21st Century Terrorism: Nothing New?

March 17, 2016 2 Comments

Alban Bargain-Villéger

1980 Bologna Railway Bombing. Getty Images

About a month after the November 13 shootings, I was lining up, along with hundreds of carefree visitors, in front of the Osiris exhibit at Paris’s Arab World Institute. The sun was out, children were playing on the steps of the building and, aside from the occasional military squad patrolling the area, it was hard to believe that this city had recently been hit by a series of brutal attacks. As I was waiting in the slowly advancing line, I began to wonder what I would do if a gang of masked gunmen were to show up. We were (according to Daesh) nothing but horrible miscreants on their way to admire Ancient Egyptian idols. Why was I suddenly feeling vulnerable? After all, the risk had always been there and, although the media had only recently begun to popularize the concept of “soft targets,” the use of violence on civilians in public places is nothing new. However, the media’s frequent recourse to World War Two as a benchmark in terms of violence has contributed to obscuring the various acts of terrorism that occurred during the Cold War era, the 1990s, and the 2000s.

Among the many approaches to the 2015 Paris attacks, few avoided the trap of Western exceptionalism – here I use “Western” for the sake of convenience, as that term does not describe a clearly defined reality. While the generally Eurocentric reactions to the January and November shootings have been pointed out on many occasions, the chronological nearsightedness of most of the media and of the powers-that-be has been largely ignored. The appearance of the French tricolour on the CN Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and other monuments in the wake of the shootings did not just reflect a geographical double standard, but also implied that some sort of world-historical event had occurred. Although the high death toll (130 victims) seemed to point to a return to a level of violence unseen since the Second World War, and although the terrorists’ recourse to suicide bombers signaled a change in the Jihadists’ tactics on the European continent, it would be premature to see that particular massacre as an epoch-making event. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Eighty: Human Rights Frameworks for Health and Why They Matter

March 16, 2016 No Comments

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By Sean Graham

Yamin “Before I had my two children, I had a miscarriage.” This is how Alicia Yamin starts her new book Power, Suffering, and the Struggle for Dignity: Human Rights Frameworks for Health and Why They Matter. By introducing the book in such a personal manner, Yamin, the Policy Director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, prepares the reader for what is to follow. In interweaving personal stories, Yamin demonstrates how health should be situated as a human right and, in doing so, represents a major turning point in the struggle for dignity.

The great challenge in studying broad concepts in matters with very real world ramifications is that the writing can feel distant and cold. To alleviate this concern, Yamin incorporates case studies from her vast experience working in the field. By humanizing these seemingly abstract issues, Yamin is not only able to hook the reader but also establishes a narrative voice that guides the reader through the book.

At its best, Power, Suffering, and the Struggle for Dignity attacks the preconceptions and assumptions that have inhibited the implementation of a human rights framework for health. For instance, in the introduction Yamin cites the too-often-used phrase “there but the grace of God go I” in discussing a general apathy towards the issues on the part of those in privileged positions. By casting the inequalities in health and healthcare to divine providence, the real-world human decisions that have fostered and expanded inequality are easily dismissed or ignored. As a result, too many people unnecessarily suffer from indignity without intervention.

These inequalities are often the result of discrimination based on race, gender, and poverty – issues that are beyond the control of those that don’t have access to health. Many of Yamin’s examples are related to maternal health and mortality. From the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse perpetrated by the men in her life to losing multiple children to AIDS and malnourishment, Yamin outlines how one particular woman had been denied agency throughout her life for no other reason than she lived in an impoverished region. The decisions that led to that poverty were well beyond her control – often made on the other side of the world – and yet we too often believe the myth that we all reap what we sow.

Continue reading →

Golgotha?: D. Y. Cameron’s Flanders from Kemmel

March 15, 2016 1 Comment

By Laura Brandon

One of the aspects of war art that continues to surprise me is how personal it ultimately is. Any painting, however objectively representative of events it may purport to be, in it carries some measure of the artist’s subjective response to the incident, place, or person depicted. Furthermore, it is influenced by the artist’s personal circumstances and attitudes. David Young Cameron’s massive 1919 war landscape (physically and in terms of the scale of the view) Flanders from Kemmel is a case in point.[1] It is travelling across Canada at present after display in the exhibition Witness at the Canadian War Museum in the summer of 2014.[2]

David Young Cameron, Flanders from Kemmel, 1919. (Oil on canvas, 197.5 x 336 cm, Beaverbrook Collection of War Art, Canadian War Museum 19710261-0117.)

At first glance, the painting presents a misty, Impressionist-like scene. A cloud-filled sky makes up the bulk of the composition. Centring the composition is a small village. An arrangement of trees and hillside frame the wider panorama. I have always appreciated the artist’s technical proficiency in holding this wide-ranging composition together. But I never looked at it particularly closely until Canadian War Museum librarian Lara Andrews mentioned that she saw figures moving through the middle ground near the village – soldiers or refugees – she wasn’t sure. This led me to scrutinize the painting anew as a work of art and, also, to explore more fully the history behind it. Continue reading →

Nothing Sexist is Happening Here: The Ghomeshi Trial and the Historical Normalization of Gender-Based Violence

March 14, 2016 3 Comments

By Beth A. Robertson

In late January and early February, the trial of former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi officially began, well over a year since the allegations of sexual assault against Ghomeshi first surfaced. Although this case is considered extraordinary, the trial would seem to be fairly typical of other assault cases, at least in terms of the approach by defence lawyers and media scrutiny. Ghomeshi’s lawyer, Marie Henein, has been likened to Hannibal Lecter in her manner of cross-examination. Her questioning of Lucy DeCoutere and other witnesses during the trial was no exception. Ghomeshi seemed extremely well prepared for this case, in fact, compiling letters, emails and text messages over a thirteen-year period from women who would later accuse him. Ghomeshi’s lawyers effectively wielded these physical and “digital debris” to call into question the women’s credibility, highlighting once more “the gender of lying” as I’ve written on before. The fact that Ghomeshi knew that this strategy of painstaking collection would one day pay off is telling and deserves analysis on its own.

Historians have done their own collecting to reveal just how long this troubling pattern of discrediting women in such cases has been.[1] Laws against sexual and gender-based violence were laid out in Canada’s first Criminal Code of 1892, which stipulated that only women proven to be “of previously chaste character” could receive protection from the justice system. And here was the long-standing qualification that made court cases much more about the female victims than those accused of committing the crime in the first place. Perhaps understandably, many women were deterred from stepping forward as a result, making unreported cases of assault the norm.[2] Continue reading →

Comics as Active History: The Graphic History Collective

March 12, 2016 2 Comments

In this week’s video, we hear from Sean Carleton and Julia Smith, PhD Candidates at Trent University, as representatives of the Graphic History Collective. The Graphic History Collective is a group of activists, writers, artists, historians, and researchers who are passionate about comics’ history and social change. Sean opens by discussing the history of comics and the emerging style of writing through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and ties that history into the establishment of the Graphic History Collective group. Julia then discusses their newest project, titled “Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle,” its origins and the themes that drive it. The comics contain important lessons in history, highlighted by the Graphic History Collective’s work to emphasize hope in their stories. Over all, what emerges in the Drawn to Change collection is a clear picture of the strength and perseverance of working people in the face of different types of adversity. Designed to be short, easy to read entertaining comics, these stories are also inspiring: one of the Collective’s goals is to assist others in creating their own comics based on historical events.

Film Friday: Suffrage Stories Without Class

March 11, 2016 2 Comments

Joan Sangster

Suffragette (2015)

A friend who teaches the history of feminism in Canada recently relayed her students’ responses to the British movie Suffragette. Many found the women heroic, the film “moving” and uplifting. They then described their image of Canadian suffragists: narrow-minded, “classist” and racist, not very radical, hardly inspiring role models.

Their negative image of early Canadian feminists does not necessarily reflect more popular, celebratory views of the suffrage movement, which has recently caught the media’s attention. Various centenaries are upon us, or approaching. A hundred years ago Manitoba enfranchised white women, followed by other provinces; the federal vote was extended in 1918. Quebec celebrations will have to wait until 2040. (I think they should be funded by the Catholic Church, as reparation for its role as a major misogynist stumbling block to women’s rights in that province.) These centenaries and the release of the British film Suffragette offer an opening for us to talk about popular portrayals of the suffrage movement – and why we need to challenge it. Continue reading →

Trudeau should pardon bath raid victims

March 9, 2016 No Comments

By Tom Hooper

Activists organized a response to the 1981 Toronto bath raids in the streets and in the courts – photo used with permission from Gerald Hannon

Last weekend, we learned that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office is working to pardon Everett George Klippert, a man who was declared a “dangerous sexual offender” in 1965 for committing the crime of gross indecency,” the Criminal Code statute that outlawed gay sex. His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1967, and was met with criticism by Canadian politicians and the press. Weeks after that decision, then Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau famously declared, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” By 1969 these words were implemented into law, ensuring that no other gay man like Klippert would be arrested for having consensual gay sex with adults in a private environment. At least, this was the rhetoric.

Trudeau Sr. did not remove gross indecency from the Code, his government merely added a subsection to the law. This change, known as the ‘exception clause,’ meant that gay sex was still illegal in Canada, but it was permissible provided it happened under a strict set of circumstances. According to this exception clause, you were entitled to be ‘grossly indecent’ if the act occurred in private between consenting adults who were at least 21 years old, and provided only two people were present. We can conclude, then, that in 1969, the Liberals only partially decriminalized homosexuality.[1] Continue reading →

Film: Mary Ann Shadd Revisited: Echoes from an Old House

March 8, 2016 3 Comments

This film, by Allison Margot Smith, is about a collection of letters to and from African American abolitionist Mary Ann Shadd between 1851 and 1863 – years that she lived in Canada. The letters were left in her house near Chatham Ontario when she returned to the U.S.A. and were eventually forgotten. They were accidentally rediscovered in 1974 by the then owners of her house, when they had the house torn down, just before the rubble was burned. When offered, the letters were accepted by Archives of Ontario for preservation. The premise of Smith’s film is that, had the letters been found before the 1960s, they might not have been offered to, or accepted by the Archives. She argues that it was the emergence in the 1960s of ideas about Social History, the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement that led the owners of the letters and the Archives to realize their importance.

The telling of the story of Mary Ann Shadd’s letters on film presented challenges for Smith both as a historian and a filmmaker. She wanted her research to be thorough while ensuring that the messages were well presented in a film medium. The research was complicated by the fact that the letters had two histories – one 19^th– and the other 20^th-century. These histories unfolded in what she came to understand as a complex borderland. In the making of the film Smith wanted to both challenge her audience while at the same time keeping them interested, emotionally engaged, and aesthetically pleased. Click here to read a deeper reflection on Smith’s influences, experiences, challenges in making this film.

Allison Smith is a recent graduate from Carleton University’s Master of Public History program where her research centred on Canadian history, and in particular, Black history in Canada. During her undergraduate and master’s work she was the recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Scholarship, Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), the Don Wilton Campbell Scholarship, the Lester B Pearson Scholarship, and a Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement. She now combines her recent academic work in history with her earlier academic and work experience in computer science to produce public history products of a technological nature. She has produced two historical documentary films on Black history in Canada, several online exhibit websites on historical topics, and 3D digital images of museum artifacts.

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