Profiteering in the War against Covid-19

      No Comments on Profiteering in the War against Covid-19

Ryan Targa

“This Little Pig Stayed Home,” Toronto Star, 13 August 1917, 5.

The new year began with the threat of war after the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed by a U.S. airstrike. The following month, fears about climate change were stoked by the massive fires in Australia and California. And while these events were alarming, it is strange to say that they have already fallen out of focus. Humanity has turned its attention to an even more urgent crisis – the war against Covid-19.

Although the enemy in this war lacks consciousness, its strategy to thrive at our demise has been most effective. By preying upon our need for physical interaction, the disease uses its highly infectious traits to spread. The initial surprise attack sent an ill-equipped world into panic, but having overcome this first blow, we have organized a robust war effort: hundreds of millions of people have sheltered themselves in their homes; governments and state institutions are deploying their resources; factories are being re-tooled; and healthcare workers and scientists are fighting the disease on the frontlines.

Similar to the world wars of the twentieth century, profiteering has reared its ugly head. Drawing upon my on-going research, which examines profiteering in Canada during the First World War, I would like to offer some insights into what profiteering means, how profiteering controversy unfolded in the past, and how it is re-emerging today. Continue reading →

Why am I teaching about this? Historical significance in Canadian history

      No Comments on Why am I teaching about this? Historical significance in Canadian history

By Lindsay Gibson and Catherine Duquette

Historical significance raises one of the most fundamental and unavoidable questions for understanding history; which events, people, and developments from the past should be studied and remembered?[i]

The past is everything that ever happened to everyone everywhere, but it is impossible to study or remember everything that occurred. History is comprised of narratives about the past that are shaped by conditions and priorities in the present. No narrative can present all that is known—historians are selective about the topics they focus on and the details they include in their narratives.

Focusing on the Winnipeg General Strike instead of the Toronto Printers’ Strike of 1872, for example, places daily life over political events, marginalized people over well-known people.

Additionally, all historical narratives are framed from a particular perspective that influences what is included and excluded from a narrative, and how the event or person is described. Analogously, all history teachers, whether in K-12 or post-secondary, make decisions about historical significance when they create a course outline, design a lesson plan, or explain the causes of an event.

For the past three years we have been working on a project where we created sets of cards focused on significant events in Canadian history and designed pedagogical strategies to teach students to think historically about Canadian history. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 144: Finding Sally

      No Comments on History Slam Episode 144: Finding Sally

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

Finding Sally premieres tonight on CBC and GEM at 8:00pm (8:30 NT) and documentary Channel at 9 ET/PT

In September 1974, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie‘s government was overthrown following years of declining popularity. While he was popular with the country’s elite, the wider population was less inclined towards the nobility. He was replaced by the Derg, a group of low ranking military officials who established a military junta in the country. In order to maintain their power, the Derg took a hard stance against any dissent, going so far as to arm civilians with the instruction of eliminating those who opposed the government.

Groups that were targeted included the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, whose members were regularly targeted as part of the Red Terror, in which 500,000 people were killed. Those who were not killed shifted their operations underground in an attempt to avoid detection. As a result, they were separated from families as any contact was risky. The result for families was years of not knowing what happened to their relatives.

That is the subject of the new documentary Finding Sally. Directed by Tamara Mariam Dawit, it follows her as she learns the story of her Aunt Sally. A charismatic young woman who fully embraced the nation’s political fever, Sally’s life had not been discussed by her family, leaving Dawit to wonder what happened to her. In the film, she discovers who Sally was and what she did during this period while at the same time situating her life within the wider context of Ethiopia’s political upheaval. The result is a powerful film in which a family represents the pain and suffering experienced by so many during an era marked by violence and insecurity.

Continue reading →

Year in Review (100 Years Later): Underrated 1911 Edition

      1 Comment on Year in Review (100 Years Later): Underrated 1911 Edition

By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham

We offer our two cents on the events of 1911. Let us know what you think in the comments.

This is the 9th time we have convened to do one of these 100 Years Later brackets and it’s always a lot of fun to go through the list of events and consider what could be a contender to win. Most years it has been hard to determine if there any favourites, but as we looked through 1911 it was a bit of a different story. While all the events are interesting and influential in their own way, it felt that there was a power group within the list and we were curious to see how it would play out in the bracket.

We have divided the events into 4 brackets. For 1911, we have the Power to the People Bracket, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Bracket, Is This a Good Thing? Bracket, and, of course, Potpourri Bracket. As always, we welcome your thoughts on the matchups and hope that you enjoy these brackets in the lighthearted spirit with which they are written.

Power to the People Bracket

(1) Direct Election of United States Senators

v.

(4) United Kingdom Passes Parliament Act

Image depicting the 1856 caning of Charles Sumner

Sean: In 1897 George Frisbie Hoar, a Massachusetts senator who had been an elected official for nearly 50 years, said that the United States Senate “was created that the deliberate will, the sober second thought of the people might find expression. It was intended that it should resist the hasty, intemperate, passionate desire of the people.” Referred to by many Americans (usually senators) as ‘the world’s most deliberative body,’ the United States has seen a variety of political strategies employed, from punching your opponent, to hitting him with a cane, to reading stories to your children watching at home. Clearly, the chamber’s self-anointed status is well earned.

Continue reading →

Congress 2020, Interrupted: Racism, Academic Freedom, and the Far Right, 1970s-1990s

      No Comments on Congress 2020, Interrupted: Racism, Academic Freedom, and the Far Right, 1970s-1990s

Will Langford

In 1989, psychology professor Philippe Rushton inflamed debates over discrimination at Western University (then known as the University of Western Ontario (UWO)) by outlining his racist theories at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For some, Rushton’s academic racism made him unfit to teach at UWO. For others, protecting academic freedom was ultimately more important than the content of Rushton’s work.

Perhaps the lines of debate will sound familiar. Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto psychology professor, came to prominence in 2016 for attacking gender-neutral pronouns. Like Rushton, Peterson welcomed debate that made academic freedom, not prejudice, the core issue.

In my first of three posts about the now-cancelled Congress 2020 at Western University, I noted that the most ardent opponents of university codes of conduct mixed up academic freedom and free speech in the early 1990s.

This second post takes up a related history: how academic freedom, as a valued principle of university life, became useful cover for professors trying to beat back criticism of their fringe or far-right views.

Edmund Burke Society bumper sticker, 1970 (Source: LAC, MG 32 C 21, Vol 407, File 7-9)

Continue reading →

How do we teach history after this? Thoughts from the “Pandemic Pedagogy” series

      No Comments on How do we teach history after this? Thoughts from the “Pandemic Pedagogy” series

By Samantha Cutrara

I went into self-isolation about a week before many others. Because I had come into contact with family traveling abroad, I worked from home while the university and college I work for continued to prepare for what felt like an inevitability after the WHO’s declaration. Being by myself that first week exacerbated the sense of shock that schools would be closing and learning moved online.  I thought of the release of my upcoming book and my new video series talking to K-12 teachers about ways to expand their pedagogies and practice related to history. Would these conversations even matter any more? Would history be understood as an indulgent and frivolous subject of study when there was an urgent need for health care, economic stimulus, a reorganization of work and home? How would we teach history after this, I asked on my video series. I didn’t know. I didn’t even know where to start. But, as with most things, when you explore topics within a community you lessen your sense of isolation and broaden your capacity to understand perspective and approaches far beyond yourself. So came the “Pandemic Pedagogy” video series where I’ve been talking with historians, history teachers, and people in the heritage community about how we can think about history and teaching history during and after this moment.

Three women working at desks during the 1918 Spanish Flu

Three masked women working at desks, c 1918-1920

Continue reading →

Revisiting “Was Laurier Canada’s Obama?”

      1 Comment on Revisiting “Was Laurier Canada’s Obama?”

By Elsbeth Heaman

In September 2016 I published at Active History an argument that the 2016 election in the United States was shaping up like the 1911 election in Canada. The previous elections had seen a diversity candidate (Catholic and French in Canada, Black in America) win the highest office. But instead of inaugurating a new and more equitable political life, the consequence was electoral repudiation of the progressivism and partyism that delivered such results, and a turn towards plutocrats who promised effective business-like governance.

Of course, the real interest in the piece, as in the book manuscript I had just completed, wasn’t what happened in 1911 but what happened at the next election in 1917, namely, the most racially polarizing campaign in Canadian history. The plutocrats couldn’t run on their record because they had too spectacularly enriched themselves—and had too obviously continued to do so amidst a global catastrophe, the First World War—that seemed to require better things. So they campaigned on racism. The dog-whistle was dropped and racism, along with voter suppression and a host of other nasty tricks, became the core of the Conservative government’s campaign. They claimed to repudiate “party” and embrace “union,” but this was party politics rebranded and intensified.

Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-727

“Good luck in 2020 guys,” I was warning Americans, should they elect Donald Trump.

My forecasting was dismayingly accurate. I didn’t predict either the pandemic or the economic collapse of 2020, of course, but the more predictable pattern of plutocracy and racism was confirmed. And plutocratic rule does tend to have catastrophic consequences.

Of course one can only carry the parallels so far: Robert Borden was no Donald Trump. Continue reading →

Plagues and Social Change: Putting Covid-19 in Historical Context

      3 Comments on Plagues and Social Change: Putting Covid-19 in Historical Context

Extract from the plague-era Second Statute of Laborers, 1351. British National Archives, C 74/1, m. 18 (1351).

Alvin Finkel

After the Black Death of 1347-52, which cut the population of Europe in half and accounted for some 75 million deaths globally, the feudal system faced challenges from peasant uprisings while labour shortages resulted in large wage increases for day workers. Orphanages and hospitals, run by churches and wealthy lay people, sprang up in towns across the continent. While social changes in the aftermath of plagues build on transformations that were already occurring in societies, they often rapidly accelerate such changes.

The so-called Justinian plague from 541 to 750, which may have accounted for as many deaths as the Black Death, severely limited ambitions of the Eastern Roman Empire to extend its reach and eventually re-establish the western empire that had been captured in the century before the plague struck. The Persians and other powers in the eastern Mediterranean developed immunities to the diseases that were causing massive declines in the Roman population. So Constantinople was reduced mainly to campaigns to hold on to whatever territories it already held in the pre-plague period.[i]

In the aftermath of the Black Death, the monarchy led efforts by landlords and town guilds to maintain the status quo and resist efforts by workers to get more wages and by peasants to keep more of their crop from the exactions of lords, the church, and the monarchy. Continue reading →

Annual Year in Review (100 Years Later): Physical Distancing/Bored At Home Edition

      2 Comments on Annual Year in Review (100 Years Later): Physical Distancing/Bored At Home Edition

By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham

We offer our two cents on the most important events of 1910. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Remember December? It was only 4 months ago, despite how long ago it feels. When we convened for our Annual(?) Year in Review (100 Years Later)™ we wrote that 2019 had been “a slog” and that “consuming news this year has rarely left us with an overwhelming feeling of optimism.” Then 2020 came along and said “hold my beer.”

The work that has been published here on Active History and elsewhere putting contemporary events into context has been remarkable and we have eagerly visited the site every morning to see what new gem has been published. As we discussed in the most recent episode of the History Slam, though, we are also seeking content that will provide a brief respite from the news. That’s why marble racing has become a staple of lunch time at Sean’s house.

So we got to thinking if there was something we could do in that same vein and Aaron remembered that in our zeal to review years 100 years later, we hadn’t looked at the entirety of the 1910s and that it would be good to back and rectify this unacceptable oversight. So that’s what we are doing. Over the next 3 weeks we will recap the years which were not included during our annual brackets. This will culminate on May 13 when we determine the most important event of the 1910s with the eagerly anticipated ‘Winners at War’ Bracket.

Today, it’s 1910. We have 16 events broken into four brackets: Things That Move, Pre-Netflix and Chill, Well Intentioned Inventions, and, of course, Potpourri. As always, we welcome your thoughts on the matchups and hope that you enjoy these brackets in the lighthearted spirit with which they are written.

Things That Move Bracket

(1) Establishment of the Royal Canadian Navy

v.

(4) German Zeppelin Deutschland Makes 1st Commercial Passenger Flight

Aaron: The British Empire was built on the strength of its navy. As an island nation, the United Kingdom had to dominate the seas if it had any chance of expanding its influence. Before 1910, Canada, as a British dominion, was reliant on the Royal Navy to protect its offshore interests and maritime defence, which, up until the 20th century, was not a priority. The Royal Navy patrolled the seas and, until this time, was unrivaled on the seas.  That changed in May 1910, however, when the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier introduced the Naval Service Act. Its intent was to create a separate navy for Canada but one that, if necessary, could be placed under British control in times of war.

Recruiting poster from the First World War

The main impetus for the creation of a Canadian navy was the arms race between Britain and Germany – the Dreadnought crisis. Britain required assistance from its Dominions, either in the form of money or them assuming more responsibility for their maritime defence. Laurier and his supporters preferred the creation of a unique Canadian navy, arguing it was a better long-term solution. Canadian imperialists, on the other hand, believed that Canada’s responsibility was to the Empire first and that monetary contributions were the preferred option. French Canadian nationalists, led by Henri Bourassa, opposed Canada having any involvement whatsoever in Britain’s naval problems.

Continue reading →

Congress 2020, Interrupted: A Brief History of University Codes of Conduct

      1 Comment on Congress 2020, Interrupted: A Brief History of University Codes of Conduct

Will Langford

Congress 2020 is cancelled. But before the conference is forgotten, let’s ponder the anti-racism Congress that never was.

At last year’s gathering, in a brazen act of racial profiling, a participant harassed political scientist Shelby McPhee and falsely accused the Black graduate student of theft. Following an investigation, the perpetrator was issued a ban for violating the Congress Code of Conduct.

The Black Canadian Studies Association led the way in demanding redress. In part, it challenged the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences to add anti-Black racism to the theme of Congress 2020.

Before the response to COVID-19 intervened, about 8,000 academics were set to attend Bridging Divides: Confronting Colonialism and Anti-Black Racism, the re-titled event hosted at Western University (commonly known as UWO prior to its rebranding in 2012).

Continue reading →