Review unfair to Dan School: RE “Evolution of characters failed at DSS Winter term installment”
Dear Editors,
As I sit and prepare my materials for the upcoming 3rd annual production of the DAN Exposition Series (DES), there is the usual anxiety of ‘will everything come together in time?’ ‘will people come’ and, of course, the ever-present ‘will people like it?’ However, there is now an added layer of anxiety: will a former DAN school student see fit to attend our show as well, and publish as scornful a review as they did for the recent production of the DAN Studio Series?
There is a fine line between professional critique and creating what seems like a list of dislikes. In this case, the boundary has been well and truly crossed. Productions such as DSS and DES exist to provide students the opportunities to explore areas of theatre production they might not have experienced otherwise, and are entirely student-run, with minimal faculty supervision as necessary. This is a space for students to try out their script and get feedback. The shows performed in DSS and DES are rarely finalized products; they are being workshopped. Furthermore, the audience for DSS and DES are generally friends, family, and professors of the students involved. There is the odd gem of a show within these productions where you think “I would love to see that go further”. But that’s not the point. The point is that these students are so fiercely proud of the work they put into these shows, and to then see a review tear apart their work is one of the most disappointing things I have seen as a DAN school student in my time here. Were this a professional production at the Grand, I would understand. Were this a production with a budget of more than (maybe) $1000 or $2000, I would understand. But it’s not. These are shows written for students, by students. To treat them as anything else is both unkind to their creators and performers, and disingenuous to the theatre community at Queen’s as a whole.
DSS and DES are meant to be a safe space for actors and crews to experiment, to develop their skills, or to just have fun. How can they do that with this vitriolic, and strictly opinion piece, hanging over their heads?
Sincerely,
Darcie Watson-Laird
Bachelor of Music Theatre ’22, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) ‘24
Former Rector believes Queen’s must divest from Israel, students can make it happen
Dear Editors,
The year is 1987. In South Africa, the Whites-only Apartheid government is a few years from being forced out of power in the first non-racial elections. Nelson Mandela will soon be out of prison, and before long, the apartheid system will be over. For many years, student activists at Queen’s have been asking their Board of Trustees to withdraw the school’s investments from companies that do business in South Africa. The goal is to weaken the Whites-only government, economically and politically, to hasten its demise. But the trustees repeatedly refuse, giving various reasons. They don’t want to support “terrorists” (referring to Mandela’s political party). The South African investments are too profitable to pass up. The student organizers are dismissed as “grubby hoodlums.” Pressure mounts, and to manage criticism, the Queen’s board eventually sells a small percentage of their South African holdings, but then quietly buys different South African stocks just a month later. Finally, after increased student and faculty pressure, Queen’s divests fully in September 1987.
Fast forward to the year 2010. Queen’s University awards Nelson Mandela an honorary degree. He is celebrated for his contributions to democracy. What explains this reversal in perspective? Why did Queen’s oppose Mandela in the 1980s, and how did Mandela go from terrorist to receiving one of the school’s highest honors? And did this signal a cultural shift, recognizing they’d been on the wrong side of history? Would the board henceforth put justice at the center of its decisions? Certainly not.
Three main factors likely contributed to Queen’s trustees being so insistent on maintaining their financial support for Apartheid South Africa.
First, the Queen’s Board was demonstrating deference to power brokers in Ottawa. It was toeing the official line of high-ranking politicians, federal bureaucrats, and other political heavy hitters who were actively involved in Queen’s governance and campus life. In 1978, weapons manufactured with federal financing were still being sent to Apartheid South Africa. In 1982, Pierre Trudeau helped the Apartheid government win their bid to get a billion dollars from the IMF. Queen’s trustees were likely reluctant to divest considering Canada’s diplomatic support for Apartheid.
Second, the Queen’s Board was likely reluctant to cut relations with South Africa given its close ties with corporate Canada. Major Canadian companies—particularly in finance and mineral sectors—have always provided funding to Queen’s for academic and non-academic purposes. These corporations also provide career networks for Queen’s grads. Right up until 1993, Canadian companies imported goods from Apartheid South Africa averaging $122 million per year and benefited from cheap Black labour in South Africa. In 1987, Queen’s investment committee chairperson Gordon Fleming said Queen’s South African investments were significantly outperforming the stock market. Queen’s trustees may have been unwilling to adopt a divestment position if it weakened their investment portfolio’s performance or went against the financial interests of companies with relationships to Queen’s.
Finally, the Queen’s Board sought to preserve the University’s reputation and status within influential networks in Canada. Queen’s heavily advertises its reputation, networks, and ability to attract leaders from every field to be part of its academic and campus life. Queen’s trustees likely feared backlash and reputational damage if they took an anti-Apartheid position.
Mandela’s rehabilitation from terrorist to honoree, then, might not reflect a change in ethos, but the fact that by 2010 there were no longer risks associated with honoring Mandela. In fact, it was an opportunity to whitewash the positions taken by Queen’s leadership in the 1980s.
The good news for the Queen’s student body is the powerful role it can play in shaping the self-interested policies of Queen’s leadership.
By 2010, support for Mandela’s honorary degree was passionate, and nearly unanimous. But in the 1980s, the Queen’s student body was not in agreement. To be sure, some students were asking for divestment. A 1983 student referendum showed 59% wanted the AMS to divest its funds from South Africa. But the following year, the AMS executive overturned the decision. Next, the majority of students voted that Tri-Colour pubs should continue to stock South African beer, and in 1986, the Queen’s Model UN club invited an Apartheid South African diplomat to speak to their delegates. For context, that’s a political leader in a government that made it illegal for Black and White people to date, and the Model UN club chose him as a guest speaker.
This was well into an ongoing and worldwide campaign that was bringing attention to South Africa’s racist policies, and the Model UN organizers certainly knew the facts about Apartheid. Fast forward again to 2010, and members of that same model UN club spoke against a motion for the AMS to divest from fossil fuel companies. The reason for their opposition, they stated, was because one of their major Model UN funders, Royal Bank, is a fossil fuel investor.
Undoubtedly, the pro-apartheid signals coming from some segments of the student body in the 1980s empowered the trustees to refuse divestment.
The current crisis in Gaza shows the Queen’s administration has not learned from their mistakes in the 1980s. Today Israel is several months into a brutal invasion of Gaza. They’ve destroyed all the hospitals, more than half the buildings, and killed tens of thousands of civilians. They’ve ordered all Gazans to flee to “safe zones,” and then bombed the safe zones. Some high-ranking Israeli politicians have said they hope all Gazans can be resettled to other countries. The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide. Nelson Mandela said in 2007 that South African freedom would be incomplete until Palestinians were free. Mandela’s comrade in the anti-apartheid struggle, Catholic Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said the situation facing Palestinians was even worse than South African Apartheid.
Queen’s students have asked the trustees to divest from Israel to help pressure Israel to become a democratic, non-racist state where Palestinians have equal rights. But when students raised a Palestinian flag above Grant Hall last week, the administration took down the flag and expressed concern the flag was “hate motivated.” Divestment from Israel appears to be off the table for the Queen’s admin.
The reasons for Queen’s support of Israel are the same as South Africa in 1987. In Canada, the Trudeau government has reaffirmed its diplomatic relationship with Israel. RBC (the most valuable company in Canada) as well as CIBC, BMO, Scotiabank, TD, CPP, Indigo/Chapters Inc, Restaurant Brands International, and countless others have operations, hold investments, or give other forms of support to Israel, in some cases including the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Pro-Israel lobby groups in Canada consistently attempt to conflate Palestinian human rights with antisemitism and pressure universities to crack down on activities such as Israeli Apartheid Week. These pressures may explain Queen’s continued support for Israel.
What we can learn from Queen’s Nelson Mandela story is that the trustees are unlikely to do the right thing when their political, economic, and social networks are at stake. The only way to make it happen is through unified student and faculty action. I applaud the students who are organizing for BDS at Queen’s today and implore all students at Queen’s to join them.
If you protest, sit-in, die-in, and sign onto letters in sufficient numbers, the trustees may be forced to do the right thing, as they were back in 1987.
Don’t sit it out.
In future decades, when Queen’s gives an honorary degree to a Palestinian freedom fighter, you will have helped when it mattered.
Sincerely,
Nick Day, ArtSci ’10
Tags
DAN School, Letter to the Editor, Queen's Investments
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