tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/bishops-university-3310/articlesBishop's University2023-11-07T14:46:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097802023-11-07T14:46:32Z2023-11-07T14:46:32ZNous avons tous un accent. Voici pourquoi « l’accentisme » est une forme de discrimination contribuant au racisme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554541/original/file-20231018-27-nmd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3973%2C2230&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nous parlons tous avec un accent. Mais certains accents sont discriminés. Il s'agit alors d'accentisme, un phénomène qui se rapproche du racisme.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vous est-il déjà arrivé d’entendre quelqu’un parler dans son sommeil ? Ses paroles peuvent être dénuées de cohérence (sauf pour un psychanalyste probablement !), mais ce que la personne en question dit reste cohérent dans sa forme. La prononciation des mots respecte la norme grammaticale de la langue, leur ordre d’agencement dans les phrases est aussi pertinent. L’intonation empruntée l’est. Pourtant, l’individu dort et donc ne contrôle pas ce qu’il dit, ou plus précisément ne réfléchit pas. </p>
<p>Ceci nous amène à remarquer que dans l’expression d’une langue, certains éléments reposent sur la réflexion, mais d’autres relèvent du réflexe. C’est le cas de l’accent, un aspect lié à la forme des mots que nous émettons. </p>
<p>Auteur d’une thèse en études françaises avec cheminement en linguistique, j’analyse le système linguistique (surtout les langues africaines). Je forme aussi les enseignants, à l’Université Bishop et à l’Université de Sherbrooke, à la didactique du français et de l’anglais, langues secondes. Je me spécialise dans la gestion de la relation entre la première et la langue seconde.</p>
<h2>Deux hémisphères, deux tâches différentes</h2>
<p>Le processus d’apprentissage de la langue compte deux grandes phases : l’apprentissage et l’acquisition (je schématise <a href="https://www.victorias.fr/dossiers/cours-anglais-dictionnaire/krashen.html">mais la frontière n’est pas étanche</a>. Autrement dit, quand je suis en train d’apprendre, et quand j’ai fini d’apprendre (acquisition). La partie du cerveau qui s’occupe du processus d’apprentissage est (majoritairement) localisée dans l’hémisphère droit. La gestion de ce qui est déjà appris (donc acquis) se passe dans l’hémisphère gauche.</p>
<p>Dans l’hémisphère droit est localisé tout ce dont la réalisation requiert une réflexion active, comme les idées, les intonations rhétoriques. Dans l’hémisphère gauche est géré tout ce qui est produit automatiquement comme certains mots-outils et la syntaxe. Mais aussi le rythme, l’intonation syllabique et syntaxique, la courbe mélodique… communément connus sous le nom de l’accent. </p>
<p>Ainsi, le contenu relève de l’hémisphère droit, la forme, de l’hémisphère gauche.</p>
<h2>La difficulté d’imiter un accent</h2>
<p>Voilà pourquoi il est difficile pour un apprenant d’une langue seconde ou étrangère de réussir à feindre un accent. </p>
<p>Quand nous parlons une langue non acquise, nous gérons le contenu de ce que nous disons (le fond, les idées), ainsi que la manière dont nous le disons (la forme). Le locuteur d’une langue maternelle parlant sa langue ne s’occupe que des stratégies pour exprimer le contenu de son message. Par contre, l’outil linguistique comme tel (la forme, y compris l’accent) fait partie de lui, il est automatisé. Il n’a pas besoin de s’en occuper. Un locuteur qui n’a pas encore acquis une langue doit se concentrer sur le fond et sur la forme (syntaxe et autres). S’il veut feindre l’accent, il aura alors une charge cognitive excessive à accomplir, ce qui requiert davantage d’énergie. </p>
<p>Il est très difficile de réaliser cette double (ou triple) tâche sur une longue période de temps. Dans certaines situations, il peut bénéficier d’un allègement d’une partie de la tâche : la personne connaît bien (par cœur) le texte, les mots (le fond) qu’elle doit émettre, et peut alors concentrer ses efforts sur la formulation (le rythme, l’intonation, l’accent). </p>
<p>C’est le cas des routines de salutation qui sont répétitives (donc pas de surprise au niveau du contenu) d’une présentation bien préparée. C’est ce qui se passe pour les acteurs non francophones, comme Javier Barden, hispanophone, quand il joue le rôle d’un locuteur anglophone natif (<em>Goya’s Ghosts</em>) ou John Malkovich, anglophone, dans le rôle du Français Javert (<em>Les Misérables</em>), mais aussi celui d’Idriss Elba, anglophone, quand il joue le rôle de Nelson Mandela (<em>Long Walk to Freedom</em>) où il doit prendre un accent sud-africain. </p>
<h2>Haro sur l’accentisme</h2>
<p>Les accents souffrent parfois de représentations biaisées. Les langues française et italienne, par exemple, sont présentées comme romantiques, notamment en raison du courant littéraire (romantisme) développé par des auteurs comme Victor Hugo. Les langues russe, allemande ou arabe sont perçues comme menaçantes dans l’imaginaire populaire, pour des raisons sociopolitiques, historiques ou culturelles, développées notamment avec le cinéma. </p>
<p>Ainsi, <a href="https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/26542695/discrimination-basee-sur-laccent">l’accentisme</a>, la discrimination fondée sur l’accent, procède du même principe que le racisme. Les accents africains, par exemple, en sont particulièrement victimes. De l’espoir pourrait naître avec notamment des œuvres cinématographiques comme <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/01/why-chadwick-bosemans-fight-african-accents-black-panther-was-so-important/"><em>Black Panther</em></a> à travers lesquelles l’accent africain n’est plus caricaturé. </p>
<h2>Il n’y a pas une façon unique de parler français</h2>
<p>En somme, l’accent est comme un récipient. Les paroles que quelqu’un prononce sont le contenu du récipient. Le contenu prend la forme du contenant, mais reste authentique, dans l’idée. Ceci est sans doute ce qu’un personnage (hispanophone) du film <em>Les vendanges de feu</em> voulait dire quand il déclara « je parle avec un accent mais je ne réfléchis pas avec un accent ».</p>
<p>Les représentations biaisées n’existent pas seulement entre deux langues différentes, mais bien au sein d’une même langue. C’est le cas du français.</p>
<p>Pour lutter contre les préjugés et jugements de valeur, la posture des linguistiques à propos de la variation linguistique est de ne pas considérer la variété du français de France comme le modèle original, et toutes les autres variétés comme des dérivés. Ils défendent qu’un quelconque modèle original localisé dans un espace géographique déterminé n’existe pas. </p>
<p>Par conséquent, toutes les variétés du français sont des <a href="https://www.usherbrooke.ca/crifuq/fileadmin/sites/crifuq/contributions/MERCIER_Francais.pdf">déclinaisons</a> (d’un modèle virtuel) y compris celle, ou plutôt celles parlées en France. Vous viendrait-il à l’esprit que l’anglais américain soit une déformation de l’anglais (de référence qui serait) britannique ? Pourquoi l’accepter alors dans le cas du français ? </p>
<p>Une telle posture permet de lutter contre la représentation négative que, par exemple, certains Québécois ont du joual. Il s’agit d’un <a href="https://www.usherbrooke.ca/crifuq/fileadmin/sites/crifuq/contributions/CAJOLET_Sommets.pdf">registre de langue</a> (niveau populaire) au sein d’une variété linguistique (français québécois) plus large. Une variété linguistique est authentique si elle est parlée par un grand nombre d’individus, vivant dans un endroit géographique spécifique, sur une durée de temps conséquente. </p>
<p>Un niveau de langue n’est ni bon ni mauvais, elle est juste appropriée ou non à un contexte. Être compétent dans une langue n’est pas parler comme un livre tout le temps, c’est plutôt savoir adapter son discours à son contexte pour maximiser la connexion entre les interlocuteurs. </p>
<p>La variété linguistique que mes enfants (nés au Québec) utilisent avec nous est plus nuancée (une affrication moins marquée, une modulation moins forte des voyelles allongées finales, les voyelles/a/moins arrondies en syllabes finales, etc.). Par contre, en accord avec la <a href="https://www.usherbrooke.ca/crifuq/fileadmin/sites/crifuq/uploads/Remysen-2020__insecurite_accommodation_.pdf">théorie de l’accommodation linguistique</a>, quand je les entends parler à leur camarade de classe, je me demande si ce sont bien les nôtres ! </p>
<p>Pour paraphraser Nelson Mandéla, quand vous parlez à un individu dans une variété qui lui est étrangère, cela va dans sa tête, et si vous lui parlez dans une variété familière, cela va dans son cœur.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209780/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dalla Malé Fofana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Un niveau de langue n’est ni bon ni mauvais, mais plutôt approprié ou non à un contexte. Il s’agit de savoir adapter son discours afin de maximiser la connexion entre les interlocuteurs.Dalla Malé Fofana, Chargé de cours, linguistique, sciences du langage et communication, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2152542023-10-09T08:34:59Z2023-10-09T08:34:59ZAsal-usul ‘Israel’ dan ‘Palestina’: dari nama negara hingga klaim sengketa wilayah<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552673/original/file-20210627-15-3p6p6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C5447%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kaum ultranasionalis Yahudi mengibarkan bendera Israel di samping gerbang Damaskus, di luar Kota Tua Yerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Akhir pekan lalu, Hamas–pasukan paramiliter Palestina–menembakkan ribuan roket ke Israel. Hamas juga menyusup ke Israel melalui jalur darat, laut, dan udara. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-ca7903976387cfc1e1011ce9ea805a71">Ratusan warga Israel terbunuh</a>, lebih dari 2.000 warganya terluka, dan banyak pasukan militernya yang disandera.</p>
<p>Perdana Menteri (PM) Israel Benjamin Netanyahu menyatakan <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-israel-hamas-war-no-matter-who-loses-iran-wins-215225">perang terhadap Hamas</a> dan melancarkan serangan udara di Gaza. Berdasarkan data dari Kementerian Kesehatan Palestina, pada hari pertama serangan balik Israel, korban jiwa di Palestina telah mencapai 400 orang.</p>
<p>Kedua belah pihak, seperti <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-gaza-war.html">perang dan aksi</a> sebelum-sebelumnya antara kedua kubu, saling menyalahkan atas terjadinya serangan-serangan ini.</p>
<p>Sayangnya, perang ini dan kejadian-kejadian yang mengikutinya hanyalah babak terbaru dari sebuah catatan panjang yang tertulis dengan darah dan air mata. </p>
<p>“Israel.” “Palestina.” Satu tanah, dua nama. Masing-masing pihak mengklaim tanah itu sebagai milik mereka, dengan nama yang mereka pilih. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her hands as a heavily armoured police officer confronts her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seorang polisi Israel dan seorang perempuan Palestina berkelahi saat terjadi bentrokan menjelang rencana pawai yang direncanakan oleh kelompok ultranasionalis Yahudi melalui Yerusalem timur, di luar Kota Tua Yerusalem, pada 15 Juni 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Israel’</h2>
<p>Nama “Israel” pertama kali muncul menjelang akhir abad ke-13 SM dalam <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merneptah">Prasasti Merneptah</a> di Mesir, yang tampaknya merujuk pada suatu bangsa (bukan suatu tempat) yang mendiami wilayah yang saat itu disebut “Kanaan”. Beberapa abad kemudian di wilayah tersebut, kita menemukan dua kerajaan bersaudara: Israel dan Yehuda (asal mula <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=jew">istilah “Yahudi”</a>). Menurut Alkitab, pada awalnya terdapat sebuah kerajaan induk–yang disebut “Israel”–yang memimpin kedua kerajaan tersebut.</p>
<p>Pada sekitar tahun 722 SM, kerajaan <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+17.5-6&version=NRSV">Israel ditaklukkan</a> oleh kekaisaran Neo-Asiria, yang berpusat di daerah yang sekarang disebut Irak. Dalam istilah geografis kuno, “Israel” sudah tidak ada lagi. </p>
<h2>Yehuda</h2>
<p>Kurang dari satu setengah abad kemudian, Yehuda digulingkan. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+25.8-10&version=NRSV">Ibukotanya, Yerusalem, ditaklukkan</a>, Kuil Suci Yahudi dihancurkan, dan banyak penduduk Yehuda yang <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity">diasingkan ke Babilonia</a>.</p>
<p>Setelah masa pembuangan berakhir kurang dari 50 tahun kemudian, wilayah bekas kerajaan Yehuda menjadi pusat agama Yahudi selama hampir tujuh abad (meskipun Kuil Suci yang dibangun kembali dihancurkan lagi pada tahun 70 M oleh bangsa Romawi). </p>
<h2>‘Palestina’</h2>
<p>Pada tahun 135 M, setelah <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-bar-kokhba-revolt-132-135-ce">pemberontakan Yahudi yang gagal</a>, Kaisar Romawi Hadrianus mengusir orang-orang Yahudi dari Yerusalem dan menetapkan bahwa kota itu dan wilayah sekitarnya menjadi bagian dari entitas yang lebih besar yang disebut “Suriah-Palestina.” “<a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/palestine">Palestina</a>” diambil dari nama wilayah pesisir <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Philistine-people">Filistin</a> kuno, musuh-musuh bangsa Israel (nenek moyang orang Yahudi). </p>
<p>Setelah penaklukan Islam atas Timur Tengah pada abad ketujuh, orang-orang Arab mulai bermukim di wilayah yang dulunya bernama “Palestina”. Terlepas dari sekitar 90 tahun dominasi <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades">Tentara Salib</a>, tanah itu berada di bawah kendali Muslim selama kurang dari 1.200 tahun. Meskipun pemukiman Yahudi juga tetap ada, populasinya sebagian besar adalah orang Arab. </p>
<h2>Zionisme dan kendali Inggris</h2>
<p>Pada paruh kedua abad ke-19, kerinduan yang telah lama dirasakan oleh orang-orang Yahudi di <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diaspora-Judaism">diaspora</a>, untuk kembali ke wilayah nenek moyang mereka, memuncak melalui gerakan nasionalisme yang disebut <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/zionism">Zionisme</a>.</p>
<p>Tujuan Zionisme didorong oleh meningkatnya <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-semitism-is-on-the-rise-75-years-after-the-end-of-the-holocaust-and-second-world-war-132141">kebencian terhadap orang Yahudi</a> di Eropa dan Rusia. Orang-orang Yahudi yang berimigrasi bertemu dengan penduduk yang sebagian besar adalah orang Arab, yang juga menganggapnya sebagai tanah leluhur mereka. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a chair holding a rock sits in the foreground with the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seorang demonstran Palestina bertopeng memegang batu saat terjadi bentrokan dengan aparat keamanan Israel di depan Masjid Kubah Batu di komplek Masjid Al Aqsa di Kota Tua Yerusalem, pada 18 Juni 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pada masa itu, tanah tersebut terdiri dari tiga wilayah administratif milik <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/ottoman-empire">kekaisaran Ottoman</a>, tidak ada yang disebut “<a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2018/05/18/400-years-of-peace-palestine-under-ottoman-rule">Palestina</a>.”</p>
<p>Pada tahun 1917, tanah tersebut berada di bawah kekuasaan Inggris. Pada tahun 1923, dibentuk “<a href="https://time.com/3445003/mandatory-palestine/">Mandat Palestina</a>,” yang juga mencakup negara Yordania saat ini. Penduduk Arab di sana menganggap diri mereka sendiri bukan sebagai “orang Palestina” dalam arti sebuah negara, melainkan sebagai orang Arab yang tinggal di Palestina (atau lebih tepatnya, “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/greater-syria">Suriah Raya</a>”). </p>
<h2>Negara Israel</h2>
<p>Para pemimpin Zionis di wilayah Mandat Palestina berusaha keras untuk meningkatkan jumlah orang Yahudi untuk memperkuat klaim kenegaraan, tetapi pada tahun 1939, Inggris <a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/955">secara ketat</a> membatasi imigrasi Yahudi. </p>
<p>Namun, pada akhirnya proyek Zionis berhasil karena ketakutan global dalam terhadap peristiwa <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust">Holocaust</a>.</p>
<p>Pada bulan November 1947, Majelis Umum Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa (PBB) mengesahkan <a href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253">Resolusi 181</a>, yang membagi wilayah tersebut menjadi “Negara-negara Arab dan Yahudi yang merdeka”. Resolusi tersebut langsung mendapat penolakan dari Arab. Pasukan paramiliter Palestina kemudian menyerang pemukiman Yahudi. </p>
<p>Pada 14 Mei 1948, para pemimpin Zionis mendeklarasikan berdirinya negara Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man unrolls a scroll as David Ben-Gurion looks on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dalam foto tanggal 14 Mei 1948 ini, seorang pejabat menunjukkan dokumen yang telah ditandatangani yang memproklamirkan pendirian negara Yahudi baru Israel yang dideklarasikan oleh Perdana Menteri David Ben-Gurion di Tel Aviv, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Perang Kemerdekaan’ versus ‘Al-Nakba’</h2>
<p>Negara Yahudi yang baru ini segera diserbu oleh tentara dari beberapa negara Arab, bersama dengan para militan Palestina. Pada saat pertempuran berakhir pada tahun berikutnya, Palestina telah kehilangan hampir empat perlima dari jatah PBB. Tidak kurang dari 700.000 orang dari pihak mereka telah diusir dari rumah mereka, tanpa hak untuk kembali hingga saat ini.</p>
<p>Bagi warga Yahudi Israel, peristiwa ini dikenal sebagai <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-israel-war-of-independence">“Perang Kemerdekaan”</a>. Bagi warga Palestina, peristiwa ini adalah <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948"><em>al-Nakba</em></a> alias “bencana.”</p>
<p>Pada 15 November 1988, Dewan Nasional Palestina mengeluarkan deklarasi kemerdekaan, yang <a href="https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/146E6838D505833F852560D600471E25">diakui</a> sebulan kemudian oleh Majelis Umum PBB. Sekitar tiga perempat keanggotaan PBB sekarang menerima kenegaraan Palestina, dengan <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-182149/">status pengamat non-anggota</a>.</p>
<h2>Perbedaan nasib, permusuhan tanpa henti</h2>
<p>Meskipun beberapa kali berperang dengan negara-negara Arab dan kelompok sekutunya, Israel terus berkembang. Palestina juga telah berjuang untuk membangun pemerintahan yang fungsional dan stabilitas ekonomi. </p>
<p>Dalam <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/six-day-war">Perang Enam Hari</a> pada Juni 1967, Israel menangkis ancaman eksistensial yang sesungguhnya, dengan menghalau kekuatan militer Arab yang sangat besar yang berkumpul di perbatasannya. Perebutan Yerusalem Timur, Tepi Barat, dan Gaza oleh Israel selama perang tersebut membuat warga Palestina berada di bawah berbagai bentuk pendudukan atau kontrol Israel yang menyakitkan. </p>
<p>Sepanjang konflik Israel-Palestina, lebih banyak orang Palestina yang terbunuh dan terluka daripada orang Yahudi Israel. Sebagian besar karena kemampuan militer Israel yang lebih canggih. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/gaza-hamas-israel.html">Ada juga karena strategi Hamas</a> yang menempatkan pusat-pusat komando mereka di dalam wilayah-wilayah sipil.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her fist in protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seorang perempuan Palestina ikut serta dalam unjuk rasa untuk memperingati ulang tahun ke-20 Intifadah Palestina kedua, atau pemberontakan, di kota Ramallah, Tepi Barat, pada 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Warga Yahudi Israel telah mengalami dua kali kekerasan <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080066/israel-palestine-intifadas-first-second">pemberontakan Palestina</a>(1987-1993; 2001-2005). Upaya yang kedua merupakan gelombang <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/israel-hamas-conflict_b_5663188.html">bom bunuh diri dan penyergapan</a> yang mematikan.</p>
<p>Israel kemudian meresponsnya dengan membangun <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/7/8/in-pictures-israels-illegal-separation-wall-still-divides">Pembatas Keamanan</a>. Ini cukup membantu menahan serangan teroris Palestina tetapi sekaligus menambah penderitaan warga sipil Palestina.</p>
<p>Sejak tahun 1990-an, telah dilakukan beberapa kali upaya untuk menegosiasikan <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-state-solution">solusi dua negara</a>, tetapi semuanya gagal.</p>
<p>Di bawah perdana menteri terlama di Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, pembangunan pemukiman Yahudi di Tepi Barat dan Yerusalem Timur, yang dianggap ilegal oleh sebagian besar dunia, semakin dipercepat. Ini telah, dan akan semakin, mempersulit upaya-upaya perundingan.</p>
<h2>Warga negara kelas dua</h2>
<p>Sekitar 20% dari total penduduk Israel adalah orang Arab. Sayangnya, warga Arab Israel sebagian besar diperlakukan sebagai <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/israel-palestinian-citizens-racism-discrimination.html">warga negara kelas dua</a> di dalam negara resmi Yahudi. </p>
<p>Kekalahan Netanyahu baru-baru ini dapat membantu mengatasi hal ini. Israel sekarang memiliki koalisi pemerintahan yang mencakup <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-raam-party-makes-history-by-joining-bennett-lapid-coalition/">partai Arab Israel</a>.</p>
<h2>Pikirkan baik-baik</h2>
<p>Lebih dari 1.000 tahun, “Israel” mendahului “Palestina”. Tanah itu kemudian menjadi rumah bagi penduduk Arab, sekali lagi, selama lebih dari satu milenium. Oleh karena itu, baik orang Yahudi maupun Arab memiliki klaim yang sah atas tanah tersebut. </p>
<p>Konflik Israel-Palestina telah menunjukkan banyak sekali kesalahan dan kebrutalan dari kedua belah pihak. Tidak ada tindakan balas dendam, betapapun ekstremnya, yang dapat membuat salah satu pihak mengatakan bahwa semua telah diselesaikan di pihak mereka. </p>
<p>Satu-satunya jalan ke depan adalah, entah bagaimana, berhenti melihat ke belakang. </p>
<p>Dalam sebuah pembalikan dari transformasi Sungai Nil dalam <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex+7.20-22&version=NRSV">Alkitab</a>, sungai-sungai darah yang tumpah harus menjadi air di bawah jembatan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Miller tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Sejarah Israel dan Palestina memang rumit. Satu tanah, dua nama. Masing-masing pihak mengklaim tanah itu sebagai milik mereka, dengan nama yang mereka pilih.Daniel Miller, Assoc. Prof. of Religion, Society and Culture, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110672023-09-24T12:10:23Z2023-09-24T12:10:23ZWhy Einstein must be wrong: In search of the theory of gravity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548379/original/file-20230914-27-fu6fow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C2497&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As new and powerful telescopes gather new data about the universe, they reveal the limits of older theories.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-einstein-must-be-wrong-in-search-of-the-theory-of-gravity" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Einstein’s theory of gravity — <a href="https://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html">general relativity</a> — has been very successful for more than a century. However, it has theoretical shortcomings. This is not surprising: the theory predicts its own failure at spacetime singularities inside black holes — and the <a href="https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/avoiding_the_big_bang/">Big Bang itself</a>. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-understanding-of-black-holes-has-changed-over-time-172816">Our understanding of black holes has changed over time</a>
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<p>Unlike physical theories describing the other three fundamental forces in physics — the electromagnetic and the strong and weak nuclear interactions — the general theory of relativity has only been tested in weak gravity. </p>
<p>Deviations of gravity from general relativity are by no means excluded nor tested everywhere <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01808-7">in the universe</a>. And, according to theoretical physicists, deviation must happen.</p>
<h2>Deviations and quantum mechanics</h2>
<p>According to Einstein, our universe originated in a Big Bang. Other singularities hide inside black holes: Space and time cease to have meaning there, while quantities such as energy density and pressure become infinite. These signal that Einstein’s theory is failing there and must be replaced with a more fundamental one.</p>
<p>Naively, spacetime singularities should be resolved by quantum mechanics, which apply at very small scales.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-we-have-to-rewrite-einsteins-theory-of-general-relativity-50057">Will we have to rewrite Einstein's theory of general relativity?</a>
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<p>Quantum physics relies on two simple ideas: <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/">point particles</a> make no sense; and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-7512">Heisenberg uncertainty principle</a>, which states that one can never know the value of certain pairs of quantities with absolute precision — for example, the position and velocity of a particle. This is because particles should not be thought of as points but as waves; at small scales they behave as waves of matter.</p>
<p>This is enough to understand that a theory that embraces both general relativity and quantum physics should be free of such pathologies. However, all attempts to blend general relativity and quantum physics necessarily introduce deviations from Einstein’s theory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a black circle surrounded with a ring of light" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548820/original/file-20230918-27-exi2b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of the 1919 complete solar eclipse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.1920.0009">(Arthur Eddington/Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Therefore, Einstein’s gravity cannot be the ultimate theory of gravity. Indeed, it was not long after the introduction of general relativity by Einstein in 1915 that Arthur Eddington, best known for verifying this theory in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2020.0040">1919 solar eclipse</a>, started searching for alternatives just to see how things could be different. </p>
<p>Einstein’s theory has survived all tests to date, accurately predicting various results from the <a href="https://doi.org/10.12942/lrr-2014-4">precession of Mercury’s orbit to the existence of gravitational waves</a>. So, where are these deviations from general relativity hiding?</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gravitational-waves-discovered-top-scientists-respond-53956">Gravitational waves discovered: top scientists respond</a>
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<h2>Cosmology matters</h2>
<p>A century of research has given us the standard model of cosmology known as the Λ-Cold Dark Matter <a href="https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/graphic_history/univ_evol.html">(ΛCDM) model</a>. Here, Λ stands for either Einstein’s famous cosmological constant or a mysterious dark energy with similar properties. </p>
<p>Dark energy was introduced ad hoc by astronomers to explain the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.75.559">acceleration of the cosmic expansion</a>. Despite fitting cosmological data extremely well until recently, the ΛCDM model is spectacularly incomplete and unsatisfactory from the theoretical point of view. </p>
<p>In the past five years, it has also faced severe <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/ac086d">observational tensions</a>. The Hubble constant, which determines the age and the distance scale in the universe, can be measured in the early universe using the cosmic microwave background and in the late universe using supernovae as standard candles. </p>
<p>These two measurements give <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/ac086d">incompatible results</a>. Even more important, the nature of the main ingredients of the ΛCDM model — <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-experiments-trying-to-crack-physics-biggest-question-what-is-dark-energy-52917">dark energy</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-astronomers-believe-in-dark-matter-122864">dark matter</a> and the field driving early universe <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/definition/cosmic-inflation/">inflation</a> (a very brief period of extremely fast expansion originating the seeds for galaxies and galaxy clusters) — remains a mystery.</p>
<p>From the observational point of view, the most compelling motivation for modified gravity is the acceleration of the universe discovered in 1998 with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/307221">Type Ia supernovae</a>, whose luminosity is dimmed by this acceleration. The ΛCDM model based on general relativity postulates an extremely exotic dark energy with negative pressure permeating the universe. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="eight bright circles in a dark sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548822/original/file-20230918-27-jr07hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Type Ia supernovae were discovered in 1998, and revealed more about the rate of the universe’s acceleration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/galex/pia18929/after-the-explosion-investigating-supernova-sites">(Sloan Digital Sky Survey/NASA)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Problem is, this dark energy has no physical justification. Its nature is completely unknown, although a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219887807001928">plethora of models</a> has been proposed. The proposed alternative to dark energy is a cosmological constant Λ which, according to quantum-mechanical <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.61.1">back-of-the-envelope (but questionable) calculations</a>, should be huge. </p>
<p>However, Λ must instead be incredibly fine-tuned to a tiny value to fit the cosmological observations. If dark energy exists, our ignorance of its nature is deeply troubling.</p>
<h2>Alternatives to Einstein’s theory</h2>
<p>Could it be that troubles arise, instead, from wrongly trying to fit the cosmological observations into general relativity, like fitting a person into a pair of trousers that are too small? That we are observing the first deviations from general relativity while the mysterious dark energy simply does not exist? </p>
<p>This idea, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271802002025">first proposed</a> by researchers at the University of Naples, has gained tremendous popularity while the contending dark energy camp remains vigorous. </p>
<p>How can we tell? Deviations from Einstein gravity are <a href="https://doi.org/10.12942/lrr-2014-4">constrained by solar system experiments</a>, the recent observations of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102">gravitational waves</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7">near-horizon images of black holes</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/say-hello-to-sagittarius-a-the-black-hole-at-the-center-of-the-milky-way-galaxy-183008">Say hello to Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy</a>
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<p>There is now a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.82.451">large literature</a> on theories of gravity alternative to general relativity, going back to Eddington’s 1923 early investigations. A very popular class of alternatives is the so-called scalar-tensor gravity. It is conceptually very simple since it only introduces one additional ingredient (a scalar field corresponding to the simplest, spinless, particle) to Einstein’s geometric description of gravity. </p>
<p>The consequences of this program, however, are far from trivial. A striking phenomenon is the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41114-018-0011-x">chameleon effect</a>,” consisting of the fact that these theories can disguise themselves as general relativity in high-density environments (such as in stars or in the solar system) while deviating strongly from it in the low-density environment of cosmology.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-search-for-dark-matter-and-dark-energy-just-got-interesting-46422">The search for 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' just got interesting</a>
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<p>As a result, the extra (gravitational) field is effectively absent in the first type of systems, disguising itself as a chameleon does, and is felt only at the largest (cosmological) scales.</p>
<h2>The current situation</h2>
<p>Nowadays the spectrum of alternatives to Einstein gravity has widened dramatically. Even adding a single massive scalar excitation (namely, a spin-zero particle) to Einstein gravity —and keeping the resulting equations “simple” to avoid some known fatal instabilities — has resulted in the much wider class of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271819420069">Horndeski theories</a>, and subsequent generalizations. </p>
<p>Theorists have spent the last decade extracting physical consequences from these theories. The recent detections of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102">gravitational waves</a> have provided a way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.084029">constrain the physical class of modifications</a> of Einstein gravity allowed.</p>
<p>However, much work still needs to be done, with the hope that future advances in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-019-0101-z">multi-messenger astronomy</a> lead to discovering modifications of general relativity where gravity is extremely strong.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerio Faraoni receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Giusti received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grant agreement No. 895648). </span></em></p>Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests that our universe originated in a Big Bang. But black holes, and their gravitational forces, challenge the limits of Einstein’s work.Valerio Faraoni, Professor, Physics & Astronomy, Bishop's UniversityAndrea Giusti, Postdoctoral fellow, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059762023-06-05T17:30:09Z2023-06-05T17:30:09ZMieux enseigner les langues secondes, grâce à la linguistique !<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528933/original/file-20230529-39375-wmgf5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=72%2C0%2C8110%2C5390&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Classe d'anglais langue seconde à de nouveaux arrivants. La manière d'enseigner les langues devrait sortir des règles et de la grammaire et s'inspirer de la linguistique.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>L’enseignement des langues secondes a connu une <a href="https://www.sutori.com/en/story/l-evolution-des-methodes-d-enseignement-de-langues-etrangeres--2USpPhUScREV5fTVWkp7D46G">évolution</a> au fil des méthodes qui se sont succédé. Il est passé de la mise en avant de la grammaire vers la priorisation de la communication. On fonde l’apprentissage sur les besoins de l’apprenant, afin de le doter des outils linguistiques pertinents. </p>
<p>Le regard posé sur la langue maternelle a aussi connu des changements. On perçoit les différents accents (notamment africains) avec moins de condescendance. Car l’accent ne devrait être un frein que lorsqu’il gêne la compréhension. </p>
<p>Cela dit, les façons actuelles d’enseigner une langue seconde sont-elles encore pertinentes ? Je crois que regarder du côté de la linguistique peut permettre d’aller plus loin, notamment en faisant de la langue maternelle de l’apprenant un atout, et non un frein.</p>
<p>Auteur d’une thèse en études françaises avec cheminement en linguistique, j’analyse le système linguistique (surtout les langues africaines). Je forme aussi les enseignants, à l’Université Bishop et à l’Université de Sherbrooke, à la didactique du français et de l’anglais, langues secondes. Je me spécialise dans la gestion de la relation entre la première et la langue seconde. </p>
<h2>Les règles… et les usages</h2>
<p>Quelles sont les différences entre un enseignant traditionnel, qui privilégie la grammaire, et un linguiste ? Le premier enseigne les règles, notamment de grammaire, et les normes que doivent suivre les usagers. Elle dicte la façon « correcte » de s’exprimer. Le linguiste analyse (notamment) des faits de langue que les usagers pratiquent pour en établir les règles. </p>
<p>Le linguiste ne juge pas. Il décrit. La linguistique s’intéresse à l’apprentissage/acquisition de la langue maternelle. L’apprentissage de la langue seconde pourrait, toutefois, bénéficier de l’approche de cette discipline, surtout avec sa branche qui est la linguistique <a href="https://books.openedition.org/psn/12327?lang=fr">contrastive</a>.</p>
<p>La linguistique contrastive compare les langues. Elle met en rapport les mots, la manière dont ils sont formés, leur système d’accentuation, les sons qui sont comparables ou différents, la structure des phrases et les civilisations dont elles sont issues. Une prise de conscience des similarités ou différences entre la langue maternelle et la langue cible permet de renforcer les ressemblances, et contourner les différences qui peuvent susciter de l’incompréhension. </p>
<h2>Une perspective descriptive et fonctionnelle</h2>
<p>Prenons l’exemple de l’alphabet <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:International_Phonetic_Alphabet">phonétique</a> international. Il permet de mettre toutes les consonnes et voyelles des langues sur un seul tableau, en indiquant les manières de les prononcer. Ceci permet de voir, par exemple, que le français et le portugais font parti des langues les plus riches en voyelles, et que l’arabe classique, qui possède un grand nombre de consonnes, n’a que trois voyelles de base.</p>
<p>Cet alphabet peut amener concrètement un enseignant à faire passer un apprenant d’une lettre qu’il a dans sa langue, à une lettre d’une autre langue qui lui est inconnue en se fondant sur leur description. </p>
<p>Prenons l’exemple de l’arabe classique. Un enseignant qui s’intéresse à la linguistique comprend que/p/qui est présent dans cette langue, et/b/(qui en est absent) ont strictement les mêmes caractéristiques à l’exception d’un seul trait :/b/est sonore (pour le réaliser il faut faire vibrer les cordes vocales), et/p/est sourd (sans vibration des cordes vocales). En aidant un apprenant à être conscient de cela, celui-ci pourrait facilement transférer cette compétence pour réaliser le/p/qui lui manque. </p>
<h2>La décolonisation de l’enseignement des langues</h2>
<p>Les consonnes et les voyelles d’une langue sont l’arbre qui cache la forêt. D’autres éléments tout aussi importants existent sans être aussi visibles. Il s’agit de la dimension socio-discursive de la langue, soit la trace de la culture d’origine d’un locuteur dans l’expression de sa langue cible. Il peut prendre plusieurs formes et dépend aussi du niveau de maitrise de cette langue cible. Il est possible de le retrouver dans la manière de construire un texte, de présenter ses idées, de se positionner (humour, croyances religieuses, concision, etc.).</p>
<p>La linguistique procure aux apprenants une confiance en eux-mêmes, et vient annihiler la discrimination nourrie entre les langues. Les politiques linguistiques issues de la colonisation ont discriminé les langues locales — notamment africaines — qui étaient souvent bannies et traquées. Le système colonial français a fondé sa domination notamment sur la minimisation de la langue du colonisé. </p>
<p>C’est ce qu’on appelle la <a href="https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com/dictionnaire/definition/glottophagie">glottophagie</a>, une politique linguistique dont l’objectif était le discrédit et l’élimination des langues autochtones. C’est la raison pour laquelle la langue a représenté un pilier fondamental du mouvement identitaire appelé la négritude. Pour comprendre la question identitaire de la langue, il suffit de voir comment le Québec lutte afin que la langue française ne se fasse pas engloutir par l’anglais. Ce n’est pas une question de dimension fonctionnelle ou pratique. C’est une question d’identité. </p>
<p>Ainsi, en consolidant la langue maternelle, nous raffermissions le socle sur lequel se font les apprentissages. Si la première langue de l’apprenant, qui fait partie de son identité, est fragile, c’est comme si on voulait construire une charpente sur un sol instable. </p>
<p>On ne peut comparer une langue à une autre. Chacune évolue dans un environnement précis et a un objectif : réussir à nommer tous les aspects notionnels, conceptuels et les réalités sociales et physiques du peuple concerné. Il existe certaines réalités qui sont propres à l’humain lui-même (fatigue, amour, colère) qui se retrouvent dans toutes les langues, même si elles peuvent s’exprimer différemment. </p>
<h2>Les langues s’adaptent et évoluent</h2>
<p>Le fait qu’une civilisation ne possède pas un terme pour nommer un satellite, par exemple, n’est pas une lacune si cette civilisation n’a pas de satellite dans son univers référentiel traditionnel. Le fait d’emprunter le terme en question dans la langue de l’autre n’est pas signe de faiblesse. Chaque langue est faite pour nommer les réalités propres à sa société. </p>
<p>En <a href="http://www.inalco.fr/sites/default/files/asset/document/fiche_wolof.pdf">wolof</a>, par exemple, langue de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, le terme <em>sedd</em> (froid) est utilisé pour qualifier une réalité accueillante et attirante, tandis que <em>tang</em> (chaud) qualifierait un fait, une personne, une voix ou une attitude peu accueillante ou peu attirante. Dans de nombreuses cultures occidentales, ces termes sont inversés, car le froid y est peu accueillant (un visage froid) tandis que le chaud se présente comme attrayant (une personne chaleureuse). </p>
<p>Maintenant, ajoutons la géographie au langage : dans les pays tropicaux comme le Sénégal, on aspire à la fraîcheur, alors que les habitants des climats du Nord aspirent à la chaleur. S’intéresser à la langue maternelle de l’apprenant peut permettre de comprendre toutes ces nuances. </p>
<p>L’enseignant a la responsabilité de veiller à cette dimension référentielle et <a href="https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01323531">socio-discursive</a> dont les racines sont profondes. Plus confiant et positif par rapport à sa langue maternelle, l’apprenant sera plus psychologiquement investi à explorer une langue seconde.</p>
<p>Ainsi, la perspective linguistique gagne à être adoptée par les enseignants dans des classes plurilingues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205976/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dalla Malé Fofana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>L’enseignement des langues secondes met l’accent sur les règles de grammaire et les normes. Le recours à la linguistique pourrait permettre de faire de la langue maternelle de l’apprenant un atout.Dalla Malé Fofana, Chargé de cours , Linguistique, Sciences du langage et Communication, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019912023-04-24T21:32:54Z2023-04-24T21:32:54ZLocal food is not enough — we need a sustainable transition in the food system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518248/original/file-20230329-22-dyx9bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C9%2C3149%2C2315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Seedlings growing in a greenhouse in the Outaouais region of Québec. It's time to think deeply about the future of our food system.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Bryan Dale</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Having highlighted the failures and fragility of a globalized food system, the COVID-19 pandemic created <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7257829/shop-local-campaigns-quebec-economy-coronavirus/">a sudden infatuation with local consumption</a>, which was widely encouraged by the Québec government as a measure to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. </p>
<p>On one hand, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-migrant-workers-covid-19-1.5684664">delays in the arrival of foreign workers</a> and the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6910785/canada-coronavirus-pork-beef-farmers/">disruption of slaughterhouse operations</a> were among the greatest difficulties faced by Québec farmers. On the other hand, one of the biggest challenges for smaller-scale local ecological producers was to promptly satisfy an overwhelming demand for fresh, local food. </p>
<p>However, this is not a trend that has lasted: while there was a sharp return to normal in 2021 (compared to 2020), some local farmers even reported <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/food-baskets-plummet-1.6507255">a drop in demand for their products</a> in 2022. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Québec government has been redoubling its efforts to promote local food in the name of “food autonomy,” whether by increasing its support for <a href="https://www.alimentsduquebec.com/en/"><em>Aliments du Québec</em></a> (the organization responsible for branding food produced within the province), or by adopting its <a href="https://www.quebec.ca/gouvernement/politiques-orientations/strategie-nationale-achat-aliments-quebecois"><em>Stratégie nationale d’achats d’aliments québécois</em></a> (a strategy for local food procurement within public institutions). The province is also <a href="https://www.quebec.ca/nouvelles/actualites/details/croissance-serres">investing heavily</a>, albeit narrowly, in technologies such as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-self-sufficient-fruits-and-vegetables-1.6703057">greenhouses</a> and food processing infrastructure. </p>
<p>So how does one explain the decline in the popularity of local, ecologically grown food? </p>
<p>As researchers in sustainable food systems, we would like to offer some considerations as to why politicians and citizens should be targeting changes that are far more ambitious than short-lived support for local food production and consumption. </p>
<h2>Food autonomy is insufficient</h2>
<p>The main conclusion that we have drawn from the research we conducted with local farmers and others involved in alternative food initiatives is that “food autonomy,” as a framework for reorganizing the food system of Québec (and other provinces), is not enough. Instead, what is needed is a <a href="https://www.equiterre.org/en/resources/propositions-pour-la-loi-canadienne-sur-la-transition-juste">“just transition”</a>. </p>
<p>How is food autonomy insufficient? First of all, it does not adequately challenge dominant production models. Those of smaller-scale ecological producers, which can be very diverse in terms of on-farm practices, should be both prioritized and replicated. </p>
<p>In the face of <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-farms-that-adapt-to-climate-change-could-see-benefits-report-suggests">climate change</a> in particular, the farmers we interviewed believe that greater biodiversity on smaller scales promotes the resilience of <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/opinion-saving-quebec-agriculture-requires-far-more-than-addressing-pesticides-1.5344768">agricultural ecosystems</a>. Conversely, conventional models, often “hyper-specialized” and dependent on a large quantity and variety of off-farm inputs, do not allow for such resilience. </p>
<h2>The precarity of farming</h2>
<p>However, regardless of the model of production, another blind spot of food autonomy is the considerable and ongoing precariousness experienced by the people growing our food. Our research confirmed what has been <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-offers-extra-300k-in-psychological-support-to-farmers-1.4711518">demonstrated in recent years</a>: that the financial and mental burden that farmers are facing is worrisome and unsustainable. </p>
<p>Contributing to this burden is the well-known shortage of domestic agricultural labourers, which is being compensated for by migrant workers whose living and working conditions are <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/temporary-foreign-workers-farm-laurentians-1.6194817">too often deplorable</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, smaller-scale farmers in particular must very often wear the hat of both food producers and marketing and distribution experts, while they receive very little support in either of these areas. The marketing and distribution side is particularly difficult for local ecological products. </p>
<p>While smaller-scale farmers cannot meet the supply chain requirements of conventional supermarkets, such as a stable supply throughout the year or a long shelf life, direct marketing through farmers’ markets or <a href="https://www.fermierdefamille.org/en/community-supported-agriculture">Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)</a> subscriptions, for example, can be both time-consuming and relatively inefficient. </p>
<p>Moreover, the logistical and economic accessibility of these types of marketing is compromised by socio-economic factors that go well beyond the scope of food production; small-scale ecological growing is often incompatible with the fight against <a href="https://banquesalimentaires.org/en/about-us/our-publications/">food insecurity</a>. Connections between marginalized consumers and ecological farmers are therefore difficult and only occasionally realized through targeted initiatives. </p>
<p>In sum, it is clear that food autonomy does not address all of these issues, which is why researchers refer to it as the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X06291389">local trap</a>” when it is promoted as a framework for action on its own. Local consumption alone does not address the majority of the more substantial problems that lie at the heart of our food system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graphic showing the connections and distinctions between Food Autonomy, the Just Transition, Agroecology, and Food Sovereignty" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518307/original/file-20230329-28-htrorv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although local consumption is in line with food sovereignty, agroecology, and the just transition process, food autonomy alone inevitably leads to the ‘local trap,’ as it does not address the environmental and socio-economic issues that are inseparable from food systems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graphic by Bryan Dale</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Towards a just transition</h2>
<p>The objective should not be simply to achieve food autonomy, but to undertake the process of a just transition towards a socially just and <a href="https://www.nfu.ca/campaigns/agroecology/">agroecological</a> food system. This is an opportunity to actively rethink the current food model, which is currently designed to prevent such a transformation. </p>
<p>It is important to note that this process must be structured in such a way that all agri-food stakeholders move towards a common goal: environmentally friendly localized agriculture that produces healthy, accessible, and inclusive food without compromise. In other words, a just transition is about inviting everyone to the table, from farmers to consumers, to think beyond established models and popular practices. </p>
<p>To date, our research suggests that the development of an <a href="https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/rebuilding-infrastructure-of-the-middle/">“infrastructure of the middle”</a> would provide an effective physical and logistical structure for both smaller-scale farmers and consumers. Briefly, such infrastructure, both tangible and intangible (e.g., networks and resources) would allow for a sufficient mass of ecological farmers and other food producers and processors, on one hand, and consumers, on the other, to overcome the difficulties of direct marketing as well as those associated with conventional supply chains. </p>
<p>More specifically, the infrastructure of the middle would be adapted to local realities and can take the form of, for example, <a href="https://recolte.ca/salim-info/foodhubs/">food hubs</a>, <a href="https://www.lepetitabattoir.com/">community-based abattoirs</a>, or <a href="https://www.shareable.net/it-all-starts-with-food-how-co-ops-are-transforming-quebecs-food-deserts/">cooperative food markets</a>.</p>
<h2>A question of collective responsibility</h2>
<p>Of course, it is possible to name such examples because they already exist. However, the current forms of product aggregation and co-operation between farms, organizations and consumers are marginal and need to be further supported. Our research has shown that such examples of infrastructure of the middle require a significantly increased contribution from outside the agricultural community. </p>
<p>Currently, most alternative and collaborative marketing initiatives are carried out by third parties, often <a href="https://carrefoursolidaire.org/en/accueil-english/">community-based food insecurity organizations</a>, and representatives from such organizations agree on an important fact: the development of an infrastructure of the middle requires substantial government support as well as deep public engagement. In other words, the establishment of new infrastructure and new initiatives in general must be taken up as part of the transition toward a more just and ecological food system.</p>
<p>Finally, the just transition as an action framework requires us to no longer ignore the blind spots of food autonomy that include the climate crisis, community well-being, and social justice. Indeed, to engage with our food system is to realize that food is at the heart of our social fabric.</p>
<p>As homesteader, activist, and author <a href="https://www.enpleinegueule.com/">Dominic Lamontagne</a> told us, “Since everyone benefits from the act of eating, everyone should be pitching in.” </p>
<p>We all need a healthy and just food system. We all need to get involved in one way or another to shape not only the food system of the future, but healthy, resilient communities in which we will feel proud to be living. </p>
<p>In fact, bringing about such changes is our collective responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201991/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Dale received financial support from Bishop's University to pursue his research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marianne Granger received financial support from Bishop's University in contributing to this research project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mélodie Anderson received funding from Bishop's University.</span></em></p>In light of the changes caused by the pandemic, it is clear that food autonomy as a frame of reference for reorganizing the Québec food system is not enough.Bryan Dale, Assistant Professor, Department of Environment and Geography, Bishop's UniversityMarianne Granger, Auxiliaire de recherche en agriculture et systèmes alimentaires durables, Bishop's UniversityMélodie Anderson, Auxiliaire de recherche en agriculture et systèmes alimentaires durables, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1954162023-03-14T14:29:24Z2023-03-14T14:29:24ZL’autonomie alimentaire n’est pas suffisante. Il faut viser un système alimentaire sain et juste<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512997/original/file-20230301-14-xiowmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Les semis poussent dans une serre en Outaouais, Québec. C'est le moment de réfléchir à l'avenir de notre système alimentaire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Bryan Dale)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>[<em>Note d’autrices : Afin de faciliter la lecture du texte, nous avons employé le féminin comme genre neutre pour désigner tous les genres.</em>]</p>
<p>Ayant mis en lumière les défaillances et la fragilité d’un système alimentaire globalisé, la pandémie de la Covid-19 a créé un <a href="https://www.lenouvelliste.ca/2021/02/16/sondage--82--des-quebecois-font-des-efforts-pour-acheter-local-video-c67432c73c16b52ba4df8d2345057ca9">réel engouement pour la consommation locale</a>, largement promue par le gouvernement québécois comme mesure de mitigation des effets de la pandémie. </p>
<p>D’un côté, la <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1694883/gouvernement-quebec-incitatif-quebecois-agriculture">perturbation de l’arrivée de travailleurs étrangers</a> et <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/mordu/3639/euthanasie-poulet-quebec-exceldor-olymel-2022">celle du fonctionnement des abattoirs</a> ont été parmi les grandes difficultés vécues par les agricultrices québécoises. De l’autre, l’un des plus grands défis pour les plus petites productrices de proximité écologiques (PPÉ) (ou, autrement dit, les agricultrices de fermes durables à l’échelle humaine) a été de satisfaire une demande décuplée pour des produits frais, locaux et écologiques. </p>
<p>Mais les chiffres ne se maintiennent pas : si un brusque retour à la normale s’est opéré en 2021 (par rapport à 2020), certaines PPÉ rapportent même une <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/economie/722988/consommation-minuit-moins-une-pour-les-producteurs-maraichers-bios">baisse de la demande en 2022</a>. </p>
<p>Pourtant, le gouvernement québécois redouble d’ardeur pour promouvoir les aliments locaux, que ce soit en bonifiant son soutien à <a href="https://www.alimentsduquebec.com/fr/"><em>Aliments du Québec</em></a>, en adoptant sa <a href="https://www.quebec.ca/gouvernement/politiques-orientations/strategie-nationale-achat-aliments-quebecois">Stratégie nationale d’achats d’aliments québécois</a>, ou en investissant massivement, voire uniquement, dans des technologies comme des <a href="https://www.quebec.ca/nouvelles/actualites/details/croissance-serres">serres</a> ou des infrastructures de transformation alimentaire. </p>
<p>Alors, comment expliquer cette baisse d’engouement ? </p>
<p>Chercheuses sur les systèmes alimentaires durables, nous proposons d’apporter un éclairage sur les raisons pour lesquelles les politiciennes et les citoyennes doivent viser à soutenir les changements beaucoup plus ambitieux que le soutien éphémère pour la production et la consommation locale.</p>
<h2>L’autonomie alimentaire est insuffisante</h2>
<p>La principale conclusion que nous tirons de la recherche que nous avons menée auprès de PPÉ et autres actrices issues d’initiatives alimentaires alternatives est la suivante : l’<em>autonomie alimentaire</em> comme cadre d’action pour (ré)organiser le système alimentaire québécois n’est pas suffisante ; il faut plutôt opérer ce qu’on nomme une <em>transition juste</em>. </p>
<p>En quoi l’autonomie alimentaire est-elle insuffisante ? Tout d’abord, elle ne remet pas suffisamment en question les modèles de production. Ceux des PPÉ, qui peuvent être très divers, sont à privilégier et à reproduire. </p>
<p>Face aux <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/environnement/2020-12-13/le-rechauffement-climatique-affecte-l-agriculture-quebecoise.php">changements climatiques</a>, notamment, les PPÉ interrogées sont d’avis qu’une plus grande (bio)diversité sur de plus petites surfaces favorise la résilience des <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2021-03-28/agriculture-regeneratrice/la-nature-est-dans-la-ferme.php">écosystèmes agricoles</a>. À l’inverse, les modèles conventionnels, souvent « hyperspécialisés » et dépendants d’une grande quantité et variété d’intrants, ne permettent pas cette résilience. </p>
<h2>La précarité des productrices agricoles</h2>
<p>Cependant, peu importe le mode de production, un autre angle mort de l’autonomie alimentaire est la grande précarité dans laquelle vivent les productrices. Notre recherche a confirmé ce qui avait déjà été <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1728349/canada-agriculture-manitoba-sante-mentale">largement démontré</a> : la charge financière et mentale des fermières est préoccupante et insoutenable. </p>
<p>Parmi ce qui contribue à ce fardeau, on compte le manque bien connu de main-d’œuvre agricole locale, manque que l’on tente de compenser par la venue de travailleurs étrangers temporaires dont les conditions de vie et de travail sont <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/606993/travailleurs-etrangers-temporaires-des-normes-de-logement-inferieures-a-toutes-les-autres">trop souvent déplorables</a>. </p>
<p>De plus, les PPÉ, en particulier, doivent très souvent porter à la fois les chapeaux de productrices et d’expertes en marketing et distribution, alors qu’elles sont très peu soutenues tant au niveau de la production qu’à celui de la mise en marché. Cette dernière est d’ailleurs particulièrement difficile pour les produits issus de la production de proximité écologique. </p>
<p>Alors que les PPÉ ne peuvent satisfaire aux exigences des chaînes d’approvisionnement menant aux supermarchés conventionnels, telles qu’un approvisionnement stable durant l’année ou encore une longue durée de conservation, la mise en marché directe dans les marchés fermiers ou via des abonnements de type <a href="https://www.fermierdefamille.org/lagriculture-soutenue-par-communaute">« Agriculture soutenue par la communauté » (ASC)</a>, par exemple, est coûteuse en temps et relativement inefficace. </p>
<p>De plus, l’accessibilité physique, logistique et économique de ces types de mise en marché est compromise par des facteurs socioéconomiques sortant largement du strict cadre alimentaire ; la production de proximité écologique étant la plupart du temps incompatible avec la lutte contre <a href="https://banquesalimentaires.org/qui-sommes-nous/nos-publications/">l’insécurité alimentaire</a>. La rencontre entre les consommatrices et les PPÉ se fait donc difficilement et dans la marge. </p>
<p>En somme, il est évident que l’autonomie alimentaire ne permet pas de prendre en compte tous ces enjeux, et c’est pourquoi des chercheuses y réfèrent comme étant le « piège local » (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X06291389"><em>local trap</em></a> en anglais) lorsqu’elle est promue comme un cadre d’action en elle seule. </p>
<p>L’unique consommation locale ne permet pas de relever la grande majorité des problèmes au cœur de notre système alimentaire.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graphique représentant l’autonomie alimentaire par rapport à la transition juste et la souveraineté alimentaire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512969/original/file-20230301-1635-47vis9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bien que la consommation locale soit fondamentale à la souveraineté alimentaire, qu’elle rejoigne l’agroécologie, et qu’elle fasse partie du processus de transition juste, l’autonomie alimentaire seule mène inévitablement au « piège local », car elle ne permet pas de prendre en compte les enjeux environnementaux et socioéconomiques indissociables des systèmes alimentaires.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Graphique par Bryan Dale)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Vers une transition juste</h2>
<p>L’objectif ne doit donc pas être simplement d’atteindre l’autonomie alimentaire, mais d’entreprendre le processus d’une transition juste vers un système alimentaire souverain et <a href="https://cjf.qc.ca/revue-relations/publication/article/aux-champs-citoyens-agroecologie-et-transition-juste-au-quebec/">agroécologique</a>. Il s’agit d’une opportunité pour repenser activement le modèle alimentaire actuel, dont les règles ne permettent pas sa transformation. </p>
<p>Il est important de préciser que ce processus doit être structuré de façon à ce que toutes les actrices de l’agroalimentaire s’unissent et se dirigent vers un but commun : une agriculture de proximité écologique pour une alimentation saine, ainsi qu’accessible et inclusive, sans compromis. En d’autres termes, la <a href="https://iris-recherche.qc.ca/publications/qu-est-ce-que-la-transition-juste/">transition juste</a>, c’est inviter tout le monde à la table, des fermières aux consommatrices, pour penser au-delà des modèles établis et des pratiques populaires. </p>
<p>Jusqu’à maintenant, nos recherches nous permettent d’estimer que le développement d’infrastructures du milieu (<a href="https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/rebuilding-infrastructure-of-the-middle/"><em>infrastructure of the middle</em></a> en anglais) offrirait une structure physique et logistique efficace pour les PPÉ et les consommatrices. Brièvement, ces infrastructures à la fois matérielles et immatérielles – réseaux, ressources, logistiques – permettent de réunir une masse suffisante de PPÉ et autres productrices et transformatrices alimentaires, d’un côté, et de consommatrices, de l’autre, afin de surmonter les difficultés de la mise en marché directe tout comme celles liées aux chaînes d’approvisionnement conventionnelles. </p>
<p>Plus précisément, les infrastructures du milieu s’adaptent aux réalités locales et peuvent prendre la forme de <a href="https://recolte.ca/salim-info/poles/">pôles logistiques alimentaires</a>, <a href="https://www.lepetitabattoir.com">d’abattoirs communautaires et coopératifs</a>, ou encore, de <a href="https://www.atestrie.com/">marchés alimentaires coopératifs</a>. </p>
<h2>Une question de responsabilité collective</h2>
<p>Bien évidemment, il est possible de nommer ces exemples puisqu’ils existent déjà. Cependant, les formes existantes de mise en commun et de coopération entre fermes, organismes et consommatrices sont marginales et doivent être soutenues. Nos recherches démontrent effectivement que ces infrastructures intermédiaires requièrent une contribution externe au milieu agricole. </p>
<p>Présentement, la plupart des initiatives de mise en marché alternatives et collaboratives est réalisée par de tierces parties, souvent des <a href="https://carrefoursolidaire.org/">organismes communautaires</a> de lutte contre l’insécurité alimentaire, et elles sont du même avis : le développement des infrastructures du milieu requiert un soutien substantiel du gouvernement de même qu’un profond engagement de la population. En d’autres mots, le déploiement de nouvelles infrastructures et nouvelles pratiques en général doit être envisagé comme un processus de transition – juste.</p>
<p>Finalement, la transition juste comme cadre d’action nous oblige à ne plus ignorer les angles morts de l’autonomie alimentaire qui incluent la crise climatique, le bien-être humain et la justice sociale. Effectivement, s’engager dans notre système alimentaire, c’est réaliser que les aliments sont au cœur de notre tissu social. </p>
<p>Comme nous l’a dit l’artisan fermier et auteur <a href="https://www.enpleinegueule.com/">Dominic Lamontagne</a>, « puisque tout le monde profite de l’acte alimentaire, tout le monde devrait mettre l’épaule à la roue. » </p>
<p>Nous avons toutes besoin de ce système alimentaire sain et juste. Nous devons toutes mettre la main à la pâte, d’une façon ou d’une autre, pour non seulement façonner le système alimentaire de demain, mais aussi des communautés saines et résilientes où il fera bon vivre. </p>
<p>En fait, il en va de notre responsabilité collective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195416/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Dale a reçu des financements de l'Université Bishop's pour soutenir ses recherches. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marianne Granger a reçu des financements de l'Université Bishop's. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mélodie Anderson a reçu des financements de l'Université Bishop's. </span></em></p>À la lumière des changements engendrés par la pandémie, il est clair que l’autonomie alimentaire comme cadre de référence pour (ré)organiser le système alimentaire québécois n’est pas suffisante.Bryan Dale, Assistant Professor, Bishop's UniversityMarianne Granger, Auxiliaire de recherche en agriculture et systèmes alimentaires durables, Bishop's UniversityMélodie Anderson, Auxiliaire de recherche en Agriculture et systèmes alimentaires durables, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849252022-06-15T19:48:33Z2022-06-15T19:48:33ZHow mindfulness and dance can stimulate a part of the brain that can improve mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468854/original/file-20220614-2481-nqq3dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=350%2C35%2C5335%2C3898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, sensuality and capacity to feel pleasure.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like a thick velvety headband, the <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/somatosensory-cortex.html">somatosensory cortex</a> arcs across the top of brain from just above one ear to the other. </p>
<p>I fell in love with the brain as an undergraduate student and pursued a career in neuroscience, but for years I had largely ignored this structure, since it appeared to be involved “only” in processing of bodily sensations. In my mind, that meant it was not as fascinating as areas implicated in emotion or higher cognitive function. </p>
<p>However, over the past decade, during my training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, I’ve come to realize that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help us experience the world and ourselves more deeply and completely. It may enrich our emotional experience and improve our mental health.</p>
<p>For decades, the somatosensory cortex was considered to only be responsible for processing sensory information from various body parts. However, recently it became apparent that this structure is also involved in various stages of emotion processing, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-07-02683.2000">recognizing</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/79871">generating and regulating emotions</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, structural and functional changes in the somatosensory cortex have been found in individuals diagnosed with depression, anxiety and psychotic disorders. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2018-0183">These studies suggest that the somatosensory cortex may be a treatment target</a> for certain mental health problems, as well as for preventive measures. Some researchers have even suggested neuromodulation of the somatosensory cortex with <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/brain_stimulation/tms/">transcranial magnetic stimulation</a> or <a href="https://www.aans.org/en/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Deep-Brain-Stimulation">deep brain stimulation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="While training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, it became clear that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help people experience the world and themselves more deeply." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, it became clear that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help people experience the world and themselves more deeply.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>However, before we decide to use an invasive technology, we may want to consider mindfulness-based interventions, dance movement therapy or other body-centred approaches to psychotherapy. These methods use the entire body to enhance sensory, breath and movement awareness. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00103">Those factors can enhance overall self-awareness, which contributes to improvement of mental health</a> through potential reorganization of the somatosensory cortex.</p>
<h2>Functional significance of the somatosensory cortex</h2>
<p>One of the amazing qualities of the somatosensory cortex is its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jnc.14012">pronounced plasticity</a> — the ability to reorganize and enlarge with practice (or atrophy without practice). This plasticity is critical when we consider mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy because, as mentioned above, through working directly with the body sensations and movement, we can modify the somatosensory cortex.</p>
<p>Another important aspect is its numerous connections with other areas of the brain. In other words, the somatosensory cortex has a power to affect other brain regions, which in turn affect other regions, and so on. The brain is heavily interconnected and none of its parts acts in isolation. </p>
<p>The somatosensory cortex receives information from the entire body, such that the left part of the cortex processes information from the right side of the body and vice versa. However, the proportion of the cortex devoted to a particular part of the body depends on its functional importance rather than its physical size. </p>
<p>For example, a large proportion of the somatosensory cortex is devoted to our hands, and so just moving and feeling our hands might be an interesting option for dance therapy for those with restricted mobility.</p>
<p>The somatosensory cortex mediates exteroception (touch, pressure, temperature, pain, etc.), proprioception (postural and movement information) and interoception (sensations inside the body, often related to the physiological body states, such as hunger and thirst), although its role in the interoceptive awareness is only partial. </p>
<h2>The somatosensory cortex and emotion</h2>
<p>A scent, a song or an image can suddenly bring a deeply buried and forgotten event to mind. Similarly, feeling a texture — like cashmere — against our skin, or moving our body in a certain way (such as doing a backbend, or rocking back and forth) can do the same and more. It can bring repressed memories to the surface, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579518">provoke emotional reactions, and create state shifts</a>. This is one of the superpowers of mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy. </p>
<p>This response is <a href="https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/your-8-senses">mediated via the somatosensory cortex</a>, just like emotional and cognitive reactions to a song are mediated via the auditory cortex, and reactions to scents are mediated via the olfactory cortex. Nevertheless, if the information stopped flowing at a purely sensory level (what we feel, hear, see, taste and smell), then a significant portion of the emotional and cognitive consequences would be lost.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a chair in white shirt, in a white room, with his eyes closed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some evidence comes from studies of meditation and mindfulness-based interventions, which often involve the practice of body scans and/or returning to bodily sensations as anchors in meditation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Dance/movement therapists and body-centered practitioners have known about this connection between posture/movement and emotion/cognition since the inception of the field. Neuroscientists have now delineated — still roughly — the implicated neural networks. For example, research shows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.12.004">a relationship between developing our sensory sensitivity and emotion regulation</a>.</p>
<p>Some evidence comes from studies of meditation and mindfulness-based interventions, which often involve the practice of body scans (paying attention to parts of the body and bodily sensations in a gradual sequence, for example from feet to head) and/or returning to bodily sensations as anchors in meditation. </p>
<p>Overall, the studies show that people who train in body scans and/or develop sensory awareness of the breath (feeling the breath travelling through the nostrils, throat, etc.) are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F070674371205700203">less reactive and more resilient</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00220">This effect is mediated, at least partly, through the somatosensory cortex</a>. </p>
<h2>Clinical implications</h2>
<p>Given the emerging role of the somatosensory cortex in emotion and cognitive processing, it is not surprising that alterations in the structure and function of this brain region have been found in several mental health problems, including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. </p>
<p>For example, reductions in the cortical thickness and the gray matter volume of the somatosensory cortex have been observed in individuals with major depressive disorder (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2016.60">especially those with early onset</a>) and in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0004867417746001">bipolar disorder</a>. In schizophrenia, lower levels of activity in the somatosensory cortex have been observed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(87)90170-3">especially in unmedicated patients</a>. </p>
<p>Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, sensuality and capacity to feel pleasure. That is how moving mindfully, dancing consciously and meditating with the whole body may help people regulate their emotions and connect with themselves and the world more deeply and meaningfully.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrianna Mendrek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The brain’s somatosensory cortex may help enrich our emotional experiences and improve our mental health. Mindfulness and dance movement therapy may be effective ways to activate it.Adrianna Mendrek, Professor, Psychology Department, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1796452022-04-03T12:14:11Z2022-04-03T12:14:11ZCanada: An invader, warrior, peacekeeper and arms supplier in conflicts near and far<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454847/original/file-20220328-23-1ucol68.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5931%2C3551&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian parliamentarians and guests give Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a standing ovation as he
addresses Parliament on March 15, 2022 in Ottawa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canada--an-invader--warrior--peacekeeper-and-arms-supplier-in-conflicts-near-and-far" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, has compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Italo-Ethiopian-War-1935-1936">Benito Mussolini’s Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s</a>.</p>
<p>That invasion was an opening salvo in the lead-up to the Second World War. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1505451035380363267"}"></div></p>
<p>In Ethiopia in the 1930s and in Ukraine today, the effects of invasion are devastating. But how has Canada confronted military invasions throughout its history? </p>
<h2>Founded on invasions</h2>
<p>First off, Canada was built on invasion and displacement. French and later English merchants came in search of furs and other riches, invading Indigenous territory. <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-treaties">But alliances with some Indigenous nations grew volatile, displacing communities, disrupting ways of life and attempting to erase culture</a>. </p>
<p>Colonization continued with the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/north-west-territories-1870-1905">In 1870, Britain gave the Northwest Territories</a>, then covering everything north and west of the Great Lakes, to Canada.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/manitoba-and-confederation#:%7E:text=The%20Manitoba%20Act%20received%20royal,of%20the%20North%2DWest%20Territories.">Manitoba was born</a> from negotiations between the Canadian military and Métis resistance.</p>
<p>“Pacification” of much of what’s now Saskatchewan followed the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-batoche-feature">Battle of Batoche</a> in 1885, in which Canadian forces crushed the last armed resistance. Famine followed as Canada “cleared” the prairies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/clearing-the-plains-continues-with-the-acquittal-of-gerald-stanley-91628">'Clearing the plains' continues with the acquittal of Gerald Stanley</a>
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<hr>
<h2>Overseas invasions</h2>
<p>Canadians also took part in British invasions overseas. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald declined to send Canadian militia to Sudan in 1884, but pro-British “imperialists” raised a <a href="https://www.lermuseum.org/young-nation-1867-1898/first-imperial-request-for-canadian-troops-1884">volunteer army</a>.</p>
<p>Canada also helped <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2018/06/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-orange-free-state-and-transvaal-in-southern-africa/">Britain’s annexation of the Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State</a> to create South Africa, with Canadian imperialist volunteers fighting alongside their British cousins in the <a href="https://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/boer/boerwarhistory_e.html">South African War</a> of 1899-1902. </p>
<p>Canadians of British descent flocked to the defence of the “mother country” in the First World War, but French-Canadians remained indifferent. Desperate for young men to fight against the Germans, a new prime minister, Robert Borden, imposed conscription for the first time. The controversy between gung-ho Ontario and skeptical Québec <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/conscription-divided-canada-it-also-helped-win-the-first-world-war/">almost tore the country apart</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of men in uniform laughing and celebrating." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454837/original/file-20220328-17419-ppn0va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jubilant Canadian soldiers returning from Vimy Ridge in northern France in 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(National Archives of Canada/William Ivor Castle )</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Russia’s government fell and the new Soviet Union formed, Canada joined British, American and other troops by <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/from-victoria-to-vladivostok">landing in Vladivostock</a> to try to stop the new communist state from taking root. </p>
<p>Post-war Prime Minister Mackenzie King however <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chanak-affair">rejected a British call</a> to help Britain fight against Turkey. Some call that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chanak-affair-canada-britain-vimy-independence-1.4061740">Canada’s true declaration of independence</a>. </p>
<h2>Post-First World War period</h2>
<p>Canada did not — like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/The-loss-of-the-German-colonies">Australia, New Zealand and South Africa</a> — grab a former German colony after the First World War. But Canada did ask Britain for some <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/dominion-over-palm-and-pine-products-9780228011293.php?page_id=&">Caribbean colonies</a>. </p>
<p>Britain instead offered Canada a <a href="https://davidwebster.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/colonial-baggage-canada-considers-a-colony-in-armenia/">mandate to govern Armenia</a> as it <a href="https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/04/24/armenian-genocide-is-a-dark-chapter-in-human-history-says-trudeau/">emerged from genocide</a> at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. </p>
<p>Canadians had raised large funds for <a href="http://www.lepanoptique.net/sections/histoire/a-canadian-mandate-for-armenia/">Armenian relief</a>, and sent food and supplies. But despite sympathy for the Armenians, Ottawa turned down the offer, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004179011.i-350.68">Armenia was divided between Turkey and the Soviet Union</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, Canada found itself accused of invasion in the 1920s when <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/levi-general">Cayuga chief Deskaheh</a>, speaking for the Six Nations of Grand River (near Brantford, Ont.) <a href="https://ricochet.media/en/2967/the-six-nations-and-a-century-of-canada-indigenous-clashes-over-the-rule-of-law">asked the League of Nations</a> — the predecessor to the United Nations – to help defend his people from a “Canadian invasion” by the RCMP. </p>
<p>Panama, Persia, Estonia and Ireland backed him, but the league buried the petition. </p>
<p>To this day, First Nations leaders seek international support to end Canadian invasion of their lands — <a href="https://unistoten.camp/media/invasion/">a word used most recently by Wet’suwet’en people</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man waves an orange and yellow flag while standing on a rail line." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454838/original/file-20220328-15-1jh45s8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters block a Toronto rail line in support of Wet'suwet'en land defenders who were arrested by the RCMP in northern British Columbia in November 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Second World War, post-war period</h2>
<p>When Mussolini’s fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan invaded China, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3020956">Canadian diplomats spoke in opposition to the invasions, but Mackenzie King’s government declined to act</a>.</p>
<p>In the Second World War, Canada emerged as a significant military power and was known as a warrior nation, but post-war Canada became less interested in military action.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/warrior-nation-or-peacekeeper-canadas-dilemmas-74778">‘Warrior nation’ or ‘peacekeeper’: Canada’s dilemmas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Neither Britain nor France invited Canada to take part in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/018258ar">invasion of Egypt</a> staged in 1956 to “protect” the Suez canal from Egyptian control. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqq9fu9SM48&ab_channel=TimeGhostHistory">Britain and France faced global condemnation</a>, even from their leading ally, the United States. </p>
<p>Canada’s foreign minister at the time, Lester B. Pearson, didn’t condemn Britain and France. Instead, <a href="http://www.suezcrisis.ca/">he worked behind the scenes</a> for peace, resulting in the <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2017/pearson-and-canadas-peacekeeping-legacy/">creation of the first large-scale peacekeeping mission</a>. Canadians have followed “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/40203356">a cargo cult of peacekeeping</a>” ever since, even as <a href="https://walterdorn.net/home/256-canada-s-current-contributions-to-un-peacekeeping">Canada’s contribution to UN peacekeeping plummets</a>. </p>
<p>More central to Canadian foreign policy was the <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_139339.htm">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a>, or NATO.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_161511.htm">Canadian officials convinced</a> skeptical Americans to make a permanent military commitment to Europe. Sold as an alliance to deter a Soviet invasion of western Europe, NATO ended up justifying colonial wars <a href="https://cihhic.ca/2019/04/03/how-a-colonial-dispute-almost-stopped-nato-from-forming/">in Indonesia</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Algerian-War">Algeria</a> and <a href="https://mronline.org/2022/03/01/nato-and-africa/">Portuguese Africa</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Men and some women sit in a parliamentary chamber in this black and white photo with one man behind a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454839/original/file-20220328-13-3vxx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau addresses the opening session of a two-day NATO conference in the Senate chamber of Parliament in Ottawa in June 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the end of the Cold War, NATO sought a new military mission in “<a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/234-humanitarian-intervention-reconsidered-lessons-kosovo">humanitarian intervention</a>,” pushed hard by Canadian intellectuals like former Liberal leader <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/40204227">Michael Ignatieff</a>. It came to a tragic end with NATO’s 2011 <a href="https://monitormag.ca/articles/canadas-attack-on-libya-helped-spread-terrorism-internationally">bombing of Libya</a>, from which that country has yet to recover. </p>
<p>When the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-put-brutal-end-to-hungarian-revolution">invaded Hungary</a> (1956), <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/77/soviet-invasion-of-czechoslovakia">Czechoslovakia</a> (1968) <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/76/soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan">and Afghanistan</a> (1979), Canada condemned the attacks but resisted the call of Americans and others demanding “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139052436.011">a rollback</a>” aimed at delegitimizing Soviet states. </p>
<p>Canada instead concentrated on accepting and settling <a href="https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=12575">refugees from Hungary</a> and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/czechs">Czechoslovakia</a>, the origin of Canada’s diplomatic self-image as a country of refuge. </p>
<h2>U.S. invasions</h2>
<p>Frequent U.S. military interventions <a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-caribbean-ap-top-news-venezuela-honduras-2ded14659982426c9b2552827734be83">in Latin America </a> and <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2018/10/25/how-the-invasion-of-grenada-was-planned-with-a-tourist-map-and-a-copy-of-the-economist/">the Caribbean</a> didn’t fuel strong Canadian opposition. Though Prime Minister <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020702019834883">Pierre Trudeau</a> condemned the U.S. war in Vietnam, his government made no effort to stop the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/supplying-the-war-machine">flow of Canadian-made weapons</a> to the Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A helicopter hovers above an anti-aircraft weapon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454844/original/file-20220328-21-1ta2px0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A U.S. Marine Corps helicopter hovers above the ground near a Soviet anti-aircraft weapon during the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sgt. M. J. Creen, USAF)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://ricochet.media/en/3040/dealing-death-canada-resumes-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia">Trudeau’s government, in fact, loosened controls on Canadian weapons exports</a> like never before. Canada has, deliberately or unwittingly, armed invaders around the world ever since. In interventions <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/november-2000-arming-genocidal-force">by Indonesia</a> in East Timor, <a href="https://activehistory.ca/2016/04/merchants-of-death-canadas-history-of-questionable-exports/">Saudi Arabia</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8101089/canada-weapons-lav-saudi-arabia-yemen-war/">and Yemen</a>, Canada has armed invaders, not defenders. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-checkered-history-of-arms-sales-to-human-rights-violators-91559">Canada’s checkered history of arms sales to human rights violators</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When the U.S. planned to invade Iraq in 2003, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien wavered between American/British enthusiasm for war and German/French reluctance. In the end, he split the difference, <a href="https://opencanada.org/how-canadas-intelligence-agencies-helped-keep-the-country-out-of-the-2003-iraq-war/">staying out of the battle</a> but <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/29/canadas-secretive-role-in-iraq/">providing military support</a>. </p>
<p>On Ukraine, Canada’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-ukraine-russia-attack-1.6362554">ferocious rhetoric</a> marks another step away from the <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/the-international-myth-of-canada-as-a-peacekeeping-nation/">increasingly fictional claim to be a peacekeeping nation.</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is affiliated with the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.</span></em></p>Canada is arming and supporting Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion. At various points in its history, it’s been everything from an invader to an arms supplier to invaders, not defenders.David Webster, Professor, History & Global Studies, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755062022-02-07T16:14:00Z2022-02-07T16:14:00ZCanadian reconstruction aid to Tonga 40 years ago points the way today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444665/original/file-20220206-999-4ieinm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=452%2C9%2C2078%2C1297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers for the Tonga Geological Services look at the smoke poring from the eruption site.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tonga Geological Services/Government of Tonga)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tonga is still assessing the devastation of January’s volcanic explosion that was <a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-01-tonga-eruption-equivalent-hundreds-hiroshimas.html">hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima</a>. </p>
<p>The eruption caused a tsunami that hit Tonga and outlying islands, and spurred tsunami warnings in North America. It was a reminder that the South Pacific is not as distant from us as we might think.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-tonga-volcano-cued-tsunami-warnings-for-the-north-american-pacific-coast-175407">Why the Tonga volcano cued tsunami warnings for the North American Pacific coast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Emergency relief aid is <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/international-aid-reaches-tonga-with-clean-water-supplies-1.5751276">reaching Tonga</a>, though it’s been complicated by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/27/earthquake-strikes-off-coast-of-tonga-days-after-volcano-eruption">a nearby earthquake</a> a few days later as well as restrictions that seek to keep the country free of COVID-19. </p>
<p>The larger challenge will be reconstruction once the attention of the world has moved on. <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/460032/tongan-eruption-85-percent-of-the-population-impacted-government">As the speaker of the national parliament said</a>: “It’s going to be a long road to recovery.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map of Tonga and outlying islands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442882/original/file-20220127-18-1dws5n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of Tonga and outlying islands and where the Tonga Kitchens project did work, compiled from Google Maps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(David Webster)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During Canada’s ongoing <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/idw-sdi.aspx?lang=eng">International Development Week</a>, it’s important to remember there are lessons from a similar natural disaster 40 years ago in the South Pacific. That’s when Canadians helped rebuild after cyclone Isaac, the <a href="https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/675">worst storm in the region in the 20th century</a>. Emergency relief arrived throughout 1982, but people in hard-hit outlying islands were still suffering a year later.</p>
<h2>Development and kitchens</h2>
<p>One desperate need was for cooking houses. Traditional societies in outlying islands use three types of structures — dwelling houses, cooking houses and bathing houses. While international agencies helped to rebuild homes, there was poor understanding of the need for cooking houses, known as <em>peito</em> (<a href="https://tradukka.com/translate/to/en/peito">kitchen in English</a>).</p>
<p>Enter a new Canadian organization: the <a href="https://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/">Pacific Peoples’ Partnership</a> (known at the time by its previous name, the South Pacific People’s Foundation). Its director, <a href="https://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/ppp-featured-partner-victoria-foundation/">Phil Esmonde</a>, an American-born veteran turned Canadian peace activist, communicated with village women’s groups in the more remote islands of Tonga and shared the need for cooking houses.</p>
<p>A year after the cyclone, Esmonde wrote in an internal document contained in the organization’s unpublished archives: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Many peitos now consist of nothing more than a fire pit under a tree or a few pieces of leftover roofing iron.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A woman in a colourful dress stands in front of a kitchen house with tropical trees around it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442883/original/file-20220127-14-urplgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A kitchen or pieto on the island of Nomuka in the South Pacific in 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pacific People's Partnership archives)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Village women emphasized the need for cooking houses to store and prepare food, to eat and to allow women to gather and carry out traditional functions and work, such as weaving.</p>
<p>In other words, peitos were not just about reconstructing villages. They were about reconstructing village life and about women’s needs — aspects not normally prioritized by international
humanitarian agencies.</p>
<h2>Focus on gender, Indigenous needs</h2>
<p>In response, the <a href="http://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/54-3-Tok-Blong-Pasifik-v54-3-2000.pdf">Pacific Peoples’ Partnership</a> launched the Tonga Kitchens project as its first full-scale development effort. It focused on issues of gender and Indigenous needs, not imported models.</p>
<p>Equally important, it paid close attention to the more remote northern islands — including many of the same islands <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/world/asia/tonga-tsunami-volcano.html">hit hardest</a> by January’s tsunami, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNOSAT_A3_Natural_Landscape_VO20220115TON_DamageAssessment_NomukaVillage_HaapaiDivision_18Jan2022.pdf">including Nomuka</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/fears-for-tongas-tiny-mango-island-as-every-house-destroyed">and Mango</a>, where every house was destroyed following the eruption.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of an island with white sand atolls and turquoise waters around it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444657/original/file-20220206-19-ga2zd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tongan island of Mango is seen in this 2013 photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Scott Mills)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Delving into the <a href="https://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/45-moments-over-45-years-celebrating-the-45th-anniversary-of-pacific-peoples-partnership/">Pacific Peoples’ Partnership’s archives</a> unearths stories about close ties between Canada and the Pacific islands. The organization was founded in 1975 as an offshoot of the United States-based Foundation for the South Pacific, the brainchild of Australian actor <a href="https://www.ilctr.org/entrepreneur-hof/elizabeth-silverstein/">Elizabeth (Betty) Silverstein</a> and her husband, American studio executive Maurice (Red) Silverstein.</p>
<p>The Canadian organization increased its impact through grants from the British Columbia government. Under NDP Premier Dave Barrett, B.C. created an innovative fund to match aid money raised by B.C.-based non-governmental organizations.</p>
<h2>Matching fundraising dollars</h2>
<p>The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was at the time also willing to match fundraising as part of its emphasis on <a href="https://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773850405/">working closely with civil society</a> both in Canada and overseas.</p>
<p>CIDA funding for development education within Canada allowed the Pacific People’s Partnership to <a href="https://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/45-moments-over-45-years-celebrating-the-45th-anniversary-of-pacific-peoples-partnership/">host Tongan artist Sinisia Taumoepeau</a>, who strengthened the organization’s existing ties with local women’s development groups in Tonga in the early 1980s. </p>
<p>She was part of the Tonga Kitchens project, in which the Pacific People’s Partnership sent $40,000 (more than $100,000 in today’s money) to help rebuild hundreds of peitos. Islanders did all the work, contributing 80 per cent of the project’s value. As the organization’s archives say: “The project was truly theirs.”</p>
<p>CIDA’s emphasis at the time on integrating women in development made the Pacific People’s Partnership’s work with Tongan women attractive in Ottawa. The partnership has retained that emphasis, with Tonga’s <a href="https://pacificpeoplespartnership.org/international/women-and-children-crisis-centre-tonga/">Women and Children Crisis Centre</a> now a major partner. </p>
<p>The crisis centre stresses the Indigenous Tongan method of <em>talanoa</em> (talking informally) to provide mental health and other services. Its founder is feminist researcher <a href="https://www.spc.int/ofa-guttenbeil-likiliki">ʻOfa Guttenbeil-Likiliki</a>, a leading thinker in building <a href="https://iwda.org.au/resource/creating-equitable-south-north-partnerships/">equitable north-south partnerships</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1489321153214693385"}"></div></p>
<h2>Aid now less effective</h2>
<p>The Canadian government, however, later abandoned its earlier emphasis on civil society, women in development, development education and on the highly effective matching grants collaboration with Canadian civil society organizations.</p>
<p>It substituted corporate-driven and bureaucratic strategies such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12454">pairing non-governmental organizations with Canadian mining companies</a> or <a href="https://www.foreignpolicy.ca/new-page-5">promoting structural adjustments</a> — shifts that have often made Canadian aid <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/struggling-for-effectiveness-products-9780773540576.php">less effective</a>. </p>
<p>Only in recent years has Ottawa rediscovered ideas like “<a href="https://cooperation.ca/global-affairs-canada-cso-partnership-policy/">civil society partnerships</a>” and a “<a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng">feminist international assistance policy</a>.”</p>
<p>That’s a positive development, but we also need to <a href="https://devhistory.wordpress.com/">recover the historical memory of Canadian development assistance</a> and craft effective strategies on civil society and feminist aid as the <a href="https://aidhistory.ca/">Canadian Network on Humanitarian History</a> does. The Tonga Kitchens project shows the needs have remained constant over the decades, including after the latest eruption.</p>
<p>We should also learn from the sustained engagement of groups like the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership rather than rely on short-term contracts and project-based approaches. Canada’s government seems to create a new aid strategy every few years, then celebrates it. Instead, it should reckon honestly with its past and current aid record.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neither-hero-nor-villain-canada-stuck-in-the-middle-of-the-pack-on-international-aid-124452">Neither hero nor villain: Canada stuck in the middle of the pack on international aid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A further lesson is that initiatives should be informed by the affected community. Tongans know their needs better than foreign visitors. Aid needs to be reframed as solidarity, not as benevolence. In other words, Canada needs to <a href="https://ecosociete.org/livres/perdre-le-sud">decolonize its aid</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, when disasters strike, Canadians need to remember that reconstruction takes years. To be effective, it should focus on the expressed needs of local people, especially voices that can become marginalized — those of remote Indigenous peoples and village-based women. </p>
<p>Work such as the Tonga Kitchens project not only delivers concrete help, it also “strengthens and solidifies the efforts of grass roots women’s groups, and affirms their organization,” as one archival Pacific People’s Partnership report noted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a fellow of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and a member of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History.</span></em></p>In 1983, a Canadian group helped rebuild traditional cooking houses in Tonga in the aftermath of a devastating cyclone. The Tonga Kitchens project offers lessons for Canadian aid today.David Webster, Professor, History & Global Studies, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1728162021-12-02T23:16:47Z2021-12-02T23:16:47ZOur understanding of black holes has changed over time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435167/original/file-20211201-23-jknx6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C3600&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New technologies have enabled us to learn more about black holes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/ngc-3627-revealing-hidden-black-holes">(NASA)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It took <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp15ei.html">Albert Einstein 10 years to find the equations of general relativity</a>, but <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9912033">German astrophysicist Karl Schwarzschild only needed a few months to solve them</a>. Schwarzschild’s solution describes the gravity of an isolated, spherical and unchanging object — the enigmatic black hole — but it was not understood for many years. </p>
<p>Black holes helped to explain new astronomical discoveries, becoming essential ingredients of astrophysics. Science regarded <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes/">black holes as abstractions until the 1960s</a>. The recent experimental discovery of gravitational waves has changed our understanding of what black holes are.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-black-holes-107298">A brief history of black holes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2016, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected <a href="https://theconversation.com/gravitational-waves-discovered-the-universe-has-spoken-54237">gravitational waves generated by two merging black holes</a>, opening a new era of astronomy celebrated by the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics. </p>
<p>In 2019, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-black-hole-photo-confirms-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-115167">Event Horizon Telescope</a> released an image of the supermassive black hole in the nearby galaxy M87. The following year, the Nobel Prize in physics recognized <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/press-release/">the trailblazing theoretical black hole studies of Roger Penrose and the observational ones by Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel</a>. </p>
<h2>What is a black hole?</h2>
<p>The notion of black hole reflected in popular science hinges on the idea of event horizon — this is when the velocity needed to escape the gravitational pull of the black hole exceeds the speed of light. Whatever falls into the event horizon is lost forever.</p>
<p>The Schwarzschild radius is the radius of the event horizon, <a href="https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/S/Schwarzschild+Radius">and is proportional to the mass of the black hole</a>. But Schwarzschild’s definition has a pitfall: it requires us to know that nothing will emerge from the black hole. This means that the black hole must be monitored forever to know that nothing exits. In practice, this is impossible.</p>
<p>Another mathematical solution to Einstein’s equations <a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/p05-063">describes the formation of a black hole through the collapse of a spherical shell of light</a>. An event horizon forms at its centre, expands outwards, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.52.7053">meets the infalling shell of light at the Schwarzschild radius where it stops</a> — <em>et voilà!</em> — a black hole is formed. </p>
<h2>New black holes</h2>
<p>Perfectly isolated or unchanging black holes do not exist. Real-world black holes are surrounded by disks orbiting them, stellar winds and dark matter, all of which produce infalling matter that increases their masses.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cutting-through-the-spin-on-supermassive-black-holes-12528">Cutting through the spin on supermassive black holes </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Black holes often exist in pairs, spiralling closer and closer to each other and emitting gravitational waves until they merge into a larger black hole, the horizon changing in time, dramatically so at the merger. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two black holes surrounded by yellow and orange flames spiralling into each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435166/original/file-20211201-15-1deuifg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s rendition of two black holes spiralling into each other.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/two-black-holes-on-way-to-becoming-one-artists-concept">(NASA)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.041015">2016 LIGO/Virgo gravitational waves</a> originated in the spectacular merger of two black holes. By the time these waves reached Earth, they were weaker than the ambient noise and could only be identified by matching theoretical templates of the expected signal to the data. </p>
<p>Large banks of templates are generated in computer simulations that obviously cannot run forever, as would be necessary if the black hole was characterized by the eternal event horizon. Instead, simulations use the <a href="https://theconversation.com/grey-is-the-new-black-hole-is-stephen-hawking-right-22481">apparent horizon</a>, characterized by the property that nothing can escape from it <em>now</em>.</p>
<p>Apparent horizons have played a crucial role in the newly born <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103">gravitational wave astronomy</a>, but are surprisingly little known. </p>
<p>Black holes change because they live in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-mysterious-dark-energy-that-speeds-the-universes-rate-of-expansion-40224">expanding universe</a>. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking predicted that all black holes <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/14/17119320/stephen-hawking-hawking-radiation-explained">radiate energy due to quantum mechanics</a>, which makes them shrink. Although negligible for practical purposes, this radiation is unavoidable in principle.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/experiments-simultaneously-detect-gravitational-waves-and-help-open-up-a-new-era-of-astronomy-84818">Experiments simultaneously detect gravitational waves – and help open up a new era of astronomy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>New understandings</h2>
<p>Our understanding of black holes is based on the mathematical definition of horizon. The apparent horizon <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0508107v2">is defined by the behaviour of light rays in its vicinity</a>: rays cannot escape (and since nothing moves faster than light, nothing escapes) <em>at the present moment</em>.</p>
<p>But how light rays behave depends on the observer describing them using mathematical simulations. Since, in relativity, time and space depend on the observer, the location where rays stop and the present time are different for different observers. So, the apparent horizon itself depends on the observer. </p>
<p>The very existence of the black hole has come to depend on the observer, while the old event horizon was universal. </p>
<p>The mathematics expressing the new black hole concept tells us that, even in Schwarzschild’s case, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0511017v3">certain observers exist</a> according to whom there is no apparent horizon and, therefore, no black hole! Admittedly, these mathematical observers are very artificial. All natural observations (those that occur through observing the actual behaviour of a black hole) that perceive the Schwarzschild geometry as spherical, agree on <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.05822v1">the existence and location of the apparent horizon</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists have finally detected gravitational waves from black holes but had to change the way they understand them. The essence of black hole theory is now different.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerio Faraoni receives funding from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Advanced technologies and the information they collect have revealed how black holes form and behave.Valerio Faraoni, Professor, Physics & Astronomy, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1680192021-11-08T15:56:14Z2021-11-08T15:56:14Z8 lessons from ‘King Lear’ as we head back to work or nights out after COVID-19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429983/original/file-20211103-15-1eqqbo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C76%2C1350%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'King Lear' sculpture seen in Chicago in 2008. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(tom_allan/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our pandemic “re-entries” into a world still grappling with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/03/opinions/covid-risk-on-college-campuses-vaccines-masks-ben-ghiat/index.html">COVID-19 offer complex questions</a> that we must navigate through the lens of consent. Consent is agreement to <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consent">do or allow something to be done, or giving permission for something to happen or be done</a> — and it’s bound up with <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/12/consent-every-age">respecting each other’s boundaries</a>. </p>
<p>How (and in what form) should we meet with people? When and how should we return to offices and classrooms, or social and cultural events? Who has the authority to decide? Such decisions are being made in real time — by politicians, human resources offices, administrators and all of us in daily interactions. </p>
<p>Understanding consent — and its effect on how we get together — is key to avoiding ambiguous and socially awkward encounters and, more importantly, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.317.7168.1313">reducing the potential for harm to ourselves and others</a>. </p>
<p>As a scholar of early modern drama, I am interested in how Shakespeare helps us move across and between historical, cultural and geographical boundaries, and <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/adventures-in-academe/can-shakespeare-teach-us-to-be-better-citizens">be more thoughtful and empathetic citizens</a>. As we move towards a post-pandemic world, <em>King Lear</em> — and the character Cordelia from the play in particular — helps us negotiate the complex landscape of consent that COVID-19 has exposed.</p>
<h2>Withholding consent: An act of resistance</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A throne seen on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430002/original/file-20211103-23-1ceywoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lear imagines he can dictate how events will unfold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars have noted how Shakespeare’s works <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521850746.017">help us question things we thought we knew</a> and relearn lessons we assumed we had already mastered.</p>
<p>As the play opens, Lear gathers his court together <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2020.1851047">to announce his retirement</a>. In his ceremonial withdrawal, he commands his daughters to tell the court how much they love him. He advises that once they do so, they will be rewarded with their third of the kingdom. </p>
<p>The king has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230595514_2">set the stage and assembled an audience to behold what he expects</a> will unfold, but his carefully stage-managed performance is set up to fail: Lear did not make people aware of expectations in advance and, upon their arrival, they are caught off guard. </p>
<p>Cordelia, his youngest daughter, agonizes about her awkward position. In an aside, she worries: “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.” </p>
<h2>Facing ‘ambiguous’ situations</h2>
<p>Many of us have found ourselves in positions where someone acts badly but we are anxious about speaking up because it might be rude or disruptive. Psychologist Catherine Sanderson categorizes these as “ambiguous” situations. She notes that
“when facing an <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_tips_for_speaking_up_against_bad_behavior">ambiguous situation, our natural tendency is to look to others to figure out what’s going on</a>.” But if everyone looks to others for cues, the behaviour often goes unchallenged — and people’s “silence conveys a lack of concern, or even tacit acquiescence,” making it far more likely that the behaviour will continue.</p>
<p>When Cordelia realizes her sisters are compliant, she is faced with a difficult decision. Ultimately, she chooses to resist her father’s command, exclaiming:
“<a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.1.1.html">I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth</a>.” </p>
<p>She refuses to participate in the love test; in response to Lear’s command, her one-word response (“nothing”) is the opposite of remaining silent. Her answer is a damning indictment of Lear’s domestic drama. She does not consent. </p>
<h2>Learning how to solicit consent</h2>
<p>Cordelia’s story does not end with her refusal to grant consent. She is exiled and her father denies her the dowry she would need for marriage. However, she leaves court with her integrity intact and a plan to regroup and return. She also continues to love her father despite his betrayal. </p>
<p>Cordelia is loyal to the highest ideals of what Lear can be without judging him for his worst moment, and persists in loving him. She teaches him, and us, that we can learn how to solicit consent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Oil painting showing an aged man stretched on a cot and his daughter reaching towards him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429996/original/file-20211103-27-1g3n8li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Lear and Cordelia,’ by Ford Madox Brown. Oil painting first shown in 1849.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/brown-lear-and-cordelia-n03065">(Tate)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Cordelia is reunited with her father at the end of the play, Lear acknowledges anew the reciprocal nature of their relationship, and the need to approach their future interactions through the lens of consent. The king says: “<a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.5.3.html">When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down / And ask of thee forgiveness</a>. So we’ll live / And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh / At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues / Talk of court news …”</p>
<p>Lear learns a fundamental lesson about the power of consent. He understands he cannot unilaterally determine how their relations unfold. </p>
<p>Instead, he sees his role as supplicant when he says “I will kneel,” and honours Cordelia’s agency and autonomy when he acknowledges it is her choice to ask for his blessing. And he realizes he will need to ask for forgiveness. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-stand-so-close-to-me-understanding-consent-can-help-with-those-tricky-social-distancing-moments-139293">Don't stand so close to me – understanding consent can help with those tricky social distancing moments</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tips for the trenches</h2>
<p>As we practise new ways of gathering and meeting during COVID-19, what lessons can we learn from Cordelia and Lear to help us navigate the “<a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.5.3.html">weight of this sad time</a>?”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Think about the purpose of the meeting and provide that clear framework for others: “Would you be available to engage in this type of gathering?”</p></li>
<li><p>Outline, in advance, the roles and expectations of all the participants: “In asking you to participate, I hope we can tackle (insert meeting objectives) together.” </p></li>
<li><p>Be explicit about the conditions of the proposed meeting and be clear about the parameters. For example: “We will exercise the following cautionary measures, including being outdoors, masked, limit capacity, confirm double vaccination status, ensure proper ventilation” as applicable.</p></li>
<li><p>Provide a dignified way for people to withhold consent. “If you’re feeling overwhelmed by COVID-19, limiting your in-person interactions or for any other reason (that is none of my business), we can organize a virtual meeting or meet at a future date.”</p></li>
<li><p>Offer room for a more nuanced RSVP: “Please indicate your level of availability and/or level of comfort.”</p></li>
<li><p>Be attentive to the uneven access to power. Philosopher Shannon Dea outlines ways we can be <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1415850778066051075.html">attentive to how we occupy institutional and cultural power and take steps to be more inclusive and respectful to those whose circumstances are more precarious and contingent</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Appreciate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ">that consent can be withdrawn</a> at any time. If the meeting is scheduled in advance, check in a few days before to see if everyone still feels comfortable in the light of constantly changing conditions.</p></li>
<li><p>Develop a menu of choices for people to connect: video-conference, phone call, walk and talk, chat (Teams, texting, Slack), in-person outside and so on.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We need to exercise critical empathy to understand there is a spectrum of readiness to re-enter the world. If we can make space for consent in all our encounters, we can co-create new ways of being together with compassion. Lear learned to solicit consent but it was too late to save his kingdom. We ignore these lessons at our peril.</p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published on Nov. 8, 2021. The previous version misspelled Shannon Dea’s name.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Riddell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Understanding consent is key to avoiding ambiguous and socially awkward encounters and reducing the potential to cause harm. There are lessons in Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’.Jessica Riddell, Full Professor of Early Modern Drama, Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1687982021-09-28T17:13:13Z2021-09-28T17:13:13ZMeng contre les deux Michael : des leçons pour le Canada et le monde<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423593/original/file-20210928-15-ekl3fv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6654%2C4439&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Kovrig avec sa femme Vina Nadjibulla à son arrivée à Toronto.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Presse canadienne/Frank Gunn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alors que le Canada <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1827030/michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-retour-canada">célèbre le retour des « deux Michael »</a>, il faut se demander ce que <a href="https://www.ledroit.com/opinions/prise-dotages-diplomatique-26a7b9d0944b93d5da6db79cd6d64701">cette saga de diplomatie des otages</a> nous enseigne sur les relations du Canada avec la Chine — et le monde.</p>
<p>Michael Kovrig et Michael Spavor ont pu prendre l’avion dès que Meng Wanzhou, cadre de Huawei détenue à Vancouver, a conclu un « accord de poursuites suspendu » avec le gouvernement des États-Unis.</p>
<p>La Chine et le Canada peuvent se targuer d’avoir atteint leur objectif — accueil des deux Michael par le premier ministre Justin Trudeau et <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/international/asie-et-oceanie/2021-09-25/retour-triomphal-de-meng-wanzhou-en-chine.php">retour triomphal de Meng Wanzhou en Chine</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441567074338451456"}"></div></p>
<p>Mais la Chine, qui signalait discrètement <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/editoriaux/624879/chine-pour-en-finir-avec-la-diplomatie-d-otages-de-la-chine">son intention d’échanger les prisonniers depuis un certain temps</a>, en sort grande gagnante.</p>
<p>Dès l’arrestation de Meng en 2018, Pékin avait riposté en détenant Kovrig puis Spavor peu après. La plupart des spécialistes s’attendaient à voir la Chine prétendre encore quelques mois que les deux Canadiens avaient été arrêtés pour des crimes véritables. Leur libération aussi rapide a surpris tout le monde. C’était donnant-donnant : Meng contre les deux Michael.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441582582093729792"}"></div></p>
<p>Par ce retournement très rapide, le parti communiste chinois envoie un message plus important au monde : ne nous cherchez pas !</p>
<h2>Jouer selon ses propres règles</h2>
<p>La Chine veut désormais figurer sur le même pied que les États-Unis. C’est que dans <a href="https://www.canada.ca/fr/affaires-mondiales/nouvelles/2017/06/discours_de_la_ministrefreelandsurlesprioritesducanadaenmatiered.html">« l’ordre international fondé sur les règles »</a> que chérit le Canada et un bon nombre d’autres pays, le gouvernement américain joue sur deux tableaux — dans le respect des règles quand ça fait son affaire, quitte à les enfreindre quand l’intérêt national le dicte.</p>
<p>Le gouvernement chinois veut jouer dans la même ligue. Après une <a href="https://ecfr.eu/paris/publication/de_grands_desseins_la_chine_a_t_elle_une_grande_strategie/">ascension pacifique</a> sur la scène mondiale, il veut désormais inspirer la crainte et le respect à travers la même capacité de jouer selon ses propres règles.</p>
<p>Les responsables politiques canadiens doivent accepter ce fait pour en tirer les leçons et élaborer une stratégie envers la Chine plus efficace.</p>
<p>Depuis un siècle, la politique étrangère canadienne <a href="https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-609">s’appuie sur la bonne entente avec les Américains</a>. Il faut désormais appliquer les leçons apprises pour mieux gérer les relations avec un pays devenu l’autre superpuissance.</p>
<p>Avec du recul, on constate que la diplomatie d’otages et de représailles n’est pas du tout nouvelle.</p>
<p>En 1967, alors que les autorités britanniques à Hongkong <a href="https://www.fcchk.org/correspondent/fifty-years-on-the-riots-that-shook-hong-kong-in-1967/">réprimaient les manifestants</a>, interdisait trois journaux procommunistes et emprisonnait certains employés, dont des Chinois, les autorités chinoises ont immédiatement riposté en ciblant le seul journaliste britannique présent en Chine. Le correspondant de Reuters, Anthony Grey, <a href="https://www.nouvelles-du-monde.com/les-prisons-secretes-chinoises-a-lhonneur-sur-les-canadiens-detenus-depuis-2018/">a passé 777 jours en résidence surveillée</a>. Et lors de la libération des employés des journaux deux ans plus tard, Anthony Grey a immédiatement retrouvé la liberté.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Norm Webster dans un habit foncé" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Webster, le père de l’auteur, présente le prix portant son nom qui récompense le meilleur reportage international au Concours Canadien du journalisme à Toronto en 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Presse canadienne/Galit Rodan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>À l’époque, le premier ministre Zhou Enlai <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-detainee-drama-in-china-1960s-style-a-former-globe-correspondent-looks/">avait déclaré aux journalistes incluant le correspondant du <em>Globe and Mail</em> en Chine</a> (mon père, incidemment) qu’Anthony Grey serait le bienvenu pour reprendre son travail. Il plaisantait ouvertement sur sa capacité de détenir le correspondant à volonté.</p>
<p>La diplomatie des otages n’a donc rien de nouveau.</p>
<h2>50 ans de liens diplomatiques</h2>
<p>Depuis lors, les efforts du Canada ont visé à faire entrer la Chine dans « l’ordre international fondé sur des règles ». Dès 1971, le gouvernement de Pierre Elliott Trudeau avait défié les vœux du gouvernement américain en <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1331706/chine-canada-relations-histoire-archives">établissant des relations diplomatiques avec la Chine populaire</a>.</p>
<p>Dans la continuité des <a href="https://www.rcinet.ca/fr/2013/07/23/jesuites-quebecois-en-chine-au-debut-du-20e-siecle-a-la-fois-pretres-et-intermediaires-culturels/">efforts des missionnaires canadiens œuvrant en Chine entre 1892 et 1950</a>, u compris une longue histoire des <a href="http://www.edvlb.com/lys-lotus/serge-granger/livre/9782890058415">relations entre le Québec et la Chine</a>, l’aide canadienne visait à reconstruire la Chine.</p>
<p>Depuis 1971, la politique chinoise du gouvernement canadien alterne entre l’élan missionnaire et l’appât du gain à travers le commerce. Dans les deux cas, le but visé était <a href="https://thecic.org/research-publications/reports/issues-in-canada-china-relations/">d’amener la Chine à se conformer aux normes internationales</a>.</p>
<p>Puis en 1997, le gouvernement de Jean Chrétien a fait un virage à 180 degrés en <a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/david-webster-china-cites-human-rights-in-spat-with-canada">retirant son soutien à une résolution des Nations unies sur les droits de la personne en Chine</a>. Le Canada et la Chine sont alors entrés dans l’ère des « dialogues bilatéraux sur les droits de la personne ».</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chretien inspecte une haie d’honneur à Pékin" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Le Premier ministre Jean Chrétien inspectant la garde d’honneur lors des cérémonies d’accueil au Grand Hall du Peuple en 2003 à Pékin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Presse canadienne/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Comme l’a fait valoir Charles Burton, spécialiste de la Chine, le <a href="https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2160014?docref=ZEzn8Y1ix-Eew3tQc7rWGQ">seul résultat de cette approche confidentielle</a> aura été <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254249666_Canada_and_Bilateral_Human_Rights_Dialogues">d’écarter les groupes de défense des droits de la personne</a>.</p>
<p>Si le Canada <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2020/canada-must-play-a-role-in-renewing-multilateralism-for-a-changing-world/">refusait de bousculer la Chine en matière de droits</a>, c’est en partie parce qu’il cherchait à doubler les autres pays sur le commerce, devenu le principal enjeu. Le Canada <a href="https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2000/06/08/mission-economique-en-chine-pilotee-par-jean-chretien">a commencé à y envoyer d’énormes missions commerciales</a>, trop heureux de récolter les miettes.</p>
<h2>Impunité implicite</h2>
<p>En conséquence, les responsables chinois se sont sentis en position d’arrêter et de détenir les deux Michael sans risque de représailles. Faut-il s’en étonner ? Quelques décennies leur avaient montré qu’ils n’avaient rien à craindre.</p>
<p>Déjà, en 2006, la Chine avait arrêté un citoyen canadien, Huseyin Celil, sans faire de cas de la diplomatie « discrète » à la canadienne. L’ambassadeur était si peu préoccupé <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1694598211978">qu’il a même oublié que le détenu était canadien</a>.</p>
<p>À l’évidence, dans le cas des deux Michael, les diplomates canadiens ont trouvé une astuce. Mais on ne peut guère parler d’une approche intégrée <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-even-as-political-relations-worsen-canada-china-trade-thrives/">puisque le commerce bilatéral s’est poursuivi à un rythme soutenu</a>.</p>
<p>Déjà, des voix canadiennes s’élèvent <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meng-huawei-column-don-pittis-1.6188272">pour réclamer un retour au statu quo</a> avec la Chine.</p>
<p>Mais d’autres <a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2021/09/26/la-chine-na-aucune-morale">réclament d’Ottawa une posture beaucoup plus ferme</a>, et <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-exclusion-from-the-aukus-security-pact-reveals-a-failing-national-defence-policy-168235">qu’il intègre la nouvelle alliance militaire AUKUS</a> entre les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni et l’Australie, qui vise à contenir les Chinois.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/le-canada-doit-revoir-sa-strategie-avec-la-chine-et-sinspirer-de-laustralie-168453">Le Canada doit revoir sa stratégie avec la Chine et s’inspirer de l’Australie</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Mais ce qu’il faudrait réellement au Canada, ce serait une politique chinoise s’appuyant sur l’histoire et la compréhension aussi habile que celle établie vis-à-vis du voisin américain.</p>
<p>Chez les responsables chinois, l’histoire compte pour beaucoup. Leurs intentions se révèlent souvent à travers des analogies historiques.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/la-chine-marquee-par-un-siecle-d-humiliation-20200726">Après le « siècle d’humiliation »</a> qui a permis aux puissances occidentales de lui dicter sa conduite, la Chine postrévolutionnaire a cherché à se faire respecter. Désormais <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/">au centre de l’économie mondiale</a>, elle émerge maintenant en position de force.</p>
<h2>Que peut faire le Canada ?</h2>
<p>Le Canada <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tiananmen-square-canada-sinologist-reflects-1.5166976">devrait rétablir le poste de sinologue</a> à son ambassade à Pékin. Les universités canadiennes pourraient enseigner davantage l’histoire chinoise. Les médias pourraient assurer une couverture plus approfondie, comme ils le font pour les affaires américaines.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="le prince héritier d’Arabie saoudite Mohammed Bin Salman regarde Justin Trudeau" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Au sommet du G20 en Argentine en 2018, le Premier ministre Justin Trudeau devant le prince héritier d’Arabie saoudite Mohammed Bin Salman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Presse canadienne/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>En même temps, les responsables canadiens doivent cesser de faire le contraire de ce qu’ils prêchent. Les Chinois, qui observent également le Canada, voient des premiers ministres qui déchirent leur chemise en public sur les droits de la personne pour ensuite les supplier d’accroître les échanges commerciaux. Sur Twitter, ils se gargarisent sur le féminisme de leur politique étrangère tout en <a href="https://amnistie.ca/sinformer/2020/canada/lettre-ouverte-au-premier-ministre-justin-trudeau-concernant-lexportation-des">livrant des armes à l’Arabie saoudite</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-checkered-history-of-arms-sales-to-human-rights-violators-91559">Canada’s checkered history of arms sales to human rights violators</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Au lieu de <a href="https://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMDictionnaire?iddictionnaire=1445">jouer les tigres de papier</a>, le Canada devrait s’engager dans une politique cohérente <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/septembre-2016-2/put-human-rights-at-the-core-of-the-canada-china-relationship/">fondée sur les droits humains</a> intégrant tous les ressorts de la diplomatie et du commerce.</p>
<p>Sans pour autant négliger sa politique intérieure. Car le Canada, comme la Chine, présente un bilan catastrophique à l’égard des peuples autochtones – cris ou ouïgours, tibétains ou atikamekw. Dans les deux pays, le <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/621786/idees-optons-pour-la-transparence-en-ce-qui-concerne-les-genocides">génocide historique se poursuit</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-committed-genocide-against-indigenous-peoples-explained-by-the-lawyer-central-to-the-determination-162582">How Canada committed genocide against Indigenous Peoples, explained by the lawyer central to the determination</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Il est temps que le Canada joigne la parole aux actes. En espérant que les célébrations du retour des deux Michael inspireront une politique qui saura éviter que l’histoire se répète.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168798/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster a déjà reçu des fonds du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines. Il est également professeur adjoint de recherche à l'Université Carleton.
</span></em></p>La rapidité de l’action chinoise pour libérer les deux Michael envoie un message important au reste du monde par le parti communiste au pouvoir : ne nous cherchez pas.David Webster, History & Global Studies professor, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1687372021-09-26T19:30:23Z2021-09-26T19:30:23ZMeng for the two Michaels: Lessons for the world from the China-Canada prisoner swap<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423228/original/file-20210926-125304-10b7wh1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C458%2C6434%2C3815&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Kovrig embraces his wife Vina Nadjibulla after arriving at Pearson International Airport. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Canada <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/spavor-kovrig-in-canada-1.6189640">celebrates the return</a> of the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8220637/meng-wanzhou-two-michaels-china-reaction/">“two Michaels,”</a> it’s worth asking what this <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/hostage-diplomacy-is-against-chinas-interests/">hostage diplomacy saga</a> tells us about Canada-China relations and global affairs more broadly. </p>
<p>Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were airborne soon after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, held in Vancouver, reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States government.</p>
<p>Both China and Canada can claim to have achieved their goals — the two Michaels flew back to Canada to be greeted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/25/huawei-cfo-flying-back-to-china-after-deal-with-us">Meng Wanzhou had a triumphant return to China</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441785758637969415"}"></div></p>
<p>But China has emerged the big winner after quietly signalling <a href="https://financialpost.com/opinion/why-canada-shouldnt-agree-to-swap-meng-wanzhou-for-the-two-canadian-prisoners-in-china">its willingness to exchange prisoners</a> for some time. Beijing retaliated for Meng’s 2018 arrest by detaining Kovrig and Spavor in short order. When Meng was freed, so was the Canadian duo, surprising pundits and experts. It was tit for tat, Meng for the Michaels. </p>
<p>Many experts had expected China to wait a few months to maintain the claim that the two Canadians had been arrested for real crimes. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441582582093729792"}"></div></p>
<p>The swiftness of the Chinese action signalled, instead, a more important message to the world from the governing Chinese Communist Party: Don’t mess with us. </p>
<p>China seeks the same global privileges the United States currently has and takes for granted. When it comes to the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2017/06/address_by_ministerfreelandoncanadasforeignpolicypriorities.html">“rules-based international order”</a> so beloved by Canada and like-minded states, the U.S. government is both proponent and periodic abstainer.</p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. plays by the rules when it’s in the American national interest to do so. It breaks those rules when it wants to. </p>
<h2>Playing by the rules when it’s convenient</h2>
<p>China’s government wants the same privilege. After its “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20031702">peaceful rise</a>” to world power, it wants to be feared, respected and to possess the same ability to bend and change the rules. Canadian policy-makers would be wise to understand China seeks equality and respect, and learn from history to forge a more effective China strategy. </p>
<p><a href="https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-609">Getting along with the Americans</a> has been central to Canadian foreign policy for more than a century. It’s time to learn how to apply the lessons learned to effectively manage the relationship with what is now the world’s other superpower. </p>
<p>A look back in time reveals that tit-for-tat hostage diplomacy did not start with Meng’s arrest. </p>
<p>In 1967, British authorities <a href="https://www.fcchk.org/correspondent/fifty-years-on-the-riots-that-shook-hong-kong-in-1967/">cracked down</a> on protesters in Hong Kong. They banned three pro-Communist China newspapers and jailed some of their workers, including Chinese citizens. </p>
<p>Chinese authorities immediately retaliated by targeting the only British journalist in China. Reuters correspondent Anthony Grey spent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/13/from-the-archive-1967-western-journalist-under-arrest-in-china-for-777-days">777 days</a> under house arrest. After the Chinese newspaper workers completed a two-year jail term, Grey was quickly set free as well.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Norm Webster in a dark suit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423231/original/file-20210926-125361-1rtlain.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Webster, the author’s father, presents the Norman Webster Award for international reporting at the National Newspaper Awards in Toronto in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Galit Rodan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chinese premier Zhou Enlai even told <em>The Globe and Mail</em> correspondent in China (<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-detainee-drama-in-china-1960s-style-a-former-globe-correspondent-looks/">my father, incidentally</a>) that Grey would be welcome to resume his Reuters duties. Zhou openly joked about his ability to jail or free the reporter at will.</p>
<p>Hostage diplomacy, in other words, is nothing new. </p>
<h2>Diplomatic ties established</h2>
<p>Canadian efforts since then have aimed to bring China into the “rules-based international order.” Pierre Trudeau’s government defied American wishes when it <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1971-canada-and-communist-china-open-diplomatic-relations">established diplomatic relations</a> with the People’s Republic of China in 1971.</p>
<p>Canadian aid had largely been aimed at remaking China, similar to the efforts of <a href="https://united-church.ca/blogs/round-table/exhibit-celebrates-missionary-work-china">Canadian missionaries</a> who tried to change China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. </p>
<p>Since the 1970s, Canada’s China policy has veered between a missionary impulse to transform the country and a merchant impulse to make money. Both were about “<a href="https://thecic.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CIC-Issues-in-Canada-China-Relations-2011.pdf">engagement</a>,” trying to have China follow international norms. </p>
<p>But in 1997, Canadian <a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/david-webster-china-cites-human-rights-in-spat-with-canada">did an about-face</a> when Jean Chrétien’s government stopped supporting a United Nations resolution on human rights in China in favour of “bilateral human rights dialogues” with the Chinese.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chretien inspects the honour guard in Beijing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423230/original/file-20210926-124744-1q4ybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Jean Chretien inspects the honour guard during welcoming ceremonies at the Great Hall of the People in 2003 in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As China expert Charles Burton has argued, those closed-door conversations were <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadas-fruitless-human-rights-dialogue-with-china">utterly ineffective</a> in promoting human rights. Yet they were highly effective in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254249666_Canada_and_Bilateral_Human_Rights_Dialogues">sidelining human rights groups</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-china-trade-deal-is-ottawa-selling-out-our-democratic-values-91970">Canada-China trade deal: Is Ottawa selling out our democratic values?</a>
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<p>Canada declined to <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2020/canada-must-play-a-role-in-renewing-multilateralism-for-a-changing-world/">push China on human rights</a> partly because it was in competition with other countries for what had become its primary China priority: trade. Canada began making <a href="https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/team-canada-brings-home-gold-successful-trade-mission-asia_19960121.html">huge trade missions to China</a>, happy to snap up scraps tossed to it by a greater power.</p>
<h2>Implied impunity</h2>
<p>Is it any surprise that in 2018, Chinese officials felt they could arrest Canadians with impunity and hold them without reprisals? Decades of Canadian policy had shown them they had little to fear.</p>
<p>China arrested Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil in 2006 and brushed aside Canadian “quiet diplomacy” easily. Canada’s ambassador cared so little for the case that he even <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1694598211978">forgot Celil was Canadian</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-canadian-languishing-in-a-chinese-jail-111736">The forgotten Canadian languishing in a Chinese jail</a>
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</p>
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<p>Canadian diplomats clearly pulled off a clever solution to the two Michaels dilemma, but it was hardly an integrated approach given two-way trade <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-even-as-political-relations-worsen-canada-china-trade-thrives/">has continued apace</a>. </p>
<p>Today, there are already calls in Canada for a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meng-huawei-column-don-pittis-1.6188272">return to business “as usual”</a> (literally) with China. </p>
<p>But there are also demands for a much <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-4">tougher stand against China</a>, and calls for Canada to be allowed into the new <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-exclusion-from-the-aukus-security-pact-reveals-a-failing-national-defence-policy-168235">AUKUS</a> security pact between the U.S., the U.K. and Australia aimed at reining in the Chinese in the Indo-Pacific region.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-exclusion-from-the-aukus-security-pact-reveals-a-failing-national-defence-policy-168235">Canada's exclusion from the AUKUS security pact reveals a failing national defence policy</a>
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<p>But what’s really needed is a policy informed by history and an understanding of China that’s as astute as Canada’s understanding of its neighbour to the south. </p>
<p>History matters to Chinese policy-makers. Historical analogies often telegraph Chinese intentions. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Revolution-1911-1912">Following the Chinese Revolution</a>, China sought sought a return to respect and to the <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/">centre of the global economy</a>. </p>
<p>It’s emerged in a strong position after the “<a href="https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2019/07/11/how-the-century-of-humiliation-influences-chinas-ambitions-today/">century of humiliation</a>” that allowed Western powers to dictate to it. </p>
<h2>What can Canada do?</h2>
<p>Canada could consider restoring the position of an embassy “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tiananmen-square-canada-sinologist-reflects-1.5166976">Sinologist</a>” (China expert) in Beijing. Universities could do more to teach future leaders about Chinese history. The media could report on China in more depth, as it does on U.S. affairs. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman looks towards Justin Trudeau" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423232/original/file-20210926-124735-1hr2i8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman looks towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G20 Summit in Argentina in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, Canadian policy-makers must stop saying one thing and doing the opposite. Chinese officials study Canada, too. Successive Canadian prime ministers and other leaders have shown the world they’ll holler about human rights to domestic audiences while begging China for more trade. They’ll talk and tweet about feminist foreign policies while shipping weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-checkered-history-of-arms-sales-to-human-rights-violators-91559">Canada’s checkered history of arms sales to human rights violators</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Rather than behaving like a “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_70.htm">paper tiger</a>,” Canada needs to embark on a <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/septembre-2016-2/put-human-rights-at-the-core-of-the-canada-china-relationship/">consistent rights-based policy</a>, integrated into all aspects of foreign policy and trade as well as domestic policy. After all, both Canada and China have abysmal human rights records on Indigenous people — whether Cree or Uighur, Tibetan or Atikamekw —<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-committed-genocide-against-indigenous-peoples-explained-by-the-lawyer-central-to-the-determination-162582"> and have committed historical, ongoing genocide against them.</a> </p>
<p>It’s time for Canada to consistently match rhetoric to actions. Perhaps celebrations about the return of the two Michaels will lead to new policies that would avoid a repetition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster has previously received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is also an adjunct research professor at Carleton University. </span></em></p>The swiftness of the Chinese action to free the two Michaels signalled an important message to the world from the governing Chinese Communist Party: Don’t mess with us.David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1659182021-09-14T18:58:34Z2021-09-14T18:58:34Z8 a.m. high school? Sleep habits of pandemic teens suggest benefits of later start times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419877/original/file-20210907-7696-1til2op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C129%2C3100%2C1828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">COVID-19 lockdown periods opened a unique window for observing teen sleep patterns. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/8-a-m--high-school-sleep-habits-of-pandemic-teens-suggest-benefits-of-later-start-times" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The return to in-person classrooms this fall may have the unintended consequence of depriving many Canadian high school students of sleep. </p>
<p>Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.03.013">many teens were chronically sleep-deprived during the week</a>, putting them at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2015-0627">greater risk of poor health</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12475">more sleepiness in the classroom</a>. </p>
<p>The pandemic caused an upheaval in schooling, but introduced some flexibilities in scheduling that paradoxically <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2021.04.010">allowed some teens to catch up on their sleep</a>. </p>
<p>Could we capitalize on this disruption to make evidence-based changes in education to improve teens’ sleep? Research suggests that doing so would help high school students have healthier and more productive years.</p>
<h2>Damaging effects of sleep deprivation</h2>
<p>Concern about the damaging impacts of sleep deprivation on teens is substantial, especially because teens are still developing. </p>
<p>In pre-pandemic times, international studies suggested only about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.03.013">two-thirds of Canadian adolescents were getting the eight to 10 hours of sleep on school nights</a> recommended for 12- to 18-year-olds, and there was a worse picture in many European countries and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6703a1external%20icon">the United States</a>. </p>
<p>Inadequate sleep is linked to a host of negative outcomes in youth, including greater risk <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy018">of obesity</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11892-020-01373-1">diabetes</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.6288">hypertension</a> as well as depression, suicidality and substance abuse. It’s also linked to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22545685/">deficits in attention and memory skills</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A youth in a face mask has his head laid down on a desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420873/original/file-20210913-15-1jlodya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inadequate sleep is linked with a host of negative outcomes in youth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Importantly, research points to a key role for sleep in academic performance: teens who have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12373">irregular or poor quality sleep may have worse grades</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12388">be absent or late more often</a>. Chronic sleep deprivation may not only increase a young person’s risk for health challenges down the road but also may potentially affect their career opportunities and future earning potential.</p>
<h2>Ready to wake two hours after adults</h2>
<p>Sleep deprivation, recognized by the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/canadian-adults-getting-enough-sleep-infographic.html">Public Health Agency of Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_us.html">Centers for Disease Control</a> as a significant concern for public health, is alarmingly common in teens. </p>
<p>Contributing to teens’ vulnerability to sleep deprivation is a conflict between traditional school start times (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12475">as early as 8 a.m. in some parts of Canada</a>) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2018.06.001">normal developmental changes in the sleep cycle</a> that lead the average teen feeling ready to sleep and wake about two hours later than younger children and adults. </p>
<p>Adding to this mix are other factors like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112199">teens’ greater independence in choosing their bedtimes</a> and use of light-emitting screens, which, when used in the evening, can <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/">disrupt nighttime sleep and delay the body’s internal clock</a>. </p>
<p>Sleep researcher Mary Carskadon has described this combination of biological, behavioural and social influences as a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2018.06.001">perfect storm</a>” that creates prime conditions for teens to accumulate a “sleep debt” during the school week. This makes many of them too sleepy to participate effectively in the classroom and leads to binge sleeping on the weekends. </p>
<p>As a way of calming this storm, some school districts have experimented with later school start times. Overall, these experiments have been largely successful, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2018.09.020">students reporting more nightly sleep</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12475">less sleepiness in the classroom</a> with later start times. </p>
<p>In view of this evidence, organizations such as the <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/3/642">American Pediatric Society</a> and the <a href="https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.6558">American Academy of Sleep Medicine</a> recommend that high schools not start class before 8:30 a.m.</p>
<p>Other interventions like introducing sleep health education programs into the classroom have also shown <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27448478/">benefits for children</a> and somewhat <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/sbr.12016">for teens</a>. For example, one study of Grade 12 students showed that short-term, classroom-based educational programming improved students’ knowledge of the role of sleep in health. These students also spent more time in bed on weeknights compared to students not receiving the programming. However, these benefits of participating in the program did not translate into changes that reduced students’ daytime sleepiness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students in face masks walk to school on the street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420869/original/file-20210913-21-l8itto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students have reported more nightly sleep and less sleepiness in the classroom with later school start times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pandemic: More sleep, disrupted sleep</h2>
<p>The conditions during COVID-19 lockdown periods opened a unique window for observing teen sleep patterns when students no longer needed to commute to the classroom. Several studies showed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2021.04.010">teens were sleeping more because they could sleep later into the mornings</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.09.015">felt more rested and alert during online schooling</a>, suggesting that additional sleep helped them to engage in their studies. </p>
<p>It’s important to note that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.06.001">other studies reported more disrupted sleep in some teens</a>, which may have been due in part to anxiety, depressed mood and fewer opportunities to get outside. </p>
<p>However, having the opportunity to rest a little later into the morning could allow teens to offset some effects of a disturbed night of sleep. Taken together, what we’ve learned both about teens sleeping more and teens’ sleep being disrupted during the pandemic adds more evidence in favour of greater flexibility in school scheduling to improve teen sleep health.</p>
<h2>Pandemic schooling shifts</h2>
<p>While some schools have planned schedules to accommodate things like physical distancing and class bubbles, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.09.015">could this be an opportunity to test out delayed or flexible school start times</a>? </p>
<p>Staggering school start times across the day, for example, could offer a double benefit of allowing later-rising students to begin their school day a little later and reducing the number of students in school at any one time, thereby promoting physical distancing and perhaps <a href="https://www.startschoollater.net/uploads/9/7/9/6/9796500/brookings_study_on_later_start_times_0911.pdf">better distribution of resources across the day</a>. </p>
<p>School districts in some <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-sleep-less-traffic-heres-what-we-know-about-the-benefits-of-staggered-school-start-and-finish-times-164313">other parts of the world</a> are undertaking this plan, and it will be exciting to see how scheduling changes play out. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-sleep-do-teenagers-really-need-111797">How much sleep do teenagers really need?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Policy change is slow, however, so what can be done now to improve teens’ sleep health? Adopting <a href="https://sleeponitcanada.ca/all-about-sleep/age-specific-dos-and-donts/">sleep recommendations</a> can help put healthier sleep routines in place. </p>
<p>Parents can’t go wrong with guiding teens through basics like turning off screens at least an hour before bedtime, encouraging regular periods of activity outside in daylight, limiting daytime caffeine intake (including energy drinks) — and trying to maintain a regular daily bedtime and wake-up time, even on weekends. </p>
<p>Excellent bilingual resources are also available through campaigns such as <a href="https://sleeponitcanada.ca/">“Sleep On It!”</a> (developed by the <a href="https://www.cscnweb.ca/?set_lang=en">Canadian Sleep and Circadian Network</a>), the <a href="https://css-scs.ca/">Canadian Sleep Society</a>, <a href="https://fondationsommeil.com/">Fondation Sommeil</a> and <a href="https://www.wakeupnarcolepsy.org/">Wake Up Narcolepsy Canada</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanne Hood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Could we capitalize on disruption schedules during the pandemic to make evidence-based changes in school start times to improve teens’ sleep?Suzanne Hood, Associate Professor of Psychology, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1653112021-07-30T02:23:11Z2021-07-30T02:23:11ZPolitik Olimpiade: Perlawanan Sukarno pada 1963 selamanya mengubah pertandingan olahraga internasional<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413702/original/file-20210729-17-17xn3e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2551%2C2176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GANEFO menghadirkan cara baru untuk mengorganisasi dan memahami olahraga internasional. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GANEFO_Stadium.jpg">Majalah Pantja Sila, 1964/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dalam Piagam Olimpiade, salah satu prinsip dasar kompetisi olahraga tersebut adalah “<a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/General/EN-Olympic-Charter.pdf?_ga=2.207253267.1863595436.1627389884-1889120417.1624282455">organisasi olahraga dalam Gerakan Olimpiade akan menerapkan netralitas politik</a>.” Nyatanya, Olimpiade dan politik tak terpisahkan. Sebuah gerakan perlawanan di Asia, yang dimotori oleh Presiden Indonesia Sukarno hampir 60 tahun lalu berdampak pada politisasi Olimpiade. </p>
<p>Pada 1960-an, sebanyak 36 negara bergabung dalam Olimpiade tandingan: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549192">GANEFO, the Games of the New Emerging Forces</a>. GANEFO dibentuk sebagai perlawanan terhadap Komite Internasional Olimpiade (IOC), “sebuah alat imperialisme,” menurut Presiden Sukarno. Sesudah GANEFO, IOC terpaksa menerima bahwa olahraga kerap bersifat politis. </p>
<p>GANEFO menyuguhkan tantangan yang belum pernah dihadapi IOC. “Olahraga memiliki kaitan dengan politik,” Sukarno berseru. <a href="https://library.olympics.com/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/40898/the-olympic-movement-s-response-to-the-challenge-of-emerging-nationalism-in-sport-an-historical-reco?_lg=en-GB">Presiden IOC Avery Brundage menyesalkan</a> “tantangan terhadap seluruh organisasi olahraga amatir internasional, yang tidak bisa diabaikan begitu saja.” Ada “yang namanya aturan dan peraturan,” dia membalas. </p>
<p>GANEFO-lah, dan bukan <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/tokyo-1964">Olimpiade Tokyo 1964</a>, kejuaraan olahraga internasional besar pertama yang diselenggarakan di Asia. Sementara Jepang menggelar pesta besar untuk menandai kembalinya negara tersebut sebagai negara yang patuh hukum di panggung internasional menyusul Perang Dunia Kedua, Indonesia dan sekutu-sekutunya di GANEFO (anggota awalnya adalah Kamboja, Cina, Guinea, Indonesia, Irak, Mali, Pakistan, Vietnam, dan Uni Soviet) menolak aturan main yang berlaku. </p>
<p>GANEFO menghadirkan cara baru untuk mengorganisasi dan memahami olahraga internasional. Sejarahnya berasal dari Asian Games, kompetisi regional yang diselenggarakan empat tahun sekali di sela-sela dua kejuaraan Olimpiade Musim Panas. </p>
<p>Sebelas tim nasional mengikuti <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/1951-first-asian-games-in-india/285751">Asian Games pertama</a> pada 1951, dengan Jepang mengumpulkan medali terbanyak. Sang tuan rumah, Perdana Menteri India Jawaharlal Nehru, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=JWmHDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">mengidentifikasi tujuan yang sangat politis</a>: olahraga “menyatukan pemuda dari banyak negara sehingga membantu hingga titik tertentu dalam mempromosikan persahatan dan kerja sama internasional.” Asian Games berikutnya di Manila dan Tokyo menggunakan bahasa yang digunakan kejuaraan Olimpiade mengenai persaingan yang bersahabat serta promosi peran global negara tuan rumah. </p>
<p>Pada <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1068999/controversy-ruled-the-last-time-jakarta-hosted-the-asian-games-in-1962">Asian Games Ketiga</a> yang dibuka di Indonesia pada 1962 hal ini berubah. Menjawab keinginan negara-negara Arab dan Cina, pemerintahan Sukarno menolak keikutsertaan Israel dan Taiwan. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A poster showing an arm holding a torch with GAMEFO at the top of the poster." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster from the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hasilnya, IOC menolak mengakui kejuaraan tersebut. Meski demikian, dengan atlet dan delegasi nasional telah sampai di Jakarta, kejuaraan tersebut terus berlangsung. Fans dalam negeri gembira dengan prestasi Indonesia meraih peringkat dua sesudah Jepang dalam pengumpulan medali. IOC mendepak Indonesia. </p>
<p>Brundage sangat marah. “Apakah pemerintahan akan melebarkan Perang Dingin ke lapangan pertandingan?” dia bertanya. Sukarno membalas bahwa IOC sendiri politis, sebuah organisasi Perang Dingin yang melarang keikutsertaan Cina dan Vietnam Utara karena keduanya di bawah pemerintahan Komunis. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549192">Dia menyebut IOC</a> “alat imperialisme” yang mengkhianati idealisme pendirian Olimpiade, berlindung di balik klaim palsu memisahkan olahraga dan politik, padahal memaksakan sebuah uji kemurnian anti-Komunis. Jadi dia membuat kegiatan olahraga baru, GANEFO, untuk 1963. </p>
<p>Dia berargumen, GANEFO hanyalah sebuah penerimaan bahwa olahraga memiliki dimensi politik, sebuah cara untuk meratakan arena bertanding bagi para atlet dan aspirasi negara Dunia Ketiga, dan sebuah kesempatan bagi Indonesia untuk menggunakan olahraga untuk membangun infrastruktur dan kebanggaan nasional. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sebuah kartun menunjukkan tank mengejar anggota IOC." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kartun politis yang menggambarkan konflik antara penyelenggara GANEFO dan Komite Internasional Olimpiade.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Banyak ragam pendapat tentang kesuksesan GANEFO. Kebanyakan atlet datang secara tidak resmi dan dalam kegiatannya penari serta musikus sama sentralnya seperti para atlet. Cina memimpin dalam pengumpulan medali diikuti Uni Soviet dan Indonesia. Namun, GANEFO sukses dalam mencapai tujuan membangun bangsa melalui olahraga. </p>
<p>Indonesia tidak meneruskan perlawanannya, tapi tidak mengalami kerugian besar juga. Indonesia diterima kembali oleh IOC tepat sebelum Olimpiade Tokyo 1964 - tapi <a href="http://www.olympedia.org/definitions/57">memilih untuk memboikot kejuaraan tersebut</a> setelah IOC menolak mengizinkan para atlet yang bertanding dalam GANEFO ikut serta dalam Olympiade ‘64. </p>
<p>Sementara itu, aturan kompetisi olahraga internasional mulai berubah. Sulit untuk terus berpura-pura bahwa olahraga internasional apolitis sesudah kejadian ini. </p>
<p>IOC <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/18/newsid_3547000/3547872.stm">melarang Afrika Selatan</a> dalam Olimpiade Tokyo pada 1964 dan <a href="https://www.universal-rights.org/by-invitation/from-apartheid-south-africa-to-the-euro-2020-football-championship-how-sport-and-human-rights-make-for-natural-teammates/">boikot kejuaraan-kejuaraan olahraga di Afrika Selatan</a> berperan dalam membangun tekanan global untuk menghentikan apartheid.</p>
<p>Olimpiade, <a href="https://theconversation.com/england-v-south-africa-a-history-of-tough-tackling-and-political-turmoil-126148">rugby dan olahraga lainnya</a> menjadi arena konfrontasi politik internasional secara rutin, dan hampir menggagalkan, contohnya, <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/sports/montreal-olympics-african-boycott-of-1976-games-changed-the-world">Olimpiade 1976</a> di Montréal. Masyarakat adat di Kanada secara terus menerus mengangkat masalah penggambaran <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jsporthistory.46.2.0224">Olimpiade Musim Dingin di Kanada</a> sebagai hal yang “apolitis”.</p>
<p>Penyelanggara GANEFO memberikan kesempatan pada Mesir untuk menjadi tuan rumah GANEFO kedua, tapi harus membatalkan kegiatan tersebut karena menghadapi potensi perang dengan Israel. Kamboja menjadi tuan rumah “Asian GANEFO” pada 1966. <a href="https://youtu.be/sTbZOPFnXqI">Upacara pembukaan</a> pada kegiatan tersebut mencoba menghidupkan upaya membangun kebangsaan seperti pada GANEFO di Indonesia. </p>
<p>Dengan pesta terakhir itu, GANEFO menghilang dan tidak pernah muncul kembali. Namun, kita bisa lihat warisannya dalam cara negara-negara Dunia Ketiga menggunakan olahraga sebagai wahana meraih tujuan politik internasional. Dalam hal ini, premis GANEFO keluar sebagai juara.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Melalui GANEFO, Sukarno memimpin perlawanan terhadap klaim apolitis Olimpiade dan menempatkan politik di tengah arena olahraga.David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1651422021-07-29T12:16:38Z2021-07-29T12:16:38ZThe politics of the Olympics: How a counter-movement in 1963 changed the Games forever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413573/original/file-20210728-13-izw15r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2384%2C1349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 1964 Olympics in Tokyo banned all athletes who took part in a counter-competition a year earlier called the Games of the New Emerging Forces, which were dubbed the left-wing Olympics </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-politics-of-the-olympics--how-a-counter-movement-in-1963-changed-the-games-forever" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Olympic Charter states one of the fundamental principles of Olympism is that “<a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/General/EN-Olympic-Charter.pdf?_ga=2.207253267.1863595436.1627389884-1889120417.1624282455">sports organizations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality</a>.” In reality, the Olympics and politics are inseparable — and a movement in Asia almost 60 years ago has had a lasting impact on how the Olympics have become heavily politicized. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, some 36 countries embraced a new counter-Olympics: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549192">GANEFO, the Games of the New Emerging Forces</a>. GANEFO formed to challenge the International Olympic Committee, “a tool of the imperialists and colonialists,” in the words of then Indonesian president Sukarno. After GANEFO, the IOC was forced to accept that sports were often political. There was no going back. </p>
<p>GANEFO presented the IOC with an unprecedented challenge. “Sports cannot be separated from politics,” Sukarno declared. <a href="https://library.olympics.com/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/40898/the-olympic-movement-s-response-to-the-challenge-of-emerging-nationalism-in-sport-an-historical-reco?_lg=en-GB">IOC President Avery Brundage deplored</a> this “challenge to all international amateur sports organizations, which cannot very well be ignored.” There was “such a thing as rules and regulations,” he sniffed. </p>
<p>GANEFO, not the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/tokyo-1964">Tokyo Olympics of 1964</a>, was the first major global sporting event held in Asia. While Japan threw a “coming out” party that symbolized its return to the global stage after the Second World War as a rules-abiding country, Indonesia and its GANEFO allies (initially Cambodia, China, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Mali, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union) rejected the rules of the game. </p>
<p>GANEFO posed a new way for the world to organize and understand global sports. Its origins lie in the Asian Games, a regional competition held every four years between the Summer Olympics.</p>
<p>Eleven national teams took part in the <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/1951-first-asian-games-in-india/285751">first Asian Games</a> in 1951, with Japan topping the medal count. The host, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=JWmHDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">identified a very political goal</a>: sports “bring together the youth of many countries and thus help, to some extent, in promoting international friendship and cooperation.” Subsequent Asian Games in Manila and Tokyo embraced Olympian language of friendly competition along with promotion of the host country’s global role. </p>
<p>That changed when the <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1068999/controversy-ruled-the-last-time-jakarta-hosted-the-asian-games-in-1962">Third Asian Games</a> opened in Indonesia in 1962. Sukarno’s government refused admission to Israel and Taiwan in response to the wishes of the Arab states and China. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A poster showing an arm holding a torch with GAMEFO at the top of the poster." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413403/original/file-20210727-19-1sx10qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster from the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Consequently, the IOC refused to recognize the Games. With athletes and national delegations already in Jakarta, they went ahead regardless. Hometown fans thrilled at the sight of Indonesia finishing second to Japan in the medal count. The IOC expelled Indonesia. </p>
<p>Brundage was furious. “Are governments going to expand the Cold War onto playing fields?” he asked. Sukarno shot back that the IOC was already political, a Cold War organization that excluded China and North Vietnam because both were under Communist rule. </p>
<p>That was when <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549192">Sukarno called the IOC</a> “a tool of the imperialists and colonialists” that betrayed the founding Olympics ideals and falsely claimed to keep sports and politics separate, while in fact imposing an anti-Communist purity test. So he called for another sporting event, GANEFO, in 1963. </p>
<p>It was, he argued, a way to even the playing field for the athletes and aspirations of Third World nations, and a chance for Indonesia to use sports as a way to build national infrastructure and national swagger. “Boy, what kind of a nation do they think we are?” Sukarno asked of the IOC. “I have repeatedly said that we are not a bean-cake nation!” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A cartoon that shows a steam roller chasing members of the IOC." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413406/original/file-20210727-13-zf3azw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Indonesian political cartoon shows the conflict between the organizers of GANEFO and the International Olympic Committee.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opinions differ on the GANEFO’s success. Most athletes came unofficially, and the event featured almost as many dancers and musicians as athletes. China led the Soviet Union and Indonesia atop the medal table. What GANEFO did achieve, however, was its goal of nation-building through sports. </p>
<p>Indonesia did not prevail in its challenge, but it did not suffer any damage. It gained readmission to the IOC in time for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics — but <a href="http://www.olympedia.org/definitions/57">chose to boycott the Games</a> after the IOC refused to allow athletes who competed at GANEFO to take part in the ’64 Olympics.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the rules of global sports were changing. It would be difficult to pretend that international sports were apolitical after this point. </p>
<p>The IOC <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/18/newsid_3547000/3547872.stm">barred South Africa</a> from the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and sports <a href="https://www.universal-rights.org/by-invitation/from-apartheid-south-africa-to-the-euro-2020-football-championship-how-sport-and-human-rights-make-for-natural-teammates/">boycotts of South Africa</a> played a role in mounting global pressure to end apartheid.</p>
<p>The Olympics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/england-v-south-africa-a-history-of-tough-tackling-and-political-turmoil-126148">rugby and other sports</a> would become arenas of international political confrontation and boycotts on a regular basis, nearly derailing, for instance, the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/sports/montreal-olympics-african-boycott-of-1976-games-changed-the-world">1976 Olympics</a> in Montréal. Indigenous peoples continually point out the troubles with “apolitical” framing of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jsporthistory.46.2.0224">Winter Olympics held in Canada</a>.</p>
<p>Organizers awarded the second GANEFO to Egypt, but had to cancel the event as war with Israel loomed. Instead, Cambodia hosted an “Asian GANEFO” in 1966. The <a href="https://youtu.be/sTbZOPFnXqI">opening ceremonies</a> attempted to evoke the same nation-building efforts as Indonesia’s GANEFO.</p>
<p>With the end of this last hurrah, GANEFO faded from the scene. One can see its legacy, however, in the way that Third World governments would subsequently use sports as one avenue to pursue international political goals. In this sense, GANEFO won the day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Olympics claim not to be political, but in the 1960s a counter movement organized by left-leaning countries put politics front and centre.David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1631562021-07-06T15:54:04Z2021-07-06T15:54:04ZThe history of ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’: Alternative names, competing claims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408541/original/file-20210627-15-3p6p6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C5447%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jewish ultranationalists wave Israeli flags next to the Damascus gate, outside Jerusalem's Old City.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 21, the airstrikes ended, the rockets stopped and the street fighting between Jewish and Arab Israelis abated as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel">Israel</a> and the militant Islamist group <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13331522">Hamas</a> agreed to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-ceasefire.html">ceasefire</a>, ending the fourth war between them since 2008. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-gaza-war.html">war and the actions</a> that culminated in it have been discussed extensively. Both sides have, as always, laid the blame for the latest hostilities at the feet of the other. </p>
<p>Sadly, this war and the lead up to it are just the latest entries in a long ledger written in blood and tears. </p>
<p>“Israel.” “Palestine.” One land, two names. Those on each side claim the land as theirs, under their chosen name. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her hands as a heavily armoured police officer confronts her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Israeli police officer and a Palestinian woman scuffle during clashes that erupted ahead of a planned march by Jewish ultranationalists through east Jerusalem, outside Jerusalem’s Old City, on June 15.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Israel’</h2>
<p>“Israel” first appears near the end of the 13th century BC within the Egyptian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merneptah">Merneptah Stele</a>, referring apparently to a people (rather than a place) inhabiting what was then “Canaan.” A few centuries later in that region, we find two sister kingdoms: Israel and Judah (the origin of <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=jew">the term “Jew”</a>). According to the Bible, there had first been a monarchy comprising both, apparently also called “Israel.”</p>
<p>In about 722 BC, the kingdom of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+17.5-6&version=NRSV">Israel was conquered</a> by the Neo-Assyrian empire, centred in what’s now Iraq. As an ancient geographic term, “Israel” was no more. </p>
<h2>Judah alone</h2>
<p>Less than a century and half later, Judah was overthrown. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+25.8-10&version=NRSV">Its capital Jerusalem was sacked</a>, the Jewish Temple destroyed and many of Judah’s inhabitants were <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity">exiled to Babylonia</a>.</p>
<p>Following the exile’s end a little under 50 years later, the territory of the former kingdom of Judah served as the heart of Judaism for almost seven centuries (although the rebuilt Temple was again destroyed in AD 70, by the Romans). </p>
<h2>‘Palestine’</h2>
<p>In AD 135, following a <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-bar-kokhba-revolt-132-135-ce">failed Jewish revolt</a>, Roman Emperor Hadrian expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and decreed that the city and surrounding territory be part of a larger entity called “Syria-Palestina.” “<a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/palestine">Palestina</a>” took its name from the coastal territory of the ancient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Philistine-people">Philistines</a>, enemies of the Israelites (ancestors of the Jews). </p>
<p>Subsequent to the Islamic conquest of the Middle East in the seventh century, Arab peoples began to settle in the former “Palestina.” Apart from about 90 years of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades">Crusader</a> domination, the land fell under Muslim control for just under 1,200 years. Although Jewish habitation never ceased, the population was overwhelmingly Arab. </p>
<h2>Zionism and British control</h2>
<p>In the second half of the 19th century, the longstanding yearning of Jews in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diaspora-Judaism">Diaspora</a> to return to the territory of their ancestors culminated in the nationalistic movement called <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/zionism">Zionism</a>.</p>
<p>The Zionist cause was driven by steeply rising <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-semitism-is-on-the-rise-75-years-after-the-end-of-the-holocaust-and-second-world-war-132141">hatred toward Jews</a> in Europe and Russia. Immigrating Jews encountered a predominantly Arab populace, who also considered it their ancestral homeland. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a chair holding a rock sits in the foreground with the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A masked Palestinian demonstrator holds a stone during clashes with Israeli security forces in front of the Dome of the Rock Mosque at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on June 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, the land comprised three administrative regions of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/ottoman-empire">Ottoman empire</a>, none of which was called “<a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2018/05/18/400-years-of-peace-palestine-under-ottoman-rule">Palestine</a>.”</p>
<p>In 1917, the land came under British rule. In 1923, “<a href="https://time.com/3445003/mandatory-palestine/">Mandatory Palestine</a>,” which also included the current state of Jordan, was created. Its Arab inhabitants saw themselves primarily not as “Palestinians” in the sense of a nation, but instead as Arabs living in Palestine (or rather, “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/greater-syria">Greater Syria</a>”). </p>
<h2>The State of Israel</h2>
<p>Zionist leaders in Mandatory Palestine strove hard to increase Jewish numbers to solidify claims to statehood, but in 1939 the British <a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/955">strictly limited</a> Jewish immigration. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the Zionist project succeeded because of global horror in response to the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust">Holocaust</a>.</p>
<p>In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed <a href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253">Resolution 181</a>, partitioning the land into “Independent Arab and Jewish States.” The resolution met immediate Arab rejection. Palestinian militias attacked Jewish settlements. </p>
<p>On May 14, 1948, the Zionist leadership declared the founding of the state of Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man unrolls a scroll as David Ben-Gurion looks on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this May 14, 1948 file photo, an official shows the signed document which proclaims the establishment of the new Jewish state of Israel declared by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The War of Independence’/Al-Nakba</h2>
<p>The new Jewish state was immediately invaded by the armies of several Arab countries, alongside Palestinian militants. By the time the fighting ended the next year, the Palestinians had lost almost four fifths of their United Nations allotment. Seven hundred thousand of them had been driven from their homes, with no right of return to the present day.</p>
<p>For Jewish Israelis, it’s known as the “<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-israel-war-of-independence">War of Independence</a>.” For Palestinians, it was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948"><em>al-Nakba</em></a> — “the Catastrophe.”</p>
<p>On Nov. 15, 1988, the Palestinian National Council issued a declaration of independence, <a href="https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/146E6838D505833F852560D600471E25">recognized</a> a month later by the UN General Assembly. Approximately three-quarters of the UN’s membership now accepts the statehood of Palestine, which has <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-182149/">non-member observer status</a>.</p>
<h2>Diverging fortunes, constant hostilities</h2>
<p>Despite multiple wars with Arab states and militant groups, Israel has flourished. Palestinians have struggled to establish functional governance and economic stability. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/six-day-war">Six-Day War</a> of June 1967, Israel repelled a true existential threat, routing a heavy Arab military force massed at its borders. Israel’s seizure of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the war has left Palestinians under various forms of painful Israeli occupation or control. </p>
<p>Throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many more Palestinians than Jewish Israelis have been killed and wounded, in part due to Israel’s advanced military capability but also to the well-documented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/gaza-hamas-israel.html">Hamas strategy</a> of situating command centres within civilian areas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her fist in protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Palestinian woman participates in a rally commemorating the 20th anniversary of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jewish Israelis have experienced two violent <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080066/israel-palestine-intifadas-first-second">Palestinian <em>Intifadas</em></a> (1987–1993; 2001–2005), the second of which saw a wave of deadly <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/israel-hamas-conflict_b_5663188.html">suicide bombings and ambushes</a>.</p>
<p>In response, Israel erected its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/7/8/in-pictures-israels-illegal-separation-wall-still-divides">Security Barrier</a>, which has essentially eliminated Palestinian terrorist attacks but added further to the pain of Palestinian civilians.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, there have been several failed attempts to negotiate a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-state-solution">two-state solution</a>.</p>
<p>Under Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/hamas-netanyahu-and-mother-nature.html">Jewish settlement</a> in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, viewed as illegal by much of the world, accelerated — making any future talks even more difficult.</p>
<h2>Second-class citizens</h2>
<p>About 20 per cent of Israel’s citizenry is Arab. Unfortunately, Arab Israelis are largely treated as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/israel-palestinian-citizens-racism-discrimination.html">second-class citizens</a> within the officially Jewish state. </p>
<p>The recent defeat of Netanyahu could help to address this — Israel now has a governing coalition that includes an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-raam-party-makes-history-by-joining-bennett-lapid-coalition/">Arab Israeli party</a>.</p>
<h2>Taking stock</h2>
<p>By more than 1,000 years, “Israel” predates “Palestine.” The land then became home primarily to an Arab population, again for more than a millennium. Both Jews and Arabs thus have a legitimate claim to the land. </p>
<p>The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen myriad wrongs and brutalities on both sides. No act of vengeance, however extreme, could now allow one party to say that accounts had been settled on their side. </p>
<p>The only way forward is, somehow, to cease looking backwards. </p>
<p>In an inversion of the Nile’s transformation in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex+7.20-22&version=NRSV">Bible</a>, the rivers of blood spilled must become water under the bridge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This history of Israel and Palestine is complicated. One land, two names. Those on each side claim the land as theirs, under their chosen name.Daniel Miller, Assoc. Prof. of Religion, Society and Culture, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1542252021-03-08T14:56:09Z2021-03-08T14:56:09ZCOVID-19 pandemic exposes how little we know about prison conditions globally<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385878/original/file-20210223-17-1ppydbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C116%2C3980%2C2184&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only parliamentarians and judges cannot be denied access to prisons. It's time to let people in to determine whether human rights are being violated behind bars.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Novelist <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/House-Dead-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/0486434095">Fyodor Dostoyevsky</a> once famously said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And yet most of us know very little about prisons. In fact, gaining entry or even insight into prisons as an outsider is quite rare. In Canada, only parliamentarians and judges cannot be denied access to <a href="https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/8219/senators-urge-canada-to-do-better-in-treatment-of-nation-s-prisoners">federal prisons</a>. </p>
<p>If the measure of civil society is based on how it treats its most vulnerable members, why are we not only keeping people locked up in prisons, but keeping the community locked out? </p>
<h2>Transparency crisis</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://carleton.ca/prisontransparencyproject/">Prison Transparency Project</a> is a collaboration between researchers from Argentina, Spain and Canada intent on pushing for greater openness and accountability in prison systems around the world. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-44.6/">existing national</a> <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf">and international</a> laws aimed at protecting prisoners’ rights that set out basic standards of confinement. But in our work — along with our partners, including lawyers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and advocates — we routinely hear about violations against <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/julie-bilotta-jailhouse-lawsuit-settled-1.4556660">human dignity</a> and breaches to some of the most <a href="https://www.cmaj.ca/content/185/6/E249">basic human needs</a> of people in prison. There is a crisis of prison transparency that remains unexposed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Saint-Jerome prison with barbed wire in front of the building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385901/original/file-20210223-19-1wzzehi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saint-Jerome prison in Saint-Jerome, Que., where in January 2021, an outbreak of COVID-19 was reported.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The onset of the pandemic had an impact on almost every aspect of prison life, and has only reinforced the transparency crisis with lockdowns, visitor bans and delayed releases. COVID-19 has been especially worrying because prisons are closed, overcrowded and poorly ventilated and sanitized spaces. Many people held behind their walls face ongoing health concerns, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5112354/">including high rates of tuberculosis and HIV</a>. </p>
<p>In all three countries during the pandemic, we observed people in prison, isolated in cells for 23 hours a day, cut off from visitors and denied personal protective equipment like soap and masks. </p>
<p>In Canada, some people in prison reported deteriorating mental health that resulted in suicide attempts and self-harm. With few other options available, people in prison have resorted to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/inmates-in-saskatoon-prince-albert-stage-hunger-strike-1.5860712">hunger strikes</a> as one way to protest the inhumane conditions. </p>
<p>These conditions have persisted throughout the pandemic, even with varying watchdog organizations that have some oversight but little to no ability to intervene. </p>
<h2>Spain</h2>
<p>Like other <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20200427-as-france-releases-thousands-can-covid-19-end-chronic-prison-overcrowding">European Countries</a>, Spain implemented <a href="https://wp.unil.ch/space/files/2021/02/Prisons-and-the-COVID-19_2nd-Publication_201109.pdf">release measures</a> to tackle the spread of the coronavirus inside prisons. However, against the background of a political controversy involving the Spanish Supreme Court and <a href="http://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/coronavirus-spanish-court-threats-prisoners-complaint_487899_102.html">political prisoners</a>, the Spanish administration ignored accountability standards and did not disclose its release agenda.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a mask is surrounded by well-wishers in a crowd." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385894/original/file-20210223-18-1xd22hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catalonia’s outgoing regional president, Quim Torra, centre, waves to the crowd in Barcelona, Spain in September 2020. Spain’s Supreme Court removed him from office for refusing to remove a banner from his office calling for the release of separatist leaders from prison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Joan Mateu)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These measures did not, however, prevent the epidemic from spreading across <a href="https://wp.unil.ch/space/files/2021/02/Prisons-and-the-COVID-19_2nd-Publication_201109.pdf">Spanish prisons</a>. This public health crisis gained particular momentum in late 2020 and early 2021 amid the so-called <a href="http://www.elperiodicodearagon.com/noticias/aragon/brote-covid-afecta-carcel-teruel-sigue-alza-ya-son-107-presos-infectados_1454906.html">third wave</a> of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Spain’s prison administration has been the only source of information on correctional infection rates so far. No watchdog or member of an NGO is able to actively monitor the pandemic in either the Spanish or Catalan systems, meaning COVID-19’s impact on prisons is partly unknowable. Prisons in Spain and Catalonia in effect have become de facto dark sites, with no observers able to enter and no knowledge getting out. </p>
<h2>Argentina</h2>
<p>People in prison in Argentina depend on visiting family members for food, clothing and connection. The pandemic has not only cut off family visits, but also access to basic necessities. </p>
<p>With a failing prison infrastructure, increasing prison rates and overcrowding, Argentina’s diminished oversight due to COVID-19 is a grave concern. </p>
<p>Unlike in Canada and Spain, prison conditions during COVID-19 and in general are a matter of great public concern in Argentina. Following public protests and demands by people in prison, NGOs and public watchdog visits were re-established, but with greater restrictions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Prisoners riot on the roof of a prison as bird fly overhead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385898/original/file-20210223-13-cy6698.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rioting inmates are seen on the roof of the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in April 2020. They accused authorities of not doing enough to prevent the spread of coronavirus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Argentina, prisons are overseen by the <a href="https://www.ppn.gov.ar/">Procuración Penitenciaria de la Nación</a> and the <a href="https://cnpt.gob.ar/">National Committee for the Prevention of Torture</a>. These offices generate information on prisons, producing regular reports crucial to transparency. However, these oversight bodies tell us that the capacity to oversee prisons during the pandemic has been significantly reduced. </p>
<p>With little access or oversight, prisons run the gamut of human rights violations. The case for prison transparency and accountability around the world has been made abundantly clear with the pandemic. People in prison will eventually be released. It’s critical we ensure they don’t come out of prison far worse off than when they went in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dawn Moore receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>José A. Brandariz, Máximo Sozzo, and Vicki Chartrand do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly illustrated how little we know about how prisoners are treated behind bars around the world. The Prison Transparency Project aims to change that.Vicki Chartrand, Associate Professor, Sociology, Bishop's UniversityDawn Moore, Professor, Criminology, Carleton UniversityJosé A. Brandariz, Associate Professor of Law and Criminology, Universidade da CoruñaMáximo Sozzo, Professor, Sociology and Criminology, Universidad Nacional del LitoralLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1550902021-02-12T15:10:29Z2021-02-12T15:10:29ZCe que Kobe Bryant m’a appris<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383608/original/file-20210210-21-1bsu047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kobe Bryant, lors d'un match des Lakers de Los Angeles contre les Orlando Magic, le 7 juin 2009. Il a été un modèle pour toute une génération de jeunes, dont l'auteur de cet article.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>J’ai beaucoup hésité à parler de <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant">Kobe Bryant</a>, mort dans un accident d’hélicoptère il y a un an. D’abord, je ne savais où commencer, tant les apprentissages à tirer de sa vie sont grands. Mais je vais essayer d’y aller simplement, sans le faire sous le filtre de ma propre culture ou spiritualité, de sorte que tous les lecteurs et lectrices puissent entendre ce que j’ai à dire.</p>
<p>Je veux toucher à ce que nous avons, tous et toutes, en commun, dans notre condition humaine.</p>
<p>Quand nous étions jeunes, au Sénégal, nous aimions Bob Marley. Cela suscitait la réprobation de certains, car Bob Marley <a href="https://www.nostalgie.fr/artistes/bob-marley/actus/bob-marley-ou-la-naissance-du-mouvement-rastafari-346192">n’avait pas les mêmes valeurs spirituelles que nous</a>. Nous étions, en effet, bien loin de sa religion, et du mouvement rastafari. Mais ceux, parmi nous, qui en avaient le discernement, ont pu tirer de cette admiration des points positifs indéniables : apprendre une nouvelle langue (l’anglais), refuser la domination, et l’esclavage mental (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_Song">« Emanticipate yourself from mental slavery »</a>)…</p>
<p>J’ai ensuite grandi avec l’esprit et l’exemple de Kobe. Nous l’émulions tous, et il nous inspirait, de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique. En repensant à sa vie, je me dis qu’en général, c’est après leur carrière sportive professionnelle que les grands athlètes révèlent et exposent certains aspects de leur vie. Par contre, pour lui, je sais juste que sa vie a connu un tournant, <a href="https://medium.com/@SunilSharmaUK/phil-jackson-the-zen-master-who-conquered-basketball-e8257a76979d">sous l’aile de Phil Jackson, The Zen Master, le mentor de Michael Jordan</a>. Star à 16 ans, Bryant avait de quoi prendre la grosse tête, et était bien difficile à gérer. Phil Jackson l’a aidé à se recentrer et à s’assagir.</p>
<p>Je suis aujourd’hui romancier et chargé de cours en linguistique, éducation et analyse du discours à l’Université Bishop et à l’Université de Sherbrooke. Je suis spécialiste en sciences du langage. Je garde toujours en tête la détermination de Kobe Bryant, l’homme et l’athlète, cinq fois champion de la NBA et deux fois médaillé d’or olympique.</p>
<h2>Le basket-ball comme métaphore</h2>
<p>Le basket-ball a toujours été mon sport préféré, à regarder comme à pratiquer. Ce jeu correspondait à ma sensibilité d’artiste. Le basket-ball est un art en mouvement, dans le style, l’habillement, l’expression du corps, le shoot, la forme du poignet après le shoot, l’harmonie musculaire… Un équilibre entre la force et la finesse. La force, pour se libérer des contraintes de l’adversaire ; la finesse au lancer de la balle ; l’abandon et l’espoir quand la balle flotte et vrille dans l’air vers le panier. Une belle leçon de force, et d’équilibre. Une leçon pour tout humain : riches, pauvres, chanteurs, politiciens, techniciens, scientifiques… L’expérience peut être différente. Mais l’essence reste la même.</p>
<p>Par la suite, dans ma vie, j’ai revu mes priorités. Ma vision du monde a considérablement changé. J’ai dû abandonner beaucoup de choses… Et du basket-ball, j’en ai gardé le côté divertissement. Je suis les matchs, de temps en temps, pour décompresser. Mais j’ai conservé la motivation, une motivation assez forte pour mettre un équipement, attacher mes chaussures, et aller sur un terrain, se dégourdir le corps. Comme dit <a href="https://www.mentalgamecoaching.com/IMGCAArticles/MentalTraining/TrainYourMind.html">Robert Jones, maître en art martial et préparateur mental, « Train the mind and the body will follow »</a>. Le corps a besoin de l’esprit, et l’esprit a besoin du corps, une interdépendance fondamentale.</p>
<h2>La mentalité du Mamba</h2>
<p>De Kobe Bryant, le <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/sports/1492798/chronique-basketball-mort-kobe-bryant-ombre-lumiere-michael-jordan">Mamba noir</a>, comme on le surnommait, j’ai toujours admiré le souci du détail, l’envie du dépassement, le sens de l’observation, la culture de l’excellence, le refus de la tricherie. L’humain est une source de potentialité inouïe. Il avait cultivé, à son paroxysme son « Drum Major Instinct », cette flamme que chaque humain abrite dans le ventre, et que Martin Luther King jr. appelait à canaliser, afin qu’elle nous éclaire et nous serve, à la place de nous consumer…</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383610/original/file-20210210-15-1qxssn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kobe Bryant au sommet de son art, lors d’une partie des Lakers contre les Indiana Pacers, à Los Angeles, le 4 janvier 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alors qu’il était encore une recrue chez les Bobcats de Charlotte, en 2009, Kobe Bryant a dit aux techniciens, avant un match, <a href="https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/942221">qu’un des paniers n’était pas au point</a>. Les officiels étaient formels. Les paniers avaient été vérifiés, comme avant chaque début de match, selon le protocole établi. De plus dans la NBA, les panneaux étaient dans une condition infaillible <a href="https://www.orlandopinstripedpost.com/2018/10/11/17965080/orlando-magic-shaquille-oneal-backboard">depuis qu’un géant nommé Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) s’est amusé à les démolir, en s’accrochant dessus</a>. Devant son insistance, les officiels se sont résolus à refaire le contrôle. Le panier était effectivement de travers, de quelques millimètres.</p>
<p>Cette acuité de l’observation et de l’analyse est, au final, le propre de l’humain. Chacun de nous l’a. Et il lui appartient de la raffiner, de la nourrir et de l’entretenir dans son domaine de prédilection.</p>
<p>Maintenant, la question est : dans quelle direction exercer cette perspective, où dépenser cette formidable énergie ? Dans quel but ? Être intransigeant dans l’exercice de ses activités, autant que dans le choix du ou de ses champs d’activités. Et faire preuve de constance, surtout, pour ne pas (s’) oublier. Parlant de la condition humaine, l’oubli est un fait si inhérent à notre déterminisme, car il nous aide à ne pas saturer, <a href="http://www.hottopos.com/mirand12/jeanfr.htm">que dans la littérature orientale, l’humain est appelé « l’oublieux »</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383609/original/file-20210210-13-m8kzow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Un homme rend hommage à Kobe Bryant et à sa fille Gianna, devant une peinture murale de l’artiste Louie Sloe Palsino, le 26 janvier 2021, à Los Angeles, un an après leur mort dans un accident d’hélicoptère.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Juste après la fin d’une carrière exceptionnelle, alors qu’il s’apprêtait à relâcher, élargir ses horizons et parfaire la préparation de sa fille, basketteuse, il meurt, avec celle-ci, dans un accident d’hélicoptère, le 26 janvier 2020, à Calabasas, en Californie.</p>
<p>L’idée de la mort semble être un sujet démodé, réservé aux vieux philosophes du passé : Sophocle, Kant, Ésope… « Et pourtant », comme aurait pu dire l’illustre Galileo Galilei. Elle, la mort, est encore bien jeune, et vivante. Doit-on arrêter de se poser une question (celle de la vie, de la mort) si la réponse à cette question est nécessairement insatisfaisante ?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155090/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dalla Malé Fofana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>« De Kobe Bryant, j’ai toujours admiré le souci du détail, l’envie du dépassement, le sens de l’observation, la culture de l’excellence, le refus de la tricherie », écrit l’auteur, un fan du sportif.Dalla Malé Fofana, Chargé de cours, linguistique, sciences du langage et communication, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1521592021-02-03T20:11:36Z2021-02-03T20:11:36ZWhy some words hurt some people and not others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377053/original/file-20210104-17-6gxoyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4639%2C3153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communication between people would be very difficult, if not impossible, without discursive memory. Our memories allow us to understand each other or to experience irreconcilable differences.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-university-of-ottawa-professor-at-centre-of-controversy-says-she/">October 2020 controversy at the University of Ottawa</a> surrounding the use of the n-word reminded us that there are parts of our history — such as the transatlantic slave trade, the Holocaust or the repression of First Nations — that must be approached with respect and empathy, even when they are talked about in an effort to better understand them.</p>
<p>Only those who have lived through these experiences can fully feel the pain and humiliation associated with certain words such as the n-word. It must be acknowledged that certain words always carry a heavy burden with them. Their mere evocation can bring back painful memories, buried deep in what is known as discursive memory.</p>
<p>As a specialist and researcher in linguistics and discourse analysis, I am interested in communication between individuals from different cultures because the misunderstandings it provokes are often based on unconscious reflexes and reference points, which makes them all the more pernicious.</p>
<h2>The role of discursive memory</h2>
<p>Communication between humans would be very difficult, if not impossible, without discursive memory. Our memories allow us to understand each other or to experience irreconcilable differences.</p>
<p>“Every nasty word we utter joins sentences, then paragraphs, pages and manifestos and ends up killing the world,” entertainer Gregory Charles said in a <a href="https://cdn-4ncwrlkdq3uc0b1u7x.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/gregory-charles-facebook.png?x22205">tweet</a>, quoting his father, after the attack at the Grand Mosque in Québec City in 2017. This idea, expressed here in a concrete way, is defined by specialists in discourse analysis by the concept of <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/linx.1158">interdiscourse</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, words are not just a collection of letters and are not isolated from their context. Moreover, each context in which a term is used generates a particular perception in the person receiving it. Hence the multiplication of references.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-memories-are-formed-and-retrieved-by-the-brain-revealed-in-a-new-study-125361">How memories are formed and retrieved by the brain revealed in a new study</a>
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<p>In the courses on language and reasoning that I give, where almost every subject is covered, I sometimes notice that some students feel embarrassed, irritated or see their foreheads crease when they hear a word that otherwise leaves other students insensitive. This prompted me to <a href="https://dallamalefofana.blogspot.com/2017/09/la-communication-une-question-de.html">look into the question</a>.</p>
<p>In linguistics, words have a more unanimous form (signifier) and meaning (signified) but they refer to very personal (referent) realities.</p>
<p>The relationship between the signifier and the signified is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1967.11435496">actually arbitrary</a> but it is stable. On the other hand, the referent is more unstable. Each listener perceives a term according to his or her experience of it. Let us take the word “love” as an example. For those who have always been happy in love, the word will have a positive connotation. But for those who have experienced disappointments in love, it will have a negative connotation.</p>
<p>To better understand, we can also think of a hockey game. When an individual who is not familiar with the mores of North American society watches a hockey game between the Montréal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, he sees people dressed warmly who slide nimbly on the ice and compete for a puck using rods with curved ends. So much for the meaning. This superficial gaze can be likened to understanding a text whose cultural context and reference is unknown.</p>
<p>But the hockey-loving Québecer — who has already seen the Canadiens and the Bruins play, who knows the potential outcome of each game, the players’ statistics and the consequences of each gesture — lives in anticipation. An informed spectator watches the game but at the same time reviews all the games he has already seen. This “layered” view can be likened to speech.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369381/original/file-20201113-15-1ac7yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, observes Pierre Karl Péladeau at a news conference in St-Jérôme, Québec. Mr. Péladeau, who was announcing his candidacy in that riding at the time, had created controversy by shouting that he wanted to ‘make Québec a country,’ with his fist raised.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
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<p>In 2014, when businessman and former politician Pierre Karl Péladeau raised his fist and shouted that he wanted to “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/parti-quebecois-pierre-karl-peladeau-announcement-1.3562533">make Québec a country</a>,” he caused an outcry. While an uninformed spectator might be surprised at the turmoil caused by this statement, others saw it as an echo of General Charles de Gaulle’s cry of “<a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/de-gaulle-and-vive-le-quebec-libre-feature">Vive le Québec libre</a>,” shouted from the balcony of Montréal City Hall in 1967.</p>
<p>But these words and the gesture that accompanied them also reminded us of “Vive la France libre” (long live free France), a quotation pronounced by De Gaulle in 1940, awakening the patriotic flame of the French. This was the slogan for the liberation of France during the Second World War. The words uttered by Péladeau are the text, while the context — and the implications — of these words are the interdiscourse.</p>
<h2>Taking advantage of the implicit</h2>
<p>The use of the implicit, presupposition or implied may have a legal or other advantage. Very often, in public communication, certain statements made against a political opponent, for example, may be the subject of defamation suits.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a simple allusion to an act that is no longer current makes it possible to make a point of view understood without asserting it. The person targeted is liable for having put together the pieces of the puzzle himself or herself and for having deduced from it an idea that his or her interlocutor has not formally expressed.</p>
<p>It is also possible to take advantage of the symbolic capital of certain events. Think of the famous “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jaccuse">J'accuse” by Émile Zola</a>, which is the title of an open letter published on Jan. 13, 1898, in a Parisian daily newspaper accusing the then French president of antisemitism. The expression was later used in political texts, plays, songs, posters and art works. “J'accuse” is not just a headline over a text by Émile Zola, it carries a polemical charge that has shaken an entire republic!</p>
<h2>Becoming aware of the mechanism</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/aad.1200">Discursive memory</a> therefore has its advantages. However, the fact that the audience does not always have the cultural or historical references to understand a speaker’s allusion can be problematic.</p>
<p>Not being aware of this discursive mechanism can cause many misunderstandings. Understanding it certainly helps to communicate better. But a speaker in bad faith may take advantage of it. In such a case, beyond the words and their scope, there remains the intention of the speaker. And this intention, as in the case of the use of the n-word, is very difficult to appreciate.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, some words carry their burden, no matter how they are wrapped. Putting yourself in your audience’s shoes is the key to good communication. Understanding first and accepting that each person may perceive a word differently can help establish a dialogue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152159/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dalla Malé Fofana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Because of context and history, some words and phrases carry a heavy burden with them. Their mere mention can bring back painful memories and problematic situations.Dalla Malé Fofana, Chargé de cours , Linguistique, Sciences du langage et Communication, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.