Out in Left-Centre Field

Been a while, hasn't it?

Once again, I've been lax at keeping up this blog. I could go into the myriad assignments and projects and demands and commitments that university continues to visit upon my life, but it's probably best if I spare you that can of worms.

On the upside, the light at the end of the tunnel approaches. Freedom is nigh! If all goes well I will be finished at the end of this term (well, after a field course in Peru that runs into May), and after eighteen straight years of schooling I'll finally have ... wait for it ... a piece of paper and a bunch of little letters I can put after my name (B.A.Sc. to be exact) to tell people that I might be competent enough to be a real engineer someday. Can you tell I'm feeling a little anticlimactic?

In other words, I'll finally have my life back. And it scares me half to hell.

Because what am I going to do? For eighteen years, my life has been dominated by school. Sure, I had summers off up to the end of high school. That helped, sort of. But after the unrelenting grind of Waterloo, I just feel one thing: tired, pure and simple. Not proud, not elated, not even truly happy: just tired, exhausted, spent. Maybe some day, I will look back on it more kindly, but right now, I'm worn too ragged to care. Was there more I could have done? I thought of going back for a Masters degree program, but really, you have to want to do something to be motivated enough to achieve it -- and I don't, at least not right now.

So, again, what do I do now? In what little time I have outside of my studies, I'm trying to look for jobs for which I might be qualified. But there's a part of me that doesn't even want to do that right now -- after all this, do you think I want to jump straight into a full-time job? Sometime this year, sure, but certainly not right away.

Is there anything else I could do? Maybe I'll travel, finally visit relatives in Germany or in PEI. Maybe I'll jump into more volunteering, with the CYA here, or my local church, or finally joining the Knights of Columbus (like my dad) or whatever. I still haven't really settled on anything.

I just feel ... directionless, maybe, like a log that's been jostled and bounced around in the rapids of a raging river for ages and that finally gets dumped into a lake where the current slows to nothing. There's all this space and nothing pushing me around anymore. How do I deal with it? Where do I go? What do I do? The void that yawns before me is both welcome and horrifying.

I'm sure I'll find something, but for now, I can only push on with what I have.

Did anyone else feel that magnitude 5.0 earthquake yesterday afternoon?

I work on the fifth floor of an office building in in Etobicoke (i.e. western Toronto), Ontario, where I was at my desk doing some estimations for a series of dams that one engineer had to choose between for a tailings pond out at a mine in Newfoundland.

It felt alternately like a strong wind was buffeting the building or somebody was doing some rather rough erasing on paper in an adjacent cubicle. Then I felt the vibration through the floor ... and I finally clued in (along with most of my coworkers) as to what it was. It lasted a good 30 seconds or more too.

What made it briefly disconcerting was that two black military helicopters chose that very minute to fly by farther south near the lake shore. Yay for the G20 effect! Which brings me to my next point ...

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Toronto police, earlier today, arrested a man sitting but a few blocks away from the big ol' G20 convention centre.

This sounds unremarkable until you realize that he was packing a crossbow, chainsaw, sledgehammer, four baseball bats, and a collection of fuel canisters! Any bets on what that could do if used to its full potential?

Seriously, you have to be a complete idiot to pack that kind of weaponry in public when you are in the midst of a city swarming with thousands of police officers -- no matter what you really intended to do with it.

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Oh, you wanted something political? Okay then.

I know I'm an NDP supporter (not a member; I don't intend to be), and I know I don't agree with all the actions that the state of Israel takes, and I think the critics are overreacting in calling for her outright resignation/removal, but Jack Layton's response to Libby Davies' comments on Israel's "occupation" of Palestine is highly inadequate.

Sure, I'm glad she backtracked and apologized. Sure, people have a right to criticize Israel like any other legitimate state -- its most fervent proponents need to stop hiding behind the hybrid shield of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism finger-pointing. Sure, it's impossible to stop all criticisms from sliding down the proverbial slippery slope into idiocy.

However, it is not enough to let someone get away with calling a sovereign state effectively illegitimate with hardly a tap on the wrist. We wouldn't like anyone calling Canada an "occupation" of First Nations land, would we? (Though, from some points of view, that's basically what the French and British did.) Did we forget the Golden Rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Just like Nova Scotia's Darrell Dexter should have forcefully called the local unions on the carpet for throwing the NS NDP into disrepute by trying to circumvent election financing limitations, so should Jack Layton have publicly and visibly chastised Ms. Davies for her actions, which have done a whole lot to reinvigorate the tired old -- and hopefully baseless -- idea that the NDP and leftists in general are "anti-Israel". (Newsflash: we aren't.)

While Mr. Layton is usually a highly adept party leader, his failure to take a strong stance in drawing the line between acceptable criticism and unacceptable criticism is but the latest in a series of questionable decisions that has me wondering whether that perception is true.

Y'know, I hate making myself a hypocrite.

Last time I wrote on here, if you, dear reader, might recall, I ragged on the CYA for falling down a slippery slope of inactivity. Long story short, I did my level best to excoriate (1) the CYA parties for not pulling together, (2) the CYA membership for fighting inactivity with more inactivity, and (3) the subordinate members of the CYA staff/volunteers for failing to take the lead in engaging the members. I called out others for, as I saw it, not pulling their weight.

So what did I promptly do, then? I went and left this blog alone for more than four freakin' months. Kinda long for anyone who might claim to have a burning desire to light a fire under this assembly's rear end, don't you think?

I left this blog alone, I left my party alone, I damn near left the CYA forums alone, and even though I could hide behind the excuse of being a third-year engineering student with a crippling amount of coursework, I won't.

Why? Because people other than myself have dedicated far more of their time and effort to the causes of their choosing. I have been, and still am, too stuck in having "time to myself" to be as dedicated as many people who I see around me. I need to get out of that comfort zone, but try as I might, my successes in doing so have only ever been temporary things.

I have no moral grounds on which to criticize others if I'm not willing to sacrifice the time myself. Sure, I've been with the CYA a long time, and sure, I've helped with some key things in the past (like the 177 ridings I should be writing about), but if I'm failing to motivate myself now, what gives me the right to rip others for doing the same?

I am weak. Is that what makes me human? Or is it what makes me a lousy one?

Call it an apology, call it a mea culpa, call it the inane ramblings of a despairing mind, call it whatever you wish. I have been a lousy asset to the CYA and to my party (or what's left of it), and I'm sorry. Sorry that I've let people down; sorry that I didn't do better when I readily could have; sorry that I never delivered on the potential of the past.

But then, what did you expect? Perfection? Because if perfection's what you're waiting for, don't hold your breath.

We're all flawed. We get angry, jealous, lazy, greedy, vain, lustful and wasteful. At the same time, we can all be great people to one another in spite of whatever may stand between us. We are capable both of great achievements and great failures. What we need to do, then, is pick ourselves up, bite the proverbial bullet and do what needs to be done to succeed and to go beyond our limits.

Let's get out there, and let's help the CYA kick some ass. Together.

- Adam S.

So I'm back at UWaterloo for another term of Engineering. There's assignments, labs, quizzes, term projects, co-op job applications and interviews, looming midterms -- and in my case, meetings with my supervisor (I'm an Undergraduate Research Assistant this term), events in residence and weekly practices for the UW A Cappella Ensemble.

Oh, yeah, and sleep, meals and basic hygiene in there ... somewhere. Anywhere.

So it got me thinking about demands on my life -- and by no means am I anywhere close to the busiest person I know. Take Tyler Sommers, for instance. That man is insane. (And not in the mental sense; my apologies to those who are actually insane. Moving on.)

This, in turn, had me contemplating inactivity within the CYA, usually due to people either losing interest or moving on to other commitments. You can clearly see the growing problem in the sad state of the CYA's forums. What forums, you ask? Yeah, that's the problem. Not much is going on in them because, for one "reason" or another, either existing people just aren't going there, or new people (if there are any) aren't getting pushed in the right direction.

Inactivity. Silence. Boredom. It's a vicious circle; people see that "nothing's happening", so they lose interest and wander away. At the same time, the act of wandering off in sheer ennui feeds the perception -- whether real or imagined -- that nothing's going on. That perception of stagnation is being allowed to persist, both in the refusal of members to hang on "through thick or thin" and the failure of staff to take a leadership role in stimulating activity.

First, my fellow CYA members: dealing with inactivity by adding more inactivity is about the worst way possible to deal with the actual issue. It's like trying to cure a nicotine addiction by providing more nicotine ... it just doesn't work. Anyone who walks away because "nothing's happening" is actually deepening the problems that they see by detracting from the community. It's not that people don't see the problems, they do; they just aren't trying to do anything about it.

Face it: none of our parties, candidates, and members would be here were it not for the community of the CYA bringing us together. I wish more of my colleagues among the CYA membership would have the common sense to realize that. If you're recruiting new members, all the best to you; but one of the very first things you should do is point people at both your party forums and the CYA forums.

Unfortunately, much of the current inactivity is based on something even harder to fight. Our society is fixated on the idea of instant gratification. Everything around us tells us that "If it doesn't pay off right now, move on to something else." We have come to devalue dedication and time and effort, and we think that "the best things in life are free". That's utterly false -- if you want something good like the CYA can be (and will be), you have to be prepared to work for it. Hanging around and doing nothing isn't going to bring a goal to reality. Yes, there are many who have good reasons for absence -- studies, jobs, etc. come first -- but really, there's got to be something you can do, instead of just nothing at all.

Which brings me to the CYA staff. Many of them are truly busy people and have plenty of things going on in their academic, social, and business lives. Take Tyler S., for instance: he does more than anyone else to help the CYA, both internally and externally, even amidst the multitude of other commitments on his plate. I don't fault him. I don't really fault K-Rae, either; she has legal conflicts of interest with her current employment actually preventing her from publicly helping out the CYA (which is as far as I'm going to go with that).

But where are the rest of the staff? There are so many that us, the general membership, never see, hidden away amidst the administrative "head" of the CYA. There are some that we used to see but, for some odd reason, they've faded into the proverbial woodwork.

Being a leader isn't just about doing the work behind closed doors. It's about keeping the greater whole of your organization going, it's about facilitating community and the exchange of ideas and effort for the common good. Tyler and K-Rae do that, most of the time. Unfortunately, I don't see a single one of their colleagues doing much of that, if at all. If the leaders of the CYA can't be bothered to engage and involve and interest the membership -- especially in the CYA's public forum -- then the sad day may come (and soon) when they will look behind themselves and see no one following.

"Yeah, you and what army?" "Well, they were here a moment ago ... wait a sec ..."

Don't get me wrong: I know and I acknowledge that there is work being done in the CYA to help it build up and prosper. I just can't see what it is, and I (and others) shouldn't have to chase people down and pester them to find out. And if I can't figure out what's going on, how will I feel engaged and valued and motivated to help out?

Here is my challenge to the invisible members of the CYA staff: come out of the woodwork and show the members -- that's us! -- that you care about building this community. Show us there is still something to believe in. If you're not busy doing the heavy lifting of the CYA's current initiatives (conferences, volunteers, donations, etc.), then get on the CYA forums and apply your presumably considerable talents to promote activity, debate, discussion and collaboration.

The CYA's leadership does not and can not exist in a vacuum. We're out here, and while I have no intention of leaving, many of my friends and colleagues have done just that for lack of anything to keep them going. Yes, as I put forth above, the messages of today's society have a lot to do with it; but we're willing to participate if you are. Morale goes a long way.

You want a downpour? Throw up a little dust and seed the clouds!

- Adam S.

Here in Canada, as you probably well know, we pride ourselves on being tolerant and inclusive towards all people. We think we've made discrimination in general, and racism in particular, a thing of the past.

Noble thoughts -- but what we hope doesn't always line up with reality.

To be honest, I will say this right off the bat: I'm not really that well-traveled. I was raised in the suburban Greater Toronto Area, I've only been out of the province maybe a dozen times, I've never been any farther west than Windsor/Detroit or farther north than Sudbury, and I've been to the Maritimes all of once.

But even I don't have to go anywhere to see evidence of pervasive racism in our society. It's still there, no matter how much we try to sweep it under the carpet. Urban-dwelling Canadians, like myself, have this unfortunate perception that rural areas are racist and intolerant -- maybe they truly are, maybe they aren't, I don't know; what I am sure of is that we don't have to go far to find racism, even in the places that claim to be "multicultural" or "ethnically diverse". The problem is alive and well everywhere.

What got me thinking, today, was a debate -- well, bordering on argument, really -- that I had with two gentlemen over lunch at the office where I am currently finishing up a co-op work term. One man is an older devout Christian man; the other is a similarly-aged Jewish man. We started talking, at first, about the problem of "political correctness": the common issue of wishing someone, say, a "Merry Christmas!" (as opposed to "Happy Holidays!") and getting into trouble for offending the recipient, and so on.

Where this line of talk went downhill was when we asked each other, "well, who would get offended?" Clearly not the Christian majority, who celebrate Christmas; nor Jews, who have the similarly-timed holiday of Hanukkah; nor atheists or non-theists, who probably appreciate the holidays anyways; nor, probably, most other major religions. In an almost Godwin's Law-esque moment, the discussion, of course, turned to the (semi-)recent issue of the Danish cartoons that offended the Muslim world.

My two older counterparts brought up the dichotomy between Christians largely ignoring parodies of their faith, while the Muslim world's supposed response was to call for the death of the cartoonist, the destruction of Denmark, etc., etc. My response to that was that, basically, the moderate majority of Muslims were manipulated into a frenzy by the extremist few, that small, vocal core who endeavour to twist the fundamentally good messages of religions everywhere to justify atrocities. I strongly suspect that most Muslims were unhappy (and rightfully so), but what kind of person in their right mind calls for the death of another person over a mere cartoon? There had to be extraordinary manipulations at work to blow the problem out of proportion.

That wasn't enough for my two debating partners. Point at a Western, Christian-based country, they said, where extremists have the same kind of influence as in the Muslim world. Sure, I said, check out the United States: look at virtually any hard-line conservative/Republican pundit calling for invasions of any given Arabic country; look at the subset of evangelists who exhort people to convert to Christianity or burn in eternal Hell-fire. We have no shortage of vocal, ambitious, politically-connected radicals and extremists. Not that long ago, the Catholic church justified the wars of the Crusades and the atrocities of the Inquisition by saying they were acting in God's name and were therefore infallible in their purpose. How is that different from jihad?

That still didn't get through. The older Jewish fellow contended that Christianity had gotten past all those attitudes, but, he said, Islam still seeks to conquer other countries and convert them to their laws and beliefs. Where is the proof of that, I ask? Both he and the older Christian gentleman pointed to the riots in Europe and the demands for sharia law here in parts of Canada, saying that these were evidence of Muslims trying to take over and subvert the existing culture. They then told me, in short, to wait one generation and Islam will be the majority in Europe, while one generation after that, it will be the same here. They both pointed at immigration and laws protecting diversity as the reason why, and said it will lead to the end of Canadian culture if the country does not take action to reverse the trend.

Say what? That's where my debating mood turned over to pure disgust.

Let's start with the facts: in the 2001 Canada Census, Muslims made up a mere 2% of the population, while Christians made up a whopping 77%, and people of "no religion" comprised another 16%. Ten years ago, in 1991 -- yes, half a generation before -- Muslims were just under 1% of the population, Christians were 80%, and atheists were about 12%. Not so imminent now, is it?

And if Muslims do become the majority, what would we do about it? Would we suspend democracy just so that we can override majority rule?

And how do we propose to prevent the possibility of such a situation? Are we going to cut off our borders? Make Canada a less appealing place to live? We are victims of our own success and of our own "land of plenty".

What's next, are we going to go on a campaign of ethnic cleansing? Been there, done that: see Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc. for more information. It particularly appalled me that it was the Jewish man who I was debating with who advocated pushing back against Muslims in Canada. Didn't a certain regime try that with Jews, Gypsies and many other "impurities" in Europe not that long ago? Have we, as a civilization, learned nothing from our past mistakes?

Muslims, and indeed all people of unfamiliar faiths or of foreign birth, aren't our enemies. They aren't "out to get us", they're not conspiring to undermine our way of life or our laws. The vast majority of adherents of Islam really are tolerant and moderate -- it's only the vocal, hard-line, radical, agenda-driven minority that we hear about all the time in the media's slanted worldview.

When we start seeing an ethnic or religious group as "the enemy", then we cease to have any moral position to work from. The September 11th attacks certainly changed the world, but not for the better. They made us suspicious and fearful, not to mention jumpy at the slightest mention of the word "terrorist". Are these people out to get us? Are they the enemy? And then governments took our fear and twisted it to justify first reasonable measures, then excesses, and finally atrocities against humanity itself just to satisfy our paranoia and our instinctual drive for revenge. We're still paying for letting ourselves be duped by the idea that "it's us against them".

This debate I had earlier today isn't the only time I've seen racism expressed. I've seen it in the office, I've seen it on the construction site, I've seen it in the classrooms. There's no lack of places and situations where I have experienced human beings spreading hatred against one another, even if it is in quiet instead of the open.

Our fear doesn't define us. Animals can fear and so can we. What does define us is how we rise beyond our divisions and work to heal the wounds caused by the few who thrive off of propagating hate. Whatever the future brings for our culture and our country, it will bring it whether we like it or not. Do we meet the future head-on and standing upright, or do we dig in our heels, stick our heads in the sand and resist tooth-and-nail the inevitable advance of time?

Above all, we need to rise above our fear and have some faith in each other. If we can't do that, then the real terrorists have already won.

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Anyways, thank you for finding your way through that lengthy rant masquerading as an essay! Whatever you may believe, always remember that others' beliefs are as valid as yours, even if you don't think they're right. Disagreement must not cause us to throw respect to the wind.

And whatever you may believe, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

- Adam