INSIDEOCCUPY

CHICAGO pg.12

EYEWITNESSmaking a differencein Bihar, India

pg. 22

GREEK CRITIQUEhow the system perpetuatessegregation

pg. 03

TAR SANDSpollution in Alberta, Canada

pg. 20

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THE PROTESTFALL 2011 www.the-protest.com nuprotest@gmail.com

STAFF

CAMPUS

COMMUNITY

NATION & WORLD

03 greek critique

04 nu graduate collective

06 sodexo exposed

08 intervarsity promotes social justice

10 nu sounds the horn for east africa

12 inside occupy chicago

14 don’t call them gypsies

16 the need for immigration reform

17 the language of rape

18 the problem of the innocent man

19 review: the valley of the forgotten

20 tar sands

22 making a difference in bihar, india

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFMatthew Kovac

FEATURE EDITOR

Anca Ulea

DESIGN EDITORJenna Fugate

PHOTO EDITOR

Kerri Pang

WEB EDITORJack Foster

WEB ASSISTANT

EDITORLauren Manning

WEB DESIGNERS

Anca UleaStephanie Zucker

SENIOR EDITORS

Jack FosterCharles Rollet

Becca Weinstein

CONTRIBUTORSArjun Chakraborty

Susan DuMegan Hernbroth

Alexandria JohnsonSharon Kim

Yvonne Ashley KouadjoEmma O’ConnorKathryn PrescottLeah VarjacquesCorinne Zeman

Published by

Peace Project, an ASG-recognized and -funded organization. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Peace Project or all staff members.

Cover photo by Anca Ulea.

How the system reflects and promotes social segregation

GRSSKCRITIQUE by becca

weinstein

We can’t all be friends. With over 8,000 undergraduates, NU is too large. But see-ing as college is a place to expand our minds rather than stay in our comfort zones, shouldn’t integration, rather than segrega-tion, be promoted?

With various pre-professional majors, special interest clubs and the Greek sys-tem, as well as the separation of North and South campuses, NU students associate primarily with like-minded peers rather than those with different opinions, beliefs and backgrounds. The Greek system, espe-cially, is a major player in this. It segregates NU’s social landscape such that people join houses for the explicit purpose of entering into a community of similar individuals.

This does make sense, though, since it is the first time many of us have lived away from home, and we want to find a familiar community within the larger NU one. Also, it is understandable that houses have re-mained mostly racially homogenous, since the Greek system used to be discriminatory, prejudiced and intolerant of other religions. For example, in the 1950s, many organi-zations had discriminatory clauses in their constitutions. One was only open to Cauca-sian students who were “non-Semitic and believe in the principles of Christianity.”

The fact that houses have recently start-ed popping up based on special interests makes sense in this context. There are now six African-American fraternities and sorori-ties under the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). There are also three Asian-interest organizations, three Latino-based chapters and one music fraternity established at NU. But it seems that special interest houses would have become less necessary, rather

than more, in the society we perceive as to-tally tolerant. Why has it become more seg-regated, rather than less?

The basic desire to be around people of similar backgrounds seems to be playing the greatest role. Dallas Wright, senior and president of Kappa Alpha Psi, did not join an IFC house because “culturally it was kind of weird” to be only one of a few African-Americans. Michael Belmonte, President of Omega Delta Phi, joined a house initially founded as a Latino organization because, he said, “I wanted to find a close community of people that I could rely on, a ‘school fam-ily,’ if you will. I found that in the Latino com-munity on campus. These were the people that I identified with most, these were the people who welcomed me with open arms and showed me the ropes.”

However, if the goal of the Greek sys-tem is to challenge “students to achieve even greater heights intellectually, person-ally and socially,” as it says on NU’s web-site, it seems that having a diverse group of students within each chapter would ac-complish this, rather than a smattering of houses segregated by interest. With the current Greek system, it is more difficult to meet people from different backgrounds — of varied class, race and opinion.

It seems that as integration has become more prevalent in this global society, the integration within the Greek system would drastically increase as well. However, today more than ever, narrow interests separate Greek houses. The Greek system should either be abolished or drastically changed, so that people can more effectively create social groups that promote a mingling of backgrounds and interests within NU.

sororities Kappa Phi LambdaPromotes Pan-Asian cultural awareness

Lambda Theta AlphaServes as a voice for the Latino community

Sigma Lambda GammaFocuses on multicul-tural sisterhood

Sigma Psi ZetaPromotes awareness of Asian/Asian-American cultures

fraternities

Omega Delta PhiAims to provide a diverse fraternal experience

Lambda Theta AlphaServes as a voice for the Latino community

Pi Delta PsiEmphasis on Asian-American cultural awareness

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MULtiCULtUraLGreeK CoUnCiL

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When Northwestern graduate students have grievances about their work or quality of life, The Graduate School guarantees them re-sources like the Graduate Leadership Council and Graduate Student Association. These or-ganizations are intended to express graduate student needs to the administration. However, some students feel more independent repre-sentation is needed and have formed another group in support of graduate student interests: Graduate Student Collective.

Unlike the other organizations, GSC is not sanctioned by The Graduate School. In fact, the group has remained largely underground for the nearly two-and-a-half years since it was formed. In addition to calling for reforms, or-ganizers are seriously considering unionizing, which is currently illegal for graduate students enrolled at private universities, said GSC co-founder and fifth-year philosophy student Lee Goldsmith.

“The administration’s always interested in keeping this sort of radical behavior sup-pressed and so will take a sort of negative at-titude,” Goldsmith said. “If you go to the ad-ministration . . . they can try to make sure that you don’t have any ability to make any change within the institution by finding ways to get rid of you or by sort of making it hard for you to have contact with others.”

During winter quarter 2011, GSC made a new push to mobilize in preparation for going public. Co-founder Jamie Merchant, a fifth-year sociology and rhetoric and public culture graduate student, said that although the group is loosely structured, its goals are clear.

“The group in its most basic purpose is to raise consciousness about the possibility of organizing graduate students here at the uni-versity in some form of collective organization that will be able to adequately represent the in-terests of all grad students, regardless of what department they’re in, to the administration,” Merchant said.

Currently, GSC tentatively advocates higher stipends, employee status for graduate stu-dents and changing administrative policies so students can hold other jobs unaffiliated with

the university in order to compensate for inad-equate stipends.

Simon Greenwold, senior associate dean at The Graduate School, declined to comment on whether there is room for negotiation on pos-sible employee status for graduate students.

“Students are students as far as I can tell, so they’re not staff,” he said. “The teaching or research they may do is part of their educa-tion. I haven’t heard any particular argument for [gaining employee status] in order to react to it in any official forum.”

However, GSC members said they do not need administrative recognition to proceed with their agenda.

Merchant said the group was organized in spring 2009 by a “central cadre” of four or five students who believed The Graduate School wasn’t doing enough to address sensitive is-sues relating to the graduate student experi-ence, ranging from lab safety to sexual harass-ment.

“Really the catalyst was just seeing what a lot of grad students experience and hearing how they respond to these things, and how of-ten the response is to chalk it up to the travails and trials of professionalization,” he said. “[The general perception was that] the difficulties we encounter in grad school, no matter what form they take, are always just sort of the norm. It’s just demonstrably false that that’s the case. So part of our project is also to correct that per-ception.”

At the time, GSC distributed flyers and held a meeting for those who were interested. About 25 to 30 students showed up, Merchant said, in what was the group’s true beginning.

If GSC decides to seek union status, NU wouldn’t be the only local university with a graduate student union, he added.

“Grad student unions have been active at the University of Illinois at Chicago, at Urba-na-Champaign,” Merchant said. “University of Chicago has an inchoate union that has over 400 grad students in it even though they are not formally recognized by the administration.”

Still, not all graduate students believe that there is a need for GSC. Theo Greene, a sixth-

by susan dunu

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year sociology graduate student who was a member of the Graduate Leadership Council last year, said he felt GSC should learn more about other organizations with similar goals.

“Some of their grievances really dovetailed with some of the initiatives we were also work-ing with,” Greene said.

The Council has the opportunity to meet with the administration once a quarter to ex-press student requests, said Greene, noting that it works with issues like “space for grad students to study and work, conflict resolution [and] quality of life issues like stipend rates.”

Greene said that when GSC surfaced last winter, he attempted to reach out to members, after which the organization appeared to dis-band as it actually went underground.

“We really wanted an op-portunity to sit down with them to see what their con-cerns were and to see if there were ways in which we could work together,” Greene said. “The organiza-tion at the time did not seem to have much of a goal other than just trying to start some sort of on-campus revolu-tion, which I guess is where I took issue probably because . . . they didn’t seem to have much of a knowledge as far as what the role of The Graduate School was for the graduate students versus their own depart-ments.”

However, to some GSC members, it simply made more sense to stay discreet at the time. Goldsmith said it’s important for graduate stu-dents to be represented by an organization that has no stake in administrative favor.

“[The Graduate Leadership Council and Graduate Student Association] are administra-tive bodies,” Goldsmith said. “They were cre-ated by the administration, so they have no power to make decisions that aren’t condoned by TGS. So for example, after the GSA last year discovered that . . . there were a bunch of people who felt that they were . . . unhappy with doing their jobs, they tried to get an of-

fice set up for graduate students and the board of directors shut it down. So they took up an issue that we thought was an important issue and tried to make change, but their means to make change must go through the administra-tion. It’s inefficient because the administration will never willingly do anything outside of its own interest.”

Greene said he brought GSC to the attention of the senior associate dean of The Graduate School last year. At the time, Dean Greenwold offered to meet with the organization, but that meeting never took place. GSC members said they needed to clarify their strategy before seeking official recognition, Greene said.

“The problem with graduate student life is that we’re so insulated in our individual depart-

ments that we often fail to see the big picture,” Greene said. “That’s kind of what my impres-sion was when I met with them.”

Greenwold said although some of GSC’s goals are nego-tiable, he wishes the organiza-tion would approach him direct-ly to state their case.

“I heard about this group through our Graduate Student Association, and the group was

concerned about the quality of life for gradu-ate students, which the Graduate Student As-sociation and the Graduate Leadership Council cares about and we at The Graduate School absolutely are concerned about,” Greenwold said. “So if they have concerns, I would love to hear them.”

To Merchant, however, GSC’s priority at the moment is to survive and stay relevant so it can eventually gain enough participants to cham-pion students’ needs without fear of being shut down by the administration.

“If there’s sexual harassment going on, if you’re being gerrymandered by the administra-tion on a certain point, if you have too high a course load, too high a TA workload — it’s not the case that that’s just how it has to be,” he said. “That’s how it is, but ‘Does it have to re-main like that?’ is a different question.”

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In addition to calling for reforms,

organizers are serious-ly considering unioniz-ing, which is currently illegal for graduate stu-dents enrolled at pri-vate universities.

by alexandria johnson

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Earlier this fall, Northwestern Uni-versity Sodexo employees gained wage increases and free individual health care benefits as a part of recent contract negotiations. This recent de-velopment marks a common trend on college campuses of holding the com-pany accountable for its global history of employee abuses.

“They just raised our money this year,” said Fanish Bekele, Allison din-ing hall cashier. “Everyone was very happy.”

NU’s Living Wage Campaign as-sisted workers in the recent contract negotiations by working with the union and building relationships with employ-ees. This helped them gain an 80-cent wage increase and a wage floor of $10 per hour, plus an annual 50-cent raise in the future.

This new, nearly $6 million contract also grants workers at Norris University Center pensions like those enjoyed by other Sodexo employees. Free health care for employees and an $85 flat monthly rate for family health care are also new additions.

Additionally, as a safety measure, immigration protection language has been added.

“Generally, though, Sodexo negoti-ated in good faith,” said WCAS senior Kellyn Lewis, Living Wage Campaign (LWC) chairman.

The new contract negotiations com-bined two collective bargaining agree-ments into one to increase wages and benefits said Steve Mangan, nuCuisine district manager.

“In a dynamic relationship, there’s always issues that come up,” Mangan said. “The dining on campus is an ev-er-changing process. We look to work with our university liaisons up into the student affairs department and try to

engage the students as much as pos-sible and make decisions in partner-ship with university relationships to get solutions.”

Currently the LWC is continuing its work for employees on campus and are discussing with Sodexo “Real Food” on campus, which provides healthy and green options, as the next priority.

“We really challenge the way people think about getting stuff done,” Lewis said. “We’ve been doing what we’re going to do. Having relationships with workers and fighting for dignity and re-spect on this campus, not just within Sodexo, but as a campus in general, building leaders, is what we’ve been doing and will continue to do.”

Sodexo employees around the world have cited poor wages and treat-ment, which is a recognized problem on campus. Lewis encourages other social justice groups to take active role in the food service industry on campus, not just recognize the problem aca-demically.

“I would challenge the social justice groups to really engage in this with us, and engage with the workers who make the food, who then have to go home to places where there is not real food and don’t get the food from other sources,” Lewis said. “I would just try to engage with workers as leaders and to engage with this campaign, not as a campaign, but just as something that is literally creating a space where there can be a vision of something that we all actually really want.”

Beyond struggles with the living wage on individual campuses, the So-dexo corporation has been under scru-tiny for its management practices.

“It’s a global company,” said Vicko Alvarez, domestic campaigns coor-dinator for United Students Against

SODEXOEXPOSED

behind the french multinational’s human rights record

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Sweatshops. “You will find it any-where from the U.S. to Morocco to the Dominican Republic, privatiz-ing especially food service out to anything from universities to gold mines.”

Sodexo began in France in 1966 and expanded into the United States as the corporation developed.

“Our definition of what would con-stitute some basic worker abuses would be poverty wages and union busting, which is pretty rampant among Sodexo locations,” Alvarez said. “There’s definitely a laundry list of abuses that many workers have reported.”

Sodexo currently has been noted for providing food services to a Bar-rick gold mine in the Dominican Re-public, cited for intimidating workers who were trying to organize for bet-ter work place conditions.

Sodexo also invests in private prisons abroad, and according to Alvarez, they invested in privatized prisons in the United States about

10 years ago.“It was sort of this sick web of

business ties that Sodexo had be-tween universities and private pris-ons,” Alvarez said. “A ton of cam-puses campaigned to get Sodexo kicked off campus, basically mean-ing to cut contracts with Sodexo at the university to get them to stop running these prisons in the U.S.”

Similar to NU, Ithaca College was one of the first universities to hold Sodexo accountable for paying its employees a living wage. In 2010, student groups hosted a variety of events such as flash mobs, silent demonstrations, downtown rallies and directly contacting the univer-sity president with a proposal for improving worker conditions.

“I want what the workers want, and I want what’s best for them,” said Alyssa Figuerosa, Ithaca senior and co-coordinator of the Labor Initiative in Promoting Solidarity. “I personally would hope they would all realize that the union would be

the best way to get fair wages.”With campus support at Ithaca,

Sodexo employees achieved a liv-ing wage, and student organizations are currently monitoring Sodexo to ensure that it maintains its account-ability for employee payment.

“At first we were met with a wall by the administration,” said Ithaca College junior Taylor Long, L.I.P.S media representative. “They didn’t really want to talk with us about it. After that, they caved and met our demands. They have been support-ive since that time, and we have gotten really great feedback from faculty who are proud of us for tak-ing a stance against the Sodexo corporation.”

For NU, the contract negotiations are just the start for assisting em-ployees in the pursuit of desirable work place conditions.

“There’s a long way to go but a contract for six million definitely helps,” Lewis said.

photo courtesy/usas.org/campaigns/ko-sodexo/

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by sharon kim

northwestern’s asian-american intervarsity chapter explores the question ‘if god is just,

why is there ____?” through engaging the cam-pus in thought and intentional contemplation.

photos/Kerri Pang

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA has been a center for college students to cultivate their spirituality since its founding in November 1941. This year, however, the students of Northwestern University’s InterVarsity are expanding beyond religious self-development and are attempting to bridge the gap between Christianity and social justice.

“I think that in an ideal world, all Christians should be very concerned about social justice issues, and not just Christians; I think people in gen-eral,” said John Lee, president of NU’s Asian American InterVarsity. “I think as Christians, it’s important to not only say that we do but also to apply it.”

InterVarsity, found on college cam-puses nationwide, consists of hun-dreds of different chapters. The min-istries collectively aim to “establish and advance at colleges and univer-sities witnessing communities of stu-dents and faculty who follow Jesus as Savior and Lord,” according to the

a closer look into theorganization’s events this year

nu intervarsity promotes social justice

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organization’s website. NU is home to several independent InterVarsity chapters, such as Arts Fellowship and Asian American InterVarsity, as well as the general InterVarsity Christian Fel-lowship.

This year, the chapters on campus have collectively encouraged their members, through discussion, to ex-plore the link between Christianity and social justice. InterVarsity hosts a weekly inter-chapter worship ses-sion called Connect Large Group. The chapters also hold individual services, prayer meetings and Bible study ses-sions where InterVarsity members, or people interested in Christianity, can further engage in debates about so-cial justice and learn how to integrate it into their personal lives.

Each ministry has crafted its own independent agenda on promoting social justice at both the individual and campus level. The Asian Ameri-can InterVarsity has decided to ac-tively engage the student body in their discussions on social justice. AAIV has embarked on a yearlong explo-ration of the question “If God is just, why is there ______,” and the ministry is searching for the answers in col-laboration with the rest of campus. The chapter frequently sets up booths called “Proxe Stations” where they place boards that ask a series of ques-tions, such as “What injustices do you see in the world?” and “How has this affected you?” Anybody is free to an-

swer these inquiries on sticky notes and exchange their opinions with any AAIV members.

House on the Rock, an InterVar-sity geared toward NU’s black com-munity, is attempting to incorporate racial understanding with social jus-tice. Members of HotR, in an effort to understand their own racial and eth-nic identities, have planned quarterly service days to promote interaction with people of different cultural back-grounds and mentalities. The ministry plans to volunteer with the American Indian Center this quarter and the Asian Youth Services during winter quarter.

Despite this, some students have expressed concerns about national detachment of community outreach and faith.

“American theology separates jus-tice from the gospel itself,” said Es-ther Wang, a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. “It’s very natural in other countries. You can’t really love God if you don’t love people.”

William Weber, a Small Group Bible study leader for IVCF, has a similar perspective on Christians’ responsi-bilities to promote social justice.

“I feel like the perceptions of Chris-tians are that we’re politically jaded or focused on economics or bashing gays,” Weber said. “But God’s telling us to love each other and love people, so I’m wrestling with that and how to challenge people to do that.”

This summer, InterVarsity gave both Wang and Weber the opportunity to help the underprivileged through the Chicago Urban Program during the summer. The two volunteered with the Lawndale Christian Church and helped teach an academic enrichment program at lower-income schools.

InterVarsity has been actively pro-moting campus participation in com-munity outreach, but, according to some students, it ultimately matters what you are passionate about. John Lee believes that individuals who are unable to connect with the often too-broad themes, such as poverty and homelessness, should not be viewed as indifferent or heartless.

“For example, if the issue of home-lessness was presented, if you’re not on board with it, if you don’t resonate with it, or if you don’t feel a passion for that issue, it’s almost as if you’re not being a good Christian,” he said. “So one thing I’ve been trying try to tell people is that even though your heart might not be for homelessness, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart for social justice.”

Through its embracing, yet vigor-ous approach, InterVarsity has helped individuals find social justice issues they care passionately about now, and will continue to do so.

“It’s going to be part of my future,” Weber said. “It doesn’t look the same for everyone. For me, it comes down to just loving people.”

In an October 7 press release from the United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinators, it was stated that “The famine in the Horn of Africa remains the biggest crisis in the world today, but people and governments have

proved that when needed, they can come together to save lives and end suffering.”

This is precisely what NU’s African Student Association aims to do with its new campaign, NU Sounds the Horn for Africa, which was started October 17. Working in con-junction with other student groups on campus, ASA hopes to create awareness

and collect monetary aid to help those affected by the famine in southern So-malia.

Nicole Magabo, a Medill junior and president of ASA, says that this cam-paign is an effort to engage NU stu-

dents in the global world.“I think it’s extremely important that

we do not confine ourselves to either the Evanston bubble, or the Illinois bubble or the U.S. bubble,” Magabo says. “So to me it’s really important that we get the message across, that ‘Okay, there’s something happen-ing somewhere. I should know about this.’”

The campaign is expected to con-tinue throughout the quarter, with a final culminating event in the winter, according to Becca Abara, ASA’s phi-lanthropy chair. Fall quarter the cam-paign has focused mostly on collect-ing funds at booths set up in Norris. The first week the group collected about $500 from booths, Abara says. The final event will consist of a panel of experts on the famine in Somalia.

“We are thinking of inviting a bunch of different people who are connected to Somalia in some way or form to come and talk about what’s really go-ing on,” Abara says. “We want them to talk about the politics behind it, why it’s necessary that we continue to help with aid and continue to think about other people in other places.”

ASA has chosen UNICEF as the beneficiary for NU Sounds the Horn, because the drought in Somalia specif-ically targets children, who are weaker and more defenseless, according to the campaign’s website. As of Novem-ber 1, nearly half a million children in Somalia are acutely malnourished and the U.N. says tens of thousands of Somalis have already died in southern Somalia, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The famine in Somalia was recog-nized by the United Nations on June 20 as a result of a severe drought that

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nu sounds thehorn for

east africaby anca ulea

as of noveM-ber 1, nearLy haLf a

MiLLion ChiLdren in soMaLia are aCUteLy

MaLnoUrished and the U.n. says tens of thoUsands of soMa-

Lis have aLready died in soUthern soMaLia,

aCCordinG to a report by the assoCiated

press.

hit the Horn of Africa. Many consider the resulting famine to be man-made, because the militant groups in Somalia prevent a large portion of the popula-tion from receiving food aid.

Will Reno, associate professor of political science, says that although the rains were not ideal this season, the famine is a consequence of the politi-cal situation in Somalia. Reno was last in northern Somalia, which is largely unaffected by the famine, in August conducting field research on organiza-tional strategies and strategic choices of Somali rebel groups. He says that the political discord in Somalia is made obvious when compared with the re-actions of governments in Kenya and Ethiopia, also affected by the drought.

“[In Kenya and Ethiopia] it’s an eco-

nomic problem, but it’s not a humani-tarian crisis because it’s being man-aged by competent governments,” Reno says. “On the Somali side of the border, there is no central government, and [Somali militants’] agenda is not about getting food to people, it’s about making sure that a particular political agenda and version of Islam is being practiced.”

Another problem Somali people face is that many NGOs are wary of giving aid because they do not want to be prosecuted for giving material aid to terrorist groups under the Patriot Act, Reno says. Al-Shabaab, the mili-tant group that took control of central and southern Somalia in 2006, is listed as a terrorist group by the National Counter Terrorism Center. An organi-

zation attempting to give aid to Somali people could potentially be prosecut-ed under U.S. law for indirectly aiding Al-Shabaab.

Reno says it’s good that students are taking an interest in what’s going on in the Horn of Africa. Magabo and Abara both agree that creating aware-ness of the situation in East Africa is the main incentive of the NU Sounds the Horn for East Africa campaign.

“We’ve been trying to balance cre-ating awareness with acquiring funds,” Abara says. “We don’t want to get so tied up in trying to get money that we forget to really help people understand what’s going on in the Horn of Africa and to have a greater, more expansive view of Africa than this sick and dying continent.”

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through nu sounds the horn, members of african students association engage students and invite them to learn more about the famine and struggles of east africa. photos/Leah Varjacques

COMMUNITY

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INSIDE OCCUPY

CHICAGO

A leaderless group moved onto the world’s finance capital – Wall Street, Manhattan – to protest the growing economic division be-tween the nation’s richest one percent and the rest of its citizens on September 17. The Occupy movement has since spread to many American cities, and Chicago, which has the nation’s largest stock exchange outside of New York, has been far from immune.

“We are a democratic organization open to everyone, so we can share our skills and knowledge,” says Karen Looney, Press Com-mittee member for the Occupy Chicago move-ment. “The government is helping the rich get richer and those who are actually working for their money are not getting any benefits.”

According to occupychi.org, the main goal of the movement is to change corporate in-fluence within the government. To protest-ers, seeing only a minute portion of the nation flourish while watching the majority struggle to get by goes against the American dream.

“We are not looking to criminalize the rich,” says Looney. “We are looking for personal au-tonomy. These companies have unrestricted amounts of money that they can donate to politicians, compared to the vast majority of the people.”

Protesters have occupied the space outside of the Federal Reserve Bank for over a month, and do not plan on leaving any time soon.

“There are all types of people [protesting] out there,” says Looney. “There are a lot of students right now because they are paying huge amounts in student loans and cannot find a job in their field after graduation. A lot of these people are very well-educated but are underemployed.”

Their efforts, however, are challenged by a lack of food and monetary resources. The movement’s website, occupychi.org, continu-ally asks supporters for any donation they can

afford.“Food is a big one,” says Looney. “We need

to keep everyone fed, especially with the win-ter coming up, we all need the calories to stay warm. Coffee is also really important because this is a 24-7 occupation, so our troopers there overnight need to have the energy to be there overnight.”

Limited resources are not the group’s only worries. Confusion over their overall organiza-tion and tactics has led the opposition to con-demn many of the group’s efforts.

“One day, there was a man in his suit walk-ing past us and he shoved himself in our faces, yelling ‘I want something for free!’” says Loo-ney. “A lot of people just think we’re hippies looking for a handout.”

But angry businessmen are far from the group’s only worries. On Oct. 15, the Chicago Police Dept. arrested 175 protesters.

“We were in the park for one of our major occupation elections,” says Looney. “There were about 3,000 people there. We had set up a tent city in the park from donations and we had the provisions to be out there longer and engage with the public, but we were not al-lowed to have that space.”

Many supporters, however, did not feel in-clined to give up the space they needed.

“Other cities had offered the Occupy sup-porters space, but Chicago has not been so kind. The police moved in and gave us remind-ers that the park closed at 11 p.m. Around 175 protesters chose to stay anyway because we believed that free speech should not stop at 11 p.m. on public property,” says Looney.

After spending three hours in a cramped holding cell, Looney and 174 other people were released on bond, greeted by fellow sup-porters on their exit from the jail.

“They did not anticipate our numbers,” says Looney. “We streamed the whole event live, so

by megan hernbroth

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we were in front of the whole world. The po-lice seemed to support us; one said he did not know why the city was wasting its time arrest-ing us because we’ve been peaceful.”

The cost of living is rising and little is be-ing done to help out those most in need. The Occupy movements around the country have brought the majority’s plight center stage, and the protesters are refusing to let their cause fade away.

“The government really needs to help our citizens; the only ones benefiting are the profi-teers because the government is geared to-wards profiteers,” says Looney. “That is what we are fighting against.”

The Occupy movement has been mostly confined to large cities; however, the move-ment is spreading to smaller cities and univer-sities, including Northwestern.

On Oct. 28, students rallied in an Occupy movement when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) came to speak about income in-equality at Kellogg. Police lined Tech Drive as Cantor was escorted into the building before his speech, not far from the picket line of pro-testors blocked off by police.

The protestors waved their signs but mostly kept to themselves, staying true to the peace-ful premise of the movement. Cantor entered the building with no complications and deliv-ered his speech.

But despite increasing student awareness of Occupy Chicago, the core Occupy movement remains where the “one percent” is: downtown. The Windy City has a reputation for being one of America’s “Most American” metropolises. Perhaps the fact that Occupy Chicago is still standing firm, despite cold weather, lack of food, and constant harassment from police, is a testament to the uniquely American values it promotes: fairness, and a chance for everyone to make it.

TWITTeR

@ OccupyChicago Occupy Chicago CPD continue to harass #OccupyChi when our num-bers are low at Fed. They have taken ALL of our food carts bc we could not keep them “mobile”9 Nov

@ foxchicago FOX Chicago News UChicago cancels event with Condoleeza Rice that #OccupyChi was planning to protest14 Nov

@ Trib_ed_board Tribune Ed Board The relationship between politicians and protesters has turned into a delicate balancing act #ows #occupychi14 Nov

@ OccupyThisHeart OccupyThisHeart Hey @OccupyWallSt you have almost 500,000 dollars, are you going to support occupations nationally who need resources? #occupychi #ows6 Nov

@ OccupyChicago Occupy Chicago Sweet success. Rice & Paulson buckle to people pow-er! #occupychi MT @OCPress: Celebrate!! The power of #communityaction14 Nov

@ redeyechicago Redeye Chicago What does the “winter occupation” look like for #oc-cupychi? Brrrrrr. 14 Nov

photos/Anca Ulea

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Don’t call them gypsies. The term, consid-ered pejorative, is generally used to describe the Roma, an ethnic group that has earned both a mystical reputation and considerable amount of discrimination.

Gypsy stereotypes abound in mainstream culture. There’s the image of the band of bare-footed, longhaired outsiders travelling around aimlessly, telling fortunes and stealing from the settled folk to make their living. Commu-nication freshman Katherine Ardeleanu, whose family comes from Romania, a country remark-able for its Roma population, says that “they were viewed as thieves, lazy, dirty, irrational [because they were generally very passion-ate], not trustworthy, traitors.” Disney’s Hunch-back of Notre Dame drives the gypsy stereo-type home for many young Americans with the character of Esmeralda, a dark, beautiful, free-spirited dancer who fiercely defends the rights

of her people. The Roma is an ethnic group now predomi-

nantly found in Europe, though it originally comes from northern India and has nomadic roots. The word “gypsy” originates in the mis-taken belief that the Roma come from Egypt. Today, Roma live around the world and most have adopted a semi- or fully-settled life-style to practice their professions and keep up with society at large. Those that stay true to their nomadic roots often travel in trailers, trucks and cars. Roma that live on the fringes of settled society are blamed for an array of evils, and despite attempts at assimilation by local authorities, have faced systematic exile in countries across Europe. Encyclopedia Bri-tannica notes that because of their migratory nature and exclusion from censuses, the world Roma population is somewhere between two and five million.

Many Roma have chosen to immigrate to the United States, and many here continue to keep their Romani origins under wraps, opting instead to identify themselves to others by their individual European countries of origin. Time ran a story last year by Kayla Webley which es-timated the U.S. Roma population to be about one million. According to Time, the biggest in-flux of Roma in the U.S. came after the 1864 abolition of Roma slavery in the Balkans, with more recent waves following the fall of commu-nism in Eastern Europe in 1989. Many choose to live in large U.S. cities, where it is easy to disappear among the masses. The Roma live here quietly, coming together for celebrations and many running successful business like any other ethnic group in the country. According

DON’T CALL THEM

the history of the romaby kathryn prescott

photo courtesy/dancecircus.com photo courtesy/ournewoffice.com

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to Time, many incoming Roma today struggle with a complicated legal system governing immigration, and unless they can claim politi-cal asylum from racism in their home country, may be deported.

The modern Roma in the U.S. and Europe engage in professions that suit their lifestyles. Livestock trade and tinkering have been re-placed by auto repair and sale and running small businesses — and sometimes travel-ling circuses. As for the accuracy of the ste-reotypes she has heard, Ardeleanu notes that the Roma “were probably forced to steal more than others because they didn’t have access to adequate supplies. They also lived in ex-treme poverty and would resort to stealing in order to survive. As far as being dirty, they weren’t a particularly dirty people. They sim-ply earned that reputation because they had to live in extreme poverty.” Some continue the fortune-telling tradition, but have no more magical abilities than any street corner “psy-chic.” Integration into settled culture has led many Roma to pursue other, more conven-tional jobs as well.

Throughout history, discrimination has gone hand-in-hand with Romani life on the fringes of mainstream society.

“Up until the 1850s, the gypsies in Roma-nia were enslaved,” Ardeleanu says. “After they were freed, they received some rights, but they were never considered equals with the native/local Romanians. . . . They were vir-tually ignored.”

Nowadays, the discrimination continues, albeit on a smaller scale. European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) has documented at

least 48 violent attacks against Roma in Hun-gary, at least 19 attacks in the Czech Republic and at least 10 attacks in Slovakia, resulting in a combined total of at least 11 deaths since 2008. Cases of coercive sterilization of Ro-mani women have been reported in many Eu-ropean countries, as recently as 2008, though most of these women have yet to receive compensation or even recognition for these injustices. Segregation of Romani children in schools across Europe also persists despite rulings to change that. Even in the U.S., laws have been passed restricting the rights of Roma. The last one was repealed in 1997 in New Jersey, which allowed local governments to pass civil ordinances limited where Roma could live and sell goods.

Discrimination is painfully evident in a Ro-manian children’s song Ardeleanu mentions, which has a rhyme similar to “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe.” Translated from Romanian, the lyrics are, “A glass of cold water; to drown all the gypsies in. Save just one [gypsy], to make him burn to dust.” Additionally, Ardeleanu says, “When a Romanian mother would want her child to behave, she would warn the child: ‘Beware, if you don’t behave, they gypsies will come steal you and then eat you!’

Thankfully, the Roma have some propo-nents working to protect their rights and keep their culture alive. The Decade of Roma Inclu-sion 2005-2015, an international initiative to improve the welfare of Roma, marks the first multinational effort toward helping improve the lives of Roma socially and economically.

To help end the discrimination, just remem-ber that they are Roma — not gypsies.

photo courtesy/scrapetv.com

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The fence on the US-Mexico bor-der remains highly debated – and very expensive. In 2006, George W. Bush decided that building a barrier along parts of the Mexico-U.S. border was the best way to suppress illegal immi-gration. Illegal crossings from Mexico are declining according to recent stud-ies, but this is more due to the reces-sion and exorbitant prices smugglers are charging than the actual fence. The fence has also failed to concretely suppress drug trafficking and transna-tional gang activity, which are the prin-cipal ‘national security’ issues caused by illegal immigration.

Michelle Bachmann pledges to cov-er “every mile, every yard, every foot, every inch” of the southern border; Herman Cain jokes about building a 20-foot tall electrical fence; Mitt Rom-ney proposes to strengthen border security and eliminate all social benefit incentives for illegals; and Rick Perry, ironically the most pro-gressive of the candidates in his proposed poli-cy, calls for more boots than fencing. The Republican candidates all accuse Obama of providing amnesty to ille-gals, although more than one million immigrants have been deported since he took office.

Sixty-seven percent of Hispanics voted for Obama in 2008 and their vote is key to his reelection. However, he has not passed comprehensive im-migration reform and the DREAM Act failed to pass through Congress this year. His policy prioritizes the deporta-tion of illegal immigrants with a criminal

record and eliminates worksite raids, but more than half of the deported so far have been non-criminals.

In sum, current policies are not ef-fective, and the ones proposed by the current presidential candidates do not seem very promising. The Republi-can candidates have focused on the fence largely for its symbolic value and have publicized their stance in over-simplified terms; the immigration issue is much broader and complex than a 20-foot wall. Instead of being multidi-mensional, policies have served only as weak and largely temporary Band-Aid solutions.

Policy makers have not given enough consideration to the roots of the problem. When one delves into how the immigration issue came about, it appears that the U.S. is not a victim of mass Hispanic invasion (as some

would have it) and has ac-tually been fomenting its own prob-lem for quite some time.

People im-migrate out of

necessity: lack or loss of jobs in their home countries, exploitation and hu-man rights abuses, lack of opportuni-ties for socio-economic mobility, and violence.

Under free trade agreements, sub-sistence farmer families cannot com-pete with U.S.-subsidized crops. Many have moved to cities in search of a new source of income and work in maquiladoras where living and work-ing conditions are atrocious. Others have been evicted from their land by foreign mining, oil, water and agricul-tural companies that exploit laborers

and natural resources, creating huge environmental and health issues for impoverished communities. Moreover, high demand for illicit drugs in the U.S. directly influences the proliferation of criminal organizations and drug car-tels. And our main response has been to provide more funding to the notori-ously corrupt and violent Mexican mili-tary and police authorities.

To be sure, the countries’ govern-ments and other internal factors are also to blame in this issue, but the U.S. can only fix itself. The United States is a major cause of its immigration prob-lem and must take long-term action.

A different discourse amongst the candidates and within the government would be more effective. There is no gain in deporting an illegal Mexican mother of three American toddlers or in denying education for children brought into the country by their un-documented parents. Foreign policies toward Latin America that bolster ef-forts in these countries to provide bet-ter education, protect human rights, and offer better economic opportuni-ties can create a higher incentive to stay.

Such relations could include en-couraging and helping the country invest in education reform and infra-structure; endorsing and participating in efforts against impunity; encourag-ing more just representation in gov-ernment and policies; setting an ethi-cal standard for labor conditions; and creating provisions within trade agree-ments to promote and protect devel-oping nations’ sovereignty over their territory and growth of grassroots en-trepreneurial endeavors.

Tackling the roots of the issue is the only way to provide a long-term solu-tion to the U.S. immigration problem.

immigration reformby leah varjacques

opin

ion

there is no Gain in deport-inG an iLLeGaL MexiCan Mother of

three aMeriCan toddLers or in denyinG edUCation for ChiLdren broUGht into the CoUntry by their UndoCUMented parents.

the need for

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In 1995, the National Center for Vic-tims of Crime conducted a survey of eighth and ninth graders. The results were, in a word, horrifying. Eleven per-cent of boys agreed that if a girl said “no” to sex, she actually meant “yes”; 27 percent believed that if a girl be-came intoxicated, she deserved any fallout; and, finally, 46 percent felt that rape is, more often than not, the victim’s fault. How is it that twenti-eth-century children were ignorant of rape’s gravity? And how is it that these boys—who, at thirteen or fourteen, had merely toed the waters of sexu-ality—were entering adolescence as rape apologists?

Fifteen years ago, the issue stemmed from a lack of awareness. But educational programs have snow-balled in recent years, while statistics have remained unaltered. The issue, then, is more complex. Americans are not saddled by a failure to discuss rape, but, rather, by a failure to dis-cuss rape in appropriate terms. We fail to recognize that rape is an extraordi-nary event. It is “extraordinary” in that it should not be normalized or con-doned, regarded as an inevitable cir-cumstance of urban or collegiate life.

But, unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening. As they travel Northwestern’s campus, students la-ment that they’ve been “raped” by an exam, a sizable bill, or unexpected criticism. “Rape,” in common par-lance, has been re-appropriated. It is casually inserted into conversations about trivial offenses. And its mean-ing—its connection to the terrors of sexual assault—has been distorted.

In part, this semantic shift is due to the pervasiveness of rape imag-ery. Incidents of sexual violence have become ever-present on television and the silver screen. According to a 2006 study by the New York City Women and Media Committee, of the R and NC-17 films that were released between 1996 and 2006, 21 percent featured rape, while 35 percent con-tained sexually violent behaviors. These scenes are gratuitously—and, sometimes, creatively—graphic. But what’s interesting is that their after-math is sterile. Plotlines follow an un-changing trajectory. The initial assault is succeeded by emotional and physi-cal trauma; disillusionment with life or the culpable gender; and, ultimately, vindication within a courtroom. Cen-

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the cultural desensitization to ‘rape’

the LANGUAGE of RAPE

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tral to this discussion is Law & Order: SVU, whose images of violence are corralled into 60-minute segments. Their resonance is dulled by the in-set of advertising, and their conclu-sion is marked by the sounding of a now-famous tone. This uniformity—or, more exactly, the suggestion that a rape may be neatly packaged—is misinformed. And, for audiences, it is misleading.

In truth, the aftermath of a rape can be more distressing than the rape itself. Physically, of course, there is a risk of unwanted pregnancy and STDs. But, psychologically, vic-tims grapple with far worse: anxiety and PTSD, social stigma, a tendency to shoulder guilt, emotional distance and inorgasmia during sexual inter-course, and so on. There is no time constraint on these repercussions. But, amazingly, Americans tend to overlook them. As we stare at images of blood and mangled faces, or read articles that describe “fluids” and “DNA evidence,” we acknowledge that the victim suffered—suffered, but does not suffer. We imagine that a rape can be washed away, that the reverberations of these crimes are ti-died and settled.

This blinkered understanding has anesthetized Americans. It has taught a cohort of teenaged boys that “no” means “yes.” And it is criti-cal, therefore, that we restore the definition of rape. Difficult as it may be, we must acknowledge the full horror of an undoubtedly horrible word.

immigration reform

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the problem of THE INNOCENT MANby matthew kovac

On September 21, Troy Davis was murdered by the Georgia Department of Corrections. Convicted of killing a police officer in 1989, Davis was almost certainly innocent. No physi-cal evidence linked him to the crime. Seven of the nine witnesses who testi-fied against him have since recanted, citing police coercion. Two of them named another witness as the killer.

The execution has sparked the lat-est round in the death penalty debate. But the most serious question raised by Davis’ 20-year imprisonment and murder has been virtually ignored. It is a question that cuts to the heart of the Davis case and all others like it. How much of one’s life is one obligated to surrender to the state while the wheels of injustice turn?

It is an all-or-nothing question. There is no logical reason why the wrongfully imprisoned should be obli-gated to give up five years but not ten, or ten but not twenty. Either they are obligated to give the state everything it demands, up to and including their very lives – as it demanded of Davis

– or they are not obligated to give it anything at all.

If it is everything, then the imprison-ment of innocent people is inviolable except through legal channels. Such prisoners must wait quietly in their cells, for decades if necessary, until they are officially exonerated. If exon-eration never comes, they must pas-sively accept their fate, even if it is life imprisonment or execution.

If they owe the state nothing, then their imprisonment is legalized kidnap-ping. The state has no justification to hold them against their will for even a moment. An innocent prisoner might cooperate with the state on tactical grounds, hoping to win freedom by le-gal means and avoid further persecu-tion. But if the appeals fail – or if at any time the prisoner tires of captivity – the prisoner is justified in resisting the uni-formed kidnappers and escaping.

There is no middle ground. Certain-ly the state does not recognize any. If one is sentenced to prison, one is to remain in prison until released. If one is sentenced to death, one is to meekly

submit to execution once the final ap-peal has been exhausted. To resist is to break the law. There are no excep-tions for people found guilty in court but innocent in fact.

And there cannot be exceptions. State power and individual conscience are irreconcilable. Milton Mayer high-lighted this point in his On Liberty: Man v. the State. There he juxtaposed two quotations: one from Martin Luther King, Jr., on the necessity of resisting unjust laws, the other from an Ameri-can Bar Association president who noted that the rule of law could not exist if people were free to determine for themselves which laws were just or unjust.

In the perpetual conflict between law and conscience, to recognize the supremacy of one is to invalidate the other. To choose what is right over what is legal is to destroy the very founda-tions of the state, because the state cannot recognize such distinctions. It can only demand obedience – from the police station to the prison cell, all the way to the execution chamber.

tiMeLineAUG. 23, 1989At 20 years old, Troy Davis is arrested as a suspect in the murder of an off-duty policeman.

APRIL 1990Davis pleads not guilty at a prelimi-nary hearing.

AUG. 1991The trial begins. Prosecutors seek the death penalty, and Davis is found guilty.

SEPT. 21, 2011Troy Davis is pronounced dead after le-thal injection.

MARCH 1992A first request for a retrial is refused. A year later Georgia’s Supreme Court up-holds the sentence.

DEC. 2001Davis files an appeal. Almost five years later the 11th Circuit Court will uphold a retrial refusal.

JUNE 2007Davis’ execution is set for July 17, 2007. On July 16 Davis is granted a 90-day stay.

SEPT. 23, 2008 The US Supreme Court issues a last-minute emergency stay dangerously close to his set ex-ecution time.

JAN. 2011 Davis files a new ap-peal. The appeal is rejected in March.

SEPT. 7, 2011 Davis’ new execution date is set for Sept. 21, 2011.

SEPT. 21, 2011The Georgia Board of Par-dons and Paroles denies Da-vis’ final request for clemency and a request to allow Davis to take a lie detector test to show his innocence.

information from the Telegraph

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Charred trees scatter the lands of Mato Grosso, Brazil’s third largest state, where locals burn the Amazon rainforest in retali-ation against rival land owners. The people are left to defend their property because while the Ama-zon rainforest burns, the Brazilian government remains absent in defusing the conflict. They have simply forgotten.

Such is the title of the docu-mentary Valley of the Forgotten, directed by Maria Raduan, which focuses on the conflict in Mato Grosso. The film made its Ameri-can debut at the Chicago Interna-tional Film Festival on October 15. It paints a portrait of Mato Grosso inhabitants, who refuse to compro-mise their land. Although El Dorado is not hidden within Mato Grosso, the people there feel that the region is their one and only home, such that no other area can replace it. This seems to motivate everyone to endure a fight that cannot end well. The native Xavante people, ranch-ers, squatters, land grabbers and outside influences are all players in Raduan’s telling of how Mato Gros-so became an arena of conflict.

The film opens with a forest fire, visually illustrating how flames have become a weapon in Mato Grosso. By setting the Amazon on fire, it forces the current landowners to evacuate and allow perpetrators to move in. The fires are so common-place that they can burn for months without any intervention until the last spark dies. Blame circulates faster than the fires, each group’s disdain for the other flaring deeper than the vibrant flames.

With the difficult task of honestly

telling each group’s perspectives, Raduan does not distinguish the vil-lains from the victims. Valley of the Forgotten does not necessarily fa-vor the Xavante, squatters or other factions, but allows their voices to be heard beyond Brazil.

The documentary is tedious at times, with long takes of men in chairs and children washing them-selves. Raduan shows that the daily lives of Brazilians were reminiscent of the videos American elementary school teachers would show their classes in lessons about different cultures. My attention span has im-proved since the days of recess, but as women picked up sticks outside their homes at a slow pace, I only wished I could pick up a remote and hit fast forward.

The tragedy of Valley of the For-gotten is that the problems terroriz-ing Mato Grosso will not be resolved soon. Raduan captures the fiery passion behind each groups desire to remain in the region, but those flames are destroying another for-gotten entity: the Amazon.

valley of the forgottenby yvonne ashley kouadjo

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additionaL reviews

chicagoano.comEvery once in a while something comes along and reminds you that de-spite Brazil’s newfound standing as a global power, a good chunk of the coun-try is still very much a wild frontier.” –Sergio Barreto

hot docs: the canadian international documentary festival“Maria Raduan’s penetrat-ing documentary puts the Brazilian rainforest back on the list of regions to watch.” –Merrie Whitmore

uol cinema“The story of the long and bloody dispute over land in the territory formerly oc-cupied by the farm-Suiá Missu (MT).”

photo courtesy/valedosesquecidos.com

In the north of Canada’s Alberta province, a hand-ful of aboriginal First Nation communities grapple with a precarious balancing act. While the First Na-tions reap staggering economic benefits through collaboration with the nearby oil sands extraction industry, local doctors, environmentalists and citi-zens say the oil projects have dramatically harmed native health and lifestyle. This ongoing dilemma is perhaps most potent for the Fort McKay First Na-tion community, which winds its way through the oil sands and sits less than 40 kilometers north of some of Alberta’s largest excavation sites.

As part of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buf-falo, Fort McKay is situated on the western banks of the Athabasca River, which stretches for a total of about 1,231 kilometers and flows north from the industrial boom city of Fort McMurray and through oil sands sites. The Fort McKay River, or Red River, feeds into the Athabasca River, which drains into Lake Athabasca just north of the Fort McKay com-munity.

As a First Nation, Fort McKay has been recog-nized by the federal and provincial governments as an indigenous reserve through treaties in the late 19th century. Most of the approximately 700 people who make up the Fort McKay First Nation trace their roots to the Chipewyan Prairie, Athabasca Chipew-yan and Mikisew Cree First Nations, according to the Fort McKay website.

The oil sands, or tar sands, are large deposits of crude bitumen, silica sand, clay minerals and water. The heavy bitumen can be processed into synthet-ic crude oil for valuable petroleum products after excavation. To extract usable bitumen, developers either inject steam into the ground to liquefy the bi-tumen so that it can be pumped to the surface, or they employ open-pit mining to dig up the oil sands and separate the bitumen with hot water. Because not all the bitumen can be recovered, oil sands ex-traction—especially via open-pit mining—produces large, toxic tailings ponds out of the residual mate-rial, says Dr. Tom Etsell, a principal investigator at the University of Alberta’s Center for Oil Sands In-

novation, or COSI. Canada’s oil deposits are second only to Saudi

Arabia’s in size, and the Government of Alberta says the province alone can produce 169.9 billion barrels of bitumen and 1.4 billion barrels of conven-tional oil. In Alberta, the oil sands underlie 140,200 square kilometers of land. As of June 2010, Alberta boasted 91 active oil sands projects, disturbing 602 square kilometers of land, according to the provin-cial government’s figures.

Since industry development began in the 1960s, Fort McKay’s native elders say they have witnessed the depletion of wild animal populations, the reduc-tion of trap lands, and the pollution of air and wa-terways. Many oil sands development companies, including Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada, have settled on lands close to the river that were once precious to natives, says Fort McKay Chief Jim Boucher. Alberta’s aboriginals have historically relied on fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering for sustenance, but the environmental changes have forced them to abandon such practices, Boucher says.

“People were quite content maintaining a tra-ditional lifestyle that was passed on from genera-tion to generation, and we were quite knowledge-able about the land, the animals and the patterns,” Boucher says. “But all of that changed since the oil sands companies started coming in here, taking valuable pieces of land and destroying the hunting areas of our communities. After the projects began, we lost an important area for families to go and do their cultural activities.”

Wilfred Grandjambe, a Fort McKay elder, says the contamination of the local watershed has dra-matically altered native customs.

“Around here, we don’t feel right about the oil companies polluting the rivers,” says Grandjambe, 74. “They polluted the lakes where we used to get ducks and a lot of the rivers where we used to get fish.”

Though he relied on tap water and rainwater when he was young, Grandjambe says he switched

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TAR SANDS

to bottled water when he noticed more pollution in the waterways downstream from industry.

“If I use tap water in my teapot now, you can see the stuff that’s in there,” Grandjambe says. “You can see that the top is oily and you can taste the chemicals that they put in the water. A lot of people around here complain that the water is no good.”

Some Fort McKay natives insist that contaminat-ed water has caused stomach problems and other health issues, Grandjambe says. Boucher notes that Fort McKay residents even avoid swimming in Lake Athabasca — where he used to play as a child — because of pollution concerns.

Industry outputs have also proved deleterious to local wildlife, Grandjambe says, because the ani-mals drink the river water and eat along the river-banks.

“The pollution has affected the animals,” Grand-jambe says. “We’ve always eaten beaver meat here, but when my late brother and I were out in the river here not too long ago, we killed a beaver, and when we skinned him and opened him up, there were bubbles on the stomach and on the guts. We’d

never seen that before.”Indeed, several studies in the last few years point

to tangible environmental impacts linked to oil sands development. Alberta ecologist and statistician Dr. Kevin Timoney released a study in November 2007 revealing unhealthy levels of carcinogens and other toxins in fish, water and sediment downstream from the oil sands. Dr. David Schindler, an ecology pro-fessor at the University of Alberta, collaborated with other independent scientists to produce a study in October 2009 that showed that the oil sands have contributed toxic compounds to the Athabasca River. Both researchers say that while industry and its governmental supporters have dismissed their reports, they think their findings warrant more seri-ous attention from industry and the provincial and federal governments.

“That area will never again support the same wild-life that the native people have relied on,” Schindler says. “There are more and more studies that indicate that industry is promoting its expansion on unsub-stantiated propaganda, not on scientifically defen-sible facts.”

photos/Emma O’Connor

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by arjun chakraborty

making a difference

I intermittently checked my watch as I waited for the driver who would take me to the clinic where I would volunteer. I did not know what to expect from the coming days of volunteering at the A.B. Eye Institute in Kadam Kuan, Patna, the capital of Bi-har. I would be working with the Sinhas, a family of charitable doc-tors who dedicate their lives to al-leviating the ailments of the poor in the state of Bihar. After an hour of speculating in the hotel lobby, the driver arrived and drove me to the clinic.

I met the clinic staff. A young optometrist gave me a brief tour of the clinic—I was taken to the operation theater, wards for the patients, a room for angiography, and the doctors’ of-fices, and, eventually, directed to the vision room. Here, I conducted prelimi-nary checkups every morning, taking patients’ vitals and complaints.

Over the next few weeks, as I at-tended to patients from around the state, I evidenced the health dispari-ties between the rich and poor in Bi-har. Amidst an 11 percent growth rate, Bihar is the story of the romantic rise of the wealthy and the forgotten plight of the downtrodden.

In the state of Bihar, the poor live on $5.50-$6.50 per month, less than a fortieth of the earnings of the wealthy, according to a 2008 article published in The Times of India. The affluent hide in their conclave of security, attend lavish weddings in their spare time and return to their palaces every night. In stark contrast to the wealthy, the poor struggle to make ends meet and put food on their tables. Their meager liv-

ing conditions make them vulnerable to disease. Additionally, many of the poor live in villages where only primary level care is available. In order to get advanced care, they must often make an overnight journey to Patna.

In Bihar, the impoverished are af-fected by eye conditions to a greater extent than the wealthy. Whereas most affluent patients at the A.B. Eye Insti-tute came to get glasses to rectify a simple refractive error, impoverished patients came with a plethora of is-sues, including viral conjunctivitis. The impoverished are more susceptible to cataracts. The poorest of them often have mature cataracts, because they wait longer before dedicating their fi-nances toward a cataract surgery. The cost of the surgery itself is a burden on low-income families.

The cost of cataract surgery ranges from $10 to $600, depending on the severity of the condition, according to a 2008 article published in Cur-rent Opinion in Ophthalmology. This amount is accumulated in two years by a poor family, excluding any addi-

tional expenses paid by the fam-ily. Patients who cannot afford the surgery must wait helplessly as their eyesight slowly diminish-es and eventually leaves them. India has the world’s largest cataract backlog, with approxi-mately seven million individuals in need of surgery, according to a 2004 study conducted by the Directorate General of Health Services in India.

Even simple conditions, such as refractive errors, have dire consequences for the poor. Many impoverished individuals work as tailors and need to see

fine details of the cloth they work with. Developing a refractive error makes this next to impossible, rendering the individual unfit for work. Eye condi-tions affect the younger generation as well. Poor children lag in their educa-tion, because they cannot view writing on the blackboard and their families cannot afford glasses.

At first sight, the infrastructure in Bi-har makes one wonder why there is a health crisis. There are 200 hospitals across the state, both private and gov-ernment-run. Three large government-funded hospitals provide all forms of care, with state-of-the-art technology and complimentary medicines.

But the healthcare system in Bihar is designed to shut out the poor. The 200 hospitals in Patna are too few and far-between to cover the state’s popu-lation of 83 million. The poor are often driven to cheaper hospitals where the doctors are not as experienced. Ad-ditionally, government hospitals have long waitlists and getting care in a timely fashion is rare. I observed this

a lesson from halfway across the world

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overcrowding at the Patna Medical College Hospital, a government-fund-ed hospital with a maximum capacity of 1,700 patients. Only a small pro-portion of the individuals on the wait list were admitted to the hospital. Fur-thermore, corruption within the health sector is rampant in the bureaucracy of such facilities. Medicines procured by these hospitals are sold rather than handed out to the needy.

The A.B. Eye Institute is run by a family of doctors called the Sinhas. Dr. Pooja Sinha specializes in the anterior segment of the eye, and Dr. Satyajit Sinha, her husband, specializes in the posterior segment. Together, the fam-ily aims to eradicate preventable blind-ness.

In the evening, I accompanied the Sinhas to charity clinics located in im-poverished areas of Patna or in villages surrounding the city. Throngs of poor patients expectantly lined up outside these health centers. Their faces re-vealed their eagerness to see the doc-tor, a privilege for them. Patients were given a pre-checkup, where they reg-istered complaints and were checked

for typical eye conditions. Dr. Ajit Sinha and Dr. Satyajit Sinha then examined the patients and administered simple treatments like prescription eyeglass-es. My job was to distribute glasses collected from Lions Clubs in the Unit-ed States each evening to patients for whom they were prescribed. The patients’ faces filled with joy and they gasped with rejuvenated hope as they realized they were able to easily read words they could not discern without glasses. For many tailors and other professionals, new glasses meant re-turning to work and providing for their families. Medications were also pre-scribed at such places and could be purchased at a pharmacy adjacent to the clinic. For surgeries, patients were referred to the A.B. Eye Institute.

Cataract surgeries are provided at the A.B. Eye Institute to any patient, free of charge. These operations are funded by donations from the United States and paying patients. As many as 15 patients line up every Thursday to undergo single incision cataract surgery. Some patients, intimidated by the surgery, are not cooperative with

their eye movements during the opera-tion, but the doctors and clinic staff do their best to calm them. They breathe a sigh of relief as the cloudy world they see is taken away and replaced by an immaculate picture.

The Sinhas epitomize the power of courage and strength of dedication. Their education and standing prom-ises them a comfortable and wealthy life anywhere in the world. But shun-ning all that, they use their skills to bring hope to the needy in their com-munity. Their efforts are going far in preventing treatable blindness in Bi-har. Every day, hundreds of patients are treated at the A.B. Eye Institute at a nominal cost. Patients with cat-aracts are bestowed the gift of eye-sight as Dr. Sinha performs surgeries in the afternoon. However, despite the Sinhas’ accomplishments, much remains to be done. There is still a backlog of 16,000 cataract cases in Bihar. Refractive errors and eye dis-eases like viral conjunctivitis remain a burden for impoverished families. Only a collaborative global effort can improve conditions in Bihar.

a lesson from halfway across the world

photos/Arjun Chakraborty

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