#part of me resists always adding to feminist posts a note that it’s not a terf post | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sophygurl · 8 years ago

Text

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long to click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age

Moderator: The Rotund. Panelists: Amal El-Mohtar, E. Cabell Hankinson Gathman, Lauren Lacey

#ReadingDystopiaInDystopia - for the livetweets and comments

(I think I missed jotting down some introductory stuff as my notes just dig right in - sorry about that!)

Amal talked about how dystopia crosses over into issues of immigration, and Cabell posed the question - “dystopia for whom?”

Lauren discussed teaching Octavia Butler’s Parable series during the November election and then teaching Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale this spring.

Rotund asked the panelists to define dystopia and mentioned the twitter quote about current generations not being promised a future of flying cars, but rather a cyberpunk dystopia.

Amal talked about conflating dystopia with post-apocalyptic, but that the two function differently. They can intersect, however. Dystopia is allied with ideas of oppression - the severe marginalization of a large swath of the population.

Cabell added that this kind of dystopia is somebody else’s utopia. People with privilege don’t want to lose it - that’s dystopic for them.

Lauren discussed anti-utopias, such as 1984, where the audience identifies with the people being marginalized. Compared that with a critical dystopia where there is a horizon of hopefulness - such as Parable.

Rotund brought up the positioning of Firefly as allegorical confederacy and asked how do we deal with that?

Cabell answered - fanfiction.

Amal discussed how she had not connected Firefly to the confederacy due to the lack of themes of slavery, particularly child slavery. As a Canadian, that just wasn’t her first go-to when watching it. There were so many other examples of imperial or hegemonic control without the slavery aspect in her mind - specifically Lebanon, where her own parents had fled from civil war.

Amal talked about playing with this iconography of rebellion without the ugly context of the confederacy. There’s something interesting to play with about these heroes who were on the losing side, but she acknowledges that her perspective is different than those from the U.S.

Cabell stepped in and said “hashtag socialist killjoy” but, the themes of colonization in Firefly were there even without the confederacy angle. For example, the heavy Chinese influence of the culture but we don’t actually see any Chinese people. What are the implications of that?

Lauren said that one interesting part of dystopias is getting to identify with the rebels. This can lead to an unthinking identification with resistance - the idea that all power is bad, all government is bad. This constant identification with outsiders can be dangerous. She added that Octavia Butler does a good job with the complexities of these themes in her works.

Cabell brought up prepatory vs. cautionary dystopias. Putting the spotlight on collaborators.

Amal discussed some of Canada’s issues with how it’s dealt with it’s Indigenous cultures with truth and reconciliation commissions. An issue in Firefly is that we have no idea of any Indigenous life on the planets that are taken over and terraformed.

In some ways, Firefly reflects America’s colonialism with the frontier themes, but what does that look like without any Indigenous populations? Canada’s attitude for a long time was “well, our treatment of Indigenous people wasn’t as bad as what the US was doing...” and that was a fantasy to make themselves feel better about it.

Rotund pointed out that people like to feel like rebels.This was the foundation of Trump’s campaign. It’s a distressing use of the dystopian narrative.

Lauren brought up Handmaid’s Tale and how despite the complexity of it’s historical notes, there were still problems in the ways many marginalizations were ignored.

Amal talked about the appropriation of resistance terms and used MRA’s use of feminist language as an example. Just as a group is gaining a voice against the powers over them, their language is taken from them and used against them. Then the people in power get to have this fantasy of being the oppressed ones.

She brought up Mad Max as this lone man trying to survive the apocalypse and how unrealistic this trope is - we need community to survive.

(I have in my notes in the sidebar for the next page or so that I missed a lot that was said so bear with me if some of this seems extra jumpy from topic to topic)

Cabell discussed the Wisconsin cocaine mom laws that sprang up during the 90′s paranoia about crack babies (which it turns out is not even a thing, the affects were due to poverty not drugs). This was highly racialized. In 2014, California was found to be forcibly sterilizing female inmates - mostly women of color.

The point of this discussion is that we’re already living in the reproductive dystopia. People are in situations where they’re needing to ask themselves how to stay safe in a system that is unsafe for them.

Amal brought up a conversation she’d had that day with a taxi driver when he found out she was Canadian and he immediately started talking about how badly we need socialized medicine here in the U.S. To Amal - the idea that everyone deserves health care as being radical is dystopic! She gets worked up and apologizes and Rotund says - don’t apologize for being mad at dystopias.

Lauren talked about Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time as an example where it’s not just about the privileged suddenly being in a dystopia. There’s a theme of complacency, of not paying attention to what’s happening to others. It’s a cautionary dystopia.

Cabell brought up the SNL video of white people just in a constant state of screaming until finally there’s 2 black people and one asks what’s happening and the other answers - oh they’ve been this way since the election.

Amal replied that she noticed a lot of people feeling sort of apocalyptic after the election, but many people of color were more like “oh, it’s Tuesday. Maybe a little more Tuesday than usual but...”

She also talked about how she saw a lot of people from the U.S. saying online that they needed to leave the country, while other people were angry at this notion saying - how dare you leave when we have work to do? Amal, coming from the perspective of her own parents having fled their country, acknowledges that the people in that first group are thinking more about survival.

Amal found herself agreeing to let friends from the US come and stay with her as needed, while also members of her family were working on taking Syrian refugees in. “You think you’re safe until you’re not” - in Handmaid’s Tale, the main character waited too long to leave.

[My own thoughts on the anger about people fleeing is that this is primarily directed at people who do have quite a bit of privilege choosing to leave instead of staying to fight for the people who really can’t make that choice. Example: the whole Amanda Palmer thing ugh]

An audience member asked about the common video game trope of going alone into the woods to survive after a dystopic or apocalyptic event. None of the panelists like that type of game.

Amal really wants a game like that, but about community building. Cabell would pay lots of money for an MMO in that style.

An audience member recommends the game This War of Mine as doing community building well, and asks the question of if the panelists have noticed the need to upgrade security recently.

Amal discussed how she was detained on her way to the states this time and how horrifying of an experience it was. No one did anything particularly bad to her, but it was still awful and invasive. It did make her think both about the idea of state security and “what am putting out online?”

She talked about how she has always self-censored, and the investment her family has put into respectability politics as a means of survival. She’s now opening up more, and finds that she’s angry all the time “that’s my secret - I’m always angry”. And yet she still tempers her rage and fury because she doesn’t want to lose the support of white liberals.

Cabell replied to Amal’s experience about being detained and said - sure they all felt bad but they did it anyway. The idea of collaboration and following orders. When laws are unjust, the moral thing can be to break the law.

She added that the best person to hide undocumented immigrants is someone who has never publicly said that we should be hiding undocumented immigrants, which makes it tricky. The need for networks and cells for this kind of thing.

Amal addressed that the reason the people involved with her detainment were so embarrassed had a lot to do with how she passes, has lighter skin, etc.

(I have a whole chunk of something I wrote down that Lauren said that I added a bunch of question marks to, so not sure I got it down correctly but it was about how increased need for security has affected academia and the sense of witch hunt-ness involved in people speaking their minds freely.)

An audience member asked about examples in dystopian fiction of that use of appropriated language of the oppression.

Lauren brought up that in Parable, published in 93, the president really used the slogan “make America great again”. Also the Aunts in Handmaid’s Tale use appropriated language.

Cabell talked about another real life example, which was the laws created to protect fetuses and how proponents of it said it would never be used against pregnant women, but it ended up doing just that - specifically against women of color.

Amal talked about the idea of needing to protect men from women’s temptation and said that her story Seasons of Glass and Iron has an example of this. She also talked about how in The Hunger Games, punishment becomes entertainment.

An audience member asked about the appropriation of dystopian language and does this happen because the stories are too vague? How do we protect against this?

Amal answered that you can’t stop people in power from appropriating narratives. But you can become aware of it and try to check it when it happens. (and then a whole thing I sadly missed about exogenous settlers/immigrants)

The panelists wrapped up with some recommendations.

Lauren: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett, and Kate Wilhem’s early stuff.

Cabell: Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott, and a title I did not catch ... something Chronicles by Barbara something (real helpful I know, sorry) [Edited to add from Cabell: "Darwath Chronicles by Barbara Hambly! Very fantasy alternate universe; not a "realistic" dystopia/post-apocalypse."]

Amal: the song Miami 2017 by Billy Joel and the poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven

#readingdystopiaindystopia #reading dystopia in dystopia #wiscon #wiscon 41 #wiscon41 #wc41 #dance apocalyptic #dystopian fiction #dystopias #dystopian media

3 notes · View notes

booksturnmugglesintowizards · 8 years ago

Text

End Violence Against Women Monday - Part 6

International Women’s Day is almost upon us! Are you guys participating in the marches? I am!

Welcome to the next part of the End Violence Against Women Monday series! I’m incredibly grateful for all the shares and likes.

Domestic violence is a serious problem worldwide. And unfortunately, most organisations that help combat domestic violence and provide help for the survivors are underfunded and understaffed. This is why I created this feature. In this weekly column, I will be posting links to 5-7 items sold on Etsy, eBay or any other retail sites, the proceeds from sales of which go to various organisations of the sort, or attempt to raise domestic violence awareness.

I am always accepting submissions and suggestions for this feature! The tag is - end violence against women Monday.

So without further ado, here are the items featured in this week’s End Violence Against Women Monday (all images are courtesy of the sellers):

1. Domestic Violence Awareness Heels - Etsy

Price: $75.00

Seller’s description:

“Wear what you believe in!! The heels are a tribute to all those who have suffered and for those who have passed from Domestic Violence. They wording is hand painted in purple and white. The heel has the Domestic Violence ribbon decoupaged. They are sealed to be water proof, UV resistant and stain resistant. If this heel height is uncomfortable for you, don't worry! There are other heel heights for you to pick from! If you'd like purple bottoms, please select PB from the drop down menu. If you'd like custom wording, please select CW from the drop down menu and "NOTE" the words you'd like added in your order. Please allow 1 to 2 weeks for creation”.

2. “Our Revenge is to Live” Bracelet and “Happily Even After” Bracelet - Etsy

Price: $40 each

Seller’s description:

“The simple organic almost bohemian rustic design emphasizes the significance of each word stamped in the silver. This is perfect for everyday wear. It is one of those simple pieces that just look better and better with age. Each band of silver is hand stamped, cut, oxidized and polished. Due the nature of handmade items each bracelet will vary slightly but will look very similar to the one pictured. Each band is sculpted from fine silver and comes strung on jewelry silk. Each bracelet is accented with glass druck beads. This design has been updated to include a macrame slide knot as a closure so the bracelet can be easily adjusted and can be take on and off easily... without fighting with knots. A portion of each purchase will be donated to a charity benefiting survivors of domestic abuse.”

3. Chasing Desdemona 2017 Calendar - Redbubble

Price: $24.31

Seller’s description:

“Othello portrayed by model, Cliff B., Desdemona portrayed by Jaeda DeWalt

Special thanks to R Paul Sardanas for commissioning me to be a part of this amazing collection! For the complete experience, visit R. Paul’s Chasing Desdemona Gallery . There you can enjoy a beautiful introduction into the inspiration for the series, along with his poetic thoughts, excerpts from the play, my photography, his paintings and our collaborations

20% of all proceeds from my Chasing Desdemona art sales, will be donated to CASA (Community Action Stops Abuse).

Tough wire binding and hanger

Stunningly sharp digital printing

Start the year with the month of your choice

200gsm satin art paper with a tougher cover”.

4. Feminist Killjoy Tote - Heygrrl (also available as a keychain and a pin)

Price: approx. $10.99

Seller’s description:

“A simple convenient tote bag. Perfect for everyday use and eco-friendly lifestyle. 100% cotton. Size - 38x42 cm.

All proceedings go to the Sisters Center”.

5. Breaking the Silence Art Book - White Ribbon Australia.

Price: $15.00

That’s all, folks! Stay tuned for next week’s post and please reblog this one! Let’s stop violence against women together!

Other posts in this series:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

#end violence against women monday #end violence against women #feminism #tw: domestic violence #intersectional feminism #women's day #march 8th

59 notes · View notes

nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

Text

Hyperallergic: The Stories of Asian American Activism in 1970s LA

Installation view of publications in Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968–80s at the Chinese American Museum (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

LOS ANGELES — “Instead of going to class, I’ve been working with the Asian Student Mobilization Committee,” a college student wrote in a letter to their mother in 1972. “If nothing else, the events of the past week have convinced me … that prolonged struggle and political education are necessary to effect change.” So begins one young person’s politicization, borne out of opposition to the US wars in Southeast Asia and galvanized by the sight of “friends and fellow students getting their faces smashed with night sticks.”

The letter is one snapshot of Asian America contained in the Chinese American Museum’s Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968–80s. Through books, posters, films, and music, the exhibit brings together varied local histories of movement building by Asians and Pacific Islanders, from anti-gentrification protests in Chinatown to Samoan community organizing in the South Bay. It’s a timely look at the shapes and forms of resistance that can inform today’s political struggles against an emboldened front of white supremacy and xenophobia.

Come-Unity newspaper (May 1972), published by the Asian American–led organization Storefront, which created grassroots programs for the mostly black residents in its neighborhood

According to the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, hate crimes against Asian Americans tripled in the US in 2015 as part of an overall growing rate of violence against people of color; one civil rights organization recently responded by establishing the first tracker of hate crimes against Asian Americans. After Donald Trump’s inauguration, the White House website was changed to remove all references to the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), which had previously worked to increase AAPI access to federal programs, and no longer mentions Asian Americans, or any other minority group, as a policy focus. Since Inauguration Day, 16 of 20 members of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs, among them prominent community leaders and public figures, have resigned in protest against the Trump administration’s discriminatory actions.

The hard-won gains of past activists, whether the establishment of ethnic studies departments at universities or social services for immigrant communities, now face threats by exclusionary policies that are nothing new to the US. But what has also not changed is the potential of self-organized communities to wrest power and resources away from oppressive institutions. The stories presented by Roots give a sense of how the early Asian American movement sought to overcome atomization and define itself. Importantly, it was not exclusively preoccupied with the struggles of its own members — solidarity with Latinx, Black, feminist, and third-world movements was a foundational and evolving part of its activism, one that defined liberation as social and economic justice for all, not just some, groups of people.

Installation view, Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968–80s

The Vietnam War was the major crisis that politicized Asian Americans, but events at home also became key battles that forced them to think of foreign and domestic policies as a unified attempt to disenfranchise people of color. Resembling the graphic illustrations of Black Panther artist Emory Douglas, a poster by artist Leland Wong celebrates 1971 as the “year of the people” and depicts armed resistance against police brutality. A 1970 newspaper, echoing today’s gentrification struggles, commemorates the effort to preserve low-income housing for the elderly Chinese and Filipino residents of San Francisco’s International Hotel. Another poster, from 1982, calls for medical aid to survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, with additional demands for an end to US military interventions abroad as well as racism within the country. These examples emphasize how Asian American activists perceived violence in and outside of the US as connected: calling for an end to one necessitated calling for an end to the other.

Clockwise from left to right: Poster for poet Lawson Inada’s performance in Los Angeles (1971), image of playwright Frank Chin speaking at the University of Southern California (date unknown), and photograph of silkscreening workshop (date unknown)

Art became a significant outlet for writers, musicians, visual artists, and filmmakers seeking to voice their identities and political struggles. The Amerasia Bookstore in Little Tokyo, which operated from 1971 through 1992, served as a hub for movement publications and writers like Lawson Inada, a Japanese American poet who spent part of his childhood in an internment camp during World War II. Inada, playwright Frank Chin, and others would go on to publish Aiiieeeee! (1974), the first major anthology of writing by Asian Americans. In her book Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties, which is an indispensable companion to the Roots exhibit, writer and filmmaker Karen Ishizuka says:

The arts of activism intersected the lives of those touched by them, creating meaning, defining purpose, and acting as a catalyst for change. The preponderance of creative expressions alongside critical analyses of U.S. imperialism and manifestos of anti-racist programs attests to the cultural as well as political revolution that gave birth to Asian America.

As continues to be true today, these artists of color created work both in response to political currents and out of personal necessity, telling stories that were otherwise not being told. Los Angeles collective Visual Communications (cheekily abbreviated VC) produced independent films documenting the lives and histories of Asian Americans that served as a counterpoint to the villainous or reductive stereotypes of Hollywood. Some of those films are on display in Roots: the cross-cultural and transpacific sounds of Japanese American jazz band Hiroshima is the subject of VC co-founder Duane Kubo’s “Cruisin’ J-town” (1975), while Linda Mabalot’s groundbreaking “Manong” (1978) portrays the labor struggles of Filipino farm workers in the Central Valley.

vimeo

Also on view are several editions of the newspaper Gidra (1969–74), which served as the major communications arm of the Asian American movement. Founded by UCLA students and run entirely by volunteers, the publication produced political analyses, satirical cartoons, and other coverage of everything from the Vietnam War to global capital to cultural stereotypes. Visually rich and politically incisive, the newspaper’s articles and illustrations suggest a patchwork of perspectives and identities that comprised 1970s Asian America.

A section of the exhibit titled “Feminism and LGBTQ Movements” features the January 1971 edition of Gidra, whose cover announces it as a “special women’s issue.” The need for a special issue suggests that women’s voices had not been centered or recognized to the degree they should have been. Two photographs depict Gidra volunteers — all female — in the midst of one of several “wrap sessions” that led to the creation of the women’s issue. Despite the radical claims of the movement, Asian American artists and activists had plenty of blind spots, as the exhibit takes pains to demonstrate. Many of the leading members skewed male, cisgender, and heterosexual, with identity politics based on an opposition to “feminized” or “emasculated” personas (the editors of Aiiieeeee!, for example, defined “feminine” writers as not being “truly” Asian American). Facing these limitations, feminist and queer activists organized to create their own support systems and platforms that centered labor, health, and other issues that did not always find a home in the larger movement.

Newsletters published by the Asian Women’s Center

In a part of the exhibition, visitors are invited to write on Post-it notes in response to a series of guiding questions, one of which asks, “What does Asian American mean today?” Implying that present Asian American discourse is at odds with its radical past, one note lists “silence,” “anti-blackness,” and “white assimilation,” while another names “complacency” and “ignorance.” These seem to be responses to the historical amnesia and political atomization that have led to Asian Americans demonstrating on behalf of someone like Peter Liang, the Chinese American cop who murdered an unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, in 2014. That was a far cry from 1975, when thousands of Asian Americans packed the streets of New York’s Chinatown to protest for Peter Yew, a young engineer who was brutally beaten by police, and against all forms of oppression and discrimination. “Asian American” was once a radical marker of identity, yet today it can feel like a rather innocuous or less meaningful designation. It can even seem conservative or reactionary.

Growing up in Southern California during the ’90s, I recall the fear and anxiety of the local Korean community during the LA uprising, when many Korean-owned businesses at the epicenter went up in flames. I was too young to grasp the root causes of the riots, but old enough to understand that the video of the four cops beating Rodney King (which was played ad nauseam on television) had something to do with them. What I didn’t know at the time was the name of Latasha Harlins, the African American teenager murdered, just a year before the uprising, by a Korean shop owner who suspected her of stealing a bottle of orange juice. Some Korean Americans recall how the community came together to defend itself and rebuild what was lost, but I have to wonder exactly whom they were defending against and who was being left out in the first place.

Although social movements like the early Asian American one do eventually reach their terminus, the story of Asian America — as vast and nebulous as it has always been — doesn’t end with the 1980s. The objects in the exhibit comprise a vibrant history of uprisings, provocations, and world building, but how do we avoid relegating resistance to the past? Today, although they may not always be visible to the mainstream, many young Asian Americans have taken up the mantle of political struggle, continuing where earlier movements left off and expanding the fight to include intersectional identities and solidarity. Whether it’s queer diasporic Koreans showing up for Black Lives Matter or anti-imperialist Filipino activists marching against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Los Angeles remains home to many Asian American activists of multiple generations. Roots will hopefully not be the only attempt to present stories of political activism and movement building by Asian Americans, whose work seems more urgent and vital than ever.

Installation view, Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968–80s

Gidra (February 1973)

Installation view of ephemera from Filipino American activist movements

Alan Takemoto, poster marking the 10th anniversary of the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar (1979)

Installation view, Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968-80s

Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968–80s continues at the Chinese American Museum (425 North Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles) through June 11.

The post The Stories of Asian American Activism in 1970s LA appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2mPRmU5 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hyperallergic

0 notes

newstfionline · 8 years ago

Text

Justin Trudeau, Facing Pressure to Oppose Donald Trump, Opts to Get Along

By Ian Austen, NY Times, Feb. 3, 2017

OTTAWA--Just over a year after he became prime minister with promises of inclusion, optimism and internationalism, Justin Trudeau unexpectedly finds himself dealing with a mercurial American president who largely rejects those values.

President Donald J. Trump’s personal style and policies are widely disliked by Canadians, including, according to Mr. Trudeau’s inner circle, Mr. Trudeau himself. But sometimes gall must be swallowed. Mr. Trudeau swiftly turned the machinery of Canada’s government toward finding a way to get along with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trudeau dispatched top advisers, including his principal secretary and onetime college roommate Gerald Butts, to meet with officials in Mr. Trump’s inner circle, among them Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, and Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist.

He recruited political opponents with ties to Washington and Mr. Trump, notably Brian Mulroney, the former Progressive Conservative prime minister who has a house near Mr. Trump’s in Palm Beach, Fla., for the cause. Mr. Trudeau promoted Chrystia Freeland, the international trade minister, to minister of foreign affairs and set one priority above all else for her: to “maintain constructive relations with the United States.”

And for further help, he pulled in Andrew Leslie, a Liberal member of Parliament and a retired lieutenant general who received the United States’ Legion of Merit for his work with the American military.

All the while, Mr. Trudeau has been under pressure at home to be the world’s voice against a president who has already insulted or belittled an array of nations. Those Canadians are likely to be disappointed.

Mr. Trudeau may feel he has little choice. Canada is too closely entwined with its immense neighbor--economically, militarily, diplomatically and in countless other ways--to risk the development of serious friction.

So while Mr. Trudeau continues to promote his political values to Canadians, he and his cabinet ministers have been careful not to criticize Mr. Trump directly. It is a situation that faces the leaders of other American allies, but none have nearly as much to lose as Canada does--and none may have a leader as completely opposite to Mr. Trump in manner and belief.

“I am really proud that today Canada is standing for the open society and that we’re open to immigration, we’re open to refugees, whatever their faith; those are not necessarily popular national values in the world,” Ms. Freeland said in her corner office in Canada’s neo-Gothic Parliament buildings. She added, “I don’t think we would ever want to be sanctimonious, or behave as if we have everything figured out and we’re in a position to lecture other people on how to behave.”

A case study on how Mr. Trudeau is tiptoeing on the balance beam came after President Trump’s orders temporarily barring people from seven Muslim countries and all refugees. It did not play well in Canada, where its open doors to refugees and immigrants are a point of national pride.

Unlike some leaders, he avoided direct criticism, instead using Twitter to tell refugees that they are welcome in Canada “regardless of your faith.” But Mr. Trudeau’s government resisted calls from lawyers and civil rights groups to bring in all the refugees and other non-Americans who are now shut out of the United States and also to suspend some cross-border immigration agreements.

At news conferences, Mr. Trudeau, who describes himself as a feminist, is often asked if Mr. Trump is a misogynist. His response is always similar. “It is not the job of a Canadian prime minister to opine on the American electoral process,” Mr. Trudeau said last month in Calgary, Alberta. “It is the job of the Canadian prime minister to have a constructive working relationship with the president of the United States.”

While other prime ministers grappled with American presidents who were unpopular among Canadians, the current situation has few direct parallels. Especially jarring to Canada is the new administration’s promise to revamp key components of Canada’s economy, like the North American Free Trade Agreement; threats to tighten the border; and demand for drastic increases in military spending by allies.

“We’re not very well organized for a knife fight in Canada,” said John Higginbotham, a senior fellow at Carleton University in Ottawa who served as the second-highest-ranking Canadian diplomat in Washington for six years. “It’s the most worrying thing seen in Canada-U.S. relations during my 35-year career.”

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Canada’s relationship with the United States. About 2.5 million Canadian jobs are tied directly to trade with the United States, which accounts for about one quarter of Canada’s gross domestic product.

Unlike many other countries, Canada has received some positive signals from the Trump administration. On Thursday, Ms. Freeland received a call from Rex W. Tillerson during his first day on the job as secretary of state.

“He told me that the conversation he had with me was the first conversation he had with any foreign official,” Ms. Freeland said. “And he said that was very intentional.”

Last month Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet met with Stephen A. Schwarzman, the co-founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, who heads a group of business leaders advising Mr. Trump on economic issues.

After the meeting, Mr. Schwarzman offered soothing words. “Canada is held in very high regard,” he said. “We have balanced trade between the U.S. and Canada, and that’s not the kind of situation where you should be worrying.”

When Mr. Trump promised to reopen Nafta, which opened up commerce between the United States, Mexico and Canada, Mr. Trudeau said he welcomed any negotiations. Canada, too, has concerns about the trade deal, and Ms. Freeland said that by her count, 11 substantial changes had already been made to Nafta.

But if Mr. Trump reopens Nafta to limit the flow of Mexican goods to the United States, Mr. Trudeau’s government may have to weigh protecting its trade relationship with the United States against standing up for Mexico’s free-trade status--and implicitly its support of the principle of open commerce.

If it comes down to that, Mr. Higginbotham predicts that Canada will abandon Mexico “in a minute.”

The Trudeau government contends its approach is working. Ms. Freeland noted that the government’s early efforts to make contact with the Trump administration allowed it to swiftly confirm that dual citizens of Canada and countries blocked by the executive order on immigration would still be able to cross the border.

“Because we had been talking to the administration for some time, there were people who we could call,” she said.

When it comes to dealing with Washington, Canadian prime ministers have a potentially powerful tool unavailable to other leaders, said Michael Bliss, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto. In addition to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Ms. Freeland also commands 14 other diplomatic posts and trade missions throughout the United States. They regularly remind governors, mayors and members of Congress that Canada is the largest export market for 38 American states, making free trade in America’s best interest as well.

“We carry on relations with Americans in every room in the house,” Professor Bliss said.

When asked if those allies would make a difference when dealing with a novice president whose advisers for the most part reject America’s political establishment, Ms. Freeland paused.

“I come from outside traditional politics, too,” said Ms. Freeland, who has been a journalist and executive at several news organizations in Canada, Europe and the United States. “We don’t know how this new administration is going to operate yet.”

What seems more certain is that Mr. Trudeau and his government will be fighting a steady march of cross-border fires. Already it is working to quash proposals to require Canadians to give fingerprints or undergo facial recognition scans every time they enter or leave the United States. With more than 400,000 people crossing that border daily, Canada fears that could cause cross-border travel gridlock and hamper trade.

Canadian prime ministers have had rough relations with American presidents in the past. In 1965, Lester B. Pearson, a Liberal and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called for a suspension of the bombing in Vietnam by the United States in a speech in Philadelphia. The next day, President Lyndon B. Johnson, enraged, is said to have lifted Mr. Pearson by his lapels while shouting a rebuke. Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, another Liberal prime minister, had an acrimonious relationship with President Richard M. Nixon.

But Professor Bliss said the current situation between the two countries is probably without a direct parallel.

“The Canadian political class is well aware that we’re in very serious times,” he said. “We can’t afford to get it wrong.”

#Canada #Justin Trudeau #US-Canadian relations

0 notes