I still remember when I first heard about CAP conference in September, i didn’t think i would actually go attend it, because I have never been really confident enough or interested in public speaking and presenting at conferences. But throughout the year in CAP I found myself challenged time and again to step out of my comfort zone and speak up. Responding to these challenges over time made me  get used to them. Thus when my team mates from my ASTU class’s archives project ask me if I wanted to present our project at CAPCON with them, I didn’t have to think twice, I knew it was something I could do and something I wanted to do.

At the conference when I wasn’t presenting our project, I got the opportunity to listen to some of my peers from different CAP streams. One of the presentations that really struck a chord with me was that of Sepideh Najarnia’s essay on “Sport Riots: The role of Dictatorship”. She was presenting under panel A: ‘Violence and the Environment’. Her paper focused on how people living in countries under dictatorship rule, use sports riots as a means of letting out their anger and frustration about larger social issues such as dissatisfaction with the current regime. Why can’t they just protest on the streets about their main agendas? why can they only let it out by masking it under a false pretence of some so called ‘sports riots’? She explained the detrimental consequences that lead to a huge loss of thousands of innocent lives when people tried to take a more direct approach to expressing their disapproval towards the current regime.

What I found intriguing about her presentation was the personal touch she added to her essay. She did so by bringing in examples of Iran, her home country, into the essay to make her point more clear. Having lived in Iran all her life and having experienced such riots and demonstrations in her home country she was able to draw attention of her audience by backing her argument with real life examples.  She talked about her home country, first revising the dominant perceptions about Iran people usually hold and then pointing out what is not known or left out because the reporters don’t have the freedom to express the truth openly. Such representation works to bridge the gap between what is known through the dominant patterns of representation represented in mass media and that which is largely unknown and represents the perspective of the marginalized living in that specific country.

Hearing her talk about her country in such a way made me think of my home country, Pakistan. I could relate to her because Pakistan has also been going through political unrest in the past few years and what mass media portrays about my country and what actually goes on in my country, are two very different perspectives of the same scenario. Throughout the year I experienced various instances, where some of my peers didn’t know much about my country and even if they did, talking to them would reveal how they only knew a portion of the truth about my country. The truth was quite often then not hidden beneath layers of dominant media representations, the things they read on social media. I never blamed them for not knowing enough because I finally began to understand how news travelled around the world. All my classes in Cap highlighted these issues of misrepresentation and power politics in one way or another.Whose voice is heard? and whose voice is suppressed?. It is because of these inequalities in media representation that I decided to try to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown about my country, be it in the realm of social, cultural or political issues. I used every opportunity that came my way, starting from first blog in ASTU class where I shed light on the details of a terrorist attack in a city of Pakistan, to class discussions about cultural norms regarding female education and social trends in Pakistan.

I tried to do my job as Pakistani student studying abroad. I remember last September, we were asked what it meant to be a ‘Global Citizen’ and I just put down a generic definition, but if asked now  I would like to mould that definition slightly. I have learnt enough in CAP ‘Global Citizens’ stream to be able to say confidently that a ‘Global Citizen’ is a person who is aware of the growing inequalities around the world. He doesn’t give up his national or ethnic identity to be more involved in the global realm but rather tries to act as an unofficial ambassador for his country at an international level. And I believe coming to UBC and representing my country among other international students from around the world I have tried to do justice to my role as a ‘Global Citizen’.

Graphical narratives and comic drawings have long been used as a form of story telling and narratives (Pilikian 2011). For instance, in the olden times the various drawings of the cavemen helped us understand the story of early humans and how people back then used to live. Interestingly enough this method of representation is also used as a tool of resilience and remembrance. In Chippewas of Thames First Nations reserve, “students at Mt. Elgin Industrial School worked day and night in the barn – leaving their names and notes behind to tell their tale” (LFPress). Their drawings of a car or a man, with their names and dates etched below their drawings, bears evidence of their attempts to hold onto their childhood while they worked at the barn day and night. Also the fact that they put down dates and names shows their desire to be remembered.

With the turn of the twenty first century, the use of comics and graphic narratives is growing more and more popular and reflects increasing hybridization of art and culture (Pilikian 2011). A group of researchers at Stanford university formed “The Graphic Narrative Project”, an academic research study conducted to explore the different narratives portrayed through graphic and comic art form. One student Vanessa Chang talked about how such graphic narratives were an effective way to bridge together visual and narrative components of a story. The students wanted to analyze the cultural impact of graphic and comic narratives, because they believed “graphic narratives have the capacity to create novel and highly interactive artworks” (Pilikian 2011). Elaborating more on the usefulness of comic and graphic narratives in storytelling, another student, Shin talked about how “Comics are a really good medium for visual and technological experimentation”. To explain his point, he gave example of Espinosa (an independent comic writer) who avoids using perfect graphics and stylized fonts and images because he wants to leave some room for readers to fill in with their own interpretation, so that it may aid their understanding of the story the way the writer is trying to portray it.

Jared Gardner and David Herman in their study on graphic narratives, also study the different uses of comic and graphic representation and explore their significance in the field of narratives and autobiographies.While previously comic stories were mainly associated with super heroes and fictional stories, they explain how the trend seems to have shifted to address larger issues such as; “autobiography studies, sexuality studies, postcolonial studies” (6). Among other examples they provided for contemporary comic writers who addressed such issues through their art work, was Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Persepolis is a coming of age story of a girl who grew up in Iran during the time of the Islamic revolution. Satrapi beautifully portrays her story through different drawings of characters and places, accompanied by short text descriptions. Once at an interview  with Joshua Bearman was asked about why she chose to tell her story through the use of comics, and whether or not she thought it helped her reach a wider audience. She told him that using comics seems to have helped her reach out to more people “because we are in a culture of images now. People are used to seeing stories that way. They understand looking at pictures” (Satrapi). Reading her response, I found myself agreeing to her statement because as a reader I found it very refreshing to read a story narrated by juxtaposition of images and texts. When reading a picture-less story, yes, there is more room for imagination for you as a reader but sometimes in order to understand a story completely, I think one needs to understand the writer’s interpretation of the situation. Satrapi took care of that issue quite well, as looking at different cartoon characters and sceneries she sketched out, the reader can easily grasp the idea Satrapi is trying to portray.

The role of Persepolis as a comic narrative in bridging the gap between reality and the misleading dominant view most people held of Iran, is a significant one. Bearman asked Satrapi about the role of her book as “Cultural bridge” for addressing issues of misunderstandings regarding life and people in Iran, and whether it would have been better for her to have written the book as a text only narrative? Satrapi told the interviewer how she is more comfortable in expressing herself through the graphic and comic medium. She also explained, how words are more like filters and when they are translated from one language to another, some of the content is lost and that creates room for ambiguity in the narrative. And how the use of pictures is more efficient because it tackles the issue of cultural difference between the writer and the reader, that might be more visible or apparent in words. It is through the exploration of above mentioned sources regarding use of comic and graphic narratives, i hoped would help understand why some people prefer to use comic and graphic form of art to tell their tale.

Works cited

ardner, J., and D. Herman. “Graphic Narratives and Narrative Theory Introduction.” Sub-stance 40.1 (2011): 3-13. Project Muse.Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

Bearman, Joshua. “Marjane Satrapi.” Believermag. N.p., Aug. 2006. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

Pilikian, Armine. “Study of Comic Books Helps Scholars Identify Cultural Trends.” Stanford Humanities. N.p., 1 Dec. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

Historic Barn Etchings Tell Tale of Residential Schools.” Vimeo. LFPress, 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Vol. 1st American. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

At a Tedx talk session at Simon Fraser University, Maggie de Vries, talked about sex work, stigma and law. Maggie de Vries is the author of ‘Missing Sarah; a memoir of loss’, a book she wrote after her sister, Sarah went missing from Vancouver downtown east side. The book comprises of maggie’s experiences of dealing with the grief of loosing her sister, and entreries from Sarah’s journal that provide a first hand insight into Sarah’s troubled life. It is the process of writing this book that helped Maggie understand Sarah better, more than she knew Sarah while she was still alive. Learning about her sister’s struggles, she came to understand the suffering of sex workers and the stigma that we as a society have enforced upon them.

In her Tedx talk session she explains to the audience that sex work lies on the spectrum of limited choice to full choice. She talks about how Sarah was more inclined towards the limited choice section, because just like Sarah (a woman of colour), women from other marginalized groups such as aboriginal or black descent, do not have a lot of options for employment to begin with and society’s continued racial discrimination limit the options available for such women. On the other hand there are people who have full choice and still choose to make a career out of sex work. This links the concept of choice to voluntary action. Here De Vries draws the clear distinction between sex work and sex trafficking, the idea of consent and voluntary action. She explains how sex trafficking involves coercion and trickery, where the victim doesn’t even know what he or she is getting into but in sex work the individuals are fully aware of the implications of their and agree to do it none the less. Confusing the two professions and “treating sex work as if it is the same as sex trafficking both ignores the realities of sex work and endangers those engaged in it” (Ditmore). In her article ‘sex work, trafficking;understanding the difference‘, Melissa Ditmore explains how the conflation between trafficking and sex work law na policy has caused more problems for sex workers than help free people trapped in trafficking. She urges that there is a dire need for policy reform ,driven by logic and rational than emotion,in laws related to sex workers. Our society needs to destigmatize sex workers and treat sex work just as any other job in the service sector. This is what De Vries also mentions in her Tex talk session, that sex workers are not selling their body but rather a service, and their rights need to be acknowledged and safeguarded just as any other worker in the service sector.

Shedding more light on the topic of stigma, de Vries talks about how we use the term prostitute, more often then ‘sex worker’. It may be to induce shame or reinforce the stigma placed on them by us as a society.Women who go into prostitution are perceived as ‘bad women’ (Jiwani and Young,900) and seen as ‘throwaways of society’ (900) who are not worth saving or giving respect. But it is this very mindset that raises the question; how do prostitutes deserve to be treated? Aren’t they all just human beings at the basic level, just like all of us. Why is that we judge them as a good or a bad person based on their work, when we don’t judge ourselves on that scale?

In the talk session, De Vries recalls an incident where she was asked by a sex worker that they need allies, people who will stand with them as they try to decriminalize sex workers and detach the stigma attached with sex work. They have taken the initiative to voice out their side of the story and how they deserve to be treated. One such initiative i came across was the website called ‘Maggie’s, Toronto sex workers action project’, which is an organization run by sex workers to “assist sex workers in our efforts to live and work with safety and dignity” (Maggie’s). This organization has provided a platform for sex workers to come together and advocate for decriminalization of sex workers by creating awareness regarding the realities and implications of their work. They also state that sex trafficking is different from prostitution and how anti-trafficking laws and policies only help to reinforce stigma and leads to further criminalization and police harassment. Because of this conflation of the two fields, the real concern regarding the rights and safety of sex workers is over looked and thus their oppression and struggles continue. This conflation is what De Vries points to as well, by asking her audience, that we as a society need to stand with sex workers and decriminalize and remove stigma we have enforced upon them. Perhaps only then will they be able to feel safe and be able to live as normal members of our society.

Works cited

Jiwani, Yasmin and Young, Mary Lynn. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917. Web. 3. Feb. 2016

Ditmore, Melissa. “Sex Work, Trafficking: Understanding the Difference.” RH Reality Check. N.p., 06 May 2008. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Maggie’s Toronto.” Maggie’s Toronto. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

De Vries, Maggie. “The Red Umbrella — Sex Work, Stigma, & the Law | Maggie De Vries | TEDxSFU.” YouTube. YouTube, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

‘I am not your wife, sister or daughter”, this phrase intrigued me to read the article by Annie Thériault on rape and violence against women. After reading the article, I found my self in a foreign space of mind, because until now regarding rape cases all i read and saw were people using phrases -like ‘what if somebody were to do that to you sister or mother?’ or ‘she must be someone’s wife, sister or daughter’- to guilt trip people into confessing and apologizing their shameless act of rape. But Plath shed light on the  flip side of this phrase. Her words made me ponder how we as women, also aid the false perception, that a female only holds value if in association with a man, whether the relation is of a wife, sister or daughter. It has become a phrase to evoke empathy in the sinner, but now that I read the phrase again from Plath’s perspective, it seems that we have come to terms with our relational and inferior position in this society.

Reading this article reminded me of the documentary; ‘India’s Daughter’, which investigates the rape case of a 23 year old Medicine student, who was raped on a bus by six men, when she was going back home with her male friend.The girl ‘Nirbhaya’s rapists refuse to acknowledge the status of women as as and independent and equal individual of the society, but rather believe that if a woman is worthy of protection she should stay at home and if she roams around outside she is deriving of rape. They provide justifications of their heinous act by saying things like,

“ A decent girl won’t roam around 9’o clock at night”

“Women who go out at night bring trouble for themselves by attracting the attention of molesters. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”.

I would not rant here about how hearing these words makes me feel ashamed of living in the same society as such men but rather stress on the bigger picture here. Nirbhaya’s rapist’s statements also implied that if she was out with her father things would have been different. This statement revises Plath’s argument, that it is perceived that a girl’s body is valuable as long as it is in association with a relation to a man, which is acceptable in the eyes of the society.Because as justified by the rapist and his defence lawyer, that in their society, it is not acceptable for the girl to be out with a boy at night. The defence lawyers words fuelled many debates on social media and many women took to the streets to ask for justice and as shown by the picture on the right many women took a step to change the dominant mindset of the patriarchal society that, girls should be asked to come home early.

Another statement by one of the rapist is worth mentioning here-

“Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 percent of girls are good.”

– because it implies that only “decent” or “good” women are worthy of protection. This can be linked back to Yasmin Jiwani’s and Mary Lynn Young’s article ‘Missing and Murdered Women’. In the article Jiwani and Young trace the portrayal of the hegemonic media which casts the impression that “Mothers,wives and daughters- or traditionally “virtuous” women-are worth saving” (900), where as sex workers and women who are “runaways and throwaways of society are not worth saving”(900). This seems to be the mindset of Nirbhaya’s rapists who said in the documentary, that if women are not “good” men have a right to “teach them a lesson” by raping them. Amanda Taub in her article “She should just be silent”: the real roots of India’s rape culture” explains how the rapist’s words reflect the opinion of the dominant men in some conservative societies, who think actions carried out by women such as “dating, delaying marriage, pursuing careers” are unacceptable and make them “deserving” of rape.

It is partially the media and partly us who have reduced the status of women to something that is  inferior to a man. The thought process that virtuous women deserve to be saved, enforced primarily by the media and secondarily by people in our society, seems to be embedded in the corrupted minds of our society.Hence the use of such relationships to guilt trip rapists into confession. But what we fail to understand and ultimately teach the rapists is that a woman should not be raped because she is someone’s mother, sister or daughter but because she is a person, whether good or bad like the good or bad men out there, she is also a “PERSON”.Thériault refers to herself as a “Person” and urges that, this is how our society should perceive women as and how we should teach others that a woman should be valued for who she is, not in relation with a man or as something inferior to a man!

Citations

Jiwani, Yasmin and Young, Mary Lynn. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917. Web. 3. Feb. 2016

Taub, Amanda. “She Should Just Be Silent”: The Real Roots of India’s Rape Culture.” Vox. Vox Media, 05 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

Plath, Sylvia. “I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter.” The Belle Jar. N.p., 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

India’s Daughter. Dir. Leslee Udwin. Berta Film, 2015. DVD.

What you choose to include and omit ultimately determines the success of your memoir.The guest excerpt from ‘The Truth of Memoir by kerry Cohen in The writers digest talks about the different elements that are essential for the writer to consider when writing a family memoir.After reading the except i tried to analyze Fred Wah’s work in diamond grill to understand why he wrote the way he did, and why he chose to include certain specific details about particular events or characters.

According to Cohen, the first and most important element is to ‘know your purpose’; the underlying message in your memoir that you want to convey to your audience. The way Wah portrays his ancestors and family stories provides an insight to the life of Chinese-Canadians. It allows the readers to explore lives of the Wah family as an insider rather as a stranger who judges only based on what he sees. Reading Diamond Grill broadened by understanding about the struggles of Chinese people in Canada and i grew more sensitive to their hardships and how they had to deal with living among people of different race and ethnicities. Wah’s phrase “when you’re not “pure” you just make it up”(waiting for Saskatchewan), summarizes the experiences of people with dual nationalities and their attempts at fitting in with the dominant culture.

Another element mentioned in the excerpt was to ‘write with compassion’; which basically means to respect the past of all the characters in your family memoir, such as your parents and do justice to to their characters. When writing controversial stories about one’s families it can be hard to decide whether to sugar coat and keep pace with family or to feed the naked truth to the readers so they may better understand the message the writer wants to convey. Wah talks about his immediate and extended family in the book, and the intricacy with which he revealed the characters and their relationships is remarkable. He mentioned his great grandfather and how he got married twice and how he used to gamble money which he was supposed to save for his son (Diamond Grill 6).But later in the book he highlights his great grandfather’s caring and humorous side. Such depictions give a realistic touch to the characters and makes it easy for readers to relate to them.

In her article 7 mistakes to avoid when writing your memoir, Joanna Penn advises writers, ‘Do not try to appeal to everyone’. If a writer tries to do that, he will keep on moulding and reshaping his story till it loosed its original message the writer wanted to convey in the first place.Looking at the example of the Diamond Grill, it can be clearly seen that Wah is trying to target a specific audience. The way he introduces his characters is quite random and often not preceded by a proper reference of context, leaving room for doubt among readers. This factor rather goes hand in hand with another great tip by Joe Kita on How to write a memoir, where she advises the writers, ‘don’t begin at the beginning’. She elaborates on the idea of writing in a non-chronological order to make your memoir different from every other memoir on the book shelf. This is exactly what Wah tried to do, which often left me (as a reader) confused, lost as to where is the story headed or what is the writer implying. But i think the beauty of this form of memoir writing lies in the fact that the reader is woven into this mystery web where he tries to figure it out himself and that curiosity to figure it out, to solve that mystery is what keeps the reader glued to the book till he has finished it and finally understood it.

Last but not the least it is worth mentioning Cohen’s third factor ‘prepare for reactions’, because this is where she cautions the writers of the upcoming reactions of their family members, who they have written about. She explains how sometime their reaction can be negative and involves the risk of ruining your relationship with your parents, siblings or spouses, but telling the truth is sometimes more important then living a lie. Telling the truth may result in everything falling apart but atlas you wouldn’t have to hide or lie with your family about your feelings anymore. Or on the other hand understanding your perspective on a shared life event may clear misconceptions and generate a positive feedback in them. Wah was lucky enough to have the support of his family while writing Diamond Grill, but it seems that he understands that their is a line between the private and public that shan’t be crossed. In the acknowledgements for Diamond Grill he notes that the stories mentioned in the book are not all true stories but poses similar to what the family actually experienced, in a hope that he does not offend any of his relatives or other Chinese-Canadians, who have experienced some events better than Wah has.

Looking behind the scenes of the Diamond Grill, helped me figure out answers for most of my questions about his writing style and his way of describing some events in details while leaving out low level details from some memories or events.I hope this helps my peers as well as they go on to explore and figure out the story of behind the Diamond Grill for themselves and understand why Fred Wah included what he did in his family memoir.

 Works Cited

Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill. Edmonton: NeWest, 1996. Print

Cohen, Kerry. “How to Write About Family in a Memoir | WritersDigest.com.” WritersDigest.com. The Writer’s Dig by Brian Klems, 22 Jan. 2015. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

Penn, Joanna. “7 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your Memoir.” The Creative Penn. N.p., 14 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

Kita, Joe. “Great Tips on How to Write Your Memoir.” Readers Digest. N.p., 12 Dec. 2010. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

I watched this video of a man called Antoine Leiris two days ago, and ever since then I can’t stop thinking about it.Attacks in Paris on Friday 13th of November, shook us all to our core and generated a wave of terror that travelled from the people in Paris to all those living in different parts of the world.I think the purpose of war and violence is to create terror. It is our fear, our hatred and our confusion, that these terrorists require in order to have power over us, because it puts us in a weak and vulnerable position where we our too afraid to even trust our friends.

In his video, Antoine Leiris responded to the death of his wife, who was killed in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall, Paris, which has made him a widower and deprived their 17 months old son of a mother’s love and comfort.Antoine addresses the terrorists directly in the video and openly states that,

“So no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. You want it, but to respond to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that made you what you are“.

Even after going through such a grief, he still had the strength to keep calm while referring to those who took away the love of his life away from him. Its easy to say be strong but it is not till you go through such a traumatic loss can you actually appreciate his courage for shooting for this video.In the video, Leiris recognizes and talks about a very important issue, of not hating those who deserve it by all means. He expresses his grief and how this attack has left him devastated and how he lost this round of the game (between the innocent and the oppressor),but he says that he will not stay like this for long. He tells them that he will love and raise his son in such a way that every day his happiness will be an achievement for him and an indication of their failure for them .He understands what others have not yet figured out or maybe our still ignorant, that perhaps, our strength lies in solidarity rather than being divided and doubting every other person we pass on the street.

Reflecting on Leiris’s words I conclude that, it is in these moments of stress and great loss that you can truly test a person and what they are made of. We all ask each other and ourselves what can we do against these terrorists, what difference can we make as a single individual of this larger society. It is in this video that I found the answer for myself; fight violence and terror with peace and patience. It is as simple as that.If we stop and respond to one’s bad deeds with a clear mind and hold our calm and our rationality, it will disturb the other person who just wants to make you suffer because we wont give him what he wants. This video sends a grave message coated with the sort of calm that can be felt before a major storm. If each and every one of us moulds are thinking and adopts Leiris’s perspective we can very well create a storm with our unified love and peace that will change the game and will give us power over those who just want to create havoc by tearing us apart.

Can you imagine going around the world alone? many of you will say yes, but can you imagine going around the world alone, when you’re only fourteen years old? Maiden trip is a documentary of a fourteen year old girl name Laura Dekker who was brave enough to set sail to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to explore the world for her own.

In the documentary Laura tells her story from the very beginning, starting from how she was born and raised on the sea for first two years of life and how ever since then all she has wanted was to go back to the captivating life on   the sea. She goes on by telling her viewers how she and her father had to go through a ten month long period of legal procedures in order for her to gain permission to travel alone at her age without transferring custody from her father. During this period the internet gave her a heard time by referring to her with words such as ” arrogant” or “spoilt” . But she didn’t let any of this bring her down because she didn’t want the typical life of a dutch girl which she described as, “Get money, get a house, get a husband, get a baby, then die”. She wanted much more from life than that and she strived alongside her dad till the court allowed her to set voyage. Also to keep the record legitimate she wasn’t  allowed to take any crew members along with her, so the documentary comprises of videos Laura shot while on the sea reporting about the wind, the weather and how she was doing and her thoughts and feeling while living the dream.Of course it wasn’t all smooth sailing and there were times when the weather conditions were very severe and the tides were not in her favour and she had to  stop shooting and turn off her video camera in order to ensure her survival.

A  teenage girl’s life narrative is so beautifully captured in this documentary that it resonated with millions across the globe and won her documentary the Audience Award at Camden international film festival and SXSW film festival in 2013. Besides the alluring story of Laura Dekker, the way the documentary was captured and represented is also worth mentioning . If you look at the trailer for the documentary which starts with Laura’s deep voice in the background to convey her message shows the use of first person narrative to make a stronger impact on the viewers. Also the type of thriller music used in the trailer intrigues the viewer and keep them plugged to watch it till the end. Moreover there were video clips from Laura’s journey on the sea which again helped give a personal and realistic  element to the documentary to those who were doubtful of the authenticity of her trip and how a little girl could manage herself and her boat alone. I personally recommend you all to watch it because when i watched it made me rethink about all the crazy adventurous things i really wanted to do in life but was too afraid to do just because i thought they were too reckless in the eyes of our society and watching young Laura sailing across dangerous waters, redefined the possible and impossible and instilled a new kind of hope in me. This documentary works to break all stereotypes of gender and age and has set a new path for people with dreams and goals just as wild as Laura Dekker’s.

WORKS CITED

Website Title: Thompson on Hollywood

Article Title: Review: In Documentary ‘Maidentrip,’ Laura Dekker Looks for Paradise in a Sea that Never Ends

Date Accessed: November 09, 2015

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/maidentrip-review-laura-dekker-jillian-schlesinger

http://www.maidentrip.com

Being only a two month old international student in Canada, I have already been swamped in the whirlpool of Canadian politics. Looking at different articles,party policies and tv shows, the name that really caught my attention is; TRUDEAU. Justin Trudeau is the leader of The Liberal party of Canada.Many share the general perception that since his father is Pierre Trudeau( one of the former Prime Ministers of Canada) he would definitely end up gaining power in the political arena. He has always been living in the shadow of his father and since Trudeau decided to pursue a career in politics, people have always compared his actions and ideals to that of his father. And even though he has great respect for the beliefs and ideals of his father, the ground  Trudeau stands on is a little different from that of his father’s and he wants the world to acknowledge it too.

If you go to the Liberal party’s website and read through what Trudeau shares about his life, you will know that he didn’t have everything handed to him on a silver platter.He didn’t have a reserved seat in the parliament house but rather had to work his way up the ladder of struggle,failure and success. His political career started in 2007 in Papineau and he describes it as follows,

“My career as a politician began in a parking lot. A grocery store parking lot, to be precise, directly across the street from a shawarma restaurant and a barbershop.”

He goes on to explain how all that he had back then was a clipboard a pen and a few friends to help him out. He had to go around asking people if they would pay 10$ to sign up for the liberals membership. it wasn’t an actual election campaign but a pre run between different candidates to choose which of them will carry the party’s banner. He elaborates further how he used to roam around the streets of Papineau, would stand at bus and train stations just to talk to people from all walks of life and to convince them that he was the right man for the job. By the time result day rolled over, Trudeau had met most of the people of that town and had had left such a positive impression of his dedication to his work that he ended up wining a majority on the first ballot taking 690 out of 1266 ballot casts. This little insight into his political career shows that he knows the meaning of hard work and perseverance and he knows what it means to gain the trust of the public and how to work for their betterment.As for those who say he is not ready; he has been directly involved in Canadian politics since 2007 and indirectly since his early years through his father’s work and there are some who say he is not experienced enough because he is younger than the other candidates, but I think that trudeau can use this factor of  age to his benefit to connect with the youth of the nation, and convince them to step out to vote for “REAL CHANGE” as the liberals logo says.In his life narrative he talks about how he has been called upon several times to speak at conferences on youth or environmental issues. referring to his interaction with the youth all around the country he said,

“I also began to feel that a generational change was approaching, one that might open up new possibilities.”

Knowing the issues our youth is passionate about, he knows how to empower them so that they  can work to achieve those goals. Trudeau is a man with a growth mindset, he knows that the road he is going down is still under construction and there’s a lot that needs to be done in order to achieve betterment for the country, but he also knows that he is the man for this job because he has seen this country go through hardships and work its way out and he knows that its capable of much more and if given the chance he will make others see it too.

https://www.liberal.ca/meet-justin/

The second installment of our blog post took me to the ‘autobiographies and memoirs’ section of the bookstore, the section I never bothered to visit before. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, in fact it was rather intriguing, going from one book to another, switching from one story to another i lost track of time. I went through almost 6-7 different books until I found the one that caught my attention pretty hard.The cover bore the picture of a girl wearing a veil,beaded headband and her eyes were painted a pretty shade of blue.The girl in the picture was a serene beauty but there was something captivating about her facial expression;blank, emotionless, yet crying for recognition.The title of the book was, ‘PRINCESS: A TRUE STORY OF LIFE BEHIND A VEIL IN SAUDI ARABIA‘.Written by Jean Sasson, the book tells a true story of a Saudi Arabian princess, Sultana who dared to share her story with readers across the globe because she thought it was time the world knew the truth about the life of a princess. The name ‘Sultana’ is used to keep the identity of the princess anonymous because the kind of information she reveals about the life of Arab royals can be considered punishable. The book sheds light on Sultana’s life, how she has every necessity and accessory, be it big mansions, fancy cars,designer clothes, expensive jewelry or even a private jet. If an outsider were to see her life they would say she pretty much had it all, living the dream of every other teenage girl but little did they know that the reality of her life was quite the opposite. It is this misconception that sultana tries to clear up as she tells the readers how her life as a princess involved being ruled by the will of her father at first, and after having an arranged marriage, was made to live on the principles of her husband and sons. Further more she elaborates how she had little or no control over her own life, how her husband married another woman and how she became nothing more than the bearer of his sons and how she just spent her life in a blur behind her floor length veil in an invisible cage that always kept her bounded within herself. Its the issue of gender inequality in Saudi Arabia which is growing worse with time as the law fails to recognize the basic human rights of women such as freedom of speech and freedom of choosing their own life partner and freedom to live their life on their own terms. The Arab society gives all authority to the men and gives them a right to enforce their will on their wives and daughters and if a girl disobeys or rebels against them, as per the law she could be subjected to punishments such as drowning,stoning and isolation to a cell with no windows. After suffering for years sultana finally decided to break free of the “gilded cage” (Amazon book review) she was trapped in and she dared to speak against her rulers because she didn’t want her daughters to go through the same mental trauma she had to go through.

I believe by speaking against the unjust behavior towards women in the modern Arab society, Sultana has raised awareness regarding this ethical issue on a global platform and evoked compassion and a sense of sympathy for girls like her who have no say in their own lives. It is what Gillian Whitlock talks about in her book “we shall bear witness” that how testimonial life narratives can be used to awaken an “ethical awareness” (Whitlock 86) among people regarding those in suffering. Moreover this insight into her life narrative holds the power to motivate other girls who are going through a similar struggle but don’t really know how they can escape it or fight it. I personally admire Sultana’s bravery to initiate the first step towards achieving a more fair, equal and just society for women because it is always the first step that is the hardest and the most difficult one that everyone is reluctant to take, but Sultana did and I can assure you I’m not the only who is truly moved by her story. If you want to read the interesting and compassionate reviews of her readers follow the link below.

Book source:Amazon book review and comments

Gillian whitlock; we shall bear witness

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