Last week the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) at U of T helped host the fourth annual “Xpression Against Oppression” week as part of an awareness drive about worldwide oppression. The week’s events included debates, lectures, and panel discussions.
Various campus groups and organizations came together during the week to promote tolerance and understanding among the diverse sectors of the U of T community. They included the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), U of T Hillel, the U of T chapter of the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Organization for Latin American Students (OLAS), Caribbean Connections, the Black Students’ Association (BSA), LGBTOUT and the Hart House Social Justice Committee.
The organizers wanted to bring the impact and consequences of oppression to the forefront. The goal, they said, was to educate the larger community and increase open-mindedness to diversity because, said Lisa Isen-Baumal, director of the U of T chapter of Hillel, “understanding comes from education.”
Part of the challenge of the week was for those who identify with the oppressed to find a way to build and increase international solidarity. It is easy to empathize, said organizers, but the real question is: what active steps can be taken to curb oppression around the world?
The groups involved hoped that by increasing awareness of the subjugation and tyranny that occurs around the world for the student body, there might in future be greater cooperation and integration among the students themselves, and so help prevent the spread of intolerance to future generations.
Not only was the goal of the week to raise awareness of oppression but, through the forums and discussion panels, to find possible ways to combat it. Student interest and participation in these discussions, the groups said, was essential for the success of this event and for the achievement of its main purpose.
The list of issues addressed included anti-Semitism; human rights violations in Sudan, Palestine and the Middle East; slavery; colonialism; political coups; and other injustices.
To highlight the stark reality of oppression and injustice, SAC hosted a lecture with Sophie Harkat, whose husband, Mohamed Harkat, was arrested in Canada with no reasons given, without access to a lawyer, and without many other basic human rights that Canadians take for granted. Other speakers included third-generation refugees and political prisoners.
The fundamental human rights that are taken for granted in many places, organizers reminded The Varsity, are the very same rights that thousands of people worldwide fight for daily. By heightening sensitivity to the plight of the oppressed through initiatives such as Xpression Against Oppression Week, the student groups hoped that U of T’s student body- and maybe the world community would take an active stance against cruelty and brutality and oppression wherever it exists.
