Burqas, hijabs, niqabs, oh my!

Just last week, the National Assembly passed a law banning the niqab from such critical public spaces as universities, government offices, daycares, and hospitals receiving government funding. The support for the ban has been strong throughout Canada, with an 80% approval rating according to a survey conducted by Angus Reid. Criticisms have been sparse, coming primarily from an unsure Muslim community, various lawyers, scattered academics, and select university papers.

Sexquisite Corpses: The shock-and-awe capitalism of BODIES the Exhibition

If there is anything sexier than a naked human body, it’s clearly the skinned and chemically-preserved human body.

Bad Romance: Feminism and women of colour make an unhappy pair

Influenced by seventies empowerment classics, the Spice Girls, and my own experience as a veiled teenager vacillating between homogenous and diverse ethnic communities, the word “Woman” became a defining characteristic of my identity during my middle and high school years. While unaware of all the word’s connotations, I knew from a very young age that to be a woman is beyond breasts, Aunt Flows, and unmentionable monologues. Struggle is inherent to every woman’s life, regardless of her appearance, her location, her age, her past. I believed that to be a woman was not only to experience this struggle, but also to realize it, to embrace it, to fight.

TEDx Talk – Mesmerizing Commute

Because I’m all about self-promotion and glory. Here’s the video of my TEDx talk at McGill University.

“McGill Daily columnist, Sana Saeed, transports us with her powerful writing, proving that the more avenues we create to be public as a society, the more private we become as individuals.”

It’s based on a piece of mine which was published over a year ago.

Multiculturalism is a Sham: The Canadian mosaic trivializes immigrant culture under a façade of respect

In classical Western political theory, the key to state stability has often, if not always, been seen as the maintenance of a homogeneous society. Foundational divisions of any sort create a threat to both the state and the fabric of society. And how was this homogeneity achieved? Primarily through education, as philosopher Ernest Gellner so wonderfully noted. Industrialized societies require strong bureaucratic states and these states must in turn create educational systems, the goal of which is not learning but rather the creation of a perfect citizenry to serve that state materially and ideologically.

Emerging from the Nostalgia of Pakistan’s Past

In March of 1999, I stepped out of the Allama Iqbal International Airport, in Lahore, Pakistan, greeted by long-lost family members and a barrage of young men wanting to carry our luggage to the awaiting cars. While in the clutch of my aunt’s bosom, I quietly asked, “Will we be shot at?” Both amused and concerned, my aunt laughed and asked if I had lost my mind, assuring me that I was perfectly safe, even when the country was in the midst of a war with its neighbour.

How suburban education brainwashes women

Through the 21 years that I’ve seen – unless you take out the first one to two-and-a-half, as they remain a blur – I’ve always kept the male sex at arm’s distance: military arms distance. Rommel would have been proud.

Patrick Part II – the secular fundamentalist

“Fundamentalism” is, in and of itself, a contentious term which has come to take on completely negative connotations extending to all religions. For the sake of argument and brevity, I will adopt the term in its modern construction and with such connotations. Today, we relate zealousness, close-mindedness and religion to the term: a fundamentalist is a religious zealot who has medieval and unwavering ideas regarding religion and its role in society. My problem with this popular understanding of fundamentalism is not with the inclusion of religion, but rather the definition’s exclusiveness. Fundamentalism, as we take it to mean in the popular sense, should not be confined solely to religious zealots.

Patrick, the Ideological Rationalist

Meet Patrick*, a young 22-year-old living and attending school in Alberta. Patrick’s your stereotypical college guy. He’s intelligent, good-looking, well-liked, laid-back, politically active, well-read, and knowledgeable about current affairs. The ladies love him and the guys want to be him. That kind of guy. But behind his bright I-want-to-knock-his-teeth-out kind of smile, there lies a deafening darkness. See, Patrick’s a conservative

The Shifting Discourse on Gaza

A cosmic motherly-sounding voice has always told me that even the darkest of clouds have silver linings. The past two weeks have forced me to now wonder if the same idea of a silver lining applies to clouds of white phosphorous.

In an arbitrary 15 years from now, the past two weeks (and, unfortunately, the remaining time to come) will be remembered with images of disturbing death and injury, reports of complete destruction of an already weakened Gazan infrastructure; thousands of IDPs; an unreachable humanitarian crisis and stories from survivors. Yet there is another memory which may leave an impact on the dynamics of the region and the North American perception on the entire 60-year-old conflict.