Open The Airports!

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on September 15, 2001, with thw tag line, "Why we cannot submit to fear in the wake of September 11."

by Raywat Deonandan

An obsession with terrorism infects the Western world this week, with no sign of letting up anytime soon. Much saber-rattling ensues, with calls across America for instant retaliation against the Taliban or other groups who might be harbouring Usama bin Laden. The frequent allusions to Pearl Harbor are understandable, but are becoming nauseating in their mounting irrationality. The famous quote about Pearl Habor having “waked a sleeping giant and filled him with resolve” has been paraphrased by every well-meaning American politician struggling to say something important during his few allotted minutes of television time.

As a Canadian, my perspective is more detached and, some would argue, less valid than that of Americans closer to Ground Zero. But as a young professional about to relocate to Washington DC, my opinion takes on a definitive personal resonance flavoured with nervousness and apprehension. And as a man of colour, specifically a man of brown skin and South Asian descent, I grow wary of the inevitable backlash against all things vaguely Arab and all things that are unlike the mainstream American stereotype of white-skinned Christianity.

I therefore couch my arguments with apologetic caveats, betraying my fearful awareness of the violent emotional core that lies within the heart of present American grief and outrage. In Canada, Islamic mosques have suffered gunfire and a Hindu temple has been firebombed. In Australia, Muslim children have been beaten by their Christian compatriots. And in the USA, Muslim shopkeepers have been taunted and abused, and a Sikh cabdriver pulled from his vehicle and assaulted. It cannot be stressed enough that the attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon were perpetrated for political purpose by individuals who use religion as an afterthought of rationalization. But the American psyche, born of Revolution, requires a nation or a people on which to heap retribution. Hence all brown-skinned people are now at risk.

Much of the rhetoric being put forward by American leaders, consumed with fervour by the American public, concerns a “war on terrorism” that will result in the elimination of such activities from the world stage. Let us be clear: terrorism has existed for centuries, and will never go away. American military action can be applied to bring bin Laden to justice and to eliminate the machinery of his organization. It cannot remove the philosophical core from which suicide bombings originate.

That core exists because of the marginalisation of communities around the world. Whether or not that marginalisation resulted from the policies of the USA and its allies is irrelevant; the populations of such communities will always identify the world’s biggest power brokers as being the indirect cause of their distress. To truly minimize terrorism in coming years, our attention should be applied to areas outside of military action and security. Yes, the present generation of fanatics are probably beyond the call of rational negotiation. Hence, their machinery to make war against innocent targets must be excised without hesitation. But a long-term solution can only be achieved through more compassionate and responsible policies with regard to Western influence in potentially unstable regions, lest we continue to generate future generations of suicide bombers.

As I write this, I await confirmation from my new employers in DC that I’m still on schedule to begin working there on October 1st. Unfortunately, Reagan National Airport, the central airport of the city, remains closed. There is grumbling that they may never re-open it, due to its proximity to both the Pentagon and the White House. The airport was one of the city’s selling points to me, as it represents an easy way to back to Toronto quickly and with minimal fuss. I’m frustrated that this wave of paranoia may result in the airport’s closing, as this will in no way make the city safer. Let’s face it, if a lunatic is truly intent on destroying the White House, all he needs do is load up an ultra-light with TNT, launch it from his front lawn and crash it into the building –no hijacking necessary. The closing of airports just feeds the growing sentiment of reactionism, racism and anger, and plays directly into the hands of those who wish us nothing but terror.

The Smoking Debate

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on August 20, 2001, with the tag line, "No-smoking laws might be reasonable, or they might be the product of blind ideology." It was later reproduced on Dooney's Cafe in December of 2001.

by Raywat Deonandan

Many North American cities, including Toronto, have adopted a universal no-smoking policy in all public places. The debate thus ensues between public health enthusiasts and those who would use totalitarian allusions to characterize the imposition, major newspapers and civil liberties activists among them.

As an epidemiologist, I feel my position to be based as much on hard data as on ideology: cigarette smoke is a health hazard that cannot be contained in a public eating venue. All citizens, the public health platform goes, have the right to a healthy environment, and smoking violates that right for both smokers and non-smokers alike. Whether my insistence is founded upon a sincere belief in the health statistics, blind loyalty to my profession, a personal dislike of second-hand smoke or indeed upon a misguided sense of totalitarian liberal ideology is admittedly uncertain.

Perhaps an over-familiarity with lung cancer rates and other tobacco-mediated disorders compels me to accept an Orwellian government intrusion where one is not necessitated. In a society rife with rumours of conspiracy, both governmental and corporate, there is a natural fear of both the powers of tobacco lobbyists and of the Machiavellian designs of an overly paternal state. The balance to be struck is often determined by one's profession and by anecdotal personal experience. As a member of a health-based profession, then, am I blinded to the dangers of restricting an otherwise legal substance?

The opposing argument has tended to be one of practicality pitted against this perceived policy of "liberal ideology gone mad." The financial plight of the poor restaurateur, forced into receivership by the absence of cash-dispensing smokers, is the favourite example oft quoted. Furthermore, there is no doubt that tobacco represents a major economic foundation of Ontario: its farmers dominate the southwestern agricultural belt; its marketers provide substantial remuneration to other industries via advertising and sponsorship, and its taxation pays for many important social pillars, such as education and even health care. Such an argument is further spiced with an abhorrence of any government control over our bodies, and a subsequent indignance over draconian measures to control the usage of any legal substance.

"If it's a legally sanctioned product," the detractors contend, "why can't we use it publicly? And why must the government insist on protecting us from ourselves?”

As a society, however, we have accepted that it's possible to legitimize the manufacture, sale and use of a substance, yet restrict its pattern of use. Codeine is an accepted pain killer, for example, yet it is an actionable offence to operate certain machinery while under the drug's influence. Alcohol is an obvious example, advertised ad nauseam but sold only to adults at licenced venues. And a slew of prescription drugs are legally and socially acceptable, but require a doctor's note to obtain.

Why should tobacco incite such passion and, dare I say it, vitriol? A clichéd answer is that the tobacco industry has subtly influenced us into believing the cigarette to be a lifestyle choice, maybe even a personal declaration of independence from the external authority that now attempts to eliminate it. Indeed, a corollary to the anti-control argument is a refusal to let the bureaucratic machine dictate the internal goings-on of our bodies.

But the government already exercises subtle control over our bodies, and we, as a society, applaud that control. It is illegal, for example, to inject heroin into our veins, to commit suicide and to sell our internal organs. Few would argue that these laws are without merit. A civil liberties argument against the smoking ban is therefore purist ideology, not necessarily born of pragmatism. And when disagreements are founded upon elementally conflicting doctrines or ideologies, no amount of arguing or debate will result in reconciliation.

What is needed, then, is hard data. No one, except maybe tobacco lobbyists, can doubt the deleterious effects of cigarette smoke on personal and public health. But any conjecture on the economic or public morale implications of the smoking ban is mere speculation, not founded upon available facts. When passions are incensed by ideological and professional conflict, prudence and science are perhaps not the most emotionally satisfying of solutions.

When My Father Closed His Eyes

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on August 1, 2001, with the tag line, "A young man's father dies after more than two year's battle against leukemia."

by Rodney Porter

Today is August 1, 2001. It is a month since my dad died. He had acute myeloid leukemia for two years and five months. It had been diagnosed as terminal for around six weeks.




Nevin Porter


To me, the greatest tragedy is that he was only 54 years old and regarded his retirement from the Northern Ireland civil service as the light at the end of the tunnel. He never saw it. He was never free of the shackles of his job. He was robbed in one way, much like I sometimes feel I was robbed of a father.

Finally, things are falling back into a routine again and life is starting to gain a sense of normality. But it will never be the same for anyone in my family.

I feel like I’ve joined an exclusive club, membership gained only by having a dead parent. Much like when I got divorced, I developed a circle of male friends who were also separated and divorced. We could share secrets, feelings and thoughts that we knew no one else could ever understand.

What do you say to someone whose parent dies of cancer? Sorry to hear about your loss. Never say, “I know how you feel,” unless you really do, and you never will. It is unique in its ugliness.

The journey from when my father was told the cancer was terminal to his death was not unexpected. It resulted in my brother bringing forward his wedding to September. Still, too late. I was the first person my father told since I was living in Canada. I was off work and got the call at 11 a.m. on a Friday morning. After the call, I remember buying a packet of small cigars, a six-pack of beer and a pickaxe. I then dug up my garden and landscaped it. I needed the distraction and a channel for my emotions.

Questions that raged were: How long do you have? What was the point of chemotherapy or radiotherapy? Where is your god now? What will mum do? Do I move back to the UK? None of these questions were answered.

In the weeks that followed, I planned to move back to Northern Ireland temporarily for two months for August and September. Work had made some suggestions and I intended to do off-site work part-time. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Again, these plans never materialized.

Death is something no one can prepare for. No matter how much you expect it, it’s arrival will still shock you. I was house-sitting for a friend in north Toronto when my cell phone rang on Sunday, July 1. It was a nurse calling to tell me that my dad was in hospital.

“Rodney,” said the nurse, “I’m calling from the Royal Victoria Hospital. Your dad was brought in to us last night. It’s quite serious.”

“Should I come home?” was my instant response. I remember hoping the answer would be no.

“Yes, you should,” was her reply. “Would you like to speak to your mum?”

July 1 is Canada Day. And it was a Sunday morning. Buying a ticket was a daunting mission. I got friends to help me, to call around and just find a ticket agent who was open. I eventually got hold of United Airlines who could fly me out on a 3 p.m. flight that day via Chicago and London. The ticket was $2,000, but the cost was immaterial.

Sometimes concerns about other things fall into perspective.

Like my father’s comment about derogatory remarks we had made about fat people. He turned to us and, with a frown, said he give anything to be overweight. Being so frail and thin was an outer sign of the toll of the cancer. When he was once charged a pensioner’s rate for a haircut, my 54-year-old father, a former giant of a man, realized he had been reduced to looking like a tired old man because of the cancer treatment. It hurt him along with the stares he felt people gave him.

After I booked my flight, just after 11:30 EST the phone rang. My brother’s weeping was all I needed to hear as he uttered the words, “Daddy’s closed his eyes.” I didn’t cry outwardly. My tears would come later. After I got home then I could cry. It struck hard at my chest, and then I felt numb as I waited for the taxi to the airport.

The next morning I waited for my brother to pick me up at the airport in Belfast. On the flight home I remembered every aspect of my dad’s life. He was a good man, but also a human being. He had faults, weaknesses, and a bad side just like the rest of us. But most of all, I remember the last time I saw him. It was in April when I last hugged him goodbye at the airport and we said that we loved each other.

I believe he knew he was dying even then and that he had an idea of how long he had. I believe he chose to hide it deliberately. He wanted things to be normal. He didn’t want anyone to pity him, or to change their lives because of him.

The week of the funeral was a blur. Shoveling the dirt into the grave symbolized the end. My dad was dead. His life was finally over. It was then that I understood what my mum meant when she said that it felt like he was still in the house when the open casket sat in the living room.

My mother loaned me his diaries, which were so private, and confidential that reading them was difficult. It was evident from reading the diaries that my father’s Christian faith had remained constant throughout his illness. He even talked about having testified when the medical students came to examine him, poking and prodding at the living disease they wished to study.

What would I give up or sacrifice to bring him back? Anything and nothing both come to mind. While I would love to have him back, I would not wish cancer on anyone. I also believe that he was ready. He knew that death imminent and he had accepted this.

Someone once said I was being brave. No, I am not. Quite the opposite. My approach is much like my father’s view of life. I am pragmatic and realistic. I do not have a brave face, I just have an honest one.

A lot of people think my attitude is one of denial. Yes, it hurts. I miss my father a lot but I know that he will never leave me nor forsake me. He was a big man in many ways and he was generous in sharing his life with us.

I used to read about the latest drug treatments. I used to talk with his doctors about cancer, its causes and how he was progressing. But I stopped because it did no good. It got to the point where acute myeloid leukemia was becoming bigger than my father.

Quite simply, I wanted to enjoy my dad while I still had him. When I called home each day we seldom mentioned the cancer. It bored him and it was not the leukemia I was interested in but the man. He had fought so hard. And now there was nothing left to fight for. So I adopted his approach. His condition was openly acknowledged with his numerous weekly trips up to the clinic at the hospital for transfusions and check-ups.

How did he actually die? How do you die of leukemia? On his death certificate the cause of death is listed as acute myeloid leukemia and haematemesis.

On the Saturday before he died my mum tells me he was disconcerted. At one time in the day he turned to her and said, “Does Rodney know that Matthew is home?” I live in Toronto; my brother, Matthew, still lives at home.

He was confused, most likely due to a brain hemorrhage.

His confusion worsened. Later, on Saturday night, he neither knew where he was nor what he was saying. Even now, one month later, it makes me close my eyes in sorrow as I think of this chain of events. He vomited blood then slipped out of the bed, banging his head on the nightstand. An ambulance was called. He threw up more blood on the way to the hospital. He died on Sunday, July 1 at 3.35 p.m. in hospital surrounded by his wife, his son and daughter.

I wish I could have been there. But what use would that have been? My last physical memory is not of a sick man with sores, fighting for his last breath. Instead, it is of a man who drove me to the airport in Belfast, hugged me, told me he loved me and waved farewell. Later I learnt he was depressed after I left and confided in my mother, “I never knew how close I was to Rodney.”

Even my last phone call was normal. We talked of my life in Toronto, my brother’s upcoming wedding and about the best way to rid a lawn of overgrown cherry trees.

Do not remember the leukemia. Nor the pain. Or the sheer misery it caused both my father and my family. Rather, remember the man who was quite simply my dad.



Rodney Porter is an accomplished medical journalist and the Editor of The Ontario Fire Service Messenger. His personal website can be found at www.rodneyporter.com

To Heck With Moon Rocks, There's Luke Skywalker

A longer version of this article was published in the original Podium magazine on July 13, 2001, with the tag line, "How the entertainment industry has diluted history and learning", and reproduced on Dooney's Cafe in December of 2001. This shorter version was published in The Ottawa Citizen newspaper on May 19, 2002.

by Raywat Deonandan

Description of article's appearance in The Ottawa Citizen:

Subhead: Cousteau is gone. Sagan is gone. We've reached the 'end of science.' What's a PhD to do these days?

Image: portrait of Stephen Hawking.

Caption: The Thinker: British physicist Stephen Hawking, who hit the best-seller lists with his book A Brief History of Time and has even portrayed himself on an episode of The Simpsons, is the last of the popular scientists.

A recent trip to the Smithsonian reminded me of the glories to which museums can aspire. The Smithsonian truly is a wonder. Its very existence, its free admission and its crowdedness are heartwarming. That so many people would visit a museum warmly reminds me that science, history and learning are still valued in the world.

However, a disturbing observation shook me from my self-satisfied reverie, filling me once more with concern for our society's long-term educational wherewithal.

The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum boasts many treasures, including mock-ups of lunar landers and space shuttles, and the original Spirit of St. Louis, preserved decades after Lindbergh's death.

Providing a nucleus around which papier-mache models and space-suited mannequins seemed to orbit was an actual moon rock, brought to Earth by one of the Apollo missions of the early 1970s. Apollo moon rocks are rare enough, but this one was special: It was exposed to the air and made available for visitors to touch, caress and poeticize. This was an incredible sight: one of humanity's priceless artifacts presented for all to see and feel. It represented a culmination of millennia of human dreams: We can all now touch the moon.

Most Apollo moon rocks remain sealed in depressurized units filled with inert gases. That this one was exposed to the Washington air and to the touch of the people was indicative of the democratic tradition, and its resulting affluence, which made the Apollo missions possible.

Yet no one seemed to care.

The line-ups for the model aircraft were quite long. The dense clusters of people occupied with mannequins and hand-drawn lunar landscapes were loud and engaged. But I remained alone with an actual moon rock for half an hour, frustratingly cognizant of its glowing veracity in this menagerie of fraudulence.

Of course, a rock is not as much fun as something that looks like a big toy. It is children's duty to seek multicolored things upon which they can climb. But the inability of an entire generation of adults to appreciate the intrinsic value and enormous financial cost of that one rock was saddening.

I fear this is a reflection of the West's growing obsession with the theatrical in place of the demonstrable. As we increasingly glorify actors and entertainers more so than thinkers and leaders, we are drawn more to renditions of history than to history itself.

We are a society that learns its history from Hollywood versions of events rather than from factual accounts. In a given week of A&E Biography, one learns the life stories of four contemporary entertainers and one truly historical figure. Prior to the current war, entertainers would often equal or surpass actual analysts on political talk shows.

In an episode of The Simpsons, a science-fiction convention brings out characters from Star Wars, The X-Files and Star Trek, and one real-life astronaut, Neil Armstrong. Guess whose exhibit is the least popular? "People," Armstrong's publicist shouts, "this man has actually been to outer space!" But no one cares because Mark Hamill is waving his fake light saber.

If a major motion picture were made about the Apollo 11 moon landing, the actor who plays Neil Armstrong would draw a bigger crowd than would Neil Armstrong himself.

The forces of entertainment have done a splendid job of popularizing some historical and scientific events that would otherwise be difficult to make meaningful to a distrustful generation struggling to see the relevance of much of the orthodoxy. But those same forces now threaten to usurp the truth, and to draw the communal imagination away from the glories of the real thing.

The Theatre of Learning

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on July 13, 2001, with the tag line, "How the entertainment industry has diluted history and learning." It was later re-published on Dooney's Cafe in December of 2001. A shorter version was later published in The Ottawa Citizen under the title, "To heck with moon rocks, there's Luke Skywalker", on May 19, 2002.

by Raywat Deonandan

A recent trip to Washington's fabled Smithsonian Institute reminded me of the glories to which museums can aspire. While I am a diehard supporter and lifetime member of Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM would fit nicely into a tiny corner of the Smithsonian, and could never challenge the larger institution's scope, content or legacy. The Smithsonian truly is a wonder of the modern world. Its very existence, price of admission (free!) and its crowdedness are heartwarming. That so many people would visit a museum warmly reminds me that science, history and learning are still valued in the world.

However, a rather disturbing observation shook me from my self-satisfied hopeful reverie, and I was once more filled with concern for our society's long-term educational wherewithal.

The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum boasts a great many treasures, including mock-ups of lunar landers and space shuttles, and the original Spirit of St. Louis, preserved decades after Lindbergh's death. Providing a nucleus about which papier-mache models and space-suited mannequins seemed to orbit was an actual moon rock brought back to Earth by one of the Apollo missions of the early 1970's. Apollo moon rocks are rare enough, but this one was quite special: it was exposed to the air and made available for any visitor to touch, caress, poeticize or otherwise inspect. Armed guards accompanied the rock, of course. But this was still an incredible sight: one of humanity's priceless artifacts presented for all to see and feel. It represented a culmination of millenia of human dreams... we can all now touch the moon.

Most Apollo moon rocks remain sealed in depressurized units filled with inert gases. That this one was exposed to the Washington air --to allow taxpayers to experience some of the glory of their space program-- was in some ways indicative of the democratic tradition whose resulting affluence made the Apollo missions affordable in the first place. Yet no one seemed to care. The line-ups for the papier-mache models were quite long. The dense bursts of people occupied with space-suited mannequins and hand-drawn lunar landscapes were loud and engaged. But I remained alone with an actual moon rock for half an hour or more, all the time frustratingly cognizant of its glowing veracity in this menagerie of fraudulence.

I am aware, of course, that a rock is not as much fun as something that looks like a big toy. My annoyance is not with the children, for it is their duty to be drawn to multicoloured things upon which they can climb. But the inability of an entire generation of adults to appreciate both the intrinsic value and enormous financial cost of that one rock was saddening.

I do not pretend that this is a uniquely American tendency. I fear it is a reflection of the entire Western world's growing obsession with the theatrical in place of the demonstrable. As we increasingly glorify actors and entertainers moreso than thinkers and leaders, it is no wonder we are drawn more to renditions of history than to history itself.

We are a society that learns its history from Hollywood versions of events rather than from factual accounts. In a given week of A&E biography episodes, one is treated to the life stories of four contemporary entertainers and only one truly historical figure. Prior to the present state of war, the number of entertainers on political talk shows would often equal or surpass the number of actual analysts.

My own memories of history, it seems, are anchored and contextualized by entertainment events. I am reminded of an episode of The Simpsons in which a science-fiction convention brings out characters from Star Wars, The X-Files and Star Trek and one real-life astronaut, Neil Armstrong. Guess whose exhibit was the least popular? "People," Armstrong's publicist shouted, "this man has actually been to outer space!" But no one cared because Mark Hamill was waving his fake light-sabre.

I have no doubt that if a major motion picture were made about the Apollo 11 moon landing, the actor who plays Neil Armstrong would draw a bigger crowd than would Neil Armstrong himself. Indeed, maybe the Smithsonian should have had Armstrong himself available for close-up inspection, and sent the moon rock back to the scientists who could truly appreciate it.

The forces of entertainment have done a splendid job of popularizing some historical and scientific events that would otherwise be difficult to make meaningful to a distrustful generation struggling to see the relevance of much of the orthodoxy. But those same forces now threaten to usurp the truth, and to draw the communal imagination away from the glories of the real thing.

Eminem's Brilliance

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on April 18, 2001, with the tag line, "The white rapper seems to be rewarded for being offensive."

by Thayne Ross Rigby


The supporters of white rapper Eminem have now gone so far as to suggest that he is brilliant. I suppose that they are referring to his brilliant "talent" for rhyme and rhythm. He is especially skilled in the lyrically demanding genre of poetic misogynistic homophobia. I'll give him that. But that's not all. The controversy surrounding Eminem has brilliantly proven the illegitimacy of hate crimes legislation, as well. (And you thought he was just some punk rapper with a bad attitude and a habit of flipping the bird.)

Hate crimes legislation is quite simply an attempt to base the sentencing of lawbreakers on evidence that can never be fully obtained. Or, in other words, to punish criminals based not just upon the severity of one's crime, but on the supposition of one's motive. Even after gathering as much anecdotal and circumstantial evidence as is available, even if we are told by the perpetrator himself what the motive was, we are still left with a decision: to either believe what he says or reject it; to believe what the evidence points to or not. We can never definitively "know" what the true motive was at that time the crime was committed.

Enter the beautiful and talented Eminem. No one questions whether his message is filled with hate and anger. There is no ambiguity in his lyrics. He raps of rape. He raps of murder. He raps of all manner of violence and assault and death and destruction. And his favorite targets are women (including his own mother and wife) and, lest we forget, gays. So why is Eminem not the poster boy for federal hate crimes legislation? If ever there was proof that hate exists, and that it is marketable to the masses if packaged correctly, it is the startling success of Eminem's album, The Mis-Education of Marshall Mathers, which has sold more than a million copies so far. But instead of furthering the cause of hate crimes legislation, the controversy wrought by Eminem's album has instead shown the impotence of such legislation.

At the recent Grammy award show, Elton John, long-time openly gay musician and activist, first performed with and then held up the hand of Eminem on stage in a twisted, confusing and (for the gay rights activists picketing outside) infuriating show of solidarity. Ironically, many were wondering just what Elton John's "motivation" was for interjecting himself into the Eminem saga at all. Was he attempting to protect the artist's first amendment right to think up, write down, and then perform lyrics depicting the beating of innocent people based upon their gender or sexual orientation? If so, I don't remember him raising the hand of Dr. Laura. Her bible-based orthodoxy was universally denounced as evil by the whole of the homosexual community, though she simply articulated age-old biblical teachings and never even hinted at violence or intolerance at all.

Or was Elton John, along with many other Hollywood leftists, showing support for Eminem simply because they think that he doesn't mean it. They believe Eminem when he says that his motivation is not hate. Fame, maybe. Money, certainly. But hate, no. But what of the gay rights picketers outside the show? They don't seem to believe him. Or are they simply against his right to free speech at all, if it means the professing of an uncomplimentary opinion of the homosexual lifestyle?

In the end, though Elton John and his ilk and the gay rights picketers are in total disagreement where Eminem is concerned, both groups can claim intellectual consistency within the bounds of their respective lunacy. For both groups base their support --or lack thereof-- on the supposition of Eminem's "motive". But, through their disagreement, they unwittingly prove the illegitimacy and utter unfeasibility of creating a criminal hierarchy of motivation. If gay rights activists themselves cannot agree whether Eminem is motivated by hate --when he explicitly promotes such in his lyrics, when he involves himself in violent behavior in real life, when all evidence points in that direction-- how can they suggest, with any credibility at all, that such subjectivity and conjecture should be taken into serious consideration during the sentencing of actual crimes? They can't. Thanks to the brilliance of white rapper and moral philosopher, Eminem.


Thayne Rigby is finishing a degree in Political Science & Philosophy at Boise State University, and is considering a career in broadcast journalism.

Guyana

This article was originally published in India Currents Magazine in June of 2001, after a shorter version appeared in The Globe and Mail on March 14, 2001. It was published in the original Podium magazine in June of 2001.

by Raywat Deonandan

"Born in the land of the mighty Roraima
Land of great rivers and far stretching sea "

are words sung in drunken glee by relatives of my parents' generation. The song tells of the land of my birth, Guyana, a place called "back home" by my elders, but which to me had always been merely a source of relatives' funny accents and the occasional bawdy provincial story; a place lost entirely in the immaturity of infantile memory, and remade incompletely through the borrowed memories of others.

The courthouse in Georgetown

But all that changed as I return to Guyana, unexpectedly and unprepared, 31 years after leaving as a baby. "Born in the land where men sought El Dorado/Land of the diamond and bright shining gold," the song goes, boasting of the land's natural wealth, and hinting at the plight of those who had sought it. I return as a recipient of one of Guyana's national arts awards, undeserving because I am heretofore unable to find a connection to the ancestral land, which now honors me. That would change as the assault of sights and scents, and the camaraderie of locals, conspire to force my acknowledging of that buried organic thread of belonging.

Despite the song's promises, I see no gold or diamonds, nor do I find the time to explore the great rivers or far stretching sea. But I do taste the sweetness of Guyana's fruit, remark on the comeliness of her women, the brightness of her tropical sun and the seeming timelessness of her stitch within the fabric of colonial history. This is a place beaten by its history, existing at the rare conflux of a dozen trading nations, yet striving valiantly to pull itself from the status of Third World indigent to modern Caribbean power broker.




Deonandan with former President and living legend Janet Jagan

Guyana is a frequently misplaced and mispronounced nation in the Canadian travel vocabulary. Formerly called British Guiana, it is nestled longitudinally between Brazil and the Caribbean ocean, and horizontally between Venezuela and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guyana). A democracy, she remains the only officially English-speaking country in South America, and one of Canada's most effusive sources of Caribbean emigration.

At the time of Columbus, the region was inhabited by the Arawak and Carib aboriginal tribes whose legacy is the word guiana. It means "land of waters," testament to the region's multitude of waterways streaming to and from the Amazon basin. The three Guyanas of history, Dutch, French and British, were a trading and farming delta operated by European powers for the past two centuries. The land was valuable for its rugged frontier against the rich South American jungle, its navigable river system, its potential for a plantation-style economy, and its position on the shore of the lucrative Caribbean shipping lanes.

When the aboriginal tribes were pushed back into the rainforest, African slaves were brought in to work the sugar plantations. With the transition to British rule in 1786, the labor structure, punctuated by violent slave revolt decades earlier, fell under the auspices of British imperial law. Hence, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire 21 years later led to a critical need for cheap plantation labor. That labor was found via the indentured servitude system wherein subjects of the empire, mostly East Indian and some Chinese, were shipped in to work on a supposedly contractual basis. The colorful songs do not tell of this history. That task is left to the pockets of angry subversive writers scattered throughout the diaspora.

Most historians agree that the British violated the service contracts and refused the indentured laborers their promised passage home. The result was generations of large numbers of people, mostly Indians, stranded in a country to which they never truly intended to emigrate. In the twentieth century, with the dissolution of British rule in favor of a fractious parliamentary system, Guyana remains a nation of essentially two races: African and Indian. This racial duality is a persistent social and political theme, occasionally sinking to riotous violence, and sometimes rising to philosophical elegance, as in the establishment of the multi-racial socialist government of the late President Cheddi Jagan, Guyana's most beloved fallen hero.

Jagan is often called the father of the modern Guyanese nation. His 80-year old widow Janet, also a former President, remains an honored national figure who hearkens to a bygone era of Gandhi/Mandela styled social protest and political sacrifice. Even their 1943 interracial marriage (he was Indian, she a Jew from Illinois) was a daring feat, a template for a coming age.

Despite the Jagans' heroism, Guyana's story in the twentieth century is one of corruption and lost opportunity. As the song describes so proudly, it is a nation rich in mineral and biological wealth, devoid of the population pressures of other developing nations (there are fewer than a million permanent residents). Its rugged beauty inspired the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle who fashioned his 1912 novel "The Lost World" after Guyana's unspoiled jungle primacy, specifically the misty Mount Roraima upon whose Paleolithic peak Conan Doyle envisioned Victorian dinosaur hunters and lost prehistoric tribes.

Guyana's enviable position as an English-speaking literate nation whose expatriate vim offers access to the resources of the West should have propelled Guyana into the role of Southern leader. Yet, the nation has languished economically by virtue of recent dictatorial corruption and mismanagement. High inflation, elevated rates of maternal and child morbidity, increased street crime and official corruption, and residents' poor access to infrastructure the textbook signatures of Third World status have been typical of Guyana up to and including the 1980s.
This was the ominous data I weighed while considering whether to undertake the visit to the land of my birth. I was taken from Guyana at the age of 2, and returned once more for a summer visit 20 years ago. I had joined the great soup of immigrants in Toronto, multicolored, multicultural, and undeniably Canadian. Despite the thickening density of Guyanese expatriates filling the Toronto-New York corridor, I had no conscious desire to return to my motherland.




All the cars have names!

However, my book of short stories titled "Sweet Like Saltwater" ostensibly about the Indo-Caribbean diaspora, surprisingly won the 2000 Guyana Prize for Best First Book. Just like that, I was on my way back to this lonely tropical way station.

The existence of the Guyana Prize is itself a window into the psyche of a nation making great strides to re-position itself as a trade-and tourism-worthy modern democracy. It is one of the English-speaking world's most prestigious literary awards, and the only national book award offered by a Caribbean country other than Cuba.

Though the official literacy rate hovers about 98 percent, the country only produces a handful of books each year. But in many Southern societies, the written word retains both power and prestige, regardless of the official rate of book production and consumption. The literary legacy left to Guyana from its most culturally influential ancestral places India, West Africa and Englandis one that seemingly demands the recognition of communicative excellence, evident in the oratorical skills of local leaders and in the impressive feats of poetic recitation required from schoolchildren. Given the poor rate of domestic book production, due in part to a hobbled publishing industry, it is not surprising that the nation glories in the artistic achievements of its expatriate children. London's Pauline Melville and Fred D' Aguiar of Florida are but two such non-resident writers oft honored in Guyana.

Arriving in the capital city, Georgetown, I am filled with trepidation. One guidebook describes the place as "the second most violent capital city in South America, after Bogota." It further warns: "under no circumstances go out at night, and avoid doing so in the daytime, too." Wariness of violent street crime was the mantra preached to me by friends and relatives, none of whom had been to Georgetown in many years.

But the city is surprisingly pleasant. Nestled against the Atlantic shore, it nonetheless considers itself a Caribbean metropolis, yet its official population of 200,000 would make it merely a large town by North American standards. It was once a colonial gem, still proudly bearing its traditional moniker of "the garden city," though decades of infrastructure neglect have tarnished its floral vigor. Whitewashed wooden buildings with thatched multicolored roofs still provide a fair amount of charm and elegance, and rebuilt roads encourage the recent inundation of American sports cars and utility vehicles. All about, the signs of an economic renaissance abound.

One is struck by a distinct odor that, to me at least, is ubiquitous across all tropical domains: the scent of damp fabrics, unseen fungal growths and hot, wet sea air. Not necessarily unpleasant, it is womb-like in its familiarity. Eager surveillance from the window of a cramped Guyana Airways plane revealed dazzling green arteries of water that pulse with life, giving truth to the aboriginal name for the place. The odor and the greenery seem complementary, and one is made less aware of the urban concrete, and more sensitive to the nearby ocean and strategically planted foliage.

The streets and highways are cluttered with autos, muscular and loud. The car is a symbol of machismo here, and owners have taken to emblazoning their vehicles with personalized names. My driver has named his for the Backstreet Boys, and gestures to the photo of the cover girl on his dashboard: "That's the backstreet girl," he jokes.

Minibuses plow by. Lynn Mangru, a local sitcom actress and my guide for the morning, tells me that the buses are privately owned with fares set by the government. "People choose which bus to ride by the music the driver is playing," she says. I decide that my favorite bus is one named "Sweetness" driven by a sloppy, big-bellied, very un-sweet man. On the bus's back, the driver has written the explanation: "Your sweetness is my weakness."

Crowds of people gather in every public locale in Georgetown. The roars of rancorous Creole, English-based and similar to Jamaican patwa but spiced with elements of French, Dutch, Senegalese, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese, assault the ear in torrents of musical speech, sometimes joyous and sometimes angry the sounds of street commerce common around the world. The Creole of Guyana is a trademark of the place. It was the language of my youth, usually summoned from my subconscious only with the aid of alcohol or family prodding, embarrassing for its foreignness and inapplicability to Canadian life. Here it is refreshingly familiar, heard at last as a living language for an entire people, and not, as the locals would describe it, as simply "poor English."

Teenage boys, both brown and black, strut along the roadways with New York ghetto attitude. Basketball shoes, fake jewelry and hip-hop mannerisms are common. Judging from fashion choices and the plethora of cheap low-quality consumer products, this could be any American inner city except that, alongside these thrusts into the banal continuum of the world economy, there are unmistakable nods to both tropical wherewithal and a recent colonial legacy.

Indeed, while modern autos screech through crowded roads, many side streets are the exclusive domain of horses and horse-drawn vehicles. The preferred mode of transport of many goods, particularly construction materials, appears to be via animal sweat. Time does not allow me a foray into the rural countryside to visit the rice-farming village of my infancy, or to the rugged interior; it would have been interesting to see whether supreme reliance is still made upon beasts of burden for all physical tasks too challenging for mere human muscle. It is quixotically ironic, this superposition of agrarian methods against an urban backdrop of somewhat modern buildings, Western outlook and new American automobiles.

More irony befalls me as I check into the Hotel Tower, supposedly one of Georgetown's top hotels. Half a century ago, my father worked here as a waiter and had alerted the industry minister to the hotel's unfair treatment of workers; the pro-labor socialist sentiment runs strong in Guyanese of his generation, those touched by the crusades of Cheddi and Janet Jagan. Today, after decades of decline, the Hotel Tower has remade itself into a gateway for adventure tourism, offering "romantic" rainforest tours to mostly foreign couples. Indeed, eco-tourism is the buzzword across the nation. Industrial forces are arrayed to parcel off Guyana's pristine jungle ecology in the name of debt reduction, and ventures within the city are positioning themselves to provide the necessary support for such activities.

The city's center is dominated by the clock tower-crowned Stabroek market, a grand old Dutch structure whose contents today can be compared to rural flea markets in Canada. It is probably the oldest building in the country, and an enduring democratic structure in which everyone, rich or poor, shops. Some say it was intended as a railway station for another colony, but ended up in Guyana by accident. Pierre Trudeau once called it a "bizarre bazaar." Whatever the colorful anecdote, the market is a beloved sprawl of simple commercial reciprocity where anything that can be carried by hand is sold.

In addition to the basic supplies and knick-knacks sold here are the fresh produce brought in from farmers outside the city. The fruits are glorious in their ripeness, and I gladly indulge in a wide array of tropical nectars. Tourists are ill-advised to wander about the market unescorted, so I was pleased to find manning some of the vending stalls relatives whom I had never before met in person: an aunt, a great uncle and several cousins.

The place had evolved since my family's exodus, I was informed. No longer the refuge of impoverished rural agrarians desperate to hawk their undervalued goods, it is now a locus for lucrative high commerce. A vegetable stall like that owned by my aunt would be sold for the equivalent of tens of thousands of American dollars.




Deonandan's cousins at Starbroek Market


That night is the televised ceremony for conferring the Guyana Prizes for Literature; my reason for being in the country. Professor David Dabydeen of England takes top honors for his novel "A Harlot's Progress"the trend of rewarding expatriates continues. Harvard student and proud Guyanese native, Paloma Mohamed receives the award for best drama; her rousing patriotic speech would bring the crowd to its feet. While I nervously wait to make my acceptance speech for my Best First Book prize, an elderly woman strikes up a conversation with me about her grandchildren in Canada. It takes a few minutes for me to recognize Janet Jagan, former President and figure of lore. It is surreal to be making disposable small talk with a woman whose name is spoken with quiet reverence in most Guyanese households, my parents' included. I decide that this is indicative of the informality of the place, where grand historical figures are simply citizens on about their business.

It is therefore not surprising that the sitting President of the country, Bharrat Jagdeo, proves eminently approachable. His mind is understandably elsewhere as a national election looms close. But his popularity almost assures a victory for his People's Progressive Party, the political party founded by the Jagans. Government stability is an encouraging sign for sustained development and wealth production.

"My job is to pull government into the background and let creative people run with their innovations," he says, sounding vaguely Ontarian in his politics. He further laments the limited experiences of many visitors to Guyana, wishing more would choose to step beyond Georgetown to see the beauty of the unspoiled interior. "Just a few hours travel and you can meet AmerIndian children who must take canoes to get to school." Again, there is that ubiquitous dichotomy of the modern alongside the pastoral and ancient. His words remind me that despite Guyana's bold forays into aggressive world commerce and the increasing affluence of many of Georgetown's more visible citizens, this is still a country struggling to find its role in the globalized Caribbean milieu.

I recall the growing links between Guyana and Canada: the 1997 flirtation of Saskatechewan's SaskPower with acquiring the Guyanese electrical infrastructure; the public health program offered by the medical school of Kingston's Queen's University to allow their graduates exposure to the truly impoverished in Guyana's interior; and recent rumblings about debt forgiveness and other sorts of aid. Yet, despite its rural poverty and tiny population, this is a nation with, astonishingly, 23 television stations.

"Anyone can put up a TV transmitter from their front porch," says John Mair, a BBC producer who moonlights in Guyana as an election consultant for Mr. Jagdeo, and who also writes a popular political satire column for a national newspaper under the pen name of Bill Cotton. The television medium tends to be so unregulated and unprofessional, Mair says, that "if you watch the Berbice news, you can hear the dogs barking on the broadcaster's front lawn!"

Guyana is a nation much like other Southern countries in this new age, traveling simultaneous paths of spiraling rural poverty and rapid modernization. The vivacity and robustness of Georgetown is promising, though, as is the seeming genuineness of the current government. But one young entrepreneur, the owner of a rice mill, is keeping his enterprise off-line until after the coming election. When asked what difference it makes which party wins, he answers, "I need to know whether they prefer their bribe as a percentage or as a lump sum."

The chorus of that inescapable Guyanese song seems particularly poignant to me then, testament to a people's penchant for adaptation and renewal:

"Onward, upward, may we ever go
Day by day in strength and beauty grow
Till at length we each of us may show
What Guyana's sons and daughters can be."

Home To Guyana

This article was originally published in The Globe & Mail on March 14, 2001. It was published in the original Podium magazine the same day, with the tag line, "After 20 years away, an author returns to Guyana to receive one of her top literary prizes. " A longer version appeared in India Currents Magazine in June of 2001.

After 20 years away, Canadian author RAYWAT DEONANDAN returns to receive one of Guyana's top literary prizes. Despite his reservations, he is surprised by what he learns, about his homeland, and himself

by Raywat Deonandan

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA -- 'Born in the land of the mighty Roraima / Land of great rivers and far stretching sea . . . " are words sung in drunken glee by relatives of my parents' generation. The song tells of the land of my birth, Guyana, a place called "back home" by my elders, but which to me has always been merely a source of relatives' funny accents and the occasional bawdy provincial story -- a place lost entirely in the immaturity of infantile memory, and remade incompletely through the borrowed memories of others.

But that all changes as I return to Guyana, unexpectedly and unprepared, 31 years after leaving as a baby. "Born in the land where men sought El Dorado / Land of the diamond and bright shining gold," the song goes, boasting of the land's natural wealth, and hinting at the plight of those who had sought that wealth. I return as a recipient of one of Guyana's national arts awards, undeserving because I still have no connection to the ancestral land which now honours me. That changes as the assault of sights and scents, and the camaraderie of locals, conspire to force me to acknowledge that buried organic thread of belonging.

Despite the song's promises, I see no gold or diamonds, nor do I find the time to explore the great rivers or far-stretching sea.

But I do taste the sweetness of Guyana's fruit, remark on the comeliness of her women, the brightness of her tropical sun and the seeming timelessness of her stitch within the fabric of colonial history. This is a place beaten by its history, existing at the rare conflux of a dozen trading nations, yet striving to pull itself from the status of Third World indigent to modern Caribbean power broker.

Guyana (pron. guy-anna) is a frequently misplaced and mispronounced nation in the Canadian travel vocabulary. Formerly called British Guiana, it is nestled between Brazil, the Caribbean ocean, Venezuela and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guyana). A democracy, she remains the only officially English-speaking country in South America, and one of Canada's most effusive sources of Caribbean emigration.

Guyana's history parallels most Caribbean nations. At the time of Columbus, the region was inhabited by the Arawak and Carib aboriginal tribes whose legacy is the word guiana. When the aboriginal tribes were pushed back into the rain forest, African slaves were brought in to work the sugar plantations.

The transition to British rule in 1786 and the abolition of slavery in the British empire 21 years later led to indentured servants, mostly East Indian and some Chinese, being shipped in to work on a supposedly contractual basis. Trade, the rationale behind both slavery and indentured service, remains Guyana's mantra.

With the dissolution of British rule in favour of a fractious parliamentary system, Guyana's population consists mostly of two races: African and Indian. This racial duality occasionally sinks to riotous violence, and sometimes rises to philosophical elegance, as in the establishment of the multiracial socialist government of the late President Cheddi Jagan, Guyana's most beloved fallen hero.

Institutes, organizations and even the airport bear Jagan's name. He is often called the father of the modern Guyanese nation. His 80-year-old widow Janet, also a former president, remains an honoured national figure who hearkens to a bygone era of Gandhi/Mandela styled social protest and political sacrifice. Even their 1943 interracial marriage (he was Indian, she a Jew from Illinois) was a daring feat, a template for a coming age.

Despite the Jagans' heroism, Guyana's story in the 20th century is one of corruption and lost opportunity. As the song describes so proudly, it is a nation rich in mineral and biological wealth, devoid of the population pressures of other developing nations (there are fewer than a million permanent residents). Its rugged beauty inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World.

As an English-speaking literate nation whose expatriate vim offers access to the resources of the West, Guyana should have been propelled into the role of Southern leader. Yet the nation has languished economically by virtue of recent dictatorial corruption and mismanagement. High inflation, elevated rates of maternal and child morbidity, increased street crime and official corruption, and residents' poor access to infrastructure -- the textbook signatures of Third World status -- have been typical of Guyana up to and including the 1980s. Corruption is perhaps the most insidious problem. One young entrepreneur, the owner of a rice mill, was keeping his enterprise off-line until after the coming national election. When asked what difference it makes which party wins, he answers, "I need to know whether they prefer their bribe as a percentage or as a lump sum."

This was the ominous data I had weighed while considering whether to undertake the visit to the land of my birth. My family and I emigrated from Guyana when I was two years old, returning once more for a summer visit 20 years ago. I had joined the great soup of immigrants in Toronto, multicoloured, multicultured and undeniably Canadian; I had no conscious desire to return to my motherland.

However, my book of short stories titled Sweet Like Saltwater, ostensibly about the Indo-Caribbean diaspora, surprisingly won the 2000 Guyana Prize for Best First Book. Just like that, I found myself returning to this lonely tropical waystation.

Arriving in the capital city, Georgetown, I am filled with trepidation. One guidebook describes the place as "the second most violent capital city in South America, after Bogota." It further warns: "under no circumstances go out at night, and avoid doing so in the daytime, too." Wariness of violent street crime was the mantra preached to me by friends and relatives in North America, none of whom had been to Georgetown in many years.

But the city is surprisingly pleasant. Nestled against the Atlantic shore, it considers itself a Caribbean metropolis, yet its official population of 200,000 would make it merely a large town by North American standards. It was once a colonial gem, still proudly bearing its traditional monicker of "the garden city," though decades of infrastructure neglect have tarnished its floral vigour. Whitewashed wooden buildings with thatched muticoloured roofs still provide a fair amount of charm and elegance, and rebuilt roads encourage the recent inundation of American sports cars and utility vehicles. All about, the signs of an economic renaissance abound.

When wandering the streets, one is struck by a distinct odour that is ubiquitous across all tropical domains: the scent of damp fabrics, unseen fungal growths and hot, wet sea air. Not necessarily unpleasant, it is womb-like in its familiarity. The odour and the greenery seem complementary, and one is made less aware of the urban concrete, and more sensitive to the nearby ocean and strategically planted foliage.

The streets and highways are cluttered with autos, muscular and loud. The car is a symbol of machismo here, and owners have taken to emblazoning their vehicles with personalized names. My driver has named his for the Backstreet Boys, and gestures to the photo of the covergirl on his dashboard: "That's the backstreet girl," he jokes. Minibuses plow by.

Lynn Mangru, a local sitcom actress and my guide for the morning, tells me that the buses are privately owned with fares set by the government.

"People choose which bus to ride by the music the driver is playing," she says. I decide that my favourite bus is one named "Sweetness" driven by a sloppy, big-bellied, very un-sweet man. On the bus's back, the driver has written the explanation: "Your sweetness is my weakness."

Crowds of people gather in every public locale in Georgetown. The roars of rancorous creole, English-based and similar to Jamaican patois but spiced with elements of French, Dutch, Senegalese, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese, assault the ear in torrents of musical speech, sometimes joyous and sometimes angry. The creole of Guyana was the language of my youth, usually summoned from my subconscious only with the aid of alcohol or family prodding, embarrassing for its foreignness and inapplicability to Canadian life. Here it is refreshingly familiar, heard at last as a living language for an entire people.

Irony befalls me as I check into the Hotel Tower, supposedly one of Georgetown's top hotels. Half a century ago, my father worked here as a waiter and had alerted the industry minister to the hotel's unfair treatment of workers; the pro-labour socialist sentiment runs strong in Guyanese of his generation, those touched by the crusades of Cheddi and Janet Jagan. Today, after decades of decline, the Hotel Tower has remade itself into a gateway for adventure tourism, offering "romantic" rain-forest tours" to mostly foreign couples.

The city's centre is dominated by the clocktower-crowned Stabroek market, a grand old Dutch structure whose contents today can be compared to rural flea markets in Canada. It is probably the oldest building in the country, and an enduring democratic structure in which everyone, rich or poor, shops.

Tourists are ill-advised to wander about the market unescorted, so I was pleased to find, manning some of the vending stalls, relatives whom I had never before met in person: an aunt, a great uncle and several cousins. The place had evolved since my family's exodus, I was informed. No longer the refuge of impoverished rural farmers trying to hawk their goods, it is now a locus for high commerce. A vegetable stall like that owned by my aunt would be sold for the equivalent of tens of thousands of American dollars.

That night is the televised ceremony for conferring the Guyana Prizes for Literature; my reason for being in the country. David Dabydeen of England takes top honours for his novel A Harlot's Progress: the trend of rewarding expatriates continues. While I nervously wait to make my acceptance speech for my Best First Book prize, an elderly woman strikes up an innocent conversation with me about her grandchildren in Canada. It takes a few minutes for me to recognize Janet Jagan, former president and figure of lore. It is surreal to be making disposable small talk with a woman whose name is spoken with quiet reverence in most Guyanese households, my parents' included. I decide that this is indicative of the informality of the place.

It is therefore not surprising that the sitting president of the country, Bharrat Jagdeo, proves eminently approachable. His mind is understandably elsewhere as a national election -- slated for March 19 -- looms close. But his popularity almost assures a victory for his People's Progressive Party, the political party founded by the Jagans. Government stability is an encouraging sign for sustained development and wealth production.

This may explain why, despite its rural poverty and tiny population, this is a nation with, astonishingly, 23 television stations.

"Anyone can put up a TV transmitter from their front porch," says John Mair, a BBC producer who moonlights in Guyana as an election consultant for Jagdeo, and who also writes a popular political satire column for a national newspaper under the pen name of Bill Cotton. The television medium tends to be so unregulated and unprofessional, Mair says, that "if you watch the Berbice news, you can hear the dogs barking on the broadcaster's front lawn!"

The chorus of that inescapable Guyanese folk song seems particularly poignant to me then -- testament to a people's penchant for adaptation and renewal: "Onward, upward, may we ever go / Day by day in strength and beauty grow / Till at length we each of us may show / What Guyana's sons and daughters can be."

When writing Sweet Like Saltwater, it had not been my intent to forge a reconnection with the land of my birth. Yet, by virtue of the travel opportunity wrought by the book, that is what happened. I cannot deny the comfort of finding an entire country of familiarity, a land whose rural and urban scents and ancestral tones resonate with frequencies long buried in my memories. I cannot help but make idle plans for an eventual return, to one day experience the primal forested Guyana beyond the city, to travel even further back in time.

The Future of Bioinformatics

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on Nov 5, 2001, with the tag line, "A biotech presentation explores the role of the new science of bioinformatics." It originally appeared in Bioscan, the newsletter of the Toronto Biotechnology Initiative in the Fall of 1999.

by Raywat Deonandan


Bioinformatics is the science of "understanding living systems through computation," according to Dr. Jamie Cuticchia of the Hospital for Sick Children's supercomputing facility. "But hearing someone talk about it is like being in a car crash. First, you're dazed and confused, then angered, then happy to just get up and walk away." Dr. Cuttichia was the first of two presenters at TBI's first breakfast meeting of the season. He was followed by Dr. Shane Climie of Ocata Proteomics, a nascent company run out of Mount Sinai Hospital.

Both men presented compelling examples of the challenges facing bioinformatics professionals, especially in light of recent and projected explosions in the quantity of biological data available to researchers. "More scientific data will be released this year than has ever been released before in the history of the world," Dr. Cuticchia proclaimed, underlining the preponderant role of information technology in mediating the interplay between data and investigator. He also spoke of how Moore's Law, the electronic paradigm in which transistor evolution constantly outstrips the complexity of society's computational needs, will imminently be violated by astounding increases in available biological data in need of processing.

Ocata Proteomics' focus on proteome structure, referred to by Dr. Climie as "the ultimate realization of the genetic sequence," is a prime example of the type of hurdle faced by the bioinformatician, and indicative of the science's growing role in the $45 billion global pharmaceutical R&D industry.

"Drug discovery IS bioinformatics," confirmed Dr. Cuttichia, showing how his science is critical in three critical phases of pharmaceutical research: target identification through linkage mapping, screening via combinational chemistry, and clinical trials through patient selection.

The true power of bioinformatics is yet to be tapped, as developments in complete genome mapping and in individualized medicine via pharmacogenomics are just around the corner.

Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on Oct 17, 2000, with the tag line, "Deonandan's oft-cited article about the Indian feminist publishing company Kali For Women." A version originally appeared on IndiaStar.Com in January of 1998.

by Raywat Deonandan

Writers in India face hurdles that are almost unknown, or at least more subtle, here in the West. Barriers of sex, class, race, geography, religion and language are flagrant and sometimes officially sanctioned in India. It is no surprise that the well-known subcontinental names are from elite families, from specific ethnic and linguistic groups, British educated, and are most often male. The struggle of publishing in India is to uplift the disadvantaged groups to a position where all voices may be heard.

Still, a writer who is of a lower caste, female and not a Hindi or English speaker, has a difficult time finding a sympathetic publisher.

Into that struggle has arisen Kali For Women, Asia's first feminist publishing company. Founded in 1984 by Ritu Menon and Urvashi Boutalia, and bankrolled by a $100 investment, Kali's first two books set the stage for its favoured themes: one on Asian women and media, and another on the Indian women's movement. Now, the house produces 12 titles a year, evenly distributed between women's studies, general interest nonfiction, fiction, biographies and memoirs and a range of primers, handbooks and monographs for activists.

"Women's work was not being published," co-founder Ritu Menon declared when we met in Kali's New Delhi office. "There was some of it in the social sciences, but little elsewhere. We wanted to cover the totality of writing with a gender perspective."

Today, Kali is well respected as a producer of high quality fiction, historical and academic text. The house has helped to develop names that are now worthy of marquee status in some circles: Gita Sen, in feminist social theory, and Nayantara Sahgal, a popular fiction writer and a member of the Nehru family.

Kali's most successful book thus far, however, has been Vandana Shiva's Staying Alive which is in its 5th edition in India, and in multiple editions in the U.K. and U.S., plus translations into 6 other languages. Kali co-founder Urvashi Boutalia recalled how Shiva had balked at the idea of writing a book.

"She said, 'I'm not a writer, I'm an activist!' and I replied, 'writing is a subversive activity, too, you know.'"

Shiva has since written a book every year for Kali.

The concept of a feminist publisher is a difficult one for mainstream India to digest. Since Kali is also the name of a Hindu goddess, the Delhi office still receives calls from families believing the house to be a religious centre or a marriage registration service. Calls are also received from women believing Kali to be a counselling centre; such callers are distressed, depressed, and sometimes face domestic violence or suicide.

This led to one of Kali's early achievements, The Kali Diary, now famous in development circles, which provides a list of women's organizations, something difficult to find in a society short on organized information.

It is no surprise, then, that Kali benefits from a loyal audience of activist women. However, according to Boutalia, "no book publisher in India knows who their audience is, except for maybe the textbook publishers." This is because India lacks the information infrastructure that facilitates business in the West. There is no systematic survey of Indian book-buying, no reliable market research.

Lacking such hard evidence, the two founders disagree on where in India their major markets lie. But both seem to believe that the so-called "Hindi Belt" of northern states is where most of their books end up, primarily because it is to that population that most of India's media products are directed. Kali is making a conscious effort, however, to publish more writers from less vociferous linguistic groups like Bengali and Tamil.

While the Indian female literacy rate hovers around 40%, Boutalia does not believe this to be the major obstacle to her books' degree of penetration into Indian society. "Physical distribution is the real issue," she said. "In the state of Kerala, the literacy rate is believed to be almost 100%. Yet women there are published the least and are read the least."

There is no question that Indian feminist activism is alive and vocal, but where Western feminist organizations have suffered some degree of derision arising from an inability to coordinate a cohesive vision, the Indian feminist conception is one of a battle fought on several well-defined and separate fronts. In comparing Western to Indian feminism, Menon observed, "the perspectives are different, but the issues are often the same." The Indian feminist issues of current fashion involve the environment and globalization, not surprisingly mirroring trends in development work. Kali books reflect these concerns.

Perusing the shelves of the Kali main office, I catch two titles: Courtyards Of My Childhood, by octagenarian Romola Chatterjee, which tells of Chatterjee's childhood in the British Raj, and assumes to embody "oral tradition in print"; and Hot Death, Cold Soup, an anthology of short stories by Manjula Padmanabhan, which reads as well as any Vikram Seth opus. But Boutalia declares that it's unlikely that the book will make it to North American stores. The penetration of Western markets has never been a priority for Kali.

Award-winning author Moyez Vassanji (The Gunny Sack and The Book of Secrets) once told me that India produces great writers because their oral traditions compel Indians to collect stories in their heads. Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Shyam Selvadurai (Funny Boy) went further to imply that Indians simply write well, perhaps testament to a classical education system. Kali For Women builds on the strengths inherent in the Indian writing tradition and adds a spirit of social urgency. In a nation struggling with political, ecological and economic concerns that dwarf our petty worries, it can be inspiring to hear of such a niche-marketed venture that continues to thrive despite its altruistic motivation.