Being Heard. Art as Activism

by Tricia Dower

Two weeks ago, Colin and I went to a literary reading at UVic. Last Saturday we attended the screening of a documentary at the mental health wing of a hospital. On surface, the two events seemed unrelated but they were both about being heard.

The reading was billed as an authors’ panel “exploring perspectives on race and culture through writing.” Reading from their works were Dr. Larissa Lai, author and postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Ashok Mathur, novelist, critical theorist and Canada Research Chair at Thomson River University. Larissa is thirty-nine and Ashok, forty-five, making them mere kids to me. And sporting funky hair and an orange shirt, Ashok challenges the academic fashion paradigm. He and Larissa represent today’s intelligentsia of writing. Able to send me to the dictionary with words like transliteration, racialization, decolonisation and appropriation. Anti-racist activists resisting the pressure to sell out their heritage in order to gain acceptance by the mainstream. They want the public to have broader access to diverse viewpoints, concerned that our choice of what to read is limited severely by market forces.

They mentioned a few ways around Big Publishing: producing chapbooks, self-publishing on the Internet, seeking out independent publishers. They spoke of refusing compromises that cut too deeply. Ashok told of an offer by Penguin Books that required him to change the name of the dog in his novel The Happy Life of Harry Kumar. The name is evocative of the Indian monkey god Hanuman and essential, he said, to the story’s meaning. We can’t have a dog named Han, Penguin told him. He walked away.

“Ideas shouldn’t be marketed like macaroni and cheese,” said Larissa, whose most recent book, Salt Fish Girl was published by Thomas Allen. Their mission, according to their website, is “to seek out and publish quality literary fiction and non-fiction…by and for Canadians…original voices, fine writing and uncommon ideas.” The independent Arsenal Pulp Press published Ashok's two novels.

Larissa believes fiction writing can be a form of activism. Her comments made me reflect on the relatively few people I reach through literary magazines. Editors, teachers and other writers. Maybe a few librarians. Privileged people with leisure time and a habit of reading fostered since childhood. Those who can pay for magazines and books or find their way around a library. Folks who are probably already aware of the social issues I tend to write about. If I want to reach a broader public, I need different media. Toronto has poems in subway cars —brief ones that can be read between two stops — but I’m not a poet. My good citizen husband picks up trash as we walk along the street. One night he picked up a narrow piece of paper containing the lyrics of a Bob Marley song. Littering? Probably not the way to go.

The documentary we saw was Iraq for Sale, The War Profiteers, a Robert Greenwald film. The message was powerful and I recommend the film. More relevant to this blog, however, is how the filmmakers are getting their message out. Their web site says their films “are both funded and distributed completely outside corporate America. Over 3,000 people donated to make Iraq for Sale, and it is up to you to distribute it. Give copies to co-workers and organize a screening in your neighbourhood.”

They offer a promotional kit for community screenings and an action guide for individuals and community groups. Their site lists the dates and locations of scheduled screenings. It also lists how each US Representative and Senator voted when anti-profiteering bills were introduced (and defeated) and suggests US citizens cast their votes in November accordingly. It’s clear the filmmakers hope to effect grassroots political change through their art.

A lamentation in closing: there weren’t many people at either the reading or the screening. Getting heard with integrity takes time and patience.

Photos: Canadian activists and writers Larissa Lai and Ashok Mathur, shown at different events. (Unfortunately, I neglected to bring my camera to UVic. These pics were — shamefully but with the noblest of intentions — pinched from Ashok’s blog.)