December is perhaps one of the most joyful, festive months, and after the year we’ve all had, we could certainly all do with some more joy. It’s time that can be spent with the family or loved ones, or a chance to reflect on what has passed and dream up what has yet to come. It is a season of love, hope and relief. 

With these themes in mind, we have curated our last Rabble Roundup of 2021. Our selections reflect on what we’ve been through this past year, people who have stood up and spoken out, and what is possible when we are hopeful together. 

We’re back with our Rabble Round up and this month we’re sharing our favourite election coverage from one of our favourite Canadian indie publications. 

On the list: the climate crisis, what unions want and why we might want to consider shifting away from national security and towards human safety. 

Check out our roundup here!

Five reasons to ditch anti-terrorism and national security

In this article Anne Dagenais discusses why we must move away from the conversation about national security and towards human safety.

“While the threat to civil liberties has only grown over the last 20 years, recent events have led to renewed concern: the push for the adoption of new domestic terrorism laws in the United States, the expansion of the Terrorist Entities List in Canada, the ever-growing definition of “national security,” and endless increases to the powers and resources of national security agencies,” she says.

“Governments attempt to justify their actions in the name of “security,” but none actually go to the root causes of the violence they purport to address.

“What we need is to shift away from national security — the preservation of the sovereignty and thus the power of the state — towards human safety — the condition of individuals being empowered and free from want and harm.”

A first-time voter’s guide to the 2021 Canadian Election

“As the country heads into a pandemic election, knowing how to vote, where to cast your ballot, and voting safely are more important than ever for first-time voters,” Stephen Wentzell writes in this article.

“The other battle is deciding who to vote for.” 

Rabble.ca’s first-time voter guide covers everything you need to know, from how to vote, voting strategically, and where your vote fits. 

What Canada’s unions want from this election

The Canadian Labour Congress has a plan for a post-pandemic recovery focused on workers. An interview with the president of the CLC, Bea Bruske, discusses how this election will help with that recovery. Listen to it here. 

Climate change on the campaign trail

In this rabble.ca podcast episode, climate and housing activist, and former NDP candidate herself, Diana Yoon talks about how the issue of climate change is playing out in this election. Listen to the podcast episode here.

Leaders’ debate inadequately addresses climate change

“While the climate crisis was featured among the six debate topics, it continues to be presented politically as an issue on its own, rather than something that is intersectional and crucially informs other issues like the economy and health care,” Stephen Wentzell writes in this article.

“The lack of details and specifics on offer last night on the questions on the increasingly hard-to-ignore climate crisis brings into question how, exactly, party leaders will prioritize climate justice in their platforms.”

To know more about how party leaders addressed the climate crisis in the Leaders’ debate, continue reading the rabble.ca article here.

In our roundup this month, we’re sharing content from Rabble that looks at different themes, ideas, and conversations that feminists are engaging in right now. As a feminist, womxn’s entrepreneurship publication, we’re interested in what the feminist movement—and the action resulting from it—looks like at the moment. Here are our top picks for Rabble content that dive into this.

The many burdens of women’s work 

In this interview, Chelsea Nash writes: “Do women benefit in the workplace from assimilating into the male-dominated culture, or from resisting it? Put another way, is it better to focus on the similarities between men and women workers, or to point out gendered differences and vocalize the ways women don’t fit — literally and figuratively — into many non-traditional workplaces?”

These are the questions that biologist and ergonomist Karen Messing tries to answer in her new book, Bent Out of Shape: Shame, Solidarity, and Women’s Bodies at Work, coming out April 5 from Between the Lines.

Investing in a feminist economic recovery

So what is a feminist recovery? 

Through a deep dive into the work of Anjum Sultana, the national director of public policy and strategic communications for YWCA, Maya Bhullar writes about how a feminist recovery plan that is multifaceted and intersectional, focusing on the diverse needs of women, two-spirit, and gender-diverse people, is the starting point of the change the needed to address those who are often marginalized, especially during the global pandemic.

Trudeau is all words and no action on male violence against women

“April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and while there has been plenty of awareness this year, there remains precious little government action on ending the scourge of male violence against women and children, both at home and globally,” Matthew Behrens writes.

Since 1961, over 10,000 women have been victims of femicide in Canada. At the same time, spokespersons for male-dominated institutions like the military and the police are increasingly using the “Trudeau-esque language of acknowledging the failures to end violence against women as the standard response for failing to do anything about it.”

Behrens says it’s easy for men to be applauded for declaring that something must be done to end male violence, but such words ring hollow amidst the dearth of accountability mechanisms and system change required to ensure transformational change.

We’re kicking off the first Rabble Roundup of 2021 with a look at the riots in the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, the Proud Boys, and how the attacks reflect the interconnectedness of white supremacy, racism, and inequality. Here are our top picks that dive deeper into this.

U.S. Capitol riot lays bare ugly realities of racism and inequality

As its title suggests, this Rabble article by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and columnist Denis Moynihan look at the experiences of racialized congressmembers such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortéz and Pramila Jayapal during the riots at the Capitol. It also looks at how “the violent white-supremacist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 put the ugly realities of racism and inequality in this country in stark relief. Taking these on remains the urgent challenge of our time. Trump’s departure from the Oval Office is only the first step.”

Should the Proud Boys be labelled terrorists?

Through the experience of the wrongful arrest and consequent imprisonment and torture of her husband Maher Arar, Monia Mazigh looks at the complexities of defining a person or and organization as a “terrorist.” She talks about the not-so-distant past when the “mere pronouncing of this word signified mobilization for human rights, activism against security certificates, pushback against Bill C-51, and the physical and emotional drain these campaigns meant for me and many activists. When you have been labelled a terrorist, you are usually a Muslim man — and by all legal standards it is one of the worst accusations, if not the worst, to have made against you.”

Nevertheless, Mazigh says she believes that the Proud Boys must be labelled a terrorist group, “Not because I like the labelling, but because it is a matter of simple coherence. Up to now, white-supremacy violence was hidden and protected by mainstream institutions — until it exploded in the world’s face in front of the U.S. Capitol.”

Read her words in rabble.ca on the harm caused by both the word “terrorism” and the act itself, and how we must move from calling out white supremacy to actively condemning it.

NDP wants Proud Boys listed as terrorist, some activists say ‘bad idea’

In the wake of the Washington insurrection, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh suggested the Canadian
government list the far-right group Proud Boys as a terrorist entity. Both Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau and Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole were quick to say Singh’s idea sounded like a
good one. And yet, many activists believe it may not be.

In this rabble.ca article, rabble’s politics reporter Karl Nerenberg looks at the consequences of
listing an entity as terrorist in Canada. This includes the fact that authorities could seize a listed
entity’s property, or they could force the terrorist-listed group to forfeit some or all of its assets.

The Best of Rabble–Curated by LiisBeth

In our roundup this month, we’re sharing content from Rabble that looks at different themes, ideas, and conversations that feminists are engaging in right now. As a feminist, womxn’s entrepreneurship publication, we’re interested in what the feminist movement—and the action resulting from it—looks like at the moment. Here are our top picks for Rabble content that dives into this.

Trudeau’s fake feminist foreign policy targets progressives

As the headline suggests, this Rabble article looks at how the Trudeau government’s broader foreign policy is decidedly non-feminist, and their “feminist” marketing legitimates those policies.

The article looks at how the Liberal government has responded to some key feminist foreign policy issues, including its opposition to negotiate a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, remaining silent on the feminist win in Bolivia, and trying to oust a Nicaraguan government in which women hold half of all cabinet positions and 45 per cent of the legislature.

Building grassroots, decolonial, intersectional feminism

In this episode of Rabble’s Talking Radical Radio podcast, writer and media producer Scott Neigh interviews Angela Marie MacDougall and Jennifer Johnstone, about Women Deliver—an international non-governmental organization focused on gender equality and women’s rights they have cofounded together. We also hear from Rhiannon Bennett, a Musqueam woman and the decolonization and accountability consultant for Feminists Deliver.

Through the podcast, we hear about the work Women Deliver has done, especially during the pandemic. This includes online public education events focused on things like anti-Asian racism, anti-Black racism in Canada, decolonization in the age of reconciliation, and most recently one called Towards Liberation: Beyond 21st Century Capitalism featuring luminaries like Angela Davis, Pam Palmater, Harsha Walia, and Erica Ifill.

‘Take Back the Fight’ should be mandatory reading for young feminists in Canada

In this book review by Vancouver writer and organizer Rayne Fisher-Quann talks about why Nora Loreto’s new book Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age is “a manifesto, a scathing criticism of the status quo, and a call to action for the next generation of feminists all in one.”

Fisher-Quann talks about how Loreto’s book covers everything, and “meticulously examines Canadian feminism’s past, present and future,” creating a blueprint for feminist movements in the modern age.