The radical hope of “One Battle After Another”
Published in Spring Magazine
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another may be the most important American film made this year. I will go on a step further and say it’s the most relevant American film of the 2020s.
Abolishing film censor board is a positive step
Published in New Age
As masses of people engage in discussions on state reform, we must remember that simply changing the individuals in certain roles and positions means changing the managers of the state while keeping the old state apparatus intact. Abolishing the Censor Board has shown that radical steps can be taken
Mass uprising in Bangladesh overthrew a dictatorship. Now what?
Under pressure from the student-worker mass uprising, Sheikh Hasina resigned as Prime Minister of Bangladesh and fled the country mid-day on August 5, 2024. A revolution led by the masses has succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship. But has the revolution been realized?
Students rise and revolt in Bangladesh
Published in Spring Magazine.
Bangladesh is currently witnessing one of the biggest uprisings in the last decade. Thousands of students have been taking to the streets to demand merit-based access to government jobs. This economic demand rapidly turned into a serious political challenge for Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power since 2009 and has become increasingly autocratic in her rule.
Visibilizing labour and visualizing new futures
Published in Spring Magazine.
Moe Pramanick is a Sindhi-Bengali visual artist based in Toronto. I caught up with Moe to discuss the role of art in movements, and the revolutionary art practices that inspire her work.
Scarborough queer artists challenging oppression through art
সাবধান / SHABDHAN (“careful”) is a collaborative artwork by queer Bangladeshi artists L. Akhter and namrata. Part of the Mayworks Festival, the installation and accompanying poem is displayed at the easternmost Scarborough subway station, central to the homes, workplaces, and lives of South Asian migrant and marginalized people. Spring member Sarah Shahid spoke to the artists to understand the context of the art that explores surveillance faced by Bengali communities.
Ontario workers need paid sick days, CERB, and status for all
Entering year three of the pandemic, case counts have exploded, admissions to hospitals are rising, ICUs are filling up and our public services are at their breaking point. Workers are breaking their backs and risking their health to churn out profits and sustain an illusion of “normalcy.”
The COVID-19 Union Wave
Published in Our Times Magazine.
Retail workers are pushing back and organizing their workplaces, led by the women and People of Colour who have long been overrepresented in the industry. A growing wave of union drives across Canada in stores of all kinds — including cannabis dispensaries, coffee shops and bookstores — is creating alternatives to the status quo
Mayworks Festival: Essential arts addressing issues of essential work
Mayworks Festival of Working People & the Arts is a community-based festival offering free, virtual programming throughout the month of May. Spring Magazine caught up with Mayworks’ Executive Director, Carolyne Combs, to talk about the intersections of art and collective organizing and how this year’s festival explores issues of labour and social justice.
Black faculty exposes systemic racism in Canadian higher education
Published in Spring magazine.
In a press conference on Thursday, April 8, Professor Aimé Avolonto, Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies at Glendon College, York University, put forward a detailed allegation of anti-Black racism and harassment against the university and its administration.
Funny Boy, representation and dangers of bourgeois apathy
Deepa Mehta condenses a complicated history of struggle within layers of bourgeois trivialities – a reductive approach to the radical politics underlining the Tamil Eelam liberation movement. Published in Spring Magazine.
Gig workers resist Uber’s push for anti-labour reforms
While UberEats pours money into marketing schemes hiring “woke” celebrities as their ambassadors, they are committing wage theft from their workers in the middle of a global pandemic. Gig workers demanded better earnings, transparency, and respect, but got served an anti-union proposition they never asked for.
Solidarity with India’s farmers
Despite the multiple attacks on communal harmony, workers’ right, freedom of thought, and social equity, Indian people continue to exhibit exceptional resistance against the far-right Modi government. Published in Spring Magazine.
Heather picks a fight: Indigo’s bookstore workers organize
Frustrated with the company’s continued negligence of workers’ safety and refusal to provide decent work, workers at Indigo’s Square One Mall location — its second busiest store in Canada — took action to unionize. Published in Spring Magazine.
Palestinian cinema, resistance, and community at TPFF
Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) programmer Dania Majid talks about Palestinian “national” cinema, resistance, and community. Published in Spring Magazine.
The reasons why we protest: Notes from nationwide Defund the Police call to action
Published in Spring Magazine
The newly urban woman in Mrinal Sen's cinema
A look into female representation in Padatik (1973) and Ek Din Pratidin (1980)