Witen by Kelsey Rideout

Profiling Dr. Keefer’s endless will to enable critical thinking and evoke justice

Dr. Michael Keefer is a professor in the department of English and Theatre Studies. He is also an engaged citizen who spends much of his time publically revealing injustices within the Canadian government and western policies through delivering public lectures, participating in protests and publishing books. His recent talks to students and the Guelph community have focused on the underlying political dimensions of 9/11, the Canadian government’s involvement in Haiti, and the infringement of Palestinian Human Rights in Canada. Dr. Keefer just recently finished writing a book entitled “Anti-Semitism, Real and Imagined: Responsive to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition on Anti-Semitism” which aims to harness a critical understanding of Canada’s history and flawed approach to attaining policies, views and actions that are meant to reflect anti-Semitism.

KR: In what ways do you combine academic experience with activism?

MK: I understand the responsibility of scholars is to do our very best to get the truth out on subjects that are of urgency to Canadians…The basic thing I feel I can do, is to apply the same scholarly tools that I use in writing in editing difficult texts and exploring issues of early modern philosophy … to issues of I think real urgency in contemporary history. University people have a responsibility. We have the luxury of being able to spend our time trying to understand things and I think we need to try to understand what problems we can manage to grapple with that have urgency for our compatriots.

KR: Last week you were a part of the Haiti panel discussion and voiced your opposition in regards to the Western involvement within the country. On Tuesday you talked about “the Attack on Palestinian Human Rights in Canada” for Israeli Apartheid Week. Can you identify any barriers that stand in your way of getting your messages across to the public?

MK:It’s a little bit frustrating to realize the news media (the corporate news media) are not hospitable to important critical perspectives…The news media on the subject of Haiti want to project the image of Canada as a good Samaritan. The image we project is that poor Haiti is lying, beating and battered on the ditch…and we Canadians because we’re binding up their wounds, we are being decent. The unfortunate fact is that this is propaganda, and it’s also a sad falsehood. We plotted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Haiti…I find it really unfortunate that Canadians are not given the truth on these matters. Canadian troops occupied the airport, American troops kidnapped the president, and the French were co-conspirators. Our media are not critically investigating these issues.  One has to be extremely grateful for critical news analysis and commentary on the internet.

KR: What are you ultimately hoping will result from your efforts?

MK:In regards to the book, what I’m hoping is that the analytical work I’ve done will help Canadian Parliamentarians understand the issue more clearly, to understand the ways in which and the degrees in which anti-Semitism remains a problem… It will enable them to approach the issue and not be panicked…because the evidence is quite clear.

KR: What would you say to a tired university student who is beginning to feel that academia cannot lead to any real form of change?

MK: A great literary thinker …said that the university is the place, the workshop, where the real stuff is being done. He contrasted that to the ivory tower of the business world. I think we need to remind ourselves that change comes about through understanding, and that’s what we’re involved with – whether it’s legal scholars at work, historians at work, agronomists at work, economists – people are in different ways trying to arrive at a fence of what the truths are, and to disseminate that understanding. Part of the problem with being a university student, and I accept partial blame for this, is that we have a structure here that we’re demanding you to perform this task and another task and not encouraging or permitting you to raise your hands enough… for you to say here are the large critical perspectives, here are the large social issues, and here’s what’s facing the community that we belong to.

KR: How can the university system transform ambivalent attitudes into action, concern and compassion?

By and large, and I say this with sorrow, the people who are in universities are those who already enjoy a degree of privilege that many of their contemporaries don’t. There are lots of people who have the capacity to be among us and who don’t have the resources…I think perhaps even if we are racking up debt in university we are still privileged….Of course, what one of the things I really strongly object to is the degree to which our system pushes people into doing part-time work. Many university students are in effect doing good jobs, in order to eat and pay their rent… and that contributes to or takes away from students, and their capacity and freedom to engage in critical reflection. In terms of motivating people…if we stand back and look at where we are, we should be seriously alarmed, by you name it – peak oil, economic collapse, ecological collapse, the issues of climate change and so on.  People may not want to think about issues like that, and part of what universities are there for is to say, ‘no, we have to think about these things’. We cannot afford the luxury of ignorance. We need to engage, develop an understanding, and capacity of critical engagement with these subjects.