An Ignatian meditation on why Artur Rosman was defamed

November 19, 2014 By Justin Tse

The piece is cross-posted as a guest post on Artur Rosman’s Patheos Catholic blog, Cosmos the in Lost. On October 24, 2014, a politically conservative blogger, Stephen Herreid, performed an Internet hit job on my friend and colleague, Dr. Artur Rosman. He might as well have tried to character assassinate Rabelais himself. While taken to task by both Patheos Catholic’s Sam Rocha, the Mitralleuse’s J. Arthur Bloom (as quoted in Herreid’s response), and Rosman himself, Herreid has made no apologies.... Read more

If you are not informed about Vancouver solidarity, don’t comment. #HongKongProtests

September 30, 2014 By Justin Tse

Last night, I attended the solidarity protest at Vancouver’s Chinese Consulate organized by the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movements (VSSDM). It was a historic event, not least because it was held by the organization that led the historic 1989 solidarity protests against the Chinese government’s crackdown on the students at Tiananmen Square. A new Vancouver Sun journalist at the time, Douglas Todd, covered the rise of the movement, including a full-length article on a Lutheran pastor whose name... Read more

It has always been the students – and the clergy — and Catholic social teaching #HongKongProtests

September 29, 2014 By Justin Tse

I’ve been blogging plenty lately about the recent occupation of Hong Kong. As the movement has been mostly led by student protesters, the democratic movement Occupy Central for Love and Peace has even declared that it will put its energy ‘behind’ the students, not trying to vie with them for any sort of power grab. This puts enormous clarity as to what’s going on in Hong Kong. While there have been reports that there is dissension among the leadership, leaders... Read more

The World Is Watching. #OccupyCentral #HongKong

September 28, 2014 By Justin Tse

I once wrote on Facebook that if the government cracks down on nonviolent protesters in Hong Kong, the world would watch. I meant that, of course, to invoke the Tiananmen Beijing Spring of 1989: the Party sent the People’s Liberation Army to clear out Tiananmen Square, and the world watched on CNN. I was quickly corrected. A friend said to me that ‘the world’ really just means the ‘Anglo-American world.’ I have to say that he is correct. I also... Read more

Cascadian Privates and Occupy Central

September 28, 2014 By Justin Tse

I’ve just gotten done with a conference called Christ and Cascadia. Just this morning, Pacific Standard Time, I also received word that in Hong Kong, the democratic movement called Occupy Central with Love and Peace has actually started to physically occupy the Central district. That’s remarkable. It’s remarkable because the confluence of these two things together — one in the Pacific Northwest, the other in Hong Kong — helped me think through one central theme that holds the two places... Read more

Putting Brad Salzberg First

September 18, 2014 By Justin Tse

When I commented in May this year to the South China Morning Post’s Ian Young on Chinese parents and the Vancouver School Board’s transgender policy, I did not expect to receive a racist email. It happened to be my PhD graduation on the day that the story ran. The next day, I was down in San Francisco, attending my sister’s graduation, when an email popped into my inbox from one Brad Salzberg, who touted himself as the BC regional director... Read more

The BCTF, the BC Liberals, and Occupy Central

September 4, 2014 By Justin Tse

On September 2, the BC Liberal government made an astonishing concession about the teachers’ strike held by the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF). Please forgive my Facebook Pirate English settings: For those who have not eyes to see, here is the concession: This week I called the head of the BCTF, Jim Iker, and the lead negotiator for school districts, Peter Cameron, to my office. I mapped out a path to settlement: set aside the grievances associated... Read more

Benny Tai as a political theologian, or what Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig might have to say about Occupy Central #HongKong

September 2, 2014 By Justin Tse

When Hong Kong University law professor Benny Tai gave his speech announcing acts of civil disobedience in Hong Kong, I thought of the work of emerging scholar Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig. I confess that I do multiple things at the same time. On the one hand, readers of this blog know that I’ve been trying as best I can to keep up with Hong Kong’s democratic movement Occupy Central with Love and Peace as best as I can over here in... Read more

EXAM REVIEW: Hong Kong’s Occupy Central with Love and Peace

August 29, 2014 By Justin Tse

Things are heating up over there in Hong Kong over the movement known as Occupy Central with Love and Peace. There’s going to be a rally on August 31 to deliberate over what sorts of acts of civil disobedience the movement will take in response to Beijing’s newly proposed framework for Hong Kong’s electoral reform. This is because while the Occupy Central movement put forward a proposal for Chief Executive candidates to be determined by civil nomination, Beijing has de... Read more

Sam Rocha: Love always comes too late.

August 28, 2014 By Justin Tse

Let me tell you about my friend Sam Rocha. He has a stellar soul/jazz album called Late to Love that has just come out today from Wiseblood Records. This album has been endorsed by pretty much everyone across the board on Patheos. We might as well talk about him. The thing is, Sam is not supposed to be a professional musician. He is a philosopher, a philosopher of education, to be precise. He teaches at my alma mater, the University... Read more