Passage to welfare

>> Julian Samuel claims controversy about his book led to his dismissal at John Abbott By JOHN EDMONDS

Controversy seems to be a recurrent theme in the lives of some people, and Montreal writer Julian Samuel is one of them. Samuel recently contacted the press with accusations that he was unjustly deprived of a teaching position at John Abbott College because his 1995 book, Passage to Lahore, disturbed some members of the faculty.

"Two of them were offended by my book--the parts about fist-fucking and anal bleeding I suppose," Samuel said.

Samuel taught a few film courses at John Abbott in 1997-98, but had little seniority. In the spring of 1998, he became worried that he might have a lean fall ahead, so he applied to teach a photography course. But he became convinced, he says, that some of the staff were opposed to his rehiring, due to their reaction to his book.

So he started making phone calls to Fine Arts co-chair Ernest Tucker and Yassaman Ameri, one of the teachers who he says had it in for him. "With Ernest Tucker, maybe I was a little bit nasty," he said. "But with Ameri I was very polite. I even asked her if she felt bad because I had gotten the fall job instead of her husband, who was also applying for the job."

Gerald Stachrowksi, chief of Administrative Services at John Abbott and the man who decided to cancel Samuel's seniority, told the Mirror that the calls were bordering on abusive.

Samuel also wrote a letter on July 9, 1998, to the head of the hiring committee, saying that Ameri had slandered his reputation as an intellectual, and thus couldn't be relied on to judge his work objectively: "I therefore ask that she be removed from the current hiring committee," he wrote.

"He writes his employer to say that he wants someone removed from his hiring committee," Stachrowski said. "Would you want to hire someone like that?" When contacted by the Mirror, Ameri had no comment on the issue.

Samuel didn't get the job, and has since been unemployed: "I have been reduced to welfare, the grand sum of $394 per month," he said.

His seniority revoked and his union grievance rejected, he then decided to try the courts. His attempts at legal action, which saw noted lawyer Julius Grey take the first steps in a lawsuit against the faculty members for $100,000, were abandoned due to a lack of cash. And so he approached the press.

History repeating

In 1985-86 Samuel taught a graduate seminar in film at Concordia University. Later he applied for a similar position, but was turned down. He then accused Concordia of having a "white-only" hiring policy. Although Concordia's complaint committee agreed that the hiring process in his case had been "faulty," he didn't get the job, which was filled by a teacher with more experience and a better degree. Nor would the Quebec Human Rights Commission support Samuel's claim to be a victim of racism. But the foundation for his reputation as a troublemaker was well laid.

This reputation was perhaps enhanced by Passage to Lahore, (Mercury Press) a post-modern travelogue in which Samuel mixes graphic sexual descriptions with nationalist-baiting statements such as "the Quebecois can just barely hold their head above the ideological swamp of Parti Quebecois manipulations like the French-language-threat-illusion and a half-baked desire for a Quebec outside the federal fold," earning reviews in the Franco-Quebecois press equating the work with hate literature.

At any rate, one member of the John Abbott staff who would say something on the record in his favour was former colleague Ron Hallis, who teaches in the Fine Arts Department.

Said Hallis: "Julian was treated unfairly by the administration at John Abbott. He was a good teacher, and there was never to my knowledge any complaints against him by students. His intensity and ideas were a good influence on them. When this whole thing started he just wasn't able to defend himself effectively. I understand how stressful it is when you have no seniority and are just hanging on by your fingernails." :

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