Regina: Saima Desai
Photo by Aidan Morgan. Introduction by Cat Haines.
Saima Desai is a person who intimately understands the power of her voice, of her body, and of her platform; and she is strategic and seemingly fearless in her deployment and use of these tools. As Editrix of Briarpatch Magazine, Saima has surrounded herself with some of the most important perspectives from across Canada, often bringing a voice and giving space to issues and authors that might otherwise not have a platform. And this is part of Saima’s secret, of why she is so successful in everything she does, she has managed to surround herself with diverse and often marginalized voices, and through her tireless efforts to give these voices a space, to raise them up, she has created a network and community to be marveled at. Whether she is pounding the pavement and collecting signatures for Fight for 15 Saskatchewan, standing down traffic at a blockade in support for Wet’suwet’en, or handling an action’s media relations, Saima’s support is material, tangible, and often critical to the actions and movements she’s involved with. Saima is a born leader, more than willing to step up when needed, and step back and listen when appropriate. And what is perhaps most beautiful about Saima, is that through all her many varied roles, she is a generous teacher and an exemplary role model. Saima is a gift to Regina and the prairies, a necessary wind of change, and someone to look to in these trying times.
KC: What kinds of projects are you involved in right now?
I really put my back – and my heart – into my day job, so I don’t take on a lot of other sustained projects.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been helping with Wet’suwet’en solidarity organizing in town – there have been three demonstrations where we blocked the Albert St. bridge, a teach-in at Andrew Scheer’s office, and a student walkout at the U o fR. There will be more actions to come as we keep up our demands for a work stoppage on the Coastal GasLink pipeline, and for the RCMP to withdraw from unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.
Over the last year, I’ve also been helping with the local Fight for $15 campaign, trying to raise Saskatchewan’s abysmally low minimum wage (the worst in Canada!) to $15/hour.
I also moonlight as a DJ, which started about a year ago when I grew frustrated that no-one in Regina was playing the mix of music I wanted to dance to: Hip-hop, Bollywood, Reggaeton, Dancehall, and weird deconstructed club music. For a while, I DJ-ed regularly at a monthly party series that my friend was throwing in his basement studio.
KC: What is your day job? What do you like about it? What's challenging?
I’m the editor of Briarpatch Magazine – we’re a national magazine that reports on grassroots politics and social movements, but we started as an anti-poverty newsletter 47 years ago in Saskatoon. I moved to Treaty 4 two years ago for the job.
I like that I don’t have to pull my punches politically. When I left university, I was like “what newspaper or magazine is going to hire me, an anti-capitalist, pro-Palestine, prison abolitionist?” I feel lucky that the history of the magazine, and the community that surrounds it, pushes me to be more radical, more demanding of liberation for the oppressed. Most mainstream publications would push me to be less so.
I don’t like that I have too much work, and too little time and money to do my work with.
KC: What is important to you?
Courage.
KC: What do you like the most, and least, about Regina?
I like how ready people are to take care of each other – more so than in the bigger cities I’ve lived in. When I moved to Regina two years ago – not knowing a single person in town – my new roommate, Sarah, told me she’d pick me up from the airport when I arrived. That’s not something that happens in Toronto – Pearson is like 45 minutes out of town by car, and you basically have to blackmail people to get them to make the drive. So when Sarah offered to pick me up from the airport I was like “great, she’s gonna kill me and wear my skin, isn’t she?” But I learned that that’s just the way people are here. I’ve had friends deliver food when I’m sick, lend me their cars, whisk me away on adventures when I’m feeling sad, help me move apartments – and I’ve done the same for them. My friends make it seem so natural and so obvious to rely on each other – instead of governments or corporations – but that spirit of mutual aid is actually really rare and special. It’ll only become more important as we work to keep the most vulnerable among us – elderly, disabled, and low-income people – safe during the coronavirus pandemic.
The thing I like the least about Regina is the casual racism and the vicious austerity government.
KC: What is your impression of Saskatoon?
There are so many good people doing tough grassroots work in Treaty 6 – Stop the Cuts, Climate Justice Saskatoon, Hands off Latin America Saskatoon, Saskatoon Anti-Poverty Coalition, folks at The Stand. I’m especially in awe of the inner-city Indigenous youth who held down a rail blockade for four days in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders. I think you all must be pretty rad.
KC: How does your identity inform your experience?
My family comes from land that was colonized – modern-day Gujarat, a state in the northwest of India – and so even though I didn’t grow up in a very political or leftist family, I learned early and deeply about the lasting, multilayered violence that colonization causes. I see the Indigenous folks on the Prairies – who are still living under colonization and facing genocide – have a similar and even stronger analysis of colonialism, and intuition of how to fight back. Fighting for decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty alongside Indigenous friends here feels like honouring both my own history as a South Asian, as well as my responsibilities as a settler.
There’s an extremely reductive and shallow understanding of race in Canada – most people don’t understand my race beyond the colour of my skin. But racism and colonialism settled far more lightly on my family than it did on the majority of racialized and colonized people, because my family is largely upper-caste, Hindu, and wealthy. As a result, white people tend to see me as one of the “good” ones – educated, assimilated, legal, unthreatening. I’m not interested in playing that game, or in staying in the good graces of whiteness. To that end, I’m trying to build structures for myself that help me act daily on my commitment to ending white supremacy.
KC: Finish this sentence: If the best of all possible worlds was reality....
We’d all have bread, and roses too.
KC: What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My sister.
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