Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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Loyola and the Revolution On the way to revolution, Loyola is generally designated as a backwater port. Untroubled, middle-class, English- Catholic and Canadian, it is typically discovered in the eddies of social and intellectual advance. The student activist at Loyola is not likely to be pounced upon and smothered by a group of fearful reactionaries. Most everybody simply considers him to be a manifestation of the times — and times change. Loyola, at least, is content to change — eventually, but sees little point in initiating reform. The collective psyche at Loyola seems to consider particular incidents and up- heavals in their relationship to the scope of history and is usually willing to accom- modate the activist as one whose role is merely an historical function. There is a conscience at Loyola that allows for the necessity of change, and, accidentally, makes some preparation for it. Most people call it apathy. || a That is: 4% “they better not’; 6% “oh yes we will”; and 90% “‘huh ? ”. This gives the progressives a handy 50% edge. Although it may well be the case, such a blanket designation could be un- fair because, so far as apathy is consid- ered wrong, it implies that 90% are being immoral. Rather than being wrong, perhaps their position is indicative of a morality basic to Loyola. Take the case of the activist on campus. (Not the revolutionary. Loyola has never appeared to offer any issues worthy of his fiery attention). The acti- vist soon realizes that he is not exactly storming the ramparts of an entrenched establishment. He learns that the rhetoric of his political and philosophical stances pro- duces little in the way of confrontation and virtually nothing that amounts to change. He turns his attention to practical issues like the renewal of teaching con- tracts or student-faculty representation on College committees and the Board of Trustees.

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In 1930 he was named to the Mexican World Cup soccer team but his father, rancher-businessman José Suinaga Arias, died and his mothe r told Pedro “It is time you stopped kicking a ball and concentrate on your new law degree.” Pedro, an obedient son, stopped kicking a ball but, he adds, “Luckily, my mother said nothing about hitting a ball with a club.” He found that golf and legal business blended serenely. Golf trophies began accumulating. He managed a six handicap and knocked on the championship door several times. He became President of the Mexican Golf Association. During this period he proudly negotiated and signed a tri-partite agreement with the Royal Canadian Golf Association and the United States Golf Association for biennial matches among teams of the three nations. He married an ex-athlete, beautiful Luz de Lourdes Lanz Duret Sierra. They had a daughter and two sons, all of whom married and (at last count) made Pedro a grandfather 13 times over. 21 In 1965, Pedro returned to Canada — this time with the awesomely formal tag: “His Excellency Pedro R. Suinaga y Lujan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Mexican Embassy, Ottawa.” Translated freely, he had become Mr. Mexico in Canada. As the head-of consulates in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, and honorary consulates in Winnipeg and Quebec City, his basic job, as stressed by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, was to ‘“‘sell”” Mexico t o Canada and foster good relations — also, of course, while doing all he could to encourage the multi-million dollar trade flow between the two countries. It was fun for us who had known the pre-dignified Pedro to bait His Excellency at affairs of state and posh dinners. Casual criticism of such Mexican pastimes as the bullfight would cause Pedro to rise in wrathful defence of the “savage sport”. He looked upon this centuries-old spectacle as tauromachy, an art, rather than a sport. One night over a third Scotch and water he blasted at me: “The Anglo-Saxon and American appreciation of life, in a sense, is limited. We find among the arch-critics of such an art men who ride behind the hounds in high society to chase a wee fox to its death. We find alleged sportsmen who shoot a timid deer and leave it to die slowly in lonesome hiding. We find a beauteous milady donning, without hesitation, mink slaughtered to adorn her. What else, she will ask, is a mink for ? We of Mexico come right back about 1200 pounds of seething bull fury and ask what else is a fighting bull for ? ” During the intervening years Pedro made two memorable trips to Loyola. Just as his father had done with him when Pedro first came up to Loyola (then five and one-half days by train), Pedro brought his eldest son, Pedro Junior (this time by plane) for registration at the old alma mater. A year later he followed the same procedure with his second son, Pablo. Both have long since graduated from Loyola, going on for law degrees and now practicing in the firm of Suinaga Luna. The addition of his sons gave senior partner Pedro time to author three books on Mexican Jurisprudence. He was appointed to the Board of Governors of the Mexican Bar Association and, for 15 years, lectured in law at the National University of Mexico. How, I once asked, did this faraway Mexican boy come to Loyola in the first place. Pedro replied: “My father thought it would be wise for me to study in a foreign country, to become fluent in English as well as Mexican. He also wanted education to include character moulding and felt the Jesuits were the best in the world at this development. Together, my father and I, pondered long and exhaustively over the Jesuit Schools and finally agreed on Loyola and Canada as the happiest combination.” Pedro Suinaga sighed happily: “I have had a golden life thanks to that start. I wonder if the young students of today fully appreciate how vital is the foundation upon which they are building, the importance of what has for so long been proven sound instead of what appeals just because it’s different ? Before accepting what is new, what has been proven good in the old should always be given a fair hearing. Many harsh mistakes may be avoided.”

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If his demands are not met, he will naturally opt for speeches, demonstration s, sit-ins, and eventual occupation of the College. Over a period of years, Loyola students actually managed to work themselves up to the longest and most persistent siege and occupation of any university in the Montreal area. UNTIL: It is early January 1970, and the campus has been paralyzed for days by a sit-in which eventually becomes an occupation by hundreds of students. But the administration is not up against the wall. It serves soup to the protesters. Then Montreal riot police show up for the party. Crusading students and faculty must now choose between confrontation and violence or a peaceful exit. Deciding that they have sufficiently made their point, the dissidents march out to sub-zero weather, enveloped by the frosty strains of “We Shall Overcome”, and gather in front of the Administration Building to receive a little pep talk before journeying home. This is revolution ? Our activist has now discovered the progress of history according to Loyola. His own urgent sense of immediate issues has been neutralized by the conceptions of eternity and a mystical Higher Order which mark the early education of so many Loyola students. Innate belief in a universal order seems to leave politics and flowers — trees, the sun, society — all on about the same level. Few feel the need to become politically conscious or involved. “I’m all right, Jack ! ” can be said with little fear of reproach because it is assumed that the person lives according to values deemed equally as important as social involvement. It is hard to say whether Loyola students truly have an increased awareness of things other than the work ethic or political consciousness, but as far as Loyola’s morality goes, the prerogative is wide open to them. It may be that the availability of this prerogative has blunted political animosities and inhibited violent disrup- tions by reducing the issues to a personal level, thus disintegrating both the power of mob force and the cohesiveness of a besieged establishment. Symbolic objectives, expecially property, lose their offensive identities and are less likely to incur the wrath of demonstrators. Moreover, since Loyola is small and con- siderably charming, most students regard the campus as belonging to themselves as well as to the administration. In retrospect, Loyola’s student movement took up some important issues and effectively pursued them with remarkable obstinacy, but the good-naturedness and cour- tesy of the participants left many thinking of it as a Mickey Mouse exercise. It is inescapably true that the “local” revolution was a pop phenomena. Things have been dead for a long time. By now it is camp and Loyola may once again be behind the times or, for a change, onto something new. What is it ? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see — in case it’s fun.