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a novel 256 pages 8.5" x 5.5" - paperback isbn 0-9733499-6-4 isbn13 978-0-9733499-6-2
As the planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, defenses instinctively went up—and not just in the United States. Canadians were gripped by irrational fear tainted with anti-arab racist undertones. North of 9/11's fictional plot meets in many places with real (and often surreal) historical events that underlie the psychology of social panic and hysteria that is integral to the war on terror. Newspapers report beatings, targeted vandalism, and bigoted rants aimed at dark-skinned men with beards, women wearing hijabs, and students named Mohammed. Sarah Murphy, a political activist and first year Women’s Studies Major at Concordia University in Montréal, is determined to do something to stem the rising tide of war mania emanating from the United States, and racist hysteria affecting her friends Hassan, Hakim, and Sayed. An opportunity presents itself when Sarah overhears a conversation between Jack Murphy, a senior public relations consultant who happens to be her father, and the executive of a Montréal-based aerospace manufacturer involved in military production for the US Pentagon. Sarah and her friends plan a non-violent direct action to draw attention to Canada’s participation in US war efforts. In the post-9/11 backlash, anti-war activists, Arabs and Muslims have all become suspected enemy combatants in the war on terror. Activists are questioned by the RCMP, phones are tapped, movements are shadowed. The RCMP closes in on the presumed sleeper cell while bombs fall on Afghanistan. The sudden end of their occupation has astounding repercussions on each of the story's characters.
press releases: may 8, 06; may 18, 06; june 20, 06; aug 29, 06; sept 04, 06;
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read chapter 2 (.pdf 992 kb) listen
Many came to Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore on Sept. 11 to listen to North of 9/11 author, David Bernans, discuss Concordia's 9/11 Cover-up where he exposed the university's Secret Risk Assessment Committee in reading of Curious George Meets the Concordia University Risk Assessment Committee.
CANADIAN AUTHOR EXPERIENCES ATTEMPTED CENSORSHIP AFTER BEING DEEMED A SECURITY RISK BY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY ( complete info ) University Risk Management Committee Revokes Approval for September 11 (5th anniversary) Reading of North of 9/11. Read more about Concordia's censorship “Concordia
University has officially blocked as a security
risk a scheduled Fall reading by novelist David Bernans,
author of North of 9/11.
In so doing, the University, already an embarrassment of academic
servility, has dramatized both the power of art and its own
fear of that power. Another proud victory of art over authority.
Bravo Bernans!” "Sept. 11, 2006 - RETROSPECTIVE: Troubling Directions North of 9/11" with David Bernans
Both
events included readings from the novel North of 9/11,
musical performances and critical discussions of student activism
in a post-9/11 Montréal. View
video
by Santiago Bertolino.
The
May 17 book launch @ Simone
de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University was a smash
hit. Jaggi Singh ( North of 9/11 is about: US draft-dodging, the bombing of Afghanistan, dark-skinned men with beards, social panic and hysteria, politics at Concordia University in Montréal, conservatism versus radicalism, military production for the US Pentagon, the Pinochet coup in Chile, anti-war activists, post-9/11 anti-arab backlash, censorship, failed risk assessments, and a whole lot more ... "North of 9/11 is a book about war, racisim, and hysteria -- and the people who fight against them... By bringing characters, people and movements to life, David Bernans has given readers an opportunity to understand why so many choose a life of struggle over a life of ease." — Macdonald Stainsby, The Dominion June 5, 2006 “North
of 9/11 is political science at its best.
Centred at Concordia University in Montréal during the
tumultuous months following 9/11, this historical novel lays bare
Canada’s complicity in the American-led war on terror and
related state-sponsored repression of dissent. With its focus
on a small group of pro-Palestinian activists and their Zionist
antagonists, the novel brings to life the realities and subtleties
of politics in our times. Bernans’ poignant description
of the relationship between a conservative father and his radical
daughter is reminiscent of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.” “If
the film United 93 offends some Americans with its depiction of
a 9/11 hijacking, David Bernans’s novel, North of 9/11,
will have many fuming over his biting portrayal of racism and
vengeance in the wake of the tragic September 11 attacks. The
story takes place in the very real context of Montréal
between September 11 and October 9, 2001, when the bombing of
Afghanistan begins. Protagonists are Palestinian solidarity activists
at Concordia University (known as “Gaza U”), who publicly
question the approaching military engagement in Afghanistan.” “The
Gazette was correct when it labeled David Bernans a "political
gadfly" and this political novel, set in Montréal
the weeks immediately following 9/11, demonstrates just that.
Filled with tons of factual information, it exposes the post 9/11
racist war hysteria and reactionary attempts by the state to silence
all voices of dissent. The raw human emotions from both sides
of the political spectrum in response to 9/11 are laid bare and
set in proper context. Resist the temptation to flip to the end
of the book for the surprise ending. B'nai Brith, The Gazette,
Concordia University, Montréal's aerospace industry and
the chorus of right wing commentators dominating the mainstream
media will hate this book, but those who are looking for a politically
engaging and highly readable
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North
of 9/11
1998-2008
- cumulus press
- hosted by koumbit