[antiwar-van] update: Canadian Refugee Camp

[No One is Illegal-Vancouver]

The Canadian Refugee Camp
Shattering the myth of Canadian multiculturalism and humanitarianism...

Saturday February 5, 2005
Vancouver Art Gallery (Georgia and Howe)
Camp from noon
Rally at 1 pm


The Canadian Refugee Camp involves the collective organization and
participation of immigrant and refugee community organizations and
individuals who have been engaged in historic and present struggle against
racist and colonial border policies.

The construction of the camp is not merely a public display or purely
symbolic, but involves a crucial multi-racial, community-based sharing of
histories and resistance that portrays an alternative history of Canada.
Rather than continuously being relegated to ‘model minority’ status,
immigrant and refugee communities and organizations have organized this
camp as a public testament to the struggles for justice and
self-determination.

Community organizations including Palestine Community Centre, South Asian
Network for Secularism and Democracy, Vancouver Association of Chinese
Canadians, Friends and Families of Mexican Political Prisoners, Kalayaan
Center, Iranian Federation of Refugees, Rainbow Refugee Committee,
Refugees Against Racial Profiling, Vancouver Status of Women, No One is
Illegal, and others are involved in the camp.

Displays will highlight well known historical events such as the Japanese
internment, the Chinese headtax, the Komagatamaru, the Red Raids and
political deportations, and the Draft Dodgers; with current parrallels of
the Secret Trials of the Secret Trial 5 and Leonard Peltier, exclusion of
Fujianese women, War Resisters, and the Safe Third Country Agreement, and
much more...

The Camp demonstrates- thru speakers, images, displays, poetry, song and
cultural performances- our clear opposition to racism and colonialism. And
our resistance to environmental racism from Africville to Skwekwek'welt,
to political repression of racialized communities, to continuing slave
wage labour, and to the so-called "War on Drugs" and "War on Terrorism"
from Columbia to Kahnastake will continue....