[mobglob-discuss] March 21: national (in)securities

[Harsha]

* pls post widely *

PLS RESERVE TICKETS TO GUARANTEE SEATS.


              n a t i o n a l   ( i n ) s e c u r i t i e s


. An evening of cultural resistance with our community of courageous
poets and word warriors performing staged readings of Kafka’s The Trial,
readings of statements from detainees in the War on Terror, along with
poetry readings and spoken word performances
.

Hari Alluri * Chin Banerjee * Nadine Chambers * Charlie Demers * Filipino
Canadian Youth Alliance * Junie Desil * Phinder Dulai * Raul Gatica *
Fiona Jeffries * Aziz Khaki * Katsumi Kimoto * Marge Lam * Cecily
Nicholson * Carmen Rodriguez * Tom Sandborn * Ange Sterritt * Itrath Syed
* Marcus Youssef


“There can be no doubt—said K.  that behind all the actions of this court
of justice, that is to say in my case, behind my arrest and today’s
interrogation, there is a great organization at work. An organization
which not only employs corrupt warders, oafish Inspectors, and Examining
Magistrates of whom the best that can be said is that they recognize their
own limitations, but also has at its disposal a judicial hierarchy of
high, indeed of the highest rank, with an indispensable and numerous
retinue of servants, clerks, police, and other assistants, perhaps even
hangmen
”  -The Trial


TUESDAY MARCH 21, 2006 (International Day for the Elimination of Racism)
DOORS AND DINNER AT 6:30 PM. PROGRAM TILL 9:30 PM
BONSOR COMMUNITY HALL  (6550 Bonsor Avenue, just one block east of
Metrotown Skytrain Station)

Suggested Donation $5-10 (includes dinner). Email noii-van at resist.ca or
call 778-885-0040 to reserve. The location is wheelchair accessible.
Transit tickets available on-site. Childcare provided, please call in
advance to register.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ever-widening web of racist national security in the post 9/11 climate
has incarcerated, deported, and killed thousands of people as Western
states are combating “terrorism” through militarization and occupation
globally and policies of restrictive immigration domestically.

An Amnesty International report documents that over 1,200 foreign
nationals -- mostly Muslim men of Arab or South Asian origin – have been
detained in the United States during inquires into the Sept. 11 attacks,
although by the end of 2002, almost none were charged with any crimes
related to terrorism. As the detention regime at Guantánamo Bay enters its
fifth year, around 500 people from 35 countries continue to be held
without charge or trial and there are mounting allegations of torture of
detainees.

In Canada, five men are being held on secret evidence without charge under
“Security Certificates”, a measure of the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act. They are imprisoned indefinitely, and mostly in conditions
of solitary confinement and face deportation to their countries of origin,
even if there is a substantial risk of torture or death. Like the PATRIOT
Act in the US, Security Certificates only apply to non-citizens, thus
denying certain communities their fundamental rights. Federal Court Judge
McKay has stated, “in this great city of Toronto, we have our own
Guantánamo Bay”.

Human rights attacks- on bodies marked as foreigners, on people whose
ideas are said to be backward, on societies said to be in need of rescuing
by the armed forces of democracy- are historically rooted in the
imperialist view of indigenous and racialized communities as violent,
backward and uncivilized. Such colonial ideology has justified policies of
occupation and repression both within and beyond these borders. Over the
past five decades, Canada has lent its support to interventions in
Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan, Haiti, Palestine, and Iraq. Within these
borders, Canada’s very establishment has dispossessed indigenous
communities and for example, over 22,000 Japanese Canadians were said to
be “enemy aliens” and relocated and/or interned during WW II.

Join us on March 21, International Day for the Elimination of Racism, to
challenge and confront this historical system of global apartheid and the
current racist crusade known as the “ War on Terrorism” in an evening
with:

* Hari Alluri is an anti-racist activist based in Victoria and Vancouver
and contributor and participant to the Colouring Book Project, a
youth-driven writing project on racial identity and socialization.

* Chin Banerjee is a retired professor of English, lifelong lover of
Kafka, and founding member of BC Organization to Fight Racism and South
Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy.

* Nadine Chambers life anchors her to Jamaica, Canada, Trinidad and
unearthly points
unseen. Reading in service to social justice is reason to perform publicly
after years of silence.

* Charles Demers is a local writer, activist and comedian. He is a
founding editor of Seven Oaks magazine and of the Palestine Solidarity
Group, and is one half of the sketch-comedy team Bucket.

* Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance (Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa
Canada) is a dynamic group of Filipino youth with the long-term vision of
educating, organizing, and empowering Filipino youth and struggling for
the rights of the entire Filipino community.

* Junie Desil works with the Vancouver Status of Women and is a local
Haitian-Canadian activist and poet.

* Phinder Dulai is the author of Ragas From The Periphery (Arsenal Pulp
Press 1995) and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions, 2000) and has given
readings and talks on Canadian literature, with an emphasis on migrant
voices. He will be reading from his current ms. Stream.

* Raul Gatica is a member in exile of the Consejo Indigena Popular de
Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magón” (CIPO-RFM), an indigenous community
organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. He has been a teacher, defender of human
rights, and as a writer and has won numerous prizes for his poetry and
short stories.

* Fiona Jeffries is a long-time activist, student and writer in Vancouver.
She is currently writing a dissertation on the politics of fear and
mobility struggles amidst the new enclosures in urban fortress North
America.

* Aziz Khaki has been involved in the social justice and interfaith
community for decades, currently with the Committee for Racial Justice

* Marge Lam was born in East Vancouver, on unceded west coast salish
territory, and continues to live in the area. She is of taiwanese and
chinese descent. Her disabled arms are teaching her to live well, giving
space for her creative energies in music, art, and written production

* Cecily Nicholson: works and volunteers with the Downtown Eastside
Women's Centre and with Vancouver Status of Women, most recently on their
Racialization of Poverty Project

* Carmen Rodríguez is a Chilean-born bilingual writer, journalist and
educator who came to Canada in political exile following the Pinochet
military coup. She is the award-winning author of Guerra
Prolongada/Protracted War and And a body to remember with/De cuerpo
entero. Rodriguez teaches at SFU and is the Vancouver Correspondent for
the Spanish Section of Radio Canada.

* Tom Sandborn is a local poet, writer, and activist. He arrived in
Vancouver as a Vietnam-era draft resister. He sits on the boards of the BC
Civil Liberties Association and of Judith Marcuse Productions.

* Angela Sterritt is a Gitxsan/Irish justice advocate, writer, artist and
student. She currently works for Justice for Girls and The International
Indigenous Youth Conference Secretariat.

* Itrath Syed is an activist and a graduate student in the Women's Studies
Department at UBC.

* Marcus Youssef is a playwright, performer, freelance journalist and
community-educator. His plays include A Line in the Sand and Ali and Ali
and the Axes of Evil, a war-on-terror satire. Marcus is currently Interim
Artistic Producer at neworldtheatre in Vancouver.