[van-announce] fundraising appeal A canadian refugee camp

[No One is Illegal-Vancouver]

* please post widely *


SPONSPOR A DISPLAY FOR THE CANADIAN REFUGEE CAMP

Dear friends and allies --

We are writing to ask for your financial support for the Canadian Refugee
Camp on Feb 5, 2005.

This refugee camp involves participation from various community groups and
organizations involved in historical and present struggle against
Immigration Canada and racist border and immigration policies, while
making the links to Canadian policies of corporate globalization and
imperialism that result in mass displacement from lands in the Third
World.

The refugee camp is more than symbolic as it shatters the myth of Canadian
mulitculturalism, humanitarianism, and tolerance. Migrants are typically
permitted into Canada as domestic labour, as live in caregivers, as
farmers and berry pickers, as disposable labour to build the railway. This
apartheid system creates a vulnerable community of non-citizens, which all
industrialised states use as cheap and temporary labour.

There has always been racism in Canada's refugee and immigration policies
built into the very structure of the system. The exclusion of Chinese
migrants after Confederation, the internment of Japanese-Canadians during
World War II and the refusal of Jewish refugees in the “None is too Many”
policy after World War II are three well-known examples. This mistreatment
was clearly fed by racist prejudice and these chapters in Canadian history
are recognized as shameful, and yet are being repeated with the “War on
Terrorism” that includes massive arrests and the interrogation of
immigrants and refugees, the passing of legislation granting intelligence
and law enforcement agencies much broader powers of intrusion, the
silencing of dissent, and widespread racial profiling and criminalization
of Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.

Rather than continously being relegated to ‘model minority’ status,
immigrant and refugee communities and organizations around Vancouver will
collectively be constructing this camp as a public testament to the
struggles for justice and self-determination.

Of course, the organizing of the camp comes at an enormous cost. The camp
will include various displays of information, images, poetry on current
and historical events such as Komagatamaru, the Japanese internment,
Chinese head tax, the War resister underground railroad, the political
deportations and red raids of the McCarthyist era, the War on Drugs,
colonization and war policies in the Thirld World that create
displacement, and much more.

We are making this special appeal so that we can pay the costs of the
displays constructed by organizations and individuals of immigrant/refugee
communities who do not have adequate financial resources.

The construction of the camp is not merely to create a public display or
project, but involves a crucial multi-racial, community-based sharing of
histories and resistance that portrays an alternative history of Canada.

We are aiming for 40 people/ organizations to donate $25 each, the cost of
one display.

If you can donate, please send a cheque to "Harjap Grewal" to the
following address: No One is Illegal c/o Palestine Community Center 1874
Kingsway Vancouver, BC Canada, V5N 2S7

In solidarity and struggle, No One is Illegal-Vancouver