[van-announce] (update) Envisioning Peoples Struggles

[harsha at resist.ca]

* sorry for the long email, however there is important information
included in this email, including updated and slightly changed schedule,
registration information, etc.  Please note all this information is also
on our website. Also note some speakers are still being confirmed- a final
updated schedule will be out next week*


             .:ENVISIONING PEOPLE'S STRUGGLES:.
               Friday June 24 to Sunday June 26
           SFU Harbour Center (515 West Hastings)
            and Lore Krill Co-op (65 West Cordova)
               Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories

Envisioning People's Struggles is a conference being organized on the
weekend of June 24 - 26 to bring together issues and analysis from the
many struggles against war, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism.  The
conference will also explore and discuss the history of resistance
movements locally and around the world to broaden and contextualize our
understanding of current struggles, while emphasizing the need for
long-term strategy and vision through open dialogue that builds solidarity
between diverse organizing communities. Envisioning Peoples Struggles will
bring together those at the forefront of self-determination struggles, and
organizers and activists participating in active movements for indigenous
sovereignty, against occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti
and elsewhere; for justice for immigrants and refugees; for workers
rights; for women’s liberation; against the prison industrial complex;
against capitalist/imperialist globalization; anti-poverty organizing, and
more.

It will be a weekend of workshops, panels, films, and strategy sessions.
Childcare available. Lunch provided on Saturday and Sunday.

One of our keynote speakers on the opening panel on the evening of Friday
June 24th is Waleed Rabia. Waleed is a founder of Al Muajaha (‘The
Witness” or alternatively,  “Confrontation”); Iraq’s first independent
media project that was initiated one week after the war began, and
associated with the IndyMedia Center. He was an embedded journalist with
the Iraqi resistance forces from Northern to Southern Iraq, subproducer
for the BBC, and liaison with internationals in Iraq such as Voices of
Conscience, Iraq Solidarity Project, Big Noise Films, Naomi Klein, and
others.

Some of our speakers on Saturday include Arthur-Martins Aginam who is a
former Nigerian Public Affairs journalist, Arthur Manuel who is a
Secwepemc defender, Gene McGuckin of Prepare the General Strike Committee,
Nazilla Betta who is an Algerian physician on womens health and health
under occupation, Don Pedro who is a leader of the Mayan peoples movement
in Guatemala against Canadian corporations, Montreal-based author and
activist Samir Hussain, Marysol Torres of the Vancouver Bolivarian Circle,
Sid Shniad of the Telecommunications Workers Union, Gary McCarron from the
SFU School of Communications, activists from the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty, Megan Olson who is a street nurse and recent recipient of a human
rights award for her work in the Downtown Eastside, Hari Sharma who is the
President of South Asian Network for Secularism and Demoracy, community
activists involved with the historic Red Power movement, well-known author
Anthony Fenton, Erika Fuchs of a Mexican migrant workers support group,
speakers from the Haida Nation, Sid Tan from the Chinese Canadians Head
Tax Redress Campaign, Cecilia Pereyra who is a local Latina activist, and
many others.

Our program for the weekend includes two highly unique and participatory
events: A Canadian Refugee Camp and A Historical Resistance Walking Tour
of the Downtown Eastside. On Saturday, community activists and residents
of the neighbourhood will guide the Historical Resistance Walk of the
Downtown Eastside with a history of the many poor, working class, and
racialized communities that have shaped the neighbourhood’s culture and
resisted gentrification and displacement. The Canadian Refugee Camp will
go up on Sunday and involves the collective organization and participation
of over a dozen immigrant and refugee community organizations in Vancouver
who have been engaged in historic and present struggle against
exclusionary immigration policies.

For more information check the website at http://users.resist.ca/~eps2005/


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ORGANIZERS OF THE CONFERENCE

The organizing of the Envisioning Peoples Conference is not directly
related to any group or organization, however all of the organizers of the
Conference Committee are heavily involved and implicated in the myriad of
struggles and movements that are represented in the Conference. We came
together as activists and organizers finding the need for long-term
vision, strategy, and face-to-face relationship building.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

REGISTRATION

We are asking people to pre-register for the conference, as space is
limited. Registration information is included below in this email and is
also on the website. The conference is by donation (suggested donation
10-20$ for the entire conference including food and all the film
festival). No one turned away for lack of $.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SUPPORTING THE CONFERENCE

*  We are in the process of organizing volunteer childcare, preparing food
and securing food donations, organizing vehicles, organizing housing for
out-of-town participants, and many other tasks. If you can help with any
of this, please get in touch.

* Information tables at the Conference: We are still in the process of
sorting out the logistics of information tables at the conference, please
watch out for another email on this.

* We are in need of funding to meet the various costs associated with this
conference, including transportation for out-of-town guests, and making
sure the conference is accessible to participants. If you can donate,
please get in touch.
Cheques can be made out to: Life Without Capitalism and mailed to Maryann
Abbs, 2021 Kitchener, Vancouver V5L 2W6, B.C

* There are several organizations that are supporting and endorsing the
conference. We hope you will too. If you are able to endorse, please email
or call us at eps2005 at resist.ca or call 778-552-2099.

* Help publicize this conference through your networks. Posters and
leaflets are available for download on our website.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++


FRIDAY SCHEDULE
Friday June 24 @ 6 pm at SFU Habour Center (515 West Hastings)

           /////////////////////////////////////////////////
           Two Years of War, Five Hundred Years of Resistance
         ////////////////////////////////////////////////////

* Waleed Rabia on “Independent Media in a Time of War”
Waleed is a founder of Al Muajaha (‘The Witness” or alternatively, 
“Confrontation”); Iraq’s first independent media project that was
initiated one week after the war began, and associated with the IndyMedia
Center. He was an embedded journalist with the Iraqi resistance forces
from Northern to Southern Iraq, subproducer for the BBC, and liaison with
internationals in Iraq such as Voices of Conscience, Iraq Solidarity
Project, Big Noise Films, Naomi Klein, and others.

* Clifton Arihwakehte on “Decriminalizing Resistance”
Clifton is a community activist of the Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk community (near
Montreal). He has been an active member of the current resistance in
Kanesatake to government polices- such as the Kanesatake Interim Land
Based Governance Act- that aim to extinguish indigenous rights to the
land. He has also been the editor of Karihwatatie, the journal of the
Kanehsatà:ke Cultural Centre.

* Angélica Gutiérrez: “On the Edge of Revolution”
Chilean-born community activist, who has been living in Canada for 29
years.  Member of the Internationalist Bolivarian Circle "Bob Everton" and
collective member of "América Latina al Día," a bilingual, weekly radio
program on Vancouver's Co-operative Radio. She was involved with the
International Solidarity Gathering in Support of the Bolivarian Revolution
and has recently returned from Venezuela.

* Harsha Walia: “Confronting Fortress North America”
Harsha is a South Asian writer and activist currently based in Vancouver.
She started organizing in India and in Canada, she has been involved in
the fight for the rights of immigrants and refugees, particularly in the
post 9/11 climate, along with supporting various indigenous struggle
through movements such as No One is Illegal and the South Asian Network
for Secularism and Democracy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SATURDAY SCHEDULE
Each time slot will have two concurrent workshops.
Longer description of each panel can be found at
http://users.resist.ca/~eps2005/

:::::10:00 TO 11:30::::::

Panel 1: * Rethinking the Labour Movement:
- Sid Shniad (Telecommunications Workers Union and Stopwar.ca): Role of
labour unions within social justice struggles
- Kim Toombs (IWW and Community Solidarity Caucus, Victoria): Organizing
for workers rights beyond unions
- Gene McGuckin (Prepare the General Strike Committee): State of the
labour movement
- Filipino Nurses Support Group: Organized labour and migrant labour issues


Panel 2: * Resisting 2010 Olympics:
- Maryann Abbs (activist and popular educator): History, analysis, and
effects of the Olympics globally
- David Cunningham (Anti-Poverty Committee): Gentrification in the
Downtown Eastside
- Billie Pierre (Native Youth Movement): Indigenous land struggles against
mega-tourism in unceded territories of BC
- Erika Fucks (Mexican migrant labour support group): Vulnerable migrant
labour conditions,
- Martha Roberts (Bus Riders Union): Development of the RAV line.



:::::11:30 TO 1:30::::::
Panel 1: * Health under Capitalism:
- Hospital Employees Union: Effects of privatization on the public health
care system
- Gary McCarron (SFU School of Communications): Western medical discourse
as a tool of social control
- Samir Hussain (activist, author and medical practitioner from Montreal):
Impacts of war & capitalism on health
- Nazilla Betta (Algerian medical practitioner): Women’s health and the
effect of medical monopolies on the AIDS crisis in Africa
- Megan Olsen (street nurse and recent recipient of human rights award):
Reports on grassroots projects for community health and safety.

Panel 2: * Creative Political and Legal Strategies: In the face of
increasing repression, innovative, subversive and effective legal and
political strategies are being engaged by communities in resistance: from
community self-defence against police repression, political and legal
tactics adopted by indigenous movements to confront the colonial system,
and other multi-fold strategies on doing long-term organizing.
- Vancouver Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
- Copwatch
- Onatario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
- Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade
- Western Shoshone Legal Defence Fund


:::::1:30 TO 2:30::::
Lunch Served.


::::::2:30 TO 4:00::::::
Panel 1: * The Possibilities and Limitations of Electoralism:
- Marysol Torres (Vancouver Bolivarian Circle): Left taking state power in
Venezuela
- Left in local government in Kerala and West Bengal
- Cecilia Pereyra: Social movements beyond electoral politics in Argentina
- Confronting colonial governance systems in Canada
- Phil Lyons (Left turn): Recent provincial elections and the Leftturn
experiment.
- Waleed Rabia (Iraqi journalist): Façade of democratic elections in Iraq

Panel 2: * The Globalization of War & the Assault of Globalization: -
Arthur-Martins Aginam (former Nigerian Public Affairs journalist):
Struggles in Africa against neo-colonialism, free trade and development. -
Anthony Fenton (author and activist with Haiti Solidarity BC): War
profiteering and the state/corporate nexus in war and globalization - Free
trade agreements, the War on Drugs, and occupation in Latin America -
Resistance against occupation in Turtle Island
- Military occupation and imperialism in the Philippines
- Harjap Grewal (South Asian Network For Secularism and Democracy): Social
movements against corporate globalization in South Asia


::::: 4:00 TO 6::::::::
Panel 1: * History Matters: Past resistance: With speakers on past local
movements of resistance
- Benita Bunjun (Vancouver Status of Women): Women’s movement
- Jill Chettiar (Down town East Side Residents Association): Anti-poverty
organizing
- Ray Bobb (Stolo Nation, ex- Red Power member): Indigenous sovereignty
struggles
- Sid Tan (Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians): Chinese Head Tax
Redress campaign
- Hari Sharma (President of the South Asian Network for Secularism and
Democracy): Struggles in solidarity with Third world liberation and
immigrant organizing against racism.

Panel 2: * Struggles for Indigenous Self-Determination: fighting mining
and forestry destruction:  With indigenous speakers from Guatemala, BC,
Philippines, and India


* FILM FESTIVAL: SFU Harbour Center, 515 West Hastings from 1:30-6 pm -
Poverty Outlaws from 1:30-2:30 pm
- Continuous Journey from 2:30-4 pm
- Short documentary by Revolutionary Women in Afghanistan from 4:00-4:30
pm - Control Room from 4:30- 6 pm

* 6:15- 7 pm: “HISTORICAL STRUGGLES IN THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE WALK” will
leave from SFU Harbour Center. Community activists and residents of the
neighbourhood will guide the Historical Resistance Walk of the Downtown
Eastside with a history of the many poor, working class, and racialized
communities that have shaped the neighbourhood’s culture and resisted
gentrification and displacement.


++++++++++++++++++++++++
SUNDAY JUNE 26 SCHEDULE

* 9:30 am to noon: Space available for strategy sessions, caucuses,
networking, particularly for those traveling from outside Vancouver. More
details on this soon.

* Noon to 2 pm: Closing panel at Lore Krill (65 West Cordova)
“Resistance to War and Colonialism”
- Clement Apaak (PhD Candidate at SFU): The democratic experiment in Ghana
- Palestine Community Center: Occupation of Palestine
- Anthony Fenton (author & activist with Haiti Solidarity BC): Role of
US/Canada in the occupation of Haiti
- Lisa Yazdi (Iranian activist and Masters student): US hegemony in Iran &
the Iranian elections
- Dustin Johnson (Indigenous Students Society): Resistance to colonialism
in Canada


* 1-4 pm: “A Canadian Refugee Camp” at Victory Square (Cambie and
Hastings) The Refugee Camp, constructed by over dozen immigrant/refugee
groups, highlights well known policies in Canadian immigration history
such as the Chinese Head Tax, the internment of Japanese-Canadians, the
"None is too Many" policy for Jewish refugees, and the exclusion of South
Asian migrants on the Komagata Maru; a history that is repeating itself
with the economic, political and imperialist drive of the "War on
Terrorism" both at home and abroad. The Camp also draws links between
Canadian corporate and state policies against indigenous peoples and Third
World peoples that are the roots causes of war, displacement and
migration.

* Lunch will be served at the Refugee Camp (Victory Square) from 1:30 to
2:30 pm

* 2- 4 pm: “STATUS FOR ALL!” MARCH. Gather at Victory Square
A silent march to honour all the deportees struggling against Citizenship
and Immigration Canada. This march is being organized to coincide with the
historic 200 km walk from Montreal to Ottawa being organized by Solidarity
Across Borders- a Montreal network of self-organized refugee groups,
individuals and their allies- from June 18-25, 2005. For every agonizing
moment, for every day spent in anxiety, for every detention, for every
deportation, for the stolen time and the stolen lives, this march will pay
tribute to all those fighting in this silent war. Organized by a network
of immigrant groups in Vancouver.
For more information check: http://noii-van.resist.ca

* 4:30- 7 pm: Anti-oppression organizing in an
anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist context.
--- THIS WORKSHOP HAS MANDATORY REGISTRATION TO ENSURE A MINIMUM AND
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS.
“Can anti-oppression politics provide a model for a multi-faceted analysis
that addresses oppression and class exploitation as distinct but
nevertheless intimately interrelated social relationships?”
– Sharmeen Khan, “Roundtable on Anti-Oppression Politics in
Anti-Capitalist Movements”
Anti-oppression arose out of the left's failure to develop a nuanced
approach to questions of oppression. In recent years, the left has been
influenced by anti-oppression analyses, as the movement has sought to
address the effects of capitalism on different communities. Although
anti-oppression organizing has pejoratively been labeled “identity
politics”, it serves as a necessary foundation to ensure a systemic
analysis of capitalism and expand the analysis of radical organizing that
does not get co-opted by the liberal discourse of multiculturalism and
women’s/ queer rights. This comprehensive workshop will explore the
concepts of power, privilege and oppression and examine racism, sexism,
classism, homophobia and other systemic biases in order to increase
awareness, empowerment and create transformative politics within an
anti-capitalist framework.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Envisioning Peoples Struggles Conference
Workshops, Panels and Films
June 24-26, 2005

PRE REGISTRATION FORM

Name:
Organisation/Affiliation (if any):

When do you plan to attend?

Do you plan to attend:
Friday June 24 Opening Panel?
Saturday June 25 Workshops?
Sunday June 26 Program?
Sunday Sunday 26 Anti-Oppression Workshop (mandatory pre-registration)?
Sunday June 26 Film Festival?

Please indicate your preference of workshops in each time slot for
Saturday so we get a sense of room size required:

10:00 TO 11:30
* Rethinking the Labour Movement
* Resisting 2010 Olympics

11:30 TO 1:30
* Health under Capitalism
* Creative Political and Legal Strategies

2:30 TO 4:00
* The Possibilities and Limitations of Electoralism
* The Globalization of War & the assault of globalization

4:00 TO 6
* History Matters: Past resistance
* Struggles for Indigenous Self-Determination: fighting mining and
forestry destruction

Do you need childcare (how many/ages)? Time childcare is needed:

Do you have any food allergies or restrictions that we should be aware of?
Do you need translation?
Do you need housing (which nights/ accessibility needs or
preferences/allergies)?
Do you have any other concerns?

Contact Information
E-mail (preferred) or phone: