The Canadian Premiere of “Degrees of Incarceration” (2009)

Date: Sunday, November 21, 2010
 Time: 11:00am
 Location: Vancity Theatre, at 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver.
 Admission: Tickets, which can be purchased online at www.ticketstonight.ca or at the door, cost $7.

The Canadian premiere of “Degrees of Incarceration” (2009), a Palestine-US co-production was directed by Amahl Bishara, will be shown in Vancouver on Sunday, November 21, 2010, at 11am.

Degrees of Incarceration http://degreesofincarceration.com/index.html documents the effects political imprisonment has on a community of Palestinians in the West Bank. More than 6,000 Palestinians, including more than 300 children under the age of 18, are currently in Israeli prisons for political reasons, and over 600,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since 1967. Yet this issue rarely receives the attention many Palestinians believe it deserves. The film introduces viewers to Palestinian mothers, teenagers, children, and community leaders as they strive to support each other through crises of arrest and detention.

This film is part of the 15th Annual Amnesty International Film Festival. For more information about “Degrees of Incarceration” as well as about over 20 other documentaries that will be shown in the festival, consult www.amnestyfilmfest.ca

Fundraiser for the Canadian Boat to Gaza

Date: Friday, Nov. 12, 2010
 Time: 7:00pm
 Location: Unitarian Church, 949 W. 49th (at Oak), Vancouver
Admission: Admission: $10 (limited income) and $15 (regular) Door prizes, Silent Auction – All monies collected will go to the Canadian Boat to Gaza http://canadaboatgaza.org

Facebook Event Link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164447990251209

Featuring the Vancouver Premiere:
SEVEN DAYS FROM A GAZA DIARY – A riveting personal account of the first seven days of Israel’s 2008-09 military assault on Gaza, written by a young woman living under the bombing. The first part of 27-year-old Khulood Ghanem’s diary has been adapted for reading performance by Seattle playwright Edward Mast.

Also Featuring:
Victoria activist and Mavi Marmara survivor, Kevin Neish
This is your chance to concretely help the people of Gaza. Commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians by supporting this people-to-people project.

Sponsored by:

  • Canada Palestine Association (www.cpavancouver.org)
  • Social Justice Committee, Unitarian Church of Vancouver

Racism on the Buses in Greater Vancouver‏

By Hanna Kawas. The following open letter was sent to Coast Mountain Bus Company regarding the unjust firing of a Lebanese Canadian activist, Marwan Marwan.

Canada Palestine Association also holds the current federal government responsible for this frightening increase in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hysteria; this government has been promoting and sanctioning this racism by its unconditional and blind support for Israel and its opposition to the Arab and Muslim peoples’ liberation and control of their resources and destiny. On March 21, 2009, we warned in our statement “Jason Kenney is Promoting Racism”, that such policies will promote racism. We stated:

“Mr. Kenney, his government and his Zionist friends should be held responsible for any increase in anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism and any Islamophobic act.”

Open Letter to Coast Mountain Bus Company

The following article in The Tyee “Off the Bus: Fired Driver Says He’s a Victim of Politics” (http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/08/04/Fired_Driver_Victim/) has recently been brought to our attention. From all indications in the article, we in the Canada Palestine Association are deeply concerned and distressed by the firing of bus driver Marwan Marwan. It appears to us that your actions could regrettably be part of the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hysteria that is engulfing this country (and continent) with no regard for basic international standards of human rights, or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not to mention simple human decency and integrity.

We further feel that if Marwan was disciplined for his political beliefs about the situation in the “Middle East”, then what happened was motivated by bigotry and Islamophobia.

We feel that Marwan’s human rights were violated; he, our community and his family, including his pregnant wife and three children, were slandered and collectively punished.

Your company professes integrity in its corporate statement, saying “Integrity – We will act honestly and with integrity at all times. We will treat others with dignity and respect and will conduct ourselves in a manner that will instill and foster trust.” (http://www.coastmountainbus.com/aboutus/statements.asp)

Therefore, we call on Coast Mountain Company to:

  • Make public its findings, as we are sure you agree that racism is everybody’s business.
  • Apologize publicly to Marwan, as well as the Lebanese, Arab and Muslim communities for this racist incident.
  • Fire all those who are found responsible or complicit in this bigotry which we hope is an isolated incident in the company.

We hope that the lessons of what happened to Rosa Parks 55 years ago on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama will not be overlooked in your decisions regarding a fair settlement to Marwan’s case.

We are waiting to hear from you and we will make your answer available to the public on our website.

Hanna Kawas,
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association
https://cpavancouver.org/
cc.
Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) http://www.caf.ca/
Canadian Arab Justice Committee (Adala), Vancouver http://www.adala.ca/
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal http://www.bchrt.bc.ca/
Canadian Human Rights Commission http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/
Amnesty International, Canada http://www.amnesty.ca/

(The above open letter is endorsed by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, UBC)

Support the Canadian Boat to Gaza

Canada Palestine Association (CPA) urges everyone to support the Canadian boat to Gaza by all means, including publicizing the mission and donating funds.

CPA was one of the first organizations in Canada to support the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) financially and politically (see our meeting with the co-founder of the FGM last November in commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people http://workingtv.com/int-day-pal2009.html) and we feel this initiative is an extension of that work.

We urge our supporters to rise up to the challenge and make this solidarity mission a reality. It is important at this stage to send a message to humanity that the Canadian people are in opposition to their government’s policies that endorse Palestinian ethnic cleansing, Israeli Apartheid and war crimes. These policies are against not only the Palestinian people, but also the people of the world as detailed by the Canadian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs Peter Kent: “Canada and Israel are natural allies. This affinity extends to our respective engagement in the Americas,” http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7125233.html#

Hanna Kawas
Chairperson
Canada Palestine association
https://cpavancouver.org/

Support the Canadian Boat to Gaza

The time has come to send a Canadian Boat to Gaza (http://www.canadaboatgaza.org) this fall, along with other ships heading to the besieged strip from all around the world. But we need your support to make it happen.

The tragic May attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has only strengthened the resolve of people from many nations to put together another flotilla to challenge the years-long illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. This blockade is enforced by Israel’s unlawful attacks on humanitarian aid ships in international waters. The blockade is also sustained by the Canadian government’s unconditional support for Israel. It falls upon us, the Canadian people and our schools, unions, community and faith organizations to change this unjust status quo.
Your help is needed now to send humanitarian aid from the people of Canada to the people Gaza in a bold and direct effort to end Israel’s blockade.

This Canadian Boat to Gaza project has two objectives. First, it will inform Canadians about what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza and to all of the Palestinian people. With your support, this awareness campaign will be achieved through outreach, organizing and media work that encourages Canadians and their organizations to support the Canadian Boat to Gaza’s mission.

Second, the Canadian Boat to Gaza will undermine the blockade by shipping vital supplies into Gaza and returning with exports made in Gaza – thus asserting the right of Palestinians in Gaza to trade with the world, rather than be at the mercy of international aid. We will carry humanitarian aid that Canadians donate. The boat will also carry Canadian public figures and activists trained in non-violence, who are committed to breaking the siege of Gaza, as well as journalists and reporters.

Our mission is part of the next Gaza boat flotilla, working in cooperation with the Free Gaza Movement (http://www.freegaza.org) which has sent and coordinated many boats to break the siege of Gaza over the past years.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza is a peaceful mission — a people-to-people non-violent direct-action We sail with the spirit of promoting human rights for all and the conviction that there can be no peace without justice. Today, Palestinian people are counting on us to help them realize their rights we take for granted – to live in peace, make a living, enjoy free movement, and control their own boarders. We do not represent any government and our relationship with any state or government will not go beyond what is mandated by maritime law.

The estimated cost of this mission is $300,000. Raising this sum will depend on the generosity of those of us who can afford to make large donations as well as substantial ones such as $1,000 or $100 dollars. But every dollar counts and so we ask you to give what you can.

Help us end the blockade of Gaza by supporting the Canadian Boat to Gaza. Spread the word. We sail soon – in October! So please join others across Canada and make your support for the Canadian Boat to Gaza a priority now.

Your endorsement is much needed and your financial support is much appreciated. Please make your checks payable to:
Alternatives (please write: “Canadian Boat to Gaza” in the memo field)
and mail it to:

Canadian Boat to Gaza
C.P. 92087, Portobello
Brossard, Quebec
J4W 3K8

MEC: the Co-op That Acts Like a Corporation

In its summer 2010 edition, The Global Educator, Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education (PAGE) published the following article (on page 23): http://pagebc.ca/documents/Summer_2010_Journal.pdf

The British Columbia Teachers for Peace and Global Education is not affiliated with the Canada Palestine Association.

MEC is about as green as “Mother Nature’s Gas Station”, and now makes the un-coolest bike on the Canadian market. Don’t buy one.

By: Patrik Parkes

If it talks like a corporation, walks like a corporation, and acts like a corporation, then it must be a corporation. On June 12, Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) held a “Bikefest” with a “free barbecue, entertainment and dance performances by… [a] bike-based dance troupe, clowns, some music and information.” You can bet the “information” had nothing to do with cycling, and everything to do with promoting their new line of bicycles. (And shame on the performers for joining this shameless corporate promo event.)

MEC has for some years now aimed to be nothing but big. It dominates the market for hiking and camping gear, and now aims to dominate the bicycle business as well. MEC is a master of greenwash, with little to show in terms of walking the walk. In other words, it’s about as green as Chevron, “Mother Nature’s Gas Station”. MEC sees no contradiction between its purported green, ethical mandate, and shipping products halfway around the world in smoke-belching freighters and employing factories in human rights deficient locations like China and Israel.

MEC’s co-op credentials are further eroded by its moves to restrict members’ decision making input. So-called ordinary resolutions can no longer be made from the floor of MEC’s annual general meeting, and must be vetted first by Directors. Earlier this year, when I enquired about these changes, Sara Golling,•Director and Chair of MEC’s Elections and Member Communications Committee, was unable to be clear on why vetting was necessary. When I asked if it might have something to do with an Israeli boycott resolution that was moved in 2009, she replied, “I doubt very much that had this year’s change in process been applied last year that the board would have acted any differently. We did not flinch from the vehemence of that debate, nor would we on any other debate where strongly held opinions are expressed regarding MEC’s business. That is simply not our history or culture.” Then why the change?

This was not my first encounter with Golling. Some years ago, she replied to a concern I had about MEC retail employees’ wages being not much higher than those at other comparable businesses. She seemed to think it was good enough simply that they were higher.

Apparently it was of no concern they were inadequate in Canada’s high-rent cities. Perhaps this is because Golling has never had to survive on retail wages, or work in a Chinese factory making athletic wear. Upon a perfunctory look at their resumes, the same seems true of MEC’s other Directors. This might explain why human rights – and environmentalism – is for them simply a marketing tool. MEC no longer lives up to the expectations we have of co-ops, and should do the right thing and register as a corporation. In short, MEC now makes the un-coolest bike on the Canadian market. Don’t buy one.

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” – George Orwell