Update about Kimberly Rivera & family

By Darrell Rankin

Many of you protested last year to block the Harper Conservatives from deporting Kimberly Rivera and her family to the U.S. We demanded that the family be welcomed as heroes and citizens of Canada, to no avail.

You may have already heard yesterday's sad news: Kimberly Rivera was sentenced to ten months in a military prison. Her four children are ripped from her arms for the "crime" of being brave, noble and just.

Our predictions about a conviction and harsh sentence came true. Once again, the Harper Conservatives have been exposed as supporters of George Bush's war of torture and occupation against Iraq.

We must increase our efforts keep resisters to unjust wars in Canada. We need to change Ottawa's policy, or change Ottawa!

I urge you to write your MP, letters to the editor and raise this issue in groups (anti-war, labour, faith, student, etc) where you are active. The issue cannot be ignored or Canada will be molded in the uncaring image of Stephen Harper. We will be slaves building his pyramid.

Many news outlets have carried the story, so I'll give just one link, here.

Here is a sample letter sent to news outlets in the prairie provinces, as a letter or op-ed:

Dear Editor,
Re: US Deserter Sentenced (April 30). Despite a 19,000-name petition and an appeal by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Harper Conservatives deported Kimberly Rivera last year to face a court martial and certain imprisonment. Kimberly refused to fight a horrifying, unjust and illegal war. The Conservatives labeled this brave mother of four a "bogus" refugee and a common criminal.
        The Conservatives say deserters are unwelcome in Canada because the U.S. now has an all-volunteer army, unlike during the Vietnam War. However, it makes no difference if a soldier volunteers. Any soldier must resist illegal orders according to the Geneva Conventions. To their dismay, Nazis war criminals discovered "following orders" was not a defence. Harper, Obama and Kimberly's judge support Nazi justice.
         Stephen Harper needs to answer: Which side won WW2? And why is he still fighting torture-lover George Bush's bloody war in Iraq? Deserters from illegal wars ought to be welcome in Canada citizens and heroes. Stephen Harper's government should be ashamed of ripping Kimberly's children from her arms.

We are talking in the KRICC executive about having another big war resister tour across Canada by Joshua, Alexina and family this fall. We'd like to hear your suggestions and any offers of help.

For the Keep Resisters in Canada Campaign.

Activist speaks out against SAIA ban at the University of Manitoba

Rebel Youth is reprinting the below letter from an activist and alumni of the University of Manitoba, against the latest attempt to muzzle speech exposing US-Israeli war crimes and atrocities in occupied Palestine on Canadian campuses. 

Zionists at the University of Manitoba in the university’s Student Union (UMSU) reciently passed a resolution {read the motion here} to ban the Student Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) and its activities from campus on April 11, in a 19-16 divided vote, against the legal advice of the student union’s lawyer.

As the website PalestinianConference.org reported, "the ill-worded resolution claims that most 'Jewish and Israeli members of the UMSU are Zionists which … are supporters of Zionism, international movement for the support of Israel.' It further claimed that “Zionists are a "group of persons" who have national characteristics, Israel being a nation-state.'"

This happened shortly after a student union elections campaign focused on silencing supporters of Palestine. Many Jews and Israelis – students at the University of Manitoba or otherwise – are not Zionist, and this statement attempts to conflate religious identity and national origin with a specific, and racist, political ideology.

As Amy Darwish, a U of M student of Jewish and Palestinian ancestry, wrote:

progressive Jewish students like me are part of Israeli Apartheid Week in many campuses. We believe Palestinians and Jews should have equal rights, and are not afraid to criticize Israel’s actions. 

This year, Israeli Apartheid Week was held in more than 100 cities, featuring workshops, film screenings, conferences and cultural events aiming to build momentum around the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israeli racial discrimination which we call apartheid. During these events, IAW activists maintain firm anti-harassment policies, and opposition to all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Sign a letter to support U of M SAIA here: http://ijvcanada.org/stop-the-campus-censorship-palestine/

Statement from Paul Burrows:

I am an alumnus of the U of M, a former UMSU Council member, and former member of the GSA executive. All I can say is that the recent motion to ban a student group for its political perspective is unprecedented, appalling, and a clear violation of core elements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Furthermore, to do so based on the "feelings" of Council members who clearly have their own, diametrically-opposed, viewpoint on the Israel-Palestine conflict (i.e., they are not exactly non-partisan voices, but in fact self-identified "Zionists"), suggests further that the motion's claims of "harassment" are disingenuous at best.

As someone who was also a member of the Manitoba Coalition Against Racism and Apartheid, as well as Students Against Apartheid [i.e., in South Africa] back in the 1980s, I can honestly say that this motion does a disservice to genuine anti-racist work. By falsely equating criticism of the State of Israel with criticism of Jews, and erasing a long and rich history of Jewish anti-Zionism (including the fact that many members of SAIA and similar groups across the continent are Jewish), this motion weakens, rather than strengthens, efforts to combat genuine anti-Semitism.

I can also say that if a similar motion had been raised in 1989 to ban the original Students Against Apartheid at U of M campus -- ostensibly because white people's "feelings" were being hurt, and they felt "discriminated" against by virtue of the simple fact that South Africa's white supremacist apartheid system was being criticized -- such a motion would have been laughed out of Council chambers, and seen for what it was: a pro-apartheid ruse.

This ban will not stand -- not just because we have a Charter in this country that magnanimously "grants" us things such as free expression, freedom of association, and so on. But more importantly, because most people today believe those rights to be innate and self-evident, regardless of what the "Law" is said to confer. I predict that this motion will, in fact, increase the membership of SAIA, provoke a lawsuit against UMSU, and ultimately blowback against the foolish architects of this obtuse, authoritarian gambit. In the future, I would suggest the self-described Zionists who drafted this motion stick to old-fashioned exercises, such as actually *debating* their adversaries. I realize that might require inconvenient things like: facts, arguments, logic, and even moral underpinnings. But these have never been the strong suit of those on the wrong side of social justice. No wonder, then, that they -- and their favoured State of Israel -- have typically resorted to more blunt instruments.

Deportation is not entertainment

Coalition of Organizations Release Letter

Regarding Border Security TV Show

​TO:
​
Minister Vic Toews, Ministry of Public Safety, Government of Canada
Luc Portelance, President, Canadian Border Services Agency
Rob Bromley, President, Force Four Entertainment
John Ritchie, Partner and Executive Producer, Force Four Entertainment
Gillian Lowrey, Partner and Director of Business Affairs, Force Four Entertainment
Paul Robertson, President, Shaw Media
Peter Bissonnette, President, Shaw Media
Zoran Stakic, Privacy Officer, Shaw Media
Andrew Eddy Vice President, Shaw Media Content Distribution
Michael French Vice President, Shaw Media Finance
Barb Williams Senior Vice President, Shaw Media Content
Deb Avis, Senior Vice President, Shaw Media Social Responsibility
JR Shaw, Executive Chair, Shaw Media
Jim Shaw, Vice Chair, Shaw Media
Bradley Shaw, Chief Executive Officer, Shaw Media​

​
We are a group of community-based and national organizations who would like to voice our collective concern about Border Security: Canada’s Front Line.
​
We are deeply concerned about the traumatic and potentially dangerous consequences upon all those who find themselves being filmed for Border Security. In Border Security a highly one-sided narrative is told about those crossing the border under varying circumstances or those people in the process of migration, which has the particular long-term impact of spreading fear about and among immigrant and migrant communities. At best, this TV show is an invasion of privacy with questionable ethics on informed consent; at worst, it can put the lives of vulnerable migrants at risk by commercially exploiting their stories for broadcast. No one deserves to face the trauma of being forcibly separated from their families and then having this suffering turned into entertainment. We also find it extremely troubling that the federal government has approved and is involved in this production.
​
Deportation is not entertainment. We urge you to cancel, stop participating in, and end the broadcast of Border Security. More than 23,000 people have signed a petition calling for an end to this TV show. They are joined by prominent cultural producers, human rights groups, and legal organizations. We hope you will take this opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to upholding human rights, legal obligations, and ethical media production by cancelling Border Security.
​
Sincerely,
​
Agriculture Workers Alliance Support Centre-Surrey
Alberta Public Interest Research Group
Alliance for People’s Health
Amnesty International
Antidote: Multiracial and Indigenous Girls and Women's Network
Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society
Babae Montreal
Battered Women’s Support Services
BC Civil Liberties Association
B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union
Café Rebelde
Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers
Canadian Council for Refugees
Canadian Labour Congress
Check Your Head
Chinese Canadian National Council
Coalition of South Asian Women Against Violence
Connective Project for Colombia
Council of Canadians
Defenders of the Land
Dignidad Migrante
Downtown Eastside Women’s Center
Fraser Valley Peace Council
Friends of Women in the Middle East Society
Fuerza-Puwersa
Global Queer Research Group-University of British Columbia
Hamiltonians for Migrant and Refugee Health
Health for All
Idle No More
Immigrant Workers Center
Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign
International Iranian Federation of Refugees
Justice for Migrant Workers
Latinos in Action
Law Union of Ontario
Lead Now
Migrante BC
Mining Justice Alliance
Native Youth Movement
No One Is Illegal-Toronto
No One Is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
Out On Campus-Simon Fraser University
People's Commission Network
People Against Settler Colonialism-University of British Columbia
Pivot Legal Society
Progressive Nepali Forum in Americas
Purple Thistle Center
QTIPOCALYPSE
Quebec Public Interest Research Group-McGill University
Queer Migration Collective
Raices Latin American Cultural Society
Rising Tide-Vancouver Coast Salish Territories
Regina Public Interest Research Group
Salaam Canada
Sanctuary Health
Shit Harper Did
Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group
Simon Fraser University Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Siraat
Social Housing Coalition BC
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy
Streams of Justice
Tadamon
Teaching Support Staff Union
The Feminist Wire
The Mainlander
Toronto Action for Social Change
Trikone Vancouver
Truthfool Communications
University of British Columbia Colour Connected Against Racism
University of British Columbia Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
University of British Columbia Race Autobiography Gender and Age Graduate Student Network
Unis’to’ten Camp
Vancouver Status of Women
Welcome Home Refugee Housing Community
West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund

Lenin on elections and struggle

This article is part of an seven-part series of short quotes Rebel Youth is issuing about class struggle, revolution, civil-war, and parliamentary democracy. See also: Lenin on elections; the Communist Party of Canada on a counter-offensive against capitalism; Engels on voting and street fighting; Lenin on Democracy and Class struggle; Communist and Worker's parties on the struggle for socialism; and Lenin on tactics and guerilla war; the Communist Party of Canada on force, and a peaceful transition to socialism.

In Western Europe and America, parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. (...) Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia, however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. (...) It is very easy to show one’s "revolutionary" temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem. To attempt to "circumvent" this difficulty by "skipping" the arduous job of utilising reactionary parliaments for revolutionary purposes is absolutely childish. You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary group made up of convinced, devoted and heroic Communists, in a reactionary parliament! Is that not childish?

From Lenin, Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?