It’s Right to Rebel
resisting criminalization of people’s struggles at home and abroad
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/390814437596163/
Repression of people’s struggles has always been part of Canadian State policy, though the ideological cover has changed over time. In the 19th Century overt racism and white supremacy were mobilized to justify genocidal state violence and terrorism against Indigenous people, for example against the 1885 Northwest Rebellion and the state sanctioned lynching of it’s leaders. In the 20th Century while the racist colonial policies persisted, anti-communism became the cover for Canadian interventions – for example against the nascent Soviet Union and in Korea – and suppression of struggles of workers and oppressed people at home. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 the “war on terror”, labeling of people’s struggles as ‘terrorism’, has become a main propaganda tool of the Canadian State – used to justify occupation of Afghanistan; support for Israeli occupation and aggression; and surveillance, harassment and criminalization of Indigenous people’s movements, immigrant communities and activists inside Canadian borders.
Our challenge is to figure out how we can expose and oppose the particular ideological framework currently mobilized by the imperialist states – the ‘war on terror’ – while building our own positive position that not only do people have a right to rebel against imperialism but that in the context of the systemic structural violence of the system it is right to rebel!
Dr. Merry Mia Clamor is Director of Health Education and Training for the Council for Health and Development, which supports Community Based Health Programs throughout the Philippines, and is one of the Morong 43, progressive health workers imprisoned for 10 months in 2010 on trumped up charges.
Gord Hill is an Indigenous activist, organizer and artist based in occupied Coast Salish Territory, and author of the 500 Years of Resistance comic book.
Charlotte Kates is an activist with SAMIDOUN – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, and a member of the National Lawyers Guild International Committee.
Steve Da Silva is a contributor to BASICS community newspaper (Toronto), and Vice-Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggles – Canada.
More speakers TBA
…with an opening poem from former political prisoner Angie Ipong, who spent 6 years in prison for her work in solidarity with peasants and Indigenous people in the Philippines.
SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2PM
@ 601 KEEFER ST
(STRATHCONA COMMUNITY CENTRE)
Onsite childcare and light refreshments provided!
Organized by: Alliance for People`s Health, Canada Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, International League of People`s Struggles – Canada.
