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Virtual Event: From the Front Lines – Resisting State Terror in the Philippines

21 March 2020 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Saturday, 21 March
1:00 pm
Over Zoom
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1263519454038132/

 

It was a difficult decision, but we are moving our public forum From the Frontlines from a physical to a virtual space in order to centre the needs of and to respect our vulnerable and immune-compromised community members.

This decision was difficult for us simply because we desire to counter the escalating hyper-individualism being promoted in the media in our public spaces; we call for heightened social solidarity while respecting the needs for personal distancing.

From the Frontlines will be hosted on Zoom (meeting link will be posted) and for those without access to Zoom we will live-stream on Facebook. Join us to learn first-hand about the struggle for land, for life, and for a just and lasting peace with social and economic justice!

It is the analysis of our respective organizations that the root of the COVID-19 crisis we are witnessing at the national and international level lies in the economic and social organization of society around individuals over community and profit over health.

We witness the banks in the imperialist centres receiving trillion dollar bail-outs to keep profits flowing while workers are left scrambling for scraps from under-funded and fractured state systems.

In the Philippines the situation is far more dire. Under the guise of combatting COVID-19, the fascist Duterte administration has advanced the militarization of the people in de-facto martial law while millions of impoverish families languish in doubt and fear.

We should acknowledge that our society and our communities are ill-prepared to deal with public health crises. Yet we should also acknowledge the root of the major issues lie in the parasitic economic system we are all connected to and rely on.

The global reality is that exploited countries like the Philippines are providing the bulk of cheap labour and resources for the imperialist centres and are hardest hit by crisis after crisis.

On Negros Island hundreds of thousands of sugar workers continue to live in modern-day slavery while a handful of families hold land monopoly. It is under conditions of dire poverty that communities come together in the practice of Bungkalan, or the communal tilling of lands, an inspirational practice!

Yet this draws the ire of the wealthy elite and the Armed Forces of the Philippines whose counter-insurgency programs such as Memorandum Order 32 – declaring a State of Emergency on Negros – have led to 87 extra-judicial killings on Negros Island under Duterte’s presidency.

It is time to unite on the need to struggle for a world based on mutual cooperation and the just distribution of wealth. Now is an urgent time for justice-seeking people the world over to stand with the struggling sugar workers and peasant farmers of Negros Island! The time is ripe for us to learn from and stand with Negros in their struggle for a just society!

#DefendNegros
#JunkMO32
#AJustandLastingPeace
#GenuineAgrarianReform
#DownwithImperialism

*****Please read the statement above! This event has changed from a physical meeting to online only*******

Featuring Clarizza Singson from Karapatan a human rights organization based in the Philippines.

Saturday March 21, 1-4 pm
SFU Harbour Centre. Room HC 7000
Join us to learn about the ongoing struggles to resist fascist dictatorship and state violence and struggle for genuine agrarian reform and a just and lasting peace in the Philippines!

This very special event will focus on the Visayas Region where farmers who have been reclaiming idle lands to till and feed their families have faced the most brutal state repression condoned by corrupt President Duterte and led by the Armed Forces. There have been over 50 extra-judicial killings on Negros Island alone. And yet the people continue in their quests for land to till, for economic justice, and toward a just and lasting peace.

There are many lessons we can draw from the revolutionary spirit and militant struggles of the people in the Philippines. We hope you will join us in the call for Justice for all victims of extrajudicial killings! Resist state terror in the Philippines! Long Live International Solidarity!

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We stand in solidarity with Indigenous struggles and movements on so-called British Columbia and everywhere on Turtle Island. We gratefully acknowledge that our work takes place on the unceded and ancestral territories of the x?m??kw?y??m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and s?l?ílw?ta? (Tsleil-Waututh) nations.

 

Details

Date:
21 March 2020
Time:
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Event Category:
Website:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1263519454038132/

Venue

SFU Vancouver
515 W. Hastings
Vancouver, Canada
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