An evening of film and discussion focused on contemporary representations of Iranian sexuality and their relationship to imperialist discourses with guest speaker Sima Shakhsari (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)
Terrorism is a contested terrain, a political landscape on which the highest levels of international military power engage in a deadly war. In 2007 terrorism remains an ominous threat, a political ghost invoked in the foreign policy rhetoric of Canada’s Conservative government surrounding the ‘War on Terror’.
In 2002 Canada unveiled an official list of ‘terrorist’ organizations, strikingly similar to the US governmental list of an equivalent nature. Today the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah, both the military and political wings, is officially considered a ‘terrorist’ organization by the government of Canada, a policy only endorsed by two additional countries internationally, the US and Israel.
Listen to a special Tadamon! edition of World Skip the Beat on CKUT, to hear good music and good politics…
Music from all over the world carries messages of struggle!, and Tadamon wants to celebrate this popular expression of popular cries of pain, of fights and of victories. This show features music from Algeria, Uganda, Mali, Senegal, Congo, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Brasil, Jamaica, Lebanon and Cap Verde.
An evening of Palestinian films to commemorate 60 years of occupation and to celebrate the Palestinian voice.
On November 29 1947, the UN General Assembly voted for Resolution 181 that “recommended” the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab. This solution went against the principle of a people’s self-determination and was particularly unfair since it was rejected by the native Arab population who were not involved in any negotiation regarding its path, one that favoured the Jewish side.
UNITED NATIONS: When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station during its war against Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating. And now, more than 15 months later, the United Nations has released a report detailing the extent of the destruction caused by that oil spill to human health, biodiversity, fisheries and tourism.
Lebanon’s feuding political leaders have a long history of digging their country into holes from which it can only emerge by climbing over piles of dead bodies. The current impasse is just the latest example of this tendency, but at least a few cooler heads are determined to avoid the errors of those who went before. It remains to be seen which “side” will prevail – not between the government and the opposition, but between the sane and insane factions in each camp. Not content with this level of uncertainty, however, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stepped back into the fray in defense of past traditions and future bloodshed.
BEIRUT: International donors have not sent any money for the Palestinian refugees and Lebanese affected by the conflict at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, more than six weeks after Premier Fouad Siniora asked a donor conference for $55 million, a number of relief officials said. The hundreds of refugee families returning to the battle-scarred camp are facing desperate conditions, although their departure from public schools near the camp has at least begun to release the tensions between the displaced and the Lebanese locals, said Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee. Over three months of fighting between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam militants largely destroyed the camp and its environs, while the camp’s 31,000-plus residents fled soon after the hostilities began.
Last weekend, thirteen bodies, most likely of Palestinian refugees from Iraq, were recovered on the coast of Italy after their boats, carrying at least 127 persons in search of safety, had broken apart. These tragedies highlight the failure of the international community to protect Palestinian refugees.
A Palestinian Camp in Lebanon is Burned and Destroyed and the World is Silent.
Nahr Al Bared is a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of Lebanon which has been home to about 40,000 Palestinian people, most of whom are the children and grandchildren of those who left Palestine in 1948. Some like Abu Mohammad were born in Palestine. He was ten years old, and next year it will be sixty years since the formation of the State of Israel was achieved through the ethnic cleansing of Abu Mohammad and so many others from their home in Palestine. He told me this as the two of us sat alone in the pitch dark while rats ran around beside our chairs at his house. As I left he went in to sleep alone amongst ashes and rodents, with no neighbours around him, trying to believe that he still has something left to protect.
