Friday, November 6th, at 3:30 pm
Madeleine Parent Room (203A), 2nd Floor
SSMU Building (3480 McTavish)
facebook event

In collaboration with QPIRG McGill

In recent months, coverage of Syria in much of the western mass media has been focused on the “refugee crisis”. Certainly, the movement of hundreds of thousands of people- most of them from Syria – to Europe is among the signal events of the human experience in the contemporary period. Yet, the media story of the Syrian refugee migrations is often seriously incomplete. It is often a story of how this population movement will affect conditions in western states – demographic, political, social, economic – and about how, why and whether western states can and should respond.

It is rarely about the deeper determinants and the underlying conditions that gave rise to the refugee migrations: the context of ongoing popular revolutionary struggle in Syria against the brutal, authoritarian Assad regime and against reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, such as the Islamic State, that have emerged and expanded in the course of this struggle, the role of regional and extra-regional state powers pursuing the advancement of their own interests in a context of social upheaval and division and, more deeply, the objective conditions in Syria and the region extending back, historically, over the 20th century. This is the other story that is defining of the present time: the now five-year-long people’s struggle for liberty and dignity in Syria.

This workshop aims to create a space for discussion and understanding towards the building of solidarity with the popular struggle in Syria and with the people fleeing conditions of violence, intimidation and extreme need in Syria. It will address some key elements of the immediate dynamics, conditions and determinants of the struggle in Syria but also its relation to and implications for the Palestinian struggle, and it will attempt to give context to displacement within Syria and the mass refugee migrations in the region and beyond the region.

This workshop will be given by members of Tadamon! Tadamon! (Arabic for “solidarity”), is a Montreal-based collective which works in solidarity with struggles for self-determination, equality and justice in the ‘Middle East’ and in diaspora communities in Montreal and beyond.

◢ACCESSIBILITY INFO◣

The SSMU building is wheelchair accessible. For mor information, including access maps, visit: http://qpirgmcgill.org/socialjusticedays/?page_id=96

Lighting for Madeleine Parent Room: fluorescent, but lower lighting

Childcare
Childcare will be available for all events with 24 hours notice; please call 514 398 7432 or email qpirg at ssmu dot mcgill dot ca.

ASL Interpretation
ASL interpretation will be available on request 3 days before each event. Please email qpirg@ssmu.mcgill.ca to request ASL interpretation for any of our events.

Scent free spaces
This event is scent free. This means that all attendees should refrain from using any scented products prior to the event or bringing them to the event, including (but not limited to) perfume, cologne, shampoo, conditioner, soap, hairspray or gel, makeup, laundry detergent, fabric softener or lotion. Attendees should also be aware of any other scents they carry on them into the event, including the smell of smoke on clothes. This scent-free policy is put in place to minimize risk for people with environmental sensitivities. Scented products can be a cause of health issues, particularly for people with allergies and asthma. For more information on this policy: http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/scent_free.html

Language
Whisper translation from English to French will be available.
La traduction chuchotée de l’anglais vers le francais sera disponible.

Wheelchair Accessibility
All Culture Shock event are wheelchair accessible.

This workshop is part of the event series Culture Shock, co-presented by QPIRG and SSMU. For additional information, including accessibility, visit the main facebook page HERE