Tadamon! appeal for your financial support and solidarity

Photo: Demonstration against the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza.

2009 has been a year of intense and sustained effort as well as many achievements for the Tadamon! Montreal Collective. We are now advancing through the autumn months with a full agenda of events and initiatives and looking forward to further achievements. We are also turning to supporters, friends and well-wishers of Tadamon! to ask for financial solidarity.

Tadamon’s activism takes as its focus the struggle for social justice, liberation and equality for the people of Palestine, Lebanon and the larger Middle East. Doing this work is a collective effort. It includes those who are active in our regular planning and organizing work, but also those who participate in Tadamon’s public events and who follow Tadamon’s work and provide support through financial contributions.

This message is a call for financial support. Tadamon’s work can only proceed with the financial resources necessary to cover the expenses that always arise when organizing popular education and solidarity events and creating educational materials. Please see below for an overview of Tadamon’s overall organizing goals as well as a list of our past events in 2008-2009.

Please consider contributing to Tadamon! Your financial solidarity is vital to the continuation of Tadamon’s work in solidarity with popular struggles in the Middle East.

Cheques or money orders may be made out to “Tadamon.”

please fill out and include the information form below with your payment.

mail your donation to: 4645 Jeanne Mance, Montreal, Quebec, H2V4J5

for more information, please contact us at info(at)tadamon.ca or 514-664-1036.

Tadamon! Montreal’s ongoing goals

* Raising public awareness and building support for a greater understanding of current affairs and events in Lebanon, Palestine and the larger Middle East.

* Organizing and advancing projects and campaigns to provide sustained support for popular struggles for justice and liberation in Palestine and Lebanon.

* Promoting the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel and its colonization and occupation of Palestinian lands.

* Solidarity work with the village of Bil’in, West Bank, Occupied Palestine.
Visit www.bilin-village.org for more information on Bil’in.

* Organizing popular education initiatives to enhance critical awareness and knowledge of developments and conditions in Lebanon, Palestine and the Middle East.

* Building and consolidating a network of organizations and individuals that work in solidarity with the people of Lebanon, Palestine and the Middle East and share a commitment to social justice for the people of the Middle East.

Tadamon! activities 2008 -2009

Popular education events

* Israeli Apartheid week (February 7th to 17th 2008)

* Film screening: Lebanon 33 Days (March 10th 2008)

* Workshops in cégeps: Middle East Popular Education Project (April 2008)

* Film screening: Palestinian Perspectives III (May 15th 2008)

* Film screening: Anti-colonial films – Under the stars! (June and September 2008)

* Film screenings with Cinema Politica
– Hijacker: Leila Khaled (October 6th 2008)
– Palestine in Photography (October 27th 2008)

* Lecture: Exploring the Apartheid Paradigm
with Palestinian lawyer/activist Noura Erakat (November 10th 2008)

* Interviews and photo essays throughout 2008

* Film screening: Palestinian Perspectives IV (January 2009)

* Film screening with Cinema Politica: Palestine Blues (January 19th 2009)

* Film screening and discussion with ASSÉ members
Occupation 101 (February 14th 2009)

* Lecture: Israeli Resistance to Apartheid
featuring Schachaf Polakow of Anarchists Against the Wall (February 21st 2009)

* Radio show on CKUT radio
Report featuring leading journalists on the Israeli attack on Gaza (February 6th 2009)

* Israeli Apartheid Week (March 1st to 9th 2009)

* Panel Discussion: Israeli apartheid and the international movement for BDS, featuring Denis Lemelin, President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Dan O’Meara, Professor, UQAM; & Lorraine Guay, activist with the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (April 16th 2009)

* Lecture: Radical movements from the Weather Underground to Prisons to Palestine, featuring US prisoners’ justice activists Laura Whitehorn & Susie Day (May 16th 2009)

* Film screenings: Summer Films Under the Stars
The Battle of Algiers, Paradise Now & West Beirut
(July 8th, 22nd & August 5th 2009)

* Al-Kitab book club (starting July 2009)

* Film screening: Slingshot Hip Hop (September 17th 2009)

Solidarity with Bil’in

* Photo exhibition: Bil’in
A Village United Against the Wall (January, February and March 2009)

* Film screening: Bil’in my Love (March 7th 2008)

* Action to remember Palestinian activist Bassem Abou Rahmeh (May 8th)
killed in Bil’in by Israeli occupation forces

* Film screening: Bil’in my Love (May 28th 2009)

* Speaking Tour: “Israeli Apartheid on Trial,” featuring Mohammed Khatib of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements and Emily Schaeffer, Israeli lawyer representing Bil’in, June 5 – 19, 2009

– Tour made stops in Halifax, Fredericton, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, and Montreal.

* Rally: Free Palestinian political prisoner Mohammed Khatib (August 14th 2009)

Cultural boycott events

Artists Against Apartheid concert series

* Artists Against Apartheid II (February 17th 2008)
featuring celebrated composer Malcolm Goldstein

* Artists Against Apartheid III (May 8th 2008)
featuring Montreal hip-hop ensemble Nomadic Massive

* Artists Against Apartheid IV (September 7th 2008)
featuring the Matana Roberts

* Artists Against Apartheid V (December 7th 2008)
featuring Acalanto Latin American ensemble

* Artists Against Apartheid VI (March 22nd 2009)
featuring ensemble lead-by composer Antoine Bustros

* Artists Againsti Apartheid VII (April 12th 2009)
featuring Advaar ensemble

* Artists Against Apartheid VIII (June 7th 2009)
within the Suoni per il Popolo Festival
featuring members of The Arcade Fire

* Artists Against Apartheid IX (September 28th 2009)
featuring celebrated Palestinian Hip Hop ensemble DAM with Iraqi rapper Narcicyst

Demonstrations and pickets

* Demonstration: Sixty years of Nakba; Sixty years of apartheid (May 10th 2008)

* Picket: Remembering Sabra and Shatila (September 19th 2008)

* Demonstration: Solidarity with Gaza (December 31st 2009)

* Demonstration: Stand with Gaza! End Israeli apartheid! (January 4th 2009)

* Picket: Concordia solidarity with Gaza (January 7th 2009)

* Demonstration: Solidarity with Gaza‏ (January 25th 2009)

* Nakba commemoration (May 24th 2009)

* Information picket: Leonard Cohen don’t play Tel Aviv! (September 12th 2009)

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign

Tadamon played an important role in campaigning for the adoption of pro-BDS resolutions taken by the following organizations:

* Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) – April 2008
first national union in Canada to join the international campaign against Israeli apartheid

* Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) – May 2008
first major student union in Quebec to support international BDS campaign