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.
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.
The Shin Bet is refusing to allow a 21-year-old Rafiah man who is sick with cancer and in need of immediate medical care to come to Israel, even though he obtained permission from the Israeli Defense Forces’ Coordination and Liaison Administration.
BEIRUT: The Lebanese government must take concrete steps to end all forms of discrimination against Palestinian refugees and to fully protect and uphold their human rights, Amnesty International said in a new report expected to be launched at a news conference in Beirut on Wednesday.
The new report, “Exiled and Suffering: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon,” examines the wide range of restrictions that continue to impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, as many as 60 years after they or their parents or grandparents fled to Lebanon during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967.
In the context of the campaign to challenge the listing of Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist’ organization in Canada, on Wednesday, October 17th, Tadamon! Montreal hosted a major lecture at McGill University as part of Culture Shock 2007.
Upwards of 200 people gathered to hear presentations from Bilal Elamine, the former editor of Left Turn Magazine, currently living in Beirut, Lebanon and Brian Aboud, a sociologist and historian active within Tadamon!. In addition a documentary film on the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, “A Summer Not to Forget”, by the Lebanese filmmaker Carol Mansour, was screened for the first time in Canada.
One Night Only at Cinema du Parc.
Organized by Palestinian and Jewish Unity PAJU.
