As health care, education, unemployment insurance, equity programs and the arts are cut in the name of austerity, military spending (at $22.6 billion in 2012) has increased every year since 1998 and is projected to continue. Since 2004, Canada has invaded or bombed Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and Libya, leaving a trail of destruction followed by corrupt client regimes and neoliberal austerity policies.
We reject the Canadian government’s decision to join a US-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq. There is little doubt that these acts of violence will have devastating consequences for people living in the region, and will only serve to further conflict and suffering.
In early October, the Conservative government passed a motion in Parliament to go to war without even the pretense of democratic process. This decision authorizes the Canadian military to conduct air strikes for up to six months and includes the deployment of six CF-18 fighter jets, a refuelling tanker aircraft, two surveillance planes, one airlift plane, and about 600 air crew members. Canada joins the US, Great Britain, France, Australia and about a dozen other states, (including authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia and others parts of the Arabian/Persian Gulf) in what US President Barack Obama has declared to be “a long-term project.”
The Tadamon! collective wishes to express its full solidarity with Mr. Samah Idriss, editor of Al Adab (“Literature”) Magazine.
About Al Adab
Since its inception in 1953, this important Arabic cultural magazine has played a key role in encouraging progressive thought and debate in the Arab world.
Published in Beirut, Lebanon, Al Adab magazine has become a meeting place for critical reflection on grassroots democratic movements and a platform for voices decrying both colonization and dictatorship throughout the Middle East.
Hundreds gathered at Café Campus in downtown Montreal for Artists Against Apartheid featuring celebrated Palestinian hip-hop ensemble DAM along with Montreal’s own Iraqi hip-hop artist Narcicyst. An inspiring concert this special edition in the ongoing Artists Against Apartheid series featured rhymes strait from Palestine via DAM who delivered a lively an inspiring performance.
Iraq’s refugee crisis extends across the world, as millions of Iraqi refugees have been displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. A majority of Iraqi refugees are living in dire conditions and without permanent status in neighbouring countries, the largest populations residing in Jordan and Syria.
As media headlines remain focused on the ongoing and immediate daily violence inside Iraq, the refugee crisis expanding across the Middle East is often forgotten.
At the Quebec Social Forum thousands converged in Montreal from throughout Quebec for concerts, workshops and conferences focused on building social justice movements. On Saturday, October 10th hundreds gathered at cégep du Vieux Montréal for the tenth edition of Artists Against Apartheid, presented as a main cultural event within the Quebec Social Forum.
Featured at the concert was Qurna a conceptual and experimental music project of Iraqi Maqam music, lead by Omar Dewachi on oud and featuring Jérémi Roy on double bass, Pierre-Guy Blanchard on percussion, Sam Shalabi on oud, Radwan Moumneh on saz, Xarah Dion on synth and Zayid Al-Baghdadi on nay. Sabrien Amrov documented the concert via photograph presented now on-line.
US President Barack Obama has placed restoration of the stature of the United States among his primary foreign policy goals. He has already achieved substantial progress in Europe, where polls indicate that he is widely admired. The president’s June Cairo University speech also won praise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Yet many across the globe still await the substantive policy changes implied by his inspiring words.
President Obama can solidify broader global respect by supporting the recommendations of the just-released Goldstone report in the United Nations Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist, led a mission to investigate allegations of war crimes in Gaza last winter.
