May 272014
 

Unions are one of the only remaining democratic institutions under capitalism strong enough to take on neo-liberal policies. But are unions rising to the challenge? Especially when it comes to young workers? Faced with an increased casualization of work and chronic unemployment, young workers have less and less access to unions and to unionized workplaces. So how can we build a union movement that truly includes the struggles of young workers?

A panel with:

Nora Loreto,
author of “From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement”

Nick Stark,
National Executive Representative, Canadian Federation of Students Nova Scotia

Charlie Huntley,
member of Solidarity Halifax and Baristas Rise Up

Moderated by:

Kyle Buott, President, Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council

 

 

AUDIO also available here: https://soundcloud.com/fwmarkc/vn-20140524-00002

 

Organized by:
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Canadian Federation of Students – Nova Scotia
Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council
Public Service Alliance of Canada – Atlantic
Solidarity Halifax

May 262014
 

In anticipation of Wednesday’s open consultation to “rejuvenate” Cornwallis Park, we are posting this piece by Solidarity Halifax member Ben Sichel written in 2011 for The Chronicle Herald during the campaign to rename Cornwallis Junior High School (now Halifax Central Junior High). Originally posted at no need to raise your hand.

Don’t miss this educational event about Cornwallis’ legacy and why we should re-think honouring his name presented by the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group.

[June 29, 2011.] Ever since the Halifax regional school board voted to seek a new name for Cornwallis Junior High School last week, we’ve seen a deluge of outrage from editorialists, some historians and (mostly anonymous) commenters on web news stories. Here’s a summary of their arguments — and why each one doesn’t hold water.

1) Changing the name amounts to erasing history, they say, as if that history were completely original and immutable, written by some distant, impartial observer.

What they mean, of course, is history as they learned it, told entirely from a European perspective for the two-and-a-half centuries following the founding of Halifax.

This history all but omitted any Mi’kmaq viewpoints on what was happening to their ancestral lands. European colonists like Cornwallis were portrayed as heroic or neutral at best, while the morality of taking over another people’s country was rarely questioned.

Renaming a school won’t erase Cornwallis’s name from history. The general will live on in history books, as he should; he’ll simply occupy one less place of honour.

Taking over an inhabited land, changing its name, pushing its people to the margins of society, and acting like they never existed? Now that’s rewriting history.

2) Cornwallis killed people, but so did the Mi’kmaq. Yes, the British scalp bounty of 1749 — placed not only on Mi’kmaq warriors, but women and children as well — was proclaimed in the context of a dirty frontier war. Yes, the Mi’kmaq (and the Acadians) are documented as having done some terrible, brutal things to British settlers in this same war.

But wait. Does the fact that a war was going on mean that all were equally to blame? While Britain was looking to expand its empire and increase its wealth, the Mi’kmaq were fighting to defend land they had lived on for thousands of years.

If boatloads of Mi’kmaq had disembarked on England’s beaches and claimed title to large swaths of its territory, the good citizens of that country would likely have felt more than justified in repelling the invaders by any means necessary.

Should the Mi’kmaq have stood by and played nice while being dispossessed of their land and resources?

3) It’s all in the past. Get over it. First of all, it’s hard to argue against “erasing history” and then say, essentially, that history doesn’t matter (see argument no. 1). But more importantly, Cornwallis’s scalp bounty was not one ancient, isolated burst of anger. Rather, it was part of a long series of injustices suffered by aboriginal people throughout Canada’s history that arguably continue to this day.

To dismiss these as all having happened in the distant past is to ignore the current, very real grievances of native people all across Canada, from double standards of justice in the cases of more than 500 missing aboriginal women to the 50-year-old toxic mess in Boat Harbour, Pictou Landing.

Canadians of European descent should acknowledge the real effects of the past and recognize that our ancestors’ leaders’ actions were often less than commendable, even by the moral standards of the day [of white people].

4) We can’t rename everything that offends anyone. Perhaps not. However, we can consider cases in which a sizeable, readily identifiable group claims legitimate offence.

How do we decide what’s legitimate? We discuss it, listen to each other, and come to a mutually agreeable conclusion. This is undoubtedly better than throwing up our hands and saying that since we can’t change everything, we shouldn’t change anything.

Please. Let’s be big about this. Despite much progress in recent years, it’s still obvious that much work remains to be done for there to be respectful, constructive relations between native and non-native people in this province. This becomes apparent to me when common stereotypes and misconceptions arise in my classes.

Changing the name of Cornwallis Junior High is, as school board member Kirk Arsenault suggested, a small gesture of healing and reconciliation.

We would all be better off to embrace it. We should be able to think of many Nova Scotians in history who, while not perfect, also did not call for the heads of the province’s original inhabitants. Let’s name the school for one of them.

 

Note: Articles published by Solidarity Halifax members do not necessarily reflect positions held by the organization.

May 232014
 

Solidarity Halifax member Judy Haiven reports on the Halifax protest against the JNF. Judy is a member of Independent Jewish Voices – Canada, and of Canadians Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace.

Originally published at the Halifax Media Coop.

Protesters condemn JNF’s land grab

Drummers attracted notice from those going into the dinner

Drummers attracted notice from those going into the dinner

K’JIPUKTUK (Halifax) –  More than 65 people gathered on Thursday on the grassy knoll next to the Cunard Centre on Halifax’s waterfront for a spirited protest against the Jewish National Fund’s fundraiser, the Negev Dinner.

Members of Canadians Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace, Independent Jewish Voices-Canada and Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Dalhousie University blew whistles, banged pots and pans, and beat drums to attract the attention of dinner attendees.

To anyone’s best recollection, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has not previously held a Negev Dinner in Halifax.  However, these fundraisers are common in central Canada.  For example, in Toronto, the  JNF Negev Dinner held in December 2013 honoured Prime Minister Harper for his unwavering support of Israel.

Funds raised at Halifax’s $250-a-plate dinner will sponsor a one kilometer bike path in Independence Park in Tel Aviv – which is built on top of the Abdel Nabi Muslim cemetery!    Building a bike path on top of a burial ground is the pet project of a leading JNF contributor, Jim Spatz.  Spatz, a Halifax medical doctor turned developer, was being honoured at the Halifax Negev Dinner.

The guest speaker at the dinner was Rex Murphy, host of CBC Radio One’s Cross Country Checkup and commentator on CBC-TV’s The National.

Protesters outside Negev Dinner, at the Cunard Centre, Halifax

Protesters outside Negev Dinner, at the Cunard Centre, Halifax

In February 2014, Canadians discovered that Murphy had routinely accepted speaking fees for pro-Tar Sands speeches.  The Sierra Club Canada Foundation saw this as a clear conflict of interest and demanded full disclosure by the CBC.

Due to the Sierra Club Canada Foundation’s complaint, the CBC committed to post Murphy’s (and other CBC presenters’) speaking engagements online.  John Bennett, National Program Director of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, noted, “Consumers of CBC programming have a right to know about, and commentators have a responsibility to declare, conflicts of interest, perceived or otherwise.  Rex Murphy needs to come clean and show Canadians the money. Perception is reality and right now the perception is very bad.”

At the protest, speakers included  Linda Scherzinger, of Canadians Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace, Amer  Zuheiri of Dalhousie’s Students Against Israeli Apartheid and Larry Haiven on behalf of Independent Voices – Canada.

Haiven with his 6 foot sign- JNF Kills Peace

Haiven with his 6 foot sign- JNF Kills Peace

Haiven carried a placard that was a two-metre tall photo of a concrete Israeli guard tower along the infamous separation wall that snakes through the occupied West Bank.  On the tower, he stuck a notice:  “JNF Kills Peace.”

It was hard to estimate how many people who bought the $250 tickets actually attended. A parade of BMWs, Mercedes and Cadillacs drove right beside the protesters and then up to the front doors —  making every effort to ignore the demonstration.  The parking lot filled quickly, and latecomers had to park further from the venue doors; many had to walk by the protest, though few took a leaflet.   When this writer leafleted businessmen who were going inside, several said sheepishly that they were there just to honour  Spatz – they had no idea about the JNF.

The JNF, founded in 1901, is a registered charity in Canada and donations are tax deductible.  Independent Jewish Voices – Canada estimates that up to 25 per cent of JNF Canada’s budget effectively comes from our taxes. But Canadian law forbids tax status to charities that violate international law and engage in racialist practices.

As well as owning 13 percent of Israel’s land and having significant control over a further 80  percent of public lands, the JNF aids in the expulsion of Bedouin citizens of Israel from the Negev. Moreover, the JNF’s charter prohibits it from selling or leasing land to non-Jews, even if those non-Jews are citizens of Israel.

In 2007, the United Nationals Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) rejected the application of the JNF for consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) citing that the JNF’s work violated the principles of the UN Charter, which emphasizes respect for human rights and equality.

The protest over the Negev Dinner was the fourth and final event marking Palestinian Dispossession week  May 15-22 in Halifax.

In 1948 and again in 1967 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled and hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed by Israel.  These refugees and their  descendants were scattered all over the world. The dispersal of the Palestinian people is known in Arabic as the Nakba.

Other events in the week included a Rally Against Israeli Apartheid at Victoria Park on Nakba Day followed by a reception and film showing. St Andrew’s United Church hosted  a screening of a new film “The Village Under the Forest” an award-winning South African documentary about the Jewish National Fund (JNF) followed by a discussion.  All these events were free and open to the public.

This is the first time Halifax activists in favour of Palestinian human rights and against Israel’s illegal – and brutal – occupation of the West Bank and Gaza  have targeted the JNF – and it won’t be the last!

 

Note: Articles published by Solidarity Halifax members do not necessarily reflect positions held by the organization.

May 142014
 

A panel with:

Nora Loreto,
author of “From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement”

Nick Stark,
National Executive Representative, Canadian Federation of Students Nova Scotia

Charlie Huntley,
member of Solidarity Halifax and Baristas Rise Up

Moderated by:

Kyle Buott, President, Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council

Unions are one of the only remaining democratic institutions under capitalism strong enough to take on neo-liberal policies. But are unions rising to the challenge? Especially when it comes to young workers? Faced with an increased casualization of work and chronic unemployment, young workers have less and less access to unions and to unionized workplaces. So how can we build a union movement that truly includes the struggles of young workers?

The venue is wheelchair accessible.

Facebook event

Organized by:
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Canadian Federation of Students – Nova Scotia
Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council
Public Service Alliance of Canada – Atlantic
Solidarity Halifax

Saturday, May 24, 2014 – 6:30pm to 8:30pm
JustUs! Café
5896 Spring Garden Rd