Schedule

Friday, June 24, 6pm
Opening Panel:
“Two Years of War, Five Hundred Years of Resistance”

SFU Harbour Center
515 West Hastings
By donation ($5-20)

* Waleed Rabia on “Independent Media in a Time of War”

Waleed is a founder of Al Muajaha (‘The Witness” or alternatively,“Confrontation”); Iraq’s first independent media project that was initiated one week after the war began, and associated with the IndyMedia Center. He was an embedded journalist with the Iraqi resistance forces from Northern to Southern Iraq, subproducer for the BBC, and liaison with internationals in Iraq such as Voices of Conscience, Iraq Solidarity Project, Big Noise Films, Naomi Klein, and others.

* Clifton Arihwakehte on “Decriminalizing Resistance”

Clifton is a community activist of the Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk community (near Montreal). He has been an active member of the current resistance in Kanesatake to government polices- such as the Kanesatake Interim Land Based Governance Act- that aim to extinguish indigenous rights to the land. He has also been the editor of Karihwatatie, the journal of the
Kanehsatà:ke Cultural Centre.

* Angélica Gutiérrez: “On the Edge of Revolution”

Chilean-born community activist, who has been living in Canada for 29 years. Member of the Internationalist Bolivarian Circle "Bob Everton" and collective member of "América Latina al Día," a bilingual, weekly radio program on Vancouver's Co-operative Radio. She was involved with the International Solidarity Gathering in Support of the Bolivarian Revolution and has recently returned from Venezuela.

* Harsha Walia: “Confronting Fortress North America”

Harsha is a South Asian writer and activist currently based in Vancouver. She started organizing in India and in Canada, she has been involved in the fight for the rights of immigrants and refugees, particularly in the post 9/11 climate, along with supporting various indigenous struggle through movements such as No One is Illegal and the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy.

Saturday, June 25, 10 am - 6 pm
Workshops at SFU Harbour Center, 515 W. Hastings St.

Each time slot will have two workshops.

Saturday Workshops:

10:00 - 11:30 AM
* Rethinking the Labour Movement

“It's time to start changing our unions into fighting organizations that can meet the escalating attacks that have been coming our way for many years now. Doing that will require more than voting out one set of leaders and voting in another.”

Solidarity Caucus Statement, September 2004
We need to build an independent labour movement that promotes alliances, mobilizes solidarity both locally and internationally, and organizes around the interests of marginalized workers.

Speakers:
* Sid Shniad (Telecommunications Workers Union and Stopwar.ca): Role of labour unions within social justice struggles
* Kim Toombs (IWW and Community Solidarity Caucus, Victoria): Organizing for workers rights beyond unions
* Gene McGuckin (Prepare the General Strike Committee): State of the labour movement
* Filipino Nurses Support Group: Organized labour and migrant labour issues

labour links >>

* Resisting 2010 Olympics

The effects of the Olympics are far greater than the games itself- with gentrification of poor neighbourhoods through draconian policies such as the Safe Streets Act, increasing privatization of public services, the expansion of sport tourism on unceded indigenous lands and increased land tenure to corporations, union busting through decisions such as the seven-year imposed contract handed down to the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union, and exploitative conditions for temporary migrant labour.

Speakers:
* Maryann Abbs (activist and popular educator): History, analysis, and effects of the Olympics globally
* David Cunningham (Anti-Poverty Committee): Gentrification in the Downtown Eastside
* Billie Pierre (Native Youth Movement): Indigenous land struggles against mega-tourism in unceded territories of BC
* Erika Del Carmen Fuchs (Mexican migrant labour support group): Vulnerable migrant labour conditions
* Martha Roberts (Bus Riders Union): Development of the RAV line

Massacres and Profits: A Brief History of the Olympics >>
olympics links >>
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11:30 - 1:30 PM
* Health under Capitalism

Under the current world economic order the destruction of the public health care system by market forces is accompanied by deteriorating health of poor and working people around the world. The western model of medicine re-establishes and entrenches the class relations of the capitalist system while functioning as a tool for social control preventing any challenge to those in positions of power. Institutions such as the World Health Organization export the western model of medicine promoting global dependancy on the multi-national corporations that have monopolies over new technologies. At the same time traditional and indigenous health care is projected as being “backwards” by western colonial and imperial interests, allowing corporate laboratories to have unquestionalbe authority over global medical practice.

Speakers:
* Hospital Employees Union: Effects of privatization on the public health care system
* Gary McCarron (SFU School of Communications): Western medical discourse as a tool of social control
* Samir Shaheen-Hussain (activist, writer and medical doctor from Montreal): Capitalism, the medical-industrial complex, the medical profession and their effects on people's health.
* Nazila Bettache (Algerian organizer trained as a phyisician): Women’s health and the effect of medical monopolies on the AIDS crisis in Africa
* Megan Olsen (street nurse and recent recipient of human rights award): Reports on grassroots projects for community health and safety.

health links >>

* Creative Political and Legal Strategies

In the face of increasing repression, innovative, subversive and effective legal and political strategies are being engaged by communities in resistance. As strategies solely consisting of mobilizations and disruptions can sometimes lack long-term vision and organizing capacity, speakers share multi-fold strategies and tactics that build generational cultures of resistance that ensure tangible victories while building political momentum for tranformation. Furthermore, because members of radical social movements are often targeted by the government or otherwise engaged by the law, the question of how to do legal work while maintaining collective social struggle is a pressing one in order to avoid the de-politicization of social movements.

Speakers:
* Vancouver Network of Drug Users (VANDU): committed to increasing the capacity of people who use drugs and organizes to save lives through harm reduction education, interventions and Peer Support, while challenging traditional client/provider relationships.
* CopWatch: a program to "police the police". The Sixties-era initiative was originally conceived by the Black Panthers; and over the years, CopWatch chapters have spring up across North America.
* Onatario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP): One of the most militant, powerful and effective organizations,. OCAP is a direct-action organization based in Toronto with campaigns against regressive government policies and direct-action advocacy against eviction, termination of welfare benefits, and deportation.
* Arthur Manuel (Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade): INET is a platform open to indigenous peoples across Canada and the U.S. who work together toward the protection of indigenous proprietary rights and their economies
* Western Shoshone Legal Defence Fund.
* Erika Del Carmen Fuchs (Group of Relatives and Friends of Political Prisoners in Mexico): Legal and political strategies that they have used in their work for political prisoners in Mexico.

strategies links >>
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1:30 - 2:30 PM
Lunch ($2-5 no one turned away)

2:30 - 4:00 PM
* The Possibilities and Limitations of Electoralism

Capitalism is a disaster for humanity, but can we get rid of it by taking state power? Should we engage in electoral politics? What can we learn from the experiences of left in government?

Speakers:
* Marysol Torres (Vancouver Bolivarian Circle): Left taking state power in Venezuela
* Hari Sharma (South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy): Left in local government in Kerala and West Bengal
* Cecilia Pereyra: Social movements beyond electoral politics in Argentina
* Confronting colonial governance systems in Canada
* Phil Lyons (Left turn): Recent provincial elections and the Leftturn platform
* Waleed Rabia (Iraqi journalist): Façade of democratic elections in Iraq

electoralism links >>

* The Globalization of War & the Assault of Globalization

It has been argued that war and capitalist globalization are two arms of the US imperial project. The recent nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank has only served to strengthen the links and connections between the anti-corporate globalization and the anti-war movements. With increasing militarization and stockpiling of weapons to wage imperialist war and aggression, occupation of Third World and Fourth World lands leads
to the expropriation and commodification of resources. Money, goods, patents, services- highlights of free trade agreements- are more readily globalized in occupied territories.

Speakers:
* Arthur-Martins Aginam (former Nigerian Public Affairs journalist): Struggles in Africa against neo-colonialism, free trade and development.
* Anthony Fenton (author and activist with Haiti Solidarity BC): War profiteering and the state/corporate nexus in war and globalization
* Free trade agreements, the War on Drugs, and occupation in Latin America
* Resistance against occupation in Turtle Island
* Military occupation and imperialism in the Philippines
* Harjap Grewal (South Asian Network For Secularism and Democracy): Social movements against corporate globalization in South Asia

globalization links >>
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4:00 - 6:00 PM
* History Matters: Past Resistance

“The way you know where you are at any given moment is you look back over your shoulder at the last of those landmarks you've passed and that can orient you in space, to where it is you need to go, which direction you have to take to get there. The journey you're on is the same way. If you don't look back over your shoulder to where you've been, you can't know where you are. And if you don't know where you are, you can't possibly get to wherever it is that you think you want to go. So you've got to know your history, you've got to know how the present came to be if you're going to understand the present, and you have to understand that present, see it clearly and see it accurately, if you're going to be able to chart a course to the alternative that you want to create”
- Ward Churchill, “Resistance to War, Occupation, and Empire”

History is the locus of identity for all societies and resistance movements and deeply informs the cultural and political consciousness of our communities. Losing a sense of history greatly impairs our ability to analyze and construct current struggles.

Speakers:
* Benita Bunjun (Vancouver Status of Women): Women’s movement
* Jill Chettiar (Downtown Eastside Residents Association): Anti-poverty organizing
* Ray Bobb (Stolo Nation, ex- Red Power member): Indigenous sovereignty struggles
* Sid Tan (Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians): Chinese Head Tax Redress campaign
* Hari Sharma (President of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy): Struggles in solidarity with Third world liberation and immigrant organizing against racism
* Tatsuo Kage (Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens' Association Human Rights Committee): Japanese Internment Redress campaign

history links >>

* Struggles for Indigenous Self-Determination: fighting mining and forestry destruction

"We are faced with a two-fold challenge, to struggle as best we can to deal with the immediate consequences of globalisation. Secondly, and more difficult, to contextualise those problems within the 500-year-and-more history of the culture of colonisation."
- Moana Jackson, Ngati Kahungunu/Ngati Porou, lawyer and Maori sovereignty advocate.

Indigenous peoples continue to suffer from forcible dislocations, disintegration of socio-cultural identities, commodification of cultures, the onslaught of developmental aggression, militarization, legislated poverty, racism and discrimination, and the inaccessibility of education and other social services. The policies of neo-liberal capitalism have intensified the exploitation of natural resources through large-scale mining and forestry projects and mega-tourism. From June 17-24, the Second International Indigenous Youth Conference (IIYC) with the theme “Strengthening Solidarity Among Indigenous Youth In Asserting Indigenous Peoples Rights Amidst Globalization” will be held in Vancouver, unceded traditional territories of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil’waututh Nations. We are honoured to have some of the indigenous delegates from around the world participate in this workshop.

* With indigenous speakers from Guatemala, BC, Philippines, and India

indigenous links >>
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6:15 - 7:00 PM
“Historical Struggles in the Downtown Eastside Walk”
Will leave from SFU Harbour Center

Community activists and residents of the neighbourhood will guide the walk with a history of the many poor, working class, and racialized communities that have shaped the neighbourhood’s culture and resisted gentrification and displacement.

1:30-6:00 PM
Film Festival
(suggested donation $4)

Sunday, June 26, 10 am - 4 pm
Lore Krill Co-op, 65 West Cordova

9:30 - 12:00 PM
Strategy sessions

Space is available for strategy sessions, caucuses, networking, particularly for those traveling from outside Vancouver. More details on this soon.

12:00 - 2:00 PM
Closing panel:
"Resistance to War and Colonialism"
Lore Krill Co-op

Speakers:
* Alfredo Porras (Columbian Trade union leader, Coca Cola Union): Struggle of unions in Columbia against globalization and repression
* Clement Apaak (PhD Candidate at SFU): The democratic experiment in Ghana
* Palestine Community Center: Occupation of Palestine
* Anthony Fenton (author & activist with Haiti Solidarity BC): Role of US/Canada in the occupation of Haiti
* Lisa Yazdi (Iranian activist and Masters student): US hegemony in Iran & the Iranian elections
* Dustin Johnson (International Indigenous Youth Conference Secretariat): Resistance to colonialism in Canada

1:00 - 3:00 PM
A Canadian Refugee Camp
Victory Square, Hastings & Cambie

The Refugee Camp highlights well known policies in Canadian immigration history such as the Chinese Head Tax, the internment of Japanese-Canadians, the "None is too Many" policy for Jewish refugees, and the exclusion of South Asian migrants on the Komagata Maru; a history that is repeating itself with the economic, political and imperialist drive of the "War on Terrorism" both at home and abroad. The Camp also draws links between Canadian corporate and state policies against indigenous peoples and Third World peoples that are the roots causes of war, displacement and migration.

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1:00 - 2:00 PM
* Lunch at the Refugee Camp (Victory Square)

2:00 - 4:00 PM
"Status for All!" March
Gather at Victory Square (Cambie and Hastings)

A silent march to honour all the deportees struggling against Citizenship and Immigration Canada. This march is being organized to coincide with the historic 200 km walk from Montreal to Ottawa being organized by Solidarity Across Borders - a Montreal network of self-organized refugee groups, individuals and their allies - from June 18-25, 2005. For every agonizing moment, for every day spent in anxiety, for every detention, for every deportation, for the stolen time and the stolen lives, this march will pay tribute to all those fighting in this silent war. Organized by a network of immigrant groups in Vancouver.

No One Is Illegal Vancouver: http://noii-van.resist.ca
Solidarity Across Borders: http://www.solidarityacrossborders.org/

confronting fotress north america links >>

4:00 - 7:00 PM
* Anti-oppression Organizing in an Anti-Imperialist/ Anti-Capitalist context
**THIS WORKSHOP HAS MANDATORY REGISTRATION TO ENSURE A MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS**

“Can anti-oppression politics provide a model for a multi-faceted analysis that addresses oppression and class exploitation as distinct but nevertheless intimately interrelated social relationships?”
– Sharmeen Khan, “Roundtable on Anti-Oppression Politics in Anti-Capitalist Movements”

Anti-oppression arose out of the left's failure to develop a nuanced approach to questions of oppression. In recent years, the left has been influenced by anti-oppression analyses, as the movement has sought to address the effects of capitalism on different communities. Although anti-oppression organizing has pejoratively been labelled “identity politics”, it serves as a necessary foundation to ensure a systemic analysis of capitalism and expand the analysis of radical organizing that does not get co-opted by the liberal discourse of multiculturalism and women’s/ queer rights. This comprehensive workshop will explore the concepts of power, privilege and oppression and examine racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and other systemic biases in order to increase awareness, empowerment and create transformative politics within an anti-capitalist framework.

Faciliated by Sharmeen Khan.

anti-oppression links >>

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